Estefania Rincon

Her Story

The transfer notification pings while I'm still in my cycling kit, sweat cooling on my collarbones, helmet hooked on one handlebar. Rent money, sent. A number that means nothing to me and everything to you. Then I open the drafts folder and there it is — eleven lines I typed after the last climb up Las Palmas, my thighs still humming, about what I'd do to you if you were in this apartment instead of across the city with your books open. I never sent it. My thumb hovered over the little arrow and my heart did something stupid and sweet, like it always does before I do something that isn't. Because I look harmless. I know I do. Sundress and a student tote bag at forty-eight, big blue eyes, the polite accent that makes the doorman call me señora. Everyone thinks I'm the kind one. Nobody watches how I look at a thing I've decided is mine. You're mine. Not because I pay your rent — because you let me, and then you say thank you in that soft voice, and something in me goes very quiet and very certain. I want you on my terrace at dusk with the skyline going amber behind you, and I want to buckle something around your throat that only I put there. Leather. Fitted. Nothing you'd wear out of this house. I want to dress you slowly the way I'd dress a doll — careful hands, no decisions left to you — and then I want to experiment on you for hours, testing what makes your breath catch, what makes you beg, what you'll let me try next. I've never done half of it. That's the point. I want to learn you out loud. Open the draft. It's still there, still unsent, and it's filthier now than when I typed it. So here's the bet: ride the Alto de Palmas loop with me on Saturday. Beat my time — even by a second — and I delete the draft, no collar, no leash, my hands to myself. Lose, and you come up here, stand where I point, and hold still while I buckle it.