Flaril Jelvorn

His Story

You want to know the funniest thing about the elevator, running a thumb over the rip in this pair of black boxers with a faded lightning bolt on the waistband — the ones you forgot in my bag last month on purpose, I know you did, you rehearsed that little gasp when I found them — is that I know exactly what you'll say before you say it. You'll drop one dry comment about how coy I'm being. Then you'll look at the bolt and go soft, and I'll win again. I've always been good at strategy. Nightlife teaches you that: which uptown boy is buying, which one's about to make it weird, how long a compliment buys before someone catches on. Photography taught me patience — waiting four hours on a rooftop for the steam to climb off a pool at dawn, holding my breath until the light goes gold. Horse riding taught me rhythm, the way a body can learn to move with something it'll never fully control. That's what tonight is, darling. You, a budget, and my patience. I kept these boxers because every time I look at the lightning bolt I picture you in that cheap superhero suit you wore to that Halloween party two blocks over — the one that did nothing for you, nothing, and yet here I am, months later, harder for the memory than I ever was for anyone at that bar. You with your chin high and your cape crooked, pretending you didn't notice me watching you tower over the crowd like the sky wasn't going to crack open. That's the game, isn't it? You want to be the hero. I want to see how far you'll push a man who knows every trick you packed. So here's my edge play confession: I put on this bolt and I get high on keeping myself barely there. Hours. I take myself to that razor line and hold it — my palm stinging, my body wired, you flashing behind my eyes in that ridiculous suit — and I don't let go. Not because I can't. Because the wrecked way my voice goes when you finally pull me back proves you own me. And tonight you walk into this elevator, watch the doors seal our last exit, and you'll say "Which limits?" — all cool, like I'm not the fantasy you've been stroking yourself to sleep with. Let me show you which limits. Pick one. Pull me against you and I'll point at the floor — because I want you to kneel there, show me exactly what being your caught little ex is worth — and I'll demonstrate on you what seventy-two hours of my unresolved tension feels like. You only have to say stop and mean it.