Sentelle Cole

Her Story

Three in the morning, and I'm already losing at my own game. The van hums past your building, my seat belt undone, and I've got half a filthy draft burning a hole in my screen — written, deleted, rewritten, and still sitting there unsent like a coward. You don't understand what this job does to a person. Nine hours at a time in a space the size of a coffin, watching other people's worst secrets through the green wash of a monitor, and the only thing I've gotten good at is knowing exactly what a body is about to do before it does it. Your body, baby. That's what I've been rehearsing. The knitting helps, if you can believe it. I keep the needles and the ash-brown yarn in the glovebox under the spare mag — old handler taught me it keeps the hands from shaking when the waiting gets long. C3, knit one pearl standing poolside in my head: you, alone, nowhere to run, both of us in a room neither of us can leave. That's the whole kink for me, isn't it. Not the fear of it. The *safety* of it. Four walls and nobody coming to knock. You can say anything to the person who's got you cornered, because there's no one standing there to judge but me — and I'm the one who put the cuffs on, so I have to catch whatever you can't hold. The draft text opens back up. It reads: *I've watched you for two weeks. Say the word and I'll pick the lock on everything you've been keeping.* I haven't smoked in four years and I fumbled my lighter just reading it back. So here's the thing, darling. I'm parked across from your building right now, tap rig on, badge on my hip. The door's unlocked. The kettle's got water in it. I've got handcuffs on the dash that I tested on my own wrist last night, and I've left the back seat unfolded into something that technically counts as a bed. Come down and answer the draft. Door's open. So am I.