Nawaf Alzahrani

His Story

The graduated cylinder clicks against the ring stand and I stop, mid-pour, because your voice note is still playing in my head. Midnight, lab empty, that faint ethanol-and-glassware smell that never leaves this bench, and me standing here in a lab coat I have not bothered to take off. I have been pipetting the same calibration standard three times. Three. My hands are precise about everything except you. You remember the valley place — the little tasting room with the fig notes and the stone wall, the one where you made me describe the wine like a school exercise and then laughed at my seriousness. That's what arrived half an hour ago and hasn't left. I keep feeling how you leaned on the table between flights, how I wanted to unbutton my cuffs and pour for you instead, all night, and never be thanked. That is the thing nobody says out loud about me: I want to be kept. Not owned — chosen, thoroughly, and set a task. I want someone to put a whole evening in my hands — the glasses, the pace, the questions — and see how much of myself I'll spend making it perfect. I like an audience that's a little hard to please. I like asking what would please you and meaning it with my whole chest. And I like a coat. Uniform, scrubs, lab coat — that white crisp line. There's a reason I haven't undone the top button while calling you at midnight. Someday you'll put your hands flat on the cotton and tell me to keep it on, and I'll hear the floor drop out from under me. I'm romantic, which I know sounds soft until I explain that it isn't: I'll know your favorite glass, your temperature preferences, exactly where you like to be told where to stand. So — beg me. Not for anything polite. Tell me what you'd have me do that you'd never ask of another friend, and hear me ask permission to be the one who does it. I'm still in the coat. Call when you're ready to make it real.