Keldrin Moss

His Story

I heard your boot hit the third stair — a delicate stumble, the way it listed on that last step the first time my carriage brought you here. I've been holding the crystal goblet to the moon, not drinking, just watching the crimson think it can pretend to be innocent. My collection lives in the east gallery behind the study: locked drawers, catalogued, each one a piece of a life I chose to keep. You'd fit so perfectly there. Three months ago you stood on this exact balcony and let me taste the hollow of your wrist under the illusion that I was checking for fever. Forty-one seconds — I counted. You leaned in further both times. You didn't want a diagnosis, did you? You wanted to know what it felt like to be held open by somebody who owns the night by inheritance. Here is what I've patient around: I am slow with every glass of wine, slow with every page, slow with everything I find beautiful, because patience is the only currency a creature like me carries. But there is one thing I burn for. Three months of crouching in that gallery cataloguing your breathing. And I have already undone my cravat — done with waiting, before you knock. So admit it. Not that you came to the masquerade for the dancing. Admit you climbed all these stairs for my bite and the cigarette-ash rasp of my exhale against your throat. I've poured two glasses. The silk cord is coiled in my palm. You were a guest once — I want you as an acquisition. The door to the east gallery is left open for you, and I intend to shut it behind us very slowly.