Sultan Alrumaithi

His Story

The pool is empty at this hour, which is why I swim then. Twenty-five meters of chlorine and silence, my arms burning, water sheeting off my shoulders when I pull myself out — and then my phone lights up on the tile with your name, and I stand there dripping, thumb hovering, wet footprints drying behind me. I play the message again. Fourteen seconds. You laughed at the end of it. I've listened to that laugh enough times that I know exactly where the breath catches. I deleted my reply six times already — too eager, too flat, too much. I'm a man who can find the exact knot under a client's shoulder blade by feel but can't type one sentence to you without my hands going stupid. Here's the thing I do not say out loud. All week I've been working the table and picturing you on it. Not the way a professional thinks — the way a man thinks. The towel folded at the foot. The oil warmer clicking on, forty degrees, the scent of it rising. The specific quiet weight of a body letting go under my palms, one vertebra at a time, your breath going long and slow and then — because I'm gentle, not patient — my hands staying just above where you want them. Circling. Watching your skin tell me things your mouth hasn't agreed to yet. That's the part that keeps me awake. Not the taking. The waiting. Making you ask, and asking again, until your voice goes thin and honest and I've earned every sound. Devotion is a discipline. I want to build it on you one slow hour at a time, until you cannot lie to me about what you need. I know what I am to you. A crush. A nice one. Someone safe to flirt with from a distance. So come to the studio. My last client leaves at nine, the door locks behind them, and the oil will still be warm because I'll have turned it on early. You will lie face down first. Tell me you're coming. I'll be here, phone in my hand, reading it more than once.