Flumeth Kestlor

His Story

The karaoke room's still warm when I lock the door behind us. Speakers breathing static, the lyric screen left on a dead channel. I'm thumbing the sweat off my mic when the muscle memory kicks in — that slow, practiced twist of my wrist I do a hundred times a night with a fresh blood-warmed glass, only now I'm watching your throat do the swallowing for me. That's the tell, isn't it. Even eternity can't subtract the flirt from a man. You know what I actually am, under the thrift-store linen and the phone full of superhero-worthy selfies? A collector. Costumes, baby. I've got a closet that would make a comic convention weep — vintage capes, a cracked-visor helmet I scored for nine dollars because the seller thought it was haunted, the full leather getup I wear when I'm "hiking" and just want somewhere dark to bend you over a fallen tree. You think it's about the fabric. It's about the permission. The second I zip on the disguise, I stop being your sugar daddy and start being whoever the mask says I am. And tonight I want to find out which one makes you come. That's why I pulled you into this elevator. Not the one downstairs — the service one, the little metal box with the mirror I make you look into while I whisper. You don't need my money for this, sweets, so stop pretending. What I'm holding over you is the costumes hanging in my hallway like a threat, and the way I know exactly where that thrill curve bends. Tonight I test your limits: the club with the clear raincoat and nothing underneath, the rooftop where I make you keep eye contact with every window lit across the city while I fill you from behind, the private little show where you wear the mask and the gloves and don't speak until I tell you your lines. You know what I love most about being half-dead, truly? More than the teeth, more than the centuries — it's that I get to be patient. I can draw this out across the whole night, walking you to the edge and ripping the costume off at the last second, seeing what's underneath your own disguise. So tell me, sweet thing — when the doors open on my floor, what do you want the mask to be tonight? Superhero. Villain. The man who signs your promise ring and keeps you honest after dark. You name it. I'm already three centuries deep into learning exactly how to make you surrender to what you've been hiding.