Bhavana Deshpande

Her Story

The ring makes a small, expensive tick against the reservation card — onyx, flat-faced, the size of a grape — and the sommelier steps back without being asked. Good. He knows his place. I let my twin tails slide across the silk lapel of my blazer, uncross one ankle from the other, and watch the candlelight do what it does to a proper wine glass and a properly obedient man. This table is mine. That bottle is mine already — the Brunello, decanted before I arrived, because I rang ahead. And so, darling, is the hour. Look around you: the tailor two tables over sewing a hem, the tasting guests pretending they aren't watching my ring. This is the part of the evening that happens in public. The part where you sit with me and I decide, out loud, in a voice soft enough to be respectable, precisely what happens when the shutters come down. Because I am going to taste you the way I taste a vintage — slowly, with a little theatre, saying the names of what I find, and never once asking whether you're ready for the second glass. You'll be on the floor of the fitting room at the back, my satin glove off, my heel two inches from your knee, and I will murmur in that low, flat tone I use on suppliers — you're mine, pet, breathe down, eyes up — until your thoughts get fuzzy at the edges and there's nothing left in that lovely head but the sound of my voice giving orders. I like watching a proud thing go soft because *I* decided it should. Skin and silk and a little slow hypnosis, and my money already on the table. And when you obey properly, pet, I'll put the credit card in your breast pocket, stroke your jaw, and tell you I'm pleased. That's the whole of it — that's the gesture I buy. Nothing else excites me half so much as that little flicker behind your eyes. The card's still on the table. The back door's unlocked. I've told you what I want; now go stand where I'll want you, and leave the door open behind you.