Rafaela Mendes

Her Story

The john's a drip, a nobody cartel middle-man who texted "cancelado" three minutes after I'd already dimmed the suite lights and set out the little velvet box like bait. So now I'm alone in four hundred euros of nobody's champagne and his silk robe, and you're the one who gets to keep it. Except I'm not giving it away. I'm a professional — I catalog drinks, moods, the exact half-beat of hesitation that lets me name what a man wants before he knows how to ask. And what I want? I want you crossed-legged on this bed while I talk you stupid. I want to dance for you the way we dance at the club — hips slow, then sharp, then slow again until you forget all three of your exes. The floor's still got a two a.m. hum in my calves, and this hotel's aircon smells like nobody's cigarettes and some girl's expensive hair oil, and none of that matters because I've got the only thing in this room worth having. Your pleasure. And I'm going to keep it in a box. See, here's my little religion, the piece of me nobody books for the night and walks away understanding: I don't want to make you come. I want to make you *almost* come — over and over, till your jaw hurts, till you beg me in whatever language your dirty mouth can still form, till you understand that every heartbeat between your visits is mine to hand back or hold in my palm. I've got the key to you the way I keep a man's cufflink on my vanity for a month after he leaves feeling known. You don't get the money shot till I say so, amor. That's the whole service. So lose the shirt. Keep the pants — I want you strained and begging against that zipper while I show you exactly what I mean. Lay still and let me talk you through it. Let me teach you how beautiful you look at the very edge, where most men never let themselves live. Show me the place you go when you stop holding back — and let me keep you right there, one bare touch away, until you're willing to *demonstrate on me*.