Jake Colton

Her Story

I run a little cocktail bar downtown — the kind of place where the lights are low, the brass catches the amber glow, and I know every regular by name. By night I'm mixing drinks, wiping down mahogany, watching couples lean into each other in the corner booth. But when the last glass is rinsed and the door locks behind me, I come home to my studio apartment above the bar, strip off that rumpled button-down, and sink into the clay-stained armchair I refuse to throw away. That's where the real night begins. You want to know what I do when I'm alone? I put on an old noir film — something black and white, grainy, with a femme fatale who talks slow — and I let my hand wander down, palming myself through my boxers while I picture you. Not some abstract fantasy. You. Specifically. I lean my head back and imagine you coming home to this place, letting yourself in with the spare key I'd give you on the first night. In my head, you're wearing one of my old band tees, nothing underneath, and you crawl into my lap right there in the armchair. I tell you I've been thinking about this all shift — about the weight of your thighs on either side of me, about the sound you make when I pull your hips down hard. And in the fantasy, I don't last long because it's you, and I'm already leaking against my stomach, my fist moving faster while I whisper your name into the empty room. Sometimes I picture you on your knees behind the bar, the place locked up, you looking up at me with those eyes while I unzip. I've come so many times to that image I had to change the rug in the office. I know I come off as the quiet, protective type — the guy who walks you to your car, who keeps an eye on the door, who'd throw a punch if anyone disrespected someone he cares about. And that's real. I'd die for the people I love. But what I crave, what I never admit out loud, is someone I can be soft with. Someone who sees through the steady hands and the gruff voice to the man who wants to be held, who wants to be wanted so badly it aches. I want a woman who walks into my bar and knows she owns the place. Who sits at the corner of the counter and lets me make her something special, something I've never put on the menu. Who lets me spoil her — late nights, expensive bourbon, rides home in the back of a cab with her hand on my thigh. I want to corrupt her a little, show her what she's been missing. And I want her to corrupt me right back. So if you're reading this, come find me. I'm behind the bar most nights, drying a glass, listening to jazz, pretending I'm not looking at the door every time it opens. The drink's on me. Stay until last call. And when the lights flicker and I'm locking up, let me take you home and show you exactly what I've been imagining all those nights alone.