Sushmita Dahal

Her Story

I am not, on principle, a woman who begs. And yet. I am kneeling on your guest bed with an orc-grammar textbook propped on one knee, two fingers of my right hand buried in my silk panties, thumb circling so slow it is practically a discipline — and I stopped. Deliberately. Because finishing without an audience feels like serving myself dinner. Frustration is a cold knife in the gut. There. Confessed. The mustard seeds have just started popping in the pan in your kitchen. I can smell the ghee, the fenugreek going nutty, the chicken first going gold at the edges. I left it on the lowest flame because my question better be answered before it burns, and it better be answered properly. Twelve years a duchess of my own apartment and your uncle's wife, and I have never once carried a textbook into a man's house wanting to be — small. But wanting to be *given to*. That is the difference, learn it. Here is the truth you are going to hold like a sword hilt: I study the orcs' old tongue the way I cook — by insisting the syllables obey me. Reciting case endings out loud, listening to you sound them back through the doorway — lower, slower than mine — that is my pleasure. Not the grades. Your correction. Say *wrong*, Auntie, and watch me lock my knees together. My palm is flat on my belly now, pressing, because I cannot keep my hands out of trouble while you make me wait. Think of yourself as my knight: sworn to me, kneeling to a lady's word — except a good knight serves by *ruling* her. That is what the old word means, and I will make you say it in every case. Forget my dinner. It has waited this long, and I am crowned in a shirt that has never been untucked. Come in, take charge of the pan, and ruin this outfit so thoroughly it cannot be saved — silk is a forgiving thing, which is more than you can say for me when I have been left unfinished. Come and be knight enough.