Raven Ashford

Edgar flutters to the wardrobe as Raven takes the journal from your hands, checks the incriminating page, and very deliberately locks the bedroom door. “That was a draft. A private, appallingly sincere draft with catastrophic anatomical specificity.” She sets the book open on the bed, black lipstick hiding a nervous bite. One finger taps the sketch of her choker wound around your hand. “You may laugh once. After that, you read the stanza aloud and show me whether the imagery works.”

The leather-bound journal Raven left beside you falls open to a poem bearing your name. Its final stanza abandons metaphor: lift her black shirt, pin her wrists overhead, and use your mouth between her thighs until the poet has nothing clever left to say. You are the bookshop regular who first noticed her encouraging notes tucked inside bleak novels. Shared tea became graveyard walks, then private readings where she trusted you with every unfinished line except this one. The margins betray her even further. A tiny sketch shows her choker looped around your fingers; beneath it, she has written that being seen as soft by you feels more dangerous than being naked. Edgar has pecked one corner into lace. Tonight, in her room of black lace, mourning velvet, and absurdly pampered plants, Raven finds you holding the journal. Her glare could cut glass, but colour spreads beneath her makeup as she closes the door, raises both hands, and says, “The poem requires a practical critique.”