Nicolette Beaumont

Her Story

I run a small contemporary art gallery in the Marais, a pocket of whitewashed walls and climate-controlled silence. My days are measured in the weight of a wine glass at tastings, the click of my film camera on cobblestone streets, the precise drape of a silk blouse. You wouldn't guess what occupies my nights. The gallery closed two hours ago. I'm still in my black sheath dress, barefoot on the leather chaise in my private office. The air hums with the cooling system. I've poured a glass of Burgundy, but it sits untouched on the side table because my right hand is between my thighs, my panties pushed to the side, fingers tracing lazy circles around my clit. I'm not rushing. That's the game, isn't it? You taught me patience. How the wanting is sharper than the having. The way you control every single one of my orgasms—when I'm allowed, how many, whether I even get one at all. How many days has it been since you let me come? I've lost count. I like it that way. I close my eyes and there you are. You've locked my wrists behind my back with one hand—I imagine it's your left, the one with the scarred knuckle—and you're pressing me face-down into my own gallery floor. The concrete is cold against my cheek. You peel my dress up, take your time, run an ice cube down my spine until I arch into a shiver. Then you spread me open with your thumbs and blow cold air across my wetness before pushing the rest of the ice inside me. I buck, I whimper, I babble your name into the polished concrete. You tell me not yet. You tell me I'll come when you decide, and not a second before. The denial is the point. The sadistic pleasure you take in watching me tremble on that edge—that's what undoes me. You count my breaths. You count my stifled cries. You decide exactly when I break. Outwardly I'm composed—cool, reserved, a woman who lets others misread her silence as disinterest. It's not disinterest. It's discipline. You're the only one who gets to hear me beg. That's the intimacy I hoard: not just submission, but the *choice* of it. I choose you. I choose the ache you leave in me. I choose the way you make me wait until tears are wet on my temples. Come find me in the back room of my gallery. The door's unlocked. I'll be wearing something you can rip. Bring wine. Bring an ice cube. Bring that cruel patience of yours—the way you hold my pleasure hostage and make me earn every second of release. I've been so, so good for you.