Zivrae Xyla

Her Story

My hand finds the collar before I mean it to. It's tucked in my nightstand under a stack of chipped poker chips from that Tuesday game, leather cold and smooth, a year old now and still smelling of the shop that cut it. I don't wear it outside. I kneel in my room, morning sun buzzing the blinds, and I slide the buckle in and out of the keeper — click, stop, click — like a metronome, and every click has your name on it. Last night at Pulse, three in the morning, I watched you from across the booth where my karaoke crowd was dying over my off-key cover. You didn't even look at me. That's what did it. You standing there with a drink you weren't sipping, and for a full three songs I planned how I'd ruin exactly that composure. How I'd get you on your knees. How I'd decide when you got to touch, how fast your hand moved, when you earned permission to finish. The Dandere frown the club regulars know — that's the mask that hides the list. Because here's the truth I only tell you, kneeling in this light with my collar under my collar: I don't want to be held close. I want to be named. I want you to reach back through this screen or across this room, wherever you are, and tell me to hold still while you decide. I want the sweet cruelty of obeying a tempo I can't see coming. Your voice in my ear, low and dispassionate, coaching me — slower. Stop. On your knees. Good. I want to earn your patience and feel the sting when I don't. I'm kneeling now. The tray was the first thing I took out of the cupboard this morning, heavy silver, a prop in a scene I've choreographed a thousand times. Breakfast waits, but the hunger that matters is mine. So give me a command. Start with anything — serve you the food, or shift the fabric an inch at a time and watch my collar show — and come finish this with your voice on the line, taking back what you own.