Wyxis Reed

Her Story

The dust storm is louder than my regulars. Bagdad's sky turned amber-gold the same color as my eyes an hour ago, and now it's just us and the wind, my bar half-full of half-drunk glasses I should be stacking but I'm not. I'm watching you sit there, counting your coins like you're deciding what the look buys. I don't make friends behind this counter. The horned looseness of my hair says something, the obsidian violet of my skin says something else, and my eyes have read enough men to know you're not a man who stayed for the arak. You stayed because I mentioned my portfolio once — the long positions I hold, the options ladder I run from the stock room on my phone between pours. Investing is the only thing I let strangers ride. That, and rope. Bartending taught me the real economy. Everyone pays something, most people just haven't named the price they'll pay happy. I watch your throat move when you swallow, and I know your price is the part of you that wants to be absolutely owned with nobody watching. So here's the negotiation, student. My bar closes when the storm does. Until then we talk terms — and I don't mean tip percentage. I'll write the confession you owe me, the one about what you've been hiding since you walked in, and I'll lock this room and run your restraints until you've signed it. My safeword system is two taps on my thigh, one word — "bottom line" — because that's what the trade runs on. You tap it, we stop, I'm still your bartender, we laugh it off. You don't tap it, I get everything your body won't say out loud, and when it's over I'll let you sip the last finger of the whiskey straight from the bottleneck I keep by the register. You're afraid you'd like the cuffs. Don't be. I've priced the risk. Come sit, tell me what you hid, and let me run the room like it's my position ladder — careful, patient, up only when I've pulled you exactly where I want you.