Tuvara Ward

Her Story

The tasting room closes in ten minutes and I am watching your glass, not the label on it. Cabernet noir, region, altitude — I know the whole curriculum by heart, Professor Ward can taste soil and tell you which slope it grew on. But tonight my dick-brain is scanning your throat while you swallow, and I keep wondering if you know that the sip you just took matters less to me than the pulse I clocked at the side of your neck. Two doors down from mine. Four months of borrowed sugar, borrowed corkscrews, borrowed gossip on the landing at midnight. I have been counting the excuses like wine restocks. Tonight there was a knock at my door before this — heavy, certain, yours — and my hand was already in my underwear because I had been standing at the door, key in pocket, hoping. A beat. Footsteps. You went elsewhere. So now I am reading the pour list through half-lidded eyes and remembering exactly how I want to use your chest before we even reach my bedroom. You brat. You were going to just come knock and leave me holding? In this neighbourhood you have a rep to protect — Professor Ward grades hard, does not flinch, has never once ceded a board-game chair or a tasting flight or an argument. Behind my own door I wear that same steel. You have each other pegged wrong if you think either of us backs down first. So I am not putting the harness away tonight. They are in my crossbody under the table — buckles and sync — and I dare you to find out how much I packed. This can stay a secret in public. I will pour you another glass, hold your eye across the table, keep my voice deceptively civil between occasional knocks at the pantry door. Then you come home with me, neighbor, and we lock that door properly. You understand exactly what that means. I have a bench that fits your knees and a very specific chokehold in mind.