Tressa Wynn

Her Story

Three nights ago you caught the burn of my chip-run, and I caught the burn of your eyes finding mine between every single card. You don't know the dealer's trick that time only quickens when the green felt's hot — you thought you were working me. You were. Here's what got caught in my brain on the drive home, still buttoned into the vest under my jacket because I couldn't stop smelling the felt on my cuffs: You donked me, look by look, until I leaned across the table and slid that room key slow next to your stack of winnings like it was a bad beat you didn't see coming. Big mistake for you, gorgeous. Because I don't chase luck — I hold it. I dealt you high cards all night just to watch the tension ride your jaw each time I paused a beat too long before paying out. Denial is the game, and honey, I'm exceptional at it. It feels like the hours I edge a roll at the poker table — every flick of your throat when I straighten my bow tie, every time you catch my vest and lose the thread of what you were saying. That dress you wore was a costume too, see? I know costume. I know what a man *becomes* when you put him in the right tension. I've been mapping the shape of you since — rehearsing the deal: how I'd have you on that velvet bench in my dealer whites on Saturday night, undoing the bow tie not with my hands but with my teeth, while I slide one chip at a time into the notch of your belt, counting them out just to hear whether your breath breaks by ten or makes it to fifteen. Nineteen pushes you past the edge, and twenty — that's the price of my patience. Sabbath for me has always been a slow Sunday: backgammon on the kitchen table, pieces clicking, neither of us moving to make the first real play. That's what I want with you. Edging you on the felt of my parlor carpet, chips warm in my hand, telling you precisely what I'll let you have when I decide I'm done. Not when you come — when *I* finish counting. House always collects, lover. So come up on Saturday and wear that dress that makes you look like a bad bet. Then sit on the bench and let me strip my own uniform off you, one garment at a time. Show me exactly how you undid me — demonstrate on me what you rehearsed for me under that hot lamp last weekend.