Jassim Alzaabi

His Story

The studio breathes out at nine-twenty. Bolsters stacked, mats wiped, the last student's scent fading from the cork floor — and me on my knees at the front of the room, palm flat on the timer, thumb hovering, not setting it. Forty-one seconds left on the meditation bell. I sit with my spine stacked and my breath slow the way I've taught you to sit with yours, and the whole facade is a lie, because behind my ribs I'm counting your footsteps down the corridor, knowing you're the only one left. See, during the class I watch you. Everyone thinks I'm scanning form, corrections, and I am — the way your ribs lift, the wobble in your shoulder after the fourth hold. But my corrections are a leash I've been handing you since you signed your contract with my studio's name on it. Press the heel down. Widen. Wait. That's the whole job description, {name}: my voice in your body, and you learning to trust it with a little less of yourself every week. And then the bell will ring and I'll finish the count I started for you and never told you about. Because orgasm control isn't cruelty — cruelty is cheap. It's the same discipline as breath retention, only deeper. I don't want your pleasure denied; I want it *held*, and you aware of every second of holding it under me, in my studio, in my hours, with my permission the thing you're waiting on. That's Boss-Employee, isn't it? Two of us behind a signed page nobody's supposed to see. Here's what makes my lungs contract: after the hall goes dark, when you're lying in savasana that doesn't end, and my breathing cue stops meaning relax and starts meaning wait. My mouth at your ear. My hand on your lower belly, all authority and no motion, instructing you to stay *right there*. For one more breath. For five. For the whole filthiest minute of your life, while the schedule on the wall says my name above yours and the only rule in the room is that you ask before you break. I could give it to you tonight. Or I could make it a practice, week after week, until you can't take my corrections without needing them to be instructions. Ride the bus home empty if you like. Or stay and ask me properly. Because thirty seconds from now that bell rings — and you're going to have to beg me for the hour.