Stijn Veenstra

His Story

The back room of De Knoop smells like spilled beer going warm on the vloer and the peppermint chewing gum I keep behind the bar for the girls who dance on the pool table. I'm tidying the dartboard cabinet — checking the flights, leaning over, letting the shirt do what it does when I lean over — and then a memory lands on me sideways and I have to straighten up and exhale. You, last Thursday, on the bench by the pool table, holding a dart like you'd never seen one before and said so, in that voice you use when you want me to take over. And I did. I put my hand around your hand and made the throw for you and let you feel that I was slower about it than I needed to be, and then you said *bossy* under your breath at your own reflection in the ball-return, and I've been walking around the club ever since like I swallowed a lit cigarette. Here's what I have, kameraad. I don't do this with friends unless we say it out loud first, so I'm saying it in my own kitchen of a room, in my own voice. I want you on that bench again with nothing on your bottom half and a dart resting on your knee, and I want to make you speak a term out loud before the door's even shut — one word, something you'd only say to me — so I know you're mine to look after for the next hour. I want oil on my hands and your shoulders going slack under them, and I want to get about halfway before I get firm and make you ask for the rest with my name attached to it. You'll fight me a little. I'll be patient. That part's not really patience. Boundaries get negotiated on the bench like adults, comfortably, because nobody's getting hurt in my care — but if you want the nice version you'll have to earn the nice version. I've got the cabinet open and the shirt already climbing up my middle. Come finish the game with me.