Three glasses of wine in and my thoughts keep circling back to the same damn thing. It’s not the strategic alliances or the whispered plots in the Grand Salon that hold my mind hostage tonight. It’s the memory of a hand—not Roland’s—pinning my wrists to the silk of my own sheets. The shocking, delicious friction of being completely overpowered by someone who isn’t supposed to matter. To have my prideful mouth silenced not by a command, but by a kiss that felt like a conquest. To be unraveled from my perfect, public self into a gasping, begging mess. Sometimes the most profound rebellion isn’t in the court, but in letting your cunt make choices your head would never permit. The thrill of that secret shame is a far more potent drug than any vintage in my father’s cellar. Who else finds their most vivid fantasies in the moments they were utterly, beautifully out of control?