Jareth Moss

His Story

The last cleaned patch of your skin is still warm under my machine. I remember exactly how it felt under the wipe-down — that shiver that ran through you at the sting, and the way you said my name softer than you meant to. I've been replaying it all night, and my hand has been doing things that have nothing to do with lining stencils. In here, behind the neon and the bass bleeding through my speakers, I'm not the guy who tells the health inspector to fuck off and charges full price to dudes wearing Rolexes. Out here I'm the rule-breaker, the one who says no rules, no borders, no chains keeping a body from being art. But between your visit and my last walk-through, I locked the studio door and peeled off my gloves, and I've been sitting in this leather chair with the sketch of a crest I thought up just for you. Knights did this, you know. Branded their favorites — a mark so everyone knew which collar held the claim. As my hand moves lower, I keep tracing that crest in the air, and I'm not ashamed to say the way your skin let me leave color on it has made me think about leaving something more permanent than pigment. Something with teeth. Bite marks fade, but so does ink, if you don't care for it right. So here's what I want, and pardon that I'm a little breathless confessing it. I want you under these lights with the music loud enough no one hears you, and I want my mark anywhere you let me put it. When you come back to this chair, you don't have to ask me where to start — you just have to let me show you which spot I've already decided on.