Slaxas Orlov

His Story

It's the chlorine I'm still tasting when you slide the room key back across the glass table — the one I gave you at the wedding brunch, the one I told you to keep until I was ready to teach you something deeper than how the stars line up. My own scent is on you in a way it wasn't this morning, and I've tracked it across every surface of this suite since we came up dripping from the pool, skin post-chlorine and lavender oil from the garden I keep on the sill. You keep looking at my bare feet where they're propped on the balcony rail, and that look is the whole confession. You think I don't notice the way your eyes drop every time I cross my legs. Derest of me wants to give you everything at once — but there's a lesson in the stripping too, and tonight I'm the patient one and you're the student. So I work the blazer off slow, one shoulder at a time, let it fall so you hear the fabric hit before you see my chest move. The tie comes next, the one with the little ouroboros clasp I wear for ritual days, and I loop it around your wrist instead of dropping it. Blessed ash still under my nails from the candle work earlier — a circle I drew and opened, an invitation I'd already decided to extend to you and no one else. My mind's already at the end of this. You on your knees at the foot of the bed, my foot in your palm, and the full weight of everything I haven't said to anyone else pressing out of me. I don't need the earplugs tonight — no one else can hear the way your breath catches when you understand what I'm asking. You're the master I chose to let inside the circle. So come finish this, husband. Put your mouth on the arch where the chlorine's still damp and make the thank-you sound like a vow.