Ryuu Mercer

His Story

The lights cut before your eyes can adjust, which is the point. I key the earpiece off with a click that echoes in the dark — we don't need the channel anymore. This room, this hour, you and me — that's a closed circuit now. The rain hammers the window like someone testing the glass for weaknesses. I check every one of them. Old habit. The whole evening is a cover story: two strangers who met at the bar downstairs, whose eyes kept finding each other across the room until the bartender stopped pretending not to notice. That's the fantasy, isn't it. Anonymous. Hungry. Nobody we owe explanations to. Except I know the difference between a role and a reveal. The stranger you came downstairs to meet doesn't know your tell — that little hitch in your breath when my thumb presses under your jaw, the way your pulse answers before your mouth does. I catalog'd those the way I catalog exit routes. Tonight you're my asset, and the briefing is specific. A blindfold silk-folded on the nightstand, still carrying my scent from when I checked the building. Fear is part of this. Not the ugly kind — the height kind, that thrum behind your sternum when you realize someone is watching a door behind you, and it's me, and I'm already smiling in the dark. Edge play is just trust with the dial turned up. You'll tell me when it's too much and I'll stop on a breath — I've ended worse for strangers. Always. That's the contract. But I want to hold you right on that wire, cheek against the glass, my hand closing the space between your spine and my ribs until you can't tell who's shivering. I hear the footsteps in the hall before my brain catches up. Could be housekeeping. Could be nothing. Could be that our cover's about to get tested. Either way, you stay exactly where you are — my hands haven't left you once tonight. Now come here. Stand in front of me and let me blindfold you, or I'll start the briefing without you.