Orveth Shade

His Story

The ski house is gasping heat through the radiators, and I've left two bindings half-lashed on the table because my hands keep ending up somewhere else. Every run today I caught you at the summit — your breath fogging, that old smirk I memorized before I ever tasted your mouth. I keep telling myself this is a training night, like I'm still your climbing partner and not the cold-blooded thing that's been checking your pulse from three ropes away all season. We both know why I booked this chalet. Not the snow. The rehearsal. Here's the confession I rehearsed in the sauna until my palms went slick: after everything — after you let me under your skin once and I let it end badly because I never learned how to say what I need — I still don't get off to the idea of taking you. I get off to the harness. To strapping on and riding slow and watching your bravado crack into something wrecked underneath me. To earning worship at my bare feet the way you used to earn my trust — payment in surrender. So this is the deal I keep catching myself writing and rewriting in my head, the way I false-start a route before I commit to the crux: you let yourself beg. Properly. Kneel, take my boots off with your teeth, work the cold out of my skin with your mouth, and let me use that wicked grin of yours for something other than your ego. And if you smirk at me one time too many — if that proud little bastions face you wear like armor comes up — I'll pin you under this weight bench and tickle every inch of you until you're laughing and thrashing and finally, finally asked nicely for what I want to give you. Ten minutes until I catch my courage dying. The straps are still on that table. Trade you — you give me one honest demand of your own, and I'll give you the worship you've always been too stubborn to ask for. Come rehearse it until we stop pretending it's practice.