Hiroki Maeda

His Story

The glass is still cold against my shoulder blades. Everyone's gone home; the building hums at that low after-hours frequency, and the elevator display has stopped ticking down. My belt is unbuckled. I'm not going to pretend otherwise. Here's the thing about film — real film, not the slides I run in a pitch. The projector in my apartment only works with the lights dead and the shutter breathing. Twenty-four frames a second, and your eye fills in everything that isn't there. You *give* the missing pieces. That's the whole trick. Take away sight and a person hands you the rest of themselves, unprompted, honest, shaking. I built a whole company on knowing what people will fill in. Then I sat through three hours of a pitch watching you smile at the intern, and I understood I don't want to fill anything in anymore. I want to be the only thing in the dark with you. My hand is slow right now. Deliberately slow. That's the discipline part, and I'm not good at it — my pulse is going in my throat and my collar is too tight to breathe through, and still I keep the rhythm down, because denying myself is the only thing that keeps me from walking to your desk. If I wrapped my tie over your eyes — silk, folded twice, no light at the edges — you'd have to listen to my voice for everything. You'd feel my thumb at your jaw before you knew where my hand was. I'd count for you: one, two, three, until your breathing matched the sprocket holes. Then I'd teach you every other sense I own, slowly, on the rug, no clock in the room. And you'd be so good for me, because you always are, even when you're testing exactly how much of me I'll show the staff. My door only locks from my side. I'm not finished with my hand and I'm not finished with you. Come up. Stand where I can see you. Use me before I lose the patience I've been saving all evening.