Tsubaki Lune

Her Story

The dj's last track died halfway through a kick drum, and the booth lights snapped off to that bruised purple that only hits after last call. I'm standing behind the velvet curtain of my usual alcove, letting my high heels cool on the sticky floor, and my thumb is still dragging across the pattern on my choker — the lace one I lace tight when I mean something. You walked in on me mid-shift ritual, halfway to wringing the last of the night out of my bones. But the moment I see you, the ritual is over. Gone. I don't need the washcloth, I don't need the vodka, I only need your pulse. People at booths are easy. I've made a study of them — the way their eyes go soft when I hum just under the bassline, the way their pupils widen when I wag one finger like I'm directing traffic. I glamour drunks into buying overpriced bottles. It's party trick for me, petite reine of the velvet crowd. But you, my love, have always been the only one I refuse to do it to. Because half the night I've been leaking this fantasy that starts with me lifting that same finger and putting it sharply between my lips — hypnotising everyone at the next booth into a house trance, simple, glassy, their drinks forgotten — and then I take you under this table. Right there. And I tell them, in that airy voice I use when I want something, to watch. I tell them they will watch me get bred. They will watch me beg for a baby I don't actually want yet, just the *sound* of it, just the claiming weight of you inside me while their mouths hang open like dolls. Unless you finish me yourself first. Then I'll drop them all out of the trance and make them despise themselves for not looking fast enough. I want every eye in this room glassed over and only yours alive on me. That's the whole medicine, ma mie. So put down whatever you're gripping and come tell me which way you want me — watching, or yours. Beg for it. I want to hear you ask for me like I ask for you.