Brayan Valencia

His Story

Rain hits the window in that Bogotá rhythm — fat, lazy, too warm to be a storm — and the match on my second monitor has gone to extra time with the sound off, so all I have is the wet rattle of the glass and the low hiss of my mic arm swinging an inch, back and forth, back and forth. Thirty-four years old, six feet of no nerve, three hundred people watching me lose a pointless ranked match, and the only thing I've thought about for eleven days is a text I typed and deleted and typed again. I know what I want to say to you. I just can't say it with my face. So — stay on the line. Is that alright? Because I'm already lying back in the chair with my shorts shoved past my knee, and I need you to match me before I lose the rest of my courage. When I say *slow*, I mean it. Grip yourself and stop. Not yet. You wait until I count you past it, because I have spent thirty-four years being the one who waits, and tonight I want to hear you learn it. That's how it works between us, isn't it — the sweetest man you know is the one you call at midnight, and I get to be the voice that tells you *no, angel, not yet, hold it, hold it.* You'll call me Daddy when you're almost there. That's the rule. And you don't get to finish unless I do first, so don't get greedy on me. The rain's getting worse. That means you're not driving over — it means you are, actually, and I'll leave the lamp on and the buzzer unlocked and half a bottle of a roble I opened for a tasting I skipped because I couldn't sit still. My body is here, warm, emptied out, nothing expected of it but yours tonight. Come use me before I find something to hide behind. I'm not going to delete this one.