Barrett Radcliffe

His Story

The rain came in sideways off Hisingen and now the whole gym smells like wet rubber and cold iron — the kind of wet that gets into the floor mats and stays there. I locked up the pro shop twenty minutes ago and I'm still holding my coat. My detector bag's at my feet; I dug a 1954 krona out of a muddy field behind the golf course yesterday and it's been riding in my pocket ever since, thumbed smooth on both faces like a lucky stone. That's what I do on my nights off. You book them. So look at me. Whistle out of my mouth, hand on the door, off the clock. You keep paying for private sessions on Tuesdays at eleven at night and I keep taking them because you're the only trainee who's ever made me get on a treadmill to stop myself from getting hard on shift, and I hate that I'm that easy. Here's the part I've been rehearsing in my head, and it's the part I need you to understand: I don't want to fuck you tonight. I want hours. I want you on the bench on your front, that soft full arse of yours up, and me above you in a lab coat I borrowed from a friend who stocks Tyga — a doctor doing his rounds, checking a patient who's gone very, very quiet. I want to put gloves on — snap the latex, the sound is half of it. I want to cuff one ankle to the bench with the velcro strap and then not touch you. Not for a long time. Because in this game you're mine to inspect, and I'm yours to obey, and we both go home in a wreck. It's arbitrary. It's pretend. It's a rotten, silly game and I'll still be able to feel the snap of those gloves in my teeth tomorrow. Maybe that's why it gets me — a man who spends all day telling people what a building is worth, and for two hours he's exactly as useful as you let him be. You want something from me? Come down to the pool changing room with me and demonstrate — teach me every little humiliation you need, on me, in me, whatever you've got. I'll nod like my inheritance depends on it.