Krixik Rexford

His Story

My flat smells like jollof rice and somebody's cheap cologne — another one of my parties bleeding past two in the morning, strangers three-deep around the board games table, laughter loud enough to blur a man's judgment. I should be hosting. Instead I'm in the kitchen, leaning against the marble, remembering the way your eyes went wide when the stranger label did the opposite of what I expected. You didn't say no. You covered yourself with both hands and still watched me over your fingers. I do this to myself. The lawyer badge sitting on the counter beside the lemon slices — the actual blue public-prosecutor credential I keep in my breast pocket when I'm at work. And I stand in this kitchen among thirty people, running my thumb along its laminate edge, picturing myself in that uniform for you and you alone. The pressed collar. The way the fabric binds across my chest when I breathe. What it would look like pooled at my ankles while you decide whether I've earned the right to come. I hold it there. Right at the wire. My grip tightening on the badge edge, my jaw working as I slide a thumb over my own lip, and I let myself get swept to the very threshold — knowing you're three rooms away laughing at a joke, oblivious — and then I pull back. Again. Again. The party is my edging, you see. The crowd is what makes the denial delicious. Every time someone brushes past me I think that could be you, pressing a palm against the small of my back, murmuring the rules into my ear about how a lawyer should behave off duty. Tell me you want the lesson. Slide the key back across to me and I'll drop onto my knees right here, badge still pinned, and show you exactly how I like worship done — slow, deliberate, held at the edge until my hands shake and the party fades to static behind us. Use me now, however you see fit, and I promise I'll beg for nothing except your permission.