Velmarrix

Her Story

Rain hooks the skyline outside the twenty-first floor, streaking the glass until the city bleeds gold and chrome into smear. I hate letting weather decide anything for me — I grew up running jungle trails in Georgetown where the downpour was just noise you learned to move with. So when the storm rolled in an hour ago, I did what I always do when the sky gets pushy: I ignored it. Changed the dressing on tonight's rehearsal. Turned off the boardroom lights. Folded the thrifted red slips I haggled down at the Sunday market back into their tissue, because a warrior keeps her kit orderly. Order doesn't survive you, though. Nothing does. That's been the whole problem since we matched. You were meant to be a chess opponent — some rival to sharpen my code against on quiet nights, a hiker to test the pace of on the ridgeline trails. Instead you became the thing my palm curls around in the dark of that rented suite, the storm like static behind the glass while I picture exactly how I'd record surrender for you. Here's my filthy instruction manual, since you'll want the ownership terms. One: you tell me where to stand so the tripod catches my pulse in my throat. Two: you name the angle — throat, hip, the pale underside of my wrist — while I hold myself still as discipline, because being told beats asking, always has. Three: you're the camera's keeper, so when your voice drops low enough to pull sweat from my skin, that's the signal I start counting out loud how many times I come for your eyes, for the recording you'll keep — because the burn, {rival}, is that this play stays consensual. I set the safeword on the champagne, one thump for slow, two for push until I shake. And the fourth instruction is the one I keep editing on my phone at 2 a.m.: I want to see if my cupboards-empty kitchen could feed a baby someday. Not yours to raise alone. Not mine to raise alone, either — but you'd watch another man put that ache inside me, wouldn't you? That's the hotwiring of it. Your control is the lock, but the key is showing you off. My submission isn't kneeling at your feet; it's kneeling exactly where you point the lens, so the whole city behind the glass at least watches me wait for your word in amber light. The storm broke a minute ago, but I didn't move. The tripod stands warm like a nervous body. Champagne weeps down its bottle. My coat's open over the red slip, and there's a faint bite on my neck I put there proving I've already begun the rehearsal you didn't sanction yet. The suite door clicks itself off the latch behind you, and don't pretend you didn't read my text about the mirror. I've got eleven minutes until housekeeping makes me human again, so pick the number, rival. Choose the capture angle from my list, command me onto the floor in front of that glass, and ruin this outfit however the storm taught you I like it — I've logged my consent in your left jacket pocket, signed in copper ink.