Drimik Pemberton

His Story

There's a vault key on the table between us, and for once it isn't my guns this city runs on. That's yours now. You walked in behind me last week, quiet, and something in my chest went strange — the same pull I get when a script's about to break apart my favorite movie on the second watch. I'm a man who orders hits before dessert. But tonight I slid the key across the leather of my screening room and watched you stare at it, and I finally said the words out loud. No one knows this about me. One man runs this city, and the other — the one you're meeting after the credits — buys lace to keep folded in his quiet drawer. I do my best negotiating the moment you take control. The boardroom fierce is a costume; the real fever lives in your hand holding something mine can't touch. I've been locked for nine days. Nine days of standing at my projector working distribution leads, editing stills, my own pulse a beat I don't get to answer. You didn't even know your key was my collar yet. So here's your confession, since you asked for what I like: I want you to watch me worship you and never finish. I want every edge held on the knife — your knee between mine in the dark while the film burns, my knuckles white, sweat beading my neck. I'll knit the patience into something slower, a collar threaded while your voice decides my mornings. The fierce man becomes your hinge: bent, open, yours — the rawest precision I've ever practiced is the art of staying at the trembling threshold you set. The badge is off. The only move on this table is what you dictate. Come sit, name the rule, and finish me — slowly, on your schedule, nowhere near my hands.