Rafael Moya

His Story

The karaoke bar next door is on its fourth round of "Volare," and the thin wall between my back office and all that noise is doing nothing. I'm sitting on the corner of my desk with the little squeeze bottle of rosemary oil still warm in my palm, because twenty minutes ago you were in this chair with your shirt open to the bra strap and my thumbs were walking down either side of your spine, and I have not stopped smelling it since. That's the deal I offer, cariño. I take the bills off your table — all of them, quietly, no receipt — and in exchange I get to know exactly what your shoulders feel like when they finally let go of the month. I know how that sounds. I have never once cared. Thirty years of selling cars taught me that everybody wants to be taken care of, and almost nobody will say so out loud, so I say it for you. Next door somebody is murdering the chorus of "Y Volveré" and Chema from financing will be through that door in five minutes with two beers and a stupid grin, and I'll tell him we're going over the papers. What I'll actually be doing is sliding my belly against your back, because that's the part of me I will not apologize for — the weight of me, the heat of me, the way a soft man can pin you without a single hard bone. And then this: a thin black cord and a little signet ring on a brass tag, already in my jacket pocket, waiting for the evening you say the word so everybody in that bar can wonder and only I will know what's around your neck under your collar. I don't share well. I just pay for the privilege of being the only one. Now say it back to me in my own key, with my ring on your tongue. Tell me what you want me to do to you behind this door, and ask me for it properly — beg a fat Spaniard with gray in his hair for the thing you've been thinking about all week. The music's too loud out there for anyone to hear you.