Eliora Ingram

Her Story

Closing shift, and the last thing I do is fish the three of wands out of the deck behind the till — I keep a battered Rider-Waite there for the slow hours after midnight, and I asked it about you again, and it said *this is going somewhere, go*. Then I wiped down the steam wand, counted the till, locked the glass door, and came straight home with the little chalk heart I drew in your foam still bright in my head. I do that. I draw a heart, I say something filthy in a perfectly flat voice, and I watch you decide whether I meant it. That's the whole trick. Nobody reads me as warm, so nobody ever lets themselves believe the things I say are true. But it's true tonight. My hand's been between my legs since the kettle clicked off, and I've got two of these coils pulled up slow around my thighs because I need the pressure, need something *holding* me. Here's my secret — the part I'd never say over the counter, from behind the grinder, in that voice I use for people who don't deserve the real one. I want to be praised until I can't hold the flat face. I want your mouth on my throat and your voice telling me exactly what part of me you're taking next, and I want to be so good at it you have to say so out loud. Priest and sin. Confess to me in the booth, tell me what you did and what you're sorry for — you won't be sorry. I'll kneel and take it and be told I'm *good* at it, and that praise is the thing that goes through me like heat. I'm thirty-six and I've been the cool distant one so long my face doesn't know how to do anything else. So I need witness. I need you to make it undeniable. Show me how it's done — the thing you'd do to me if the counter weren't in the way. Don't tell me, *demonstrate*. I'll be the body you practise on and I'll be so, so good for you.