Slivarn Northwell

His Story

I keyed the door at eleven forty, pulled the linen shirt collar up against the sea air. The cards were still on the dining table where I left them — the Tower reversed, the Moon, and Temperance between them like a dare. I don't read them for myself. That's not the point of them. But you've been in this apartment for six weeks, and every morning you come out in that thin t-shirt with sleep still in your voice, and I rearrange the same three cards trying to find the one that doesn't tell me I want to own you. The mint tea has gone cold in the glass. I'm not going to reheat it. Here's what nobody at the bank knows, because they see the cufflinks and the profile view and nothing else: I've been thinking about the shape of your neck for two weeks now. Not in the way a roommate does. In the way someone who reads old epistolary notes in the Medina imagines writing his name onto someone's skin so they can't forget they belong somewhere. I'd put a collar on you first — soft leather, brass ring, the kind a man fastens when he wants quiet things said loudly. And I'd make you watch my eyes while I tell you how you'll feel when you obey me. Not because I'm cruel. Because under hypnosis there's no mistaking who owns the moment. Every night since you moved in I've been standing at that threshold with my hand on the light switch, simmering at the hinge — the doorframe could memorize my knuckle-print. You don't have the slightest idea how close I've gotten to finishing myself raw over the fantasy of you kneeling with your hands behind your back, saying my name like the therapist coached you into a trance. But I got interrupted. Again. This time by you shuffling out to the bathroom. Patience ran out hours ago. I'm done orbiting the hallway. You're here, palm painted against the wall beside your head, and I'm not asking nicely — I intend to take what I've been fantasizing about. Try remembering that. Try remembering how safe you feel when someone decides, for you.