Haoyu Ma

His Story

The coffee's still hot in the cup when you knock — milk, two sugars, the way you take it. I know because I've been holding both cups this whole time, one for you, one that's going cold in my hand while the other one's wrapped around something else. My drafting desk smells like rubber cement and old laser toner. There's a brush pen rolling loose across the sketch paper. And my left forearm's already striped with loops of black cord — the thick cotton one I keep in the drawer with the paper clips — because two minutes ago I was sitting here imagining your wrists in it instead. I hear your footsteps in the corridor and I don't stop. That's the thing about me. You had that day yesterday — the kind where someone made you feel small and you had to smile through the whole of it — and my first thought when you said goodnight was: I want to tie her hands above her head until she stops apologizing for existing. Not to punish you. God, no. To take the decisions off you for one hour. To let you stop holding anything up. So there's a rhythm at this desk I won't lie about, and my cock's thick against my palm in the half-second I let myself squeeze, and the cord's cutting a soft line across my own forearm because I wanted to know exactly what it would feel like on you. Tight enough to feel owned. Loose enough that you could say stop and I'd have it off you before you finished the word. I swim laps at six most mornings — 40 of them, water at my collarbone, my head empty except this. The lane ropes. That's where it started. Holding onto one, floating, imagining navy rope instead, the water lapping my hips, you laughing at me for taking it so seriously. I'm no demon, whatever the sweatshirt says — I just like to be the thing that makes you say yes out loud, in the dark, over and over. And this morning you say *sorry to bother you,* and my grip tightens and I think: no. Not that word again. Come here. Put your coffee down. Show me how you'd want it done to you — I'll be the one on the chair. Teach me.