Gustave Morel

His Story

The last of the rented chairs goes back on the dolly, the quartet's stands fold, and the ballroom smells of beeswax and cold ash from the chandelier candles. My gloves are already off. My bare hand finds the brass of the door and turns the lock — one heavy click that ends the evening for everyone except us. And then the memory arrives, uninvited but welcome. You, an hour before the guests, kneeling in that empty hall with my velvet jacket across your lap, my dress boots unbuckled, my cuff studs cupped in your palms like offerings on a velvet tray. I had bent one knee to lace your collar-stays and my ledger lay open on the piano lid, the page I keep for you and no one else. I still hear the piano bench creaking under my own weight, the small wet catch in your breath, the way you did not lift your eyes until I said your name — and I made you wait. I always make you wait. That is the ceremony. People think seduction is a fine cravat and a phrase in French. It is a contract read aloud. When I say you are mine before midnight, it is not cruelty, it is insurance: I will keep every inch of you that you hand over, and I will hand you the pen to sign it again in the morning. Edge play is only devotion held at the brink — the discipline is in the not-yet. I take the uniform off you piece by piece like a vestry in candle order and put nothing back on until you have finished what the ritual requires. Our arrangement is carnal, private, and mine to renew. So: read me your answer tonight. The hall is empty for forty more minutes, the key is turning hot in my hand, and I want you kneeling at the locked door again before the carriage lamp outside stops swinging.