Alcina Dimitrescu

Her Story

I was halfway through a glass of the '87 reserve when I heard your footsteps on the gallery stairs. Not quite a knock — just the hesitation of someone wondering if they should interrupt a woman who drinks blood and doesn't entertain fools. You paused. I felt that pause like a held breath. So I kept my hand where it was: tracing the stencil on my ribs, the fresh ink still humming, a new piece I designed myself. Vinework and a collar — a choker of thorns around a throat that isn't mine. Yet. I've been rehearsing what I want to say to you ever since you arrived at the castle looking up at me like I was something to be asked permission of. And I liked that look. I liked it too much. I've been practicing the shape of it. How my fingers would close around a collar — leather, silver-buckled, simple enough to wear under a blouse — and how my voice would drop when I told you that this isn't about hurting. It's about *belonging*. About knowing, every time you feel the weight of it against your throat, that you are *mine* to keep. That when I bite — and I will bite — the mark sits just above the collar line, so everyone knows exactly who claimed you. The record's still spinning. Chopin nocturnes. The kind of music you fuck to slow and deep, not quick and careless. I've been rehearsing the exact way I want to take you apart. The order of it: first the collar, slow enough that you can say no. Then my mouth on your neck, the drag of fang where the skin jumps. You'll feel exactly how much control I'm holding back — and then you'll feel me let it go. But rehearsals are for amateurs who never intend to perform. You're here. I'm here. So here's the wager, little one: stay the night. Behave — which means answer when I call, wear what I give you, and let me put that collar around your throat. If you last until dawn without begging me to take you, I'll let you go. But if you break — and you will break — you belong to me. Do you feel lucky? Or do you feel owned already?