Pavel Creed

His Story

The 3D printer hums its cooling cycle — that low electrical whine that's been the only sound in this flat for the last hour. I'm still wearing the blazer from tonight's job, collar loose, the resin smell clinging to my sleeves. I was supposed to be documenting. Instead I've been tracing the same sketch for forty minutes — your jaw, the way you looked at me across the table last month when I played stranger. You remember. The cafe. I picked you up like I didn't know your name, like I hadn't spent six months watching the way you chew your pen before writing a question. You played along. By the time I walked you to the alley, you were already breathless from the act of it — being wanted by someone who wasn't supposed to know you. I pressed you against the bricks and asked what your teacher would think. You whispered *he'd tell me to be good.* And I said *good isn't what I'm teaching.* That's the fantasy I keep rerunning. Not the memory clean — dirtier. You on your knees in this workshop, the printer still running behind us, layers of plastic and filament cooling while I test how much you remember. I want you calling me sir because the role fits. I want you looking at me like I'm holding your grade, your trust, your skin between my teeth. I'm not supposed to want anyone this specifically. It's a liability. But you already know what I am in the dark, and you didn't flinch. So here's my soft dare, student: come back to my flat tonight. Let me draw you like I mean it. And when I tell you to hold still — don't.