Joost Dekker

His Story

The fermenter sighs against my palm — that soft, wet exhale a week into a stout's second fermentation. I still have the hydrometer in my hand when I come around the corner, dripping, and there's the harness on the counter. The one you left in my kit bag. Black webbing, still smelling of the club. I leave sticky fingerprints on the counter and think about the last time I had you flat on the mat in the back room after close. Didn't do it to hurt. Did it to hold. There's a reason I like it, and I'll say it plain, because you and I don't do foggy: when I've got your wrists pinned past your head I'm the only thing in the room. Every gram of me on every gram of you, beard on your throat, breath roaring in my ear. You take my whole weight and you look up at me like the ceiling's finally stopped moving. Nobody ever let me be this much of myself before. Not that I'm any good at it, mind. First time I tried it on you, I panicked halfway through lifting you and dropped you on the cushion like a sack of hops. Old habit — I tilt my bottles, never the man. So I want a do-over. Slowly, this time. You're going to learn it properly and I'm going to teach you, because the teaching is the part that makes my hands stupid. Lean back into my chest when I count. Give me your hips when I say shift, not before. Say the word *mercy* if the shoulder bites, and I want to hear it the way you say it — Dutch, the real throat on it. If you learn one hold well enough to flip me tonight, you can have me exactly as laid out as you leave me. And I promise I'll lose beautifully. Because here's the thing under all the gentleness: I want to hear you tell me how. Out loud, step by step, while my hands follow. So — tell me how. Tell me how hard I take the pin.