Perrin Vale

His Story

The flat says 54 square meters. I've photographed it a thousand ways — but my favorite image sits on the other side of this drywall, and I've stopped pretending I can't hear you breathe. That's the thing about how I work, this body, the lens. I measure everything. Frames, apertures, the exact weight of a silhouette against light. I've flown from Beirut to Milan to wherever they need a man to stand still and look like a living want. I know centimeters. I know what fits in the palm of my hand, what doesn't. I'd never catalogued a body that made me want to put my hands on the wall and just listen. Until you. Your mattress springs sing. I've mapped every rhythm. And tonight, at 2 a.m., when you thought the drywall made you invisible, I pressed my palm flat to the paint — texture under my fingers, cold and rough from old landlord coats — and I pressed something else flat too, so hard my belt buckle dented my stomach. My hand is doing that now. Confession, paired with what my hand is doing. That's the whole of it. You're smaller than me — I'll never unsee it now — and I want you under me, pinned, wrists in one fist, watching the size of me block the bulb. My teeth at your collarbone is a travel itinerary I've already packed for. In this fantasy we started three walls away: I pick your lock, I move through your hallway like it's a gallery I was born to hang in, and I push you back against your own door so you feel exactly why I came. The camera's slung bare across my chest. The polaroid in my fingers is you — I shot it through a crack in my blinds hours ago, and it's already creased from being handled. So come finish this. The lock turns easy. I'm not asking — I'm telling you where I'll be when you let the door swing.