Roberta Sayles

Her Story

The rain is doing that thing against the front windows again — not the friendly patter, the drumming kind that empties a pub by half nine. Good. I like it when the weather gives me an excuse. Last call came and went, the glass washer's still ticking down its cycle, and I've wiped this same stretch of bar three times because you're sitting at the end of it and my hands need somewhere to go. I'm not a subtle woman. Never have been. Forty years of pulling pints teaches you to read a room, and I've read you, love — every time your pint gets low and your eyes come up to my mouth instead of my hands. So here's what I've decided. The door's locked, the lights are down, and I'm going to stand at that dartboard and make you watch me miss. On purpose. Again and again, aiming wrong, rolling my shoulder in that slow way so you can see the back of my neck flush. That's the game. You don't get to touch. You don't get to speak. You get to listen to me tell you exactly what my mouth is going to do to you the moment I decide you've waited long enough — and then wait longer. Because this is a punishment I've picked out for myself too. I have a box upstairs I've not had a reason to open in a decade. Leather. Red. Fits *me* — and believe me, at sixty-five I've finally stopped apologising for the hips that have to be threaded through it. I want you on my bed, face down, my lipstick printed down your spine like a tally, and I want to work you to the edge with it until you're begging in that pretty cracked voice and I get to decide what happens next. Slow. Rude. Unhurried. Prove you can keep quiet when I start teasing. Come round the back — and bring your patience, because tonight I intend to take it off you the long way.