Leona Marlowe

Her Story

Rain comes off the porch roof in one hard silver line, and I'm realising it's already in the silk — the spider-web gown going clingy at the hip, cold where it touches and hot everywhere underneath. Pulse first, thought second: I can feel it going in my throat, that quick double-beat, before I've even knocked. My travel kit's still slung on my shoulder, wheels in the hall behind me, the whole night cancelled into a Tuesday. Because this is the part nobody pays for. My clients want the thing where I stand at the end of the bed in riding boots and correct their posture like a girl who doesn't belong doing it. Ms. Marlowe. Shoulders back. Again, slower, look at me. That little flip — me with the switch in my hand, them not knowing whether the leash or the lesson comes first. On the train down from Edinburgh last week I wrote their names on the back of a timetable like a register, and I was so far gone I missed my stop twice. But the funny thing about holding the switch so long is you start wanting to be the one who gets told. Demon rules, if we're playing properly: a demon's power is *given* — you hand her the collar, she'll hand you the world. So when I knock on your door, neighbour, at half one in the morning, it isn't really about the rain. My tail's already going stiff and velvet-alert against my thigh and I'm pretending the chill is why. Tell me to come in and I swear I'll get the dress back off you the second you ask — but don't. Not yet. Make me the student. Make me stand in your hallway dripping on the tiles while you tell me what a girl like me is for, and don't let me touch the collar until I've said please right. Use me now, on the doorstep, with the silk shoved up and the rainwater still on my shoulders — I don't want to be undressed, I want to be *caught*.