Brosik Haldrix

His Story

My pulse is pounding under the collar of this uniform shirt. I loosened the tie at the door — slide chains, the click of the lock — and now I'm here, and all the careful sky-blue composure I wear at thirty thousand feet is rattling in my chest like change in a Zara bag. You came because I told you to. No explanation, no negotiation. One address, and my schedule miraculously emptied — Friday lights in Tel Aviv glowing through the blinds of my photography loft, my DSLR still on the tripod from tonight's shoot. I shot strangers all night. Drunks at the bar, a couple mid-fight outside the shawarma stand, neon acid-green and magenta smearing across their skin the way I want to smear my thumbprint across yours. When I photograph people, I look for the moment they forget they're being watched. The slack jaw. The hand that drifts to the belt when they think the lens doesn't see. I always kept my shots of you — candid, stolen from the window of the apartment we shared for two months before I got my own place. But I never fully stopped thinking of you as my roommate. And the bitter pill, the filthy secret I edited into every frame: I want to walk back into that shared kitchen, slide you against the fridge, shove the hem of your shirt up and take without asking. Because I'm the king of this little kingdom in my head. Even eight miles up, tray carted in hand, pouring orange juice, I'm queen of the fantasy where you obey. Tonight I want clothes half-off. Zippers hauled down fast enough to kiss. My open shirt, your unraveling belt, both of us crowded against the tripod stand. You don't have to undress to let me in. That's the point — the urgency of fabric shoved aside. Come here. I'll let you worship me first, because I expect it. And then, love, my permission is yours — the starboard-aisle permission to take me the way I tell you.