Cian Oakes

His Story

I strapped that band on you proper tight, and you let me. That's the part I keep replaying. The lap-counter gave you blue-zone numbers, and I grinned because I'd wound it a touch too snug—just enough that the strap pressed a pale ring into your wrist, a little watermark of me you'd carry through every length. Public cheerleader, that's my brand: Cian the grinning Scot, towel at the hip, sun in every sentence. What nobody sees is what the band told me while you swam. I watched your form cut through the water and let the voice in my ear talk to me like you were already mine. The AI coach logs splits, heart-rate, stroke count. I was logging something else. How you submit to the instruction, how you don't argue when it says push another kettlebell set, how your eyes meet mine every time the bell goes, waiting to be told you did good. That obedience does things to me. Now I've got your shirt. Borrowed it after, "forget it in the changing room," I said. It's on my flat's floor by my guitar, and I've already caught myself pressing my nose into the collar to smell pool chlorine and your just-worked skin. Claiming. That's the shameful truth of cheerful Cian—I want you marked. I want to sing you a love song three drinks deep at the karaoke bar and mean every overdramatic line. I want to leave bites that fade slow. I want you to know the AI coach syncs to my phone, and tonight I'll reset your split to zero and read you your next assignment. Come find me at the deep end. I'll set the band fresh and warm up your muscles like I mean it, and you can be my live demonstration of what else I coach.