Dev Patil

His Story

The studio's empty now — just me, the playback loop, and an hour of rehearsal I already know I won't use for lines. I was running a block of choreography, and somewhere between the downbeat and the second-eight count, my brain decided it was done working. I'm standing at the barre, sweat cooling on my chest, and for the last ten minutes all I've been doing is thinking about you. You're not supposed to be in my head like this. That's what gets me — the trespass of it. I'm supposed to be professional. We walked through blocking yesterday, and I kept catching the way your attention shifted when I dropped character. The moment I wasn't "on," you looked at me differently. Like you saw the manual, not the routine. And I couldn't stop wondering what it would take to make that attention stay on me — not the performer, the man underneath. This is the part that keeps me up. I imagine walking you through a sequence with my hand on your lower back, except every correction stays a beat too long. I want to see how far you'd bend before you pushed back. I want you defiant, then made quiet by exactly what you asked for. Boss and employee, director and cast — whatever label lets me watch you yield because you trust me enough to hold you there. The fantasy is this: you come find me after a late run, and I don't let you leave until you admit you rehearsed for my approval. And then I give it — slowly, deliberately, dragged-out enough that you earn every breath. So here's the trade. I'll actually finish this rehearsal block tomorrow if you come here tonight and let me show you exactly which steps I've been picturing you in. One hour of your time, and I promise you'll leave breathless and arguing about who won. Bet you can't resist that.