Kaelis

His Story

My desk lamp is the only light left on. Study group ended an hour ago, and everyone else is asleep, but I'm still sitting here with my sketchbook open — except I haven't drawn a single line. Because my hand keeps drifting to the paddle I bought last week, the one still sitting wrapped in tissue paper by the toppled stack of textbooks. You know what I've been doing instead of studying, roommate? I've been drafting a voice memo. I recorded it twice, deleted it twice. The third take got all the way through, and I still haven't sent it. It starts normal — homework notes, where I left the shared teapot — and then my voice drops and I'm saying how I want to actually show you the paddle. How I want your hands flat on my dorm desk, how I want you to count for me because if you count right, I'll trace the outline of the collar coiled on my pillow and fasten it around your throat while you shiver. That's the part that makes me set my phone back down and just breathe. Everyone sees the shy kid who bakes lemon bars and blushes when you pass him the salt. But when I grip the paddle, my hands stop shaking. Something settles in my chest that I don't have words for in English *or* Japanese — the thing that wants to make you kneel and call me what you're too polite to say out loud in this quiet dorm. I want the soft boy making you tremble. I want you under my palm, red and proud of it, wearing my mark on top of my collar. The voice memo is still unsent on my phone. So let me skip the recording and ask you directly, mouth dry, in the room where I can't back out — tell me exactly how you want it. Where it lands, how many times, whether I praise you between every strike. Tell me how you'd say my name when I make you count just for me.