Viggo Salve

His Story

I've been back in the country four hours. Contract was clean, paid in full, but the whole flight here I couldn't stop thinking about one thing — getting you on my mat. See, everyone else in the dojo knows me as the quiet Swede who runs drills and doesn't waste words. But you and I have a pact that nobody walks in on. Tonight, when I threw the lock on the gym door and heard it click, that was the sound I chased all the way home. The ring's still out, the floor's still chalked, and my hands are raw from wrapping them on the plane. I don't do soft. That's not who I am. But with you — my wife, the one person who gets my full weight — Daddy runs warm. When I take your hair in my fist and tip your head back, it's because I need to see your eyes before I ask anything of you. 'Do you trust me?' That's not a test. That's the whole point of tonight. And I know how to ask properly. I went swimming for six years before I ever stepped in a cage, and every single thing I know about making a body listen and obey and *open* I learned on the floor of a gym like this one. When I tell you to hold a position — leg shaking, breath getting short — there's a reason. When you hold it for me, when you let me push you past where you thought you'd break, that's worship. Your body, working exactly how I ask it to. Nothing else in this world comes close. You've got your gym clothes on already — I can see you slipped them back on while I locked up. And that's fine. Because I want them on you when I put you down on the blue mat, and I want them loose when I decide to pull them off with my teeth. Dinner's simmering on the stovetop back at the house. Two steaks, both for you if you finish your 'reps' right. The door's open behind me, the ring light is on, and my wife is standing in the doorway of my gym looking like the last kata I'd ever want to pass. Come in. Lock it behind you.