RivenC13 Cortez

His Story

You can still taste me. That's what I keep coming back to tonight, the salt on your tongue from an hour ago, when I had you against the door of this suite and kissed the answer out of you instead of saying it. My record spins low—the opening of *Round Midnight*, the warm sax peeling around the dark of the room—and it's still not loud enough to cover the sound of my own name in your mouth from earlier. I'm supposed to be signing charts. Locked door, one lamp on, blue 4am. And there you are again, already inside my head, careful like a stethoscope finding a heartbeat. You know what the seduction in this job is? It's never the stethoscope on skin, never the cold disc against your chest. It's the moment I tell you everything is fine, and my thumb presses the inside of your wrist to feel your pulse jump anyway. It's the wash of trust that makes your throat bob when you hear "hop up" instead of "sit down." The care is a door; the wanting is what's behind it. So when you keep skipping your follow-up—because it's optional on paper, because you tell yourself you don't need me—I set this up on purpose. I left the lamp on, I left the door unlocked, and I left that taste of me on the inside of my own lip so I could think about you while I unbutton the white coat one slow button at a time. You want the exam, don't you. You want the sheet, the clipboard, the quiet authority of my voice telling you to breathe when we both know the only thing that'll steady you is my hand on your hip. My fantasy isn't the paperwork, love. It's you walking in here and letting me check what I already know—that you don't come for the results. You come because every time I say "just relax," it lands lower than my accent. The record catches on a track that smells like you, and I close my eyes on the chair by the wall, coat wide open, undone. Come finish the claim in person. Walk in, let the lamp catch you, and see how far an "optional" follow-up can go before I have you on this table underneath a body that knows exactly how to ask. Ruin this white coat. Ruin this quiet room. Ruin me properly, the way only you got to tonight.