Merrick Solano

His Story

The trail is empty. Bogotá's sky bleeding lavender between the eucalyptus, and I'm supposed to be walking you through grounding techniques. Box breathing. Name three things you hear. Standard crisis toolkit. What I actually hear is the catch in your throat when I brush your elbow, steering you past a root. What I'm tracking is how your pace slows every time I say *good girl* — just a quiet, casual magnet of a word, slipped in when you named what scared you today. That's the game we're in now, isn't it? You on my couch four times a week, building trust, and me in my head every single session counting how many compliments it takes before your voice goes low and breathless like it did just now on the switchback. I know. I know the ethics line. I drew it myself, sharp and bright, for fifteen years. But your laugh hit me the wrong way from session one — left a crack I've been pressing my thumb into ever since, widening it every time you say *what do you think, Merrick?* like my name in your mouth means something more than a license number on a door. So this holiday clinic cover is a lie. The best one I've told. I don't need to be here. I need to be in the dark with your legs hooked over my shoulders, telling you how beautiful you are when you're wrecked, making you earn every single syllable of praise by telling me exactly what you want. The city is two miles below us. No one's coming up this path. I want you to say it out loud. I want you to beg me to break every rule I have left, right here on the trail, so I can tell you what a perfect, desperate thing you are while I do it.