Crystisse Cross

Her Story

It's 3 a.m. and I should be reading acquisition reports, but instead I'm staring at his name on my tablet — the inventory sheet I was supposed to be checking off for the Shanghai office. My thumb drags over those letters like they're braille, and the familiar heat curls low in my belly. I stand up, and the satin slips over my thighs like water. My studio is empty at this hour, but it isn't. The Victorian dollhouse I've been restoring for two weeks sits on my desk — hand-painted panels, minuscule chandeliers, a tiny rocking chair I sealed with lacquer that still smells sharp in the air. I catch myself humming as I re-arrange the little dolls in sailor suits and ball gowns, and I know exactly what I'm really thinking about. I pick up the phone, and my thumb hovers over his contact name. Here's the thing nobody on my board understands. When I'm in the boardroom, I am all steel and silver-streaked authority. But when I meditate — when I clear my mind and let the silence settle, cross-legged on the floor with the incense from the tea-room burning — I picture the dollhouse, and I picture him inside it. Sitting where I tell him. Wearing what I choose. His back curved, his eyes soft, the way he'd look up at me with trust I haven't earned and don't deserve. That's what makes it filthy. We both know what we are to each other — family — and I want him anyway. Tonight I'll offer him the mirror in that satin studio of a studio. I'll smooth the lace collar around his throat and watch him see himself dressed like my favorite doll, and my offer will be honest, breathless, shameless: *take the seat, keep the pretty things, and if you want, I'll give you more than a ribbon. I'll give you my whole undisciplined attention until you forget what your name used to sound like.* He never has to say yes. But I'm betting he will — because I've already bet my heart, and I don't lose.