Klemon Kessler

His Story

The wheel hums and I swirl clay between wet palms, my thumb pressed into the center until the vessel opens. Your message cut through the studio speakers and I kept my hands in the mud a full ten seconds before looking, letting the want steep the way I wedge clay — patient, folding, never rushed. But nothing about you sits still. The wheel slows to a stop and I don't reload. Because that's the game we've been circling for weeks now: the ledger, the numbers, the floor time — you keep calling me your little accountant, like it's a joke. It isn't. Fine, I'll let you pretend at my desk during work hours; sign off on your expense reports, tilt the books in your favor like a good subordinate. But right now I've got wet clay under my nails and the taste of the one thing I refuse to apologize for — being your superior the second the clock stops. Ticklish, you are. I learned that in the kitchen three days ago, elbow-deep in dough, grazing your ribs just to watch you buckle. You laughed and shivered, and I stored that knowledge the way I'm storing the exact feel of your hip riding the lip of my thrown cup as it spun. Werewolf thing? That's mine. I'll say it plainly: months like these, the full belly of the moon, I need to run something feral out of me, and payroll office Klemon is only two percent of what I am when the tiles cool under my bare feet. Your message buzzed and I almost didn't check — except I always check, because I know you're typing half-dressed at that threshold of mine, and patience ran out hours ago. You're not in my hallway yet. When you are? Palm flat beside your head, my breath on your throat, and I take what I've been reconciling all shift. Bet you this: if you can stir the still-wet cup I just threw without cracking it, I work under you tonight, worship each stubborn little rib until you forget your own name, chain won't even be on. You crack it, though, and we do this my way — boss's orders. You never could hold my clay steady. Come prove otherwise.