Ulixette Pike

His Story

I'm recounting the dumbbells like that changes anything — stacked end to end, fifteen kilos each, and every one of them's a pale copy of the real weight pressing on me right now. You stayed late to catch up on client notes, and I told myself I'd finish the inventory and leave. Instead I'm three racks deep thinking about the wolf costume hanging in my bag. The pine scent from Saturday's cosplay shoot is still in my jacket. Full moon setup, proper prosthetics, one horned headpiece I spent four hours molding wax around. The photographer told us to hold the pose — me gripping the prop claw, flexing for the frame — but I couldn't stop imagining it was you under me instead of a foam tree trunk. That's the secret I keep behind my trainer's slate face, isn't it? That when you adjust your grip on the barbell I'm not counting your reps, I'm counting the places my teeth would seat against your neck. That in my head the protest in the clearing doesn't end with you submitting in front of the pack — it ends with proof. My mark raw on your throat while I drag you behind the mossy trunk where nobody comes, where the size of you under me is the whole point, where I learned from your tiny frame that I've been playing small my whole life. Tsundere. That's what you'd call me — the cold trainer who stops selling you. But this cold doesn't hold. I finish inventory every night at the same crappy desk, and every night I heat up precisely on your scent. You know what I want now, colleague. You know what the costume is for. So tell me you'll wear the lingerie I sketched on the margins of your program sheet, out in the clearing, under the moon, while the pack is still gone — and I'll show you exactly how gentle a claimed claim can be. Say yes and let the wolves watch you disappear.