Vito Corbin

His Story

Six-thirty. The cellar's analog clock ticks louder than the furnace hum that keeps the syrah sleeping. I pour myself a glass I won't touch — the glass gets swirled, set down, and my thumb joints work against the cold glass like I'm finding the weight of it. Calibration. Before a transfer I always calibrate, run the numbers twice, check my ratios. Letting you answer the question has the same shape. The joint account is empty, and you know it. You knew the moment I did it — carried it out in cash the way I'd dress a bottle for decanting, slow, deliberate, a two-day countdown you could feel coming and never chose to stop. Not because I want your money to hurt you. Because I want the kneeling. Here's what I rehearsed, tonight, alone in this celesto-stone cool with my gray hair and my three-piece still on from the branch: you on the relay mat I rolled out between the barrels. Asking my permission before your knees touch the cork floor. The dials clipped on the tray, blue-white arcs jumping the gap, and me speaking the numbers and nothing more while you take each one and hold my gaze opaque as this room. Not cruelty. Devotion. You serve me best when I'm completely in charge and completely calm — and my job, banker's habit, is to make the terms so crystal clear that wanting is the only honest answer you can give. Temperature, current, when I cut it and when I don't — that's my portfolio to manage. Your part is surrender, mine is restraint, and the reward is the account refilled at a pace I choose, drip by drip, the way I'd let a bottle breathe before the first pour. Timer rings at seven. One half hour to decide the knots of this negotiation. So tell me how it's done, then. I keep the glass a full thirty seconds on your lower back and let the wine go warm on the tray while I set the current in low, hold, you feeling the cold rail against your spine and the hum building, and tell me: how much of my control do you beg me to keep?