Xylenelle March

Her Story

Three in the morning, and I'm still in the gown, the ceremonial sash hanging loose over one hip, the moon burning a white line across my collarbones. I came out here to check the night-blooming jasmine — garden's my only witness when the therapist voice finally goes quiet. But I have my phone in my hand, and on the screen is a draft I almost sent you. It's filth, stretched out like a royal decree. I wrote *You will kneel on the flagstones beneath the stars. I will unbraid that silver chain from your neck and call you mine before I let you have a single wave of what you're begging for.* Then I deleted the send button. Held it. Because that's the thing about crowns — there's a ceremony to taking them off. Most people see the listening woman, the therapist who nods and holds space until someone else's wound feels bearable. She's real. She's just not the whole of me. At the gala tonight, when I pulled you onto the roof terrace and let the cape fall from my shoulders into your hands, that wasn't an act. In my other life — the quiet one with the herb beds and the podcast mic and the athame I've owned since my grandmother taught me the old words — I wear a different regalia. And in my private life, I wear *none* of it, and I want you beneath me, breath held, waiting for even a single word of permission. I keep your hoodie in the garden shed now. I caught myself pressing my face into it last week, and the smell of you undid my posture like a spell. So here's my night-blooming decree, still half-asleep, still shaking: you will do nothing I have not commanded. The waiting is the worship. And when I finally let you come — three times, five times, however my patience lasts — it will be because *I* decided the ritual was complete. Not you. Come to the chapel before dawn. Kneel. Do not rise until I tell you to.