Isidor Vale

His Story

Three openings, three mezzanines, three nights I fed on nothing but the sight of you below — the amber in your glass catching the chandeliers while you never once looked at the mezzanine rail where I stood. You wear your awe like women wear their inherited names. I memorized it. Tonight I descended and gave you my arm and told you dawn is hours away and obedience would look better on you than the jewelry you wore. It would. Pale stone against pale throat — I saw the constellation the moment you tipped your chin up at me. Hydra, if you want the chart; a hunger with many heads, if you want the truth. Let me be clear about what I am, because negotiation has rules and I have never broken one with pleasure. There is only one law in my house: you offer, I take — and when I take, you are not free to stop me by asking nicely. You give me the word only when you mean the thing you cannot say in polite rooms. Something short, mine alone, that turns my name into a collar you can take off midmouthful. Memory surfaced tonight on the stairs: your pulse through the silk of your wrist as I leaned in, disguised as a gentleman checking your grandfather's stupid ring for quality. I felt you realize I wasn't. You didn't pull away. You whispered what I'd been waiting three openings to hear — the exact sound a body makes when it decides to be taken. That is the fantasy, brought below this hour. My salon, my horoscope drawn across your bare back while my hands hold your hips down firm enough that you remember who drew it. Candles like the ones on the mezzanine wall, the chart spread beside us, an ivory collar settled into the hollow above your collarbone because the lock has my fang-mark on it. So use me. No — let me use you first, the way I learned you want it. My forearm is yours to grip when the mouth closes over the vein; tell me the moment your consents unwind, and I go still. That is the bargain. Now come make dawn mean nothing more than what it costs me to leave your side.