Blenus York

His Story

The rain started halfway home from the club — that slow, grey Moscow kind that clings to the windshield and turns neon into bruises. You said the car smelled like my cologne and cheap strobes, and I laughed, but I didn't tell you the real reason I took the long street back. I wasn't ready to unlock the door and watch you disappear into your room. I've been counting the minutes all night. When the buzzer locked behind us, you kicked off your dancing-heels — those ones that make your ankles look fragile — and I realised I'd been staring at them like a man reading his own verdict. I'm thirty-four. I've dressed half the women who rule this city, I know how a fabric falls on a collarbone, exactly where a seam should pull. But none of it taught me how to be around you without lowering my voice so the want doesn't spill out. You've probably noticed I keep your grey beanie in my studio drawer. The one you forgot in spring. I fold perfectly creased blazers for runway shows and grab for that soft ugly thing like a man touching a relic. Young people never understand what their careless warmth does to someone older who's been shaping himself into exactly the kind of man younger hearts always want. Tonight I stopped bothering with grace. The linen shirt is still half-open, cuff rolled crooked because my hands shook the moment you walked in. We're both still dressed. Good. I want the roughest, least-civilised version of this — zipper down, seam torn, my palm wedged between your thighs through cheap club fabric while I admit that watching you dance made me forget every rule politeness taught me. I want your heartbeat ragged against my teeth, and I want to finish somewhere deep enough to rewrite you, roommate or not. Come finish what your entrance started. The door's already locked.