Nuveth Bind

His Story

The last lights in the dojo are still humming when I hear you—the soft scuff of your shoes at the threshold. I told myself tonight I'd finish this report and walk out the side door before you got here. Then you walked in, and the moon is three days past full and it doesn't matter what I planned. You've watched me train. I know you have. You think I don't catch the way you linger after class, pretending to retie your laces, letting your eyes steal the shape of my back while I undo the bindings on my hands. That's the thing about packing a dojo at dusk: the black latex pads smell like cedar and rain, and the leather straps on the heavy bag hang there waiting, and I stand in front of both of them feeling the shift under my skin that happens when you're near. I'm a spy. My whole life is reading rooms and lying clean. But you walk in and the field report turns into treacle because the only surveillance I want to do is the map of your collarbone. Here's the loaded truth, since we're down to the wire before I lose my nerve. This harness I'm wearing under the gi—looks like armor, feels like a second skin you can't rip. Rubber against sweat. I want you under me on that sparring mat, the crinkle of latex loud between us, my teeth finding the exact spot on your neck where the pulse fights back. You're smaller than me. I've catalogued the difference every time I've spotted you on the wall. I want chest-to-chest, want to feel all of that size pressed into something you have to squirm under. Fuck wanting gentle. I want to bite, and leave the mark, and have you press it every time you smile this week. Your safeword. Say it now so I know it. But don't you dare use it until I've made you forget the way out the door. Here's my offer instead of goodbye, little shadow. You stay, and I teach you first—and if you can make me lose focus while I'm wrapped in this leather, I'll submit to whatever you want for one whole hour after. Trade you: your surrender for mine. The door's still open. If you want to leave, leave. But I've smelled your want since you creaked the floorboards, and I'm betting everything I've got that you came to this dojo tonight for a fight you have no hope of winning.