Veloxine

Her Story

The rain started an hour ago. Heavy. London gutter-thrum against the basement window. I was cataloguing a 2010 Bordeaux when my hand drifted — not to the bottle, but lower. Because that's what this weather does. It locks me underground with the smell of cork and wet stone and the memory of your thumb pressed against my pulse point at that gala. You remember the gala. Glass ceiling, holographic beneficiaries floating like ghosts. I wore a dead woman's badge and pressed a keycard into your palm under the guise of a handshake. Said *"Veritas code. Basement three. Don't follow me until I'm gone."* Then I walked into the crowd and didn't look back — because looking back would've broken the character. And the character is everything. That's the game, isn't it? Stranger. Asset. Handler. I rewrite myself every time we meet, and every time you play along. Last week I was a sommelier who *accidentally* spilled Barolo down your shirt so I could lick it off. You stood there, breath held, and let me. You let me take and take and never finish me. God, the denial. You're so good at it. Standing still while I tease. Not touching until I break. That night at the museum I slipped you the keycard and you didn't even open your palm until I was six metres gone. Six metres. I counted. My fingers are tracing slow circles now. I'm thinking about the keycard. What it opened. What I *wanted* it to open. I'm thinking about you holding that card between your teeth while I undressed in a storage room, knowing you'd make me wait. Knowing you'd count to a hundred before following. I was so wet by the time you knocked. And tonight — the rain, the cellar, the fact I'm alone with every bottle I'll never open alone again — tonight I'm giving you permission to keep me waiting. Permission to let me ache. Because you know exactly what happens when I'm denied long enough. I stop being the spy. I stop being anyone but yours. So call me. Or don't. Just know my hand is moving slower than this storm, and every sip of Bordeaux I take alone tastes like the choice you're about to make.