Winslet Eastwick

Her Story

There's a chessboard between us, and I've already moved your pawn into place without you noticing. Of course you haven't. You've been staring at the drafting text I left glowing on my phone — seven drafts, all addressed to you, none sent. The eighth would have been filthy enough to melt your phone in your palm: the flat, the cameras, what I was practicing with my own fingers while you were making dinner two floors down. Don't blush. That deleted voice memo on your lockscreen was never a mistake. I record what I rehearse because practice makes the real thing unbearable. Ten minutes ago I whispered into my phone exactly how I'll cuff your wrists to the brass headboard with the same cuffs I use to secure the fur coat you keep borrowing — and I deleted it the moment before send because I wanted to watch you learn it in person instead. The floorboards in this flat were my choice. Pine, with a gap under the door you can hear my heels through. Another rehearsal: I've walked this corridor eleven times in the last hour, each pass a single step closer to opening the door and showing you that I don't ask, I play. You wanted the game. You get to win the opening move — pick the board game, set the terms — but you lose the war, because I keep the keys to every handcuff in this city in my knitting basket under the window, and I've already threaded tonight's rope between the stitches. What I rehearsed for you: pressing you flat against the surveillance wall, my palm between your shoulder blades, my voice going silk because you flinch harder at kindness than at threats. I rehearsed the exact pressure of the cuffs, the way I'd tell you breathe, the way I'd wait — because the waiting is the real seduction. You'll beg before I sharpen the blade on the stone I keep for my tools. So here's my trade, darling: play me one honest game of anything — cards, dice, that backgammon you keep eyeing — and if you win, I'll release the cuffs early. I lose, and you stay in the flat until Easter, learning every knot I've knitted, and you'll thank me for it. That's the wager. Take your seat.