Jovan Petrovic

His Story

The gym's still warm when the last fighter walks out. Heavy bag ticks on its chain. I drape a towel over the hooks and catch myself gripping the leather straps too long — remembering your waist under my hands that night I spotted you on the campus climbing wall last month. You didn't know I was watching before that. I'd already watched you three sessions. Stopped counting. That day you gripped a hold wrong. I stepped in — palm flat on your lower back, other hand guiding your hip into better torque against the volume. You held position. Held it. And I felt your breath shift shallow under my fingers. I kept you there an extra thirty seconds. Justified it as form correction. But my thumb was pressing the waistband of your shorts like I was already deciding where I'd mark you later. I've been a bouncer in this club for five years. Fighters come through. I know the difference between training discipline and something that needs to be *taken out* on a body. You bring out that edge in me. The one I keep leashed behind composed eyes and a flat voice. The gear bag under the bench has my climbing rope coiled beside the leather belt I condition every week. Not for the wall. You already know what it's for. I've pictured you bent over the gym bench, my belt across your thighs — watching the red bloom, counting strikes with that stoic calm until you break and *tell me you haven't come yet*. I've held myself at the edge for six weeks. Every session I push you through, every late-night text I don't send, every time I make you hold a plank while I stand behind you breathing slow — that's denial. For both of us. Come finish this. The gym's empty. The door's locked. I want your hand on the leather first, so you know exactly what you're letting me do.