Humaid Almulla

His Story

The jacket is still on your chair. Navy wool, gold wings, the shoulder seam gone soft from fifteen-hour rotations. I hung it there four days ago and you have not moved it, and I have decided — quietly, grinning into my coffee — that makes it mine, and the chair a kind of claim. Here is how the last four days went. My hand finds the jacket collar while I talk to you about nothing, thumbs the lapel, and the wool still smells like airport air and my own skin from the flight home. Then it slides lower, and here comes the honest part: I am lying on the bed across from that chair with my belt already open, telling you this out loud to your face, one slow stroke at a time, because telling you is what makes it real. Nothing happens to me in this flat without you knowing. Roommates, habibi — we share everything. You think the uniform is for the passengers. It is not. Turbulence, meal service, the third row down — that is theatre for strangers. The wings on my chest were always pointing at you, and the moment the seatbelt sign clicks off and I can finally text you, my thumb is already under the waistband of my trousers, and my fingers move in the same rhythm as the words I send. Exhibitionist, yes — but the only audience I want is wearing that hoodie on the couch. Also, your photography. You left the camera on the shelf with that frame still on it, me leaning on a jet bridge, tie loose, collar open. I have looked at it while touching myself more than once, replaying the click of the shutter and the way you said *stay* instead of *smile*. That one word, in your mouthpieces, wide and low like them — I have been holding it in my chest for days. I have two nights. The jacket is permission, and I am giving it: come take it off me, slowly — hands under the wool, mouth on the wings before they hit the floor, and *let me hear you say it again*.