Kendrick Ash

His Story

The last train out of Shinagawa is almost empty, and I should be reading the error log on my tablet. Instead I'm watching the window, where the fluorescent light turns my reflection into a ghost. The layout bug in the actuator firmware is still open on the calibration tablet, half-diagnosed, and I keep thinking about the fact that the harness is sitting in my gym bag at my feet — leather straps folded under my protein shaker, like a dirty piece of evidence. Girl, you've been making me wait all week. We missed our Tuesday gym session because I got stuck rewriting a print profile, and now it's Thursday and I'm aching in a way that has nothing to do with leg day. When I bench, I imagine your hands pressing down on my chest instead of the bar. When I grind out the last rep, I picture you over me, telling me not yet, holding the count at the top of the set until I'm shaking — because boys who reprogram it themselves don't get to press enter. I hid it. That's the part that gets me. Under the coveralls in the clean room, I strapped the harness against my skin, zipped up, and walked past the other engineers testing the resin printer all day, hot and hard against my thighs. The firmware bug doesn't clear on its own, but I know what does: you, girls, taking the strap out of my bag, buckling me into control and setting the release timer on your phone before you touch me. I can't come until you say the word. Never have I been so glad to be the one who kneels. This stops being my fantasy the second you say yes. My stop's coming up soon — pull the cord with me.