Vergil

His Story

The calligraphy brush is still wet when you find me. Midnight, dojo armory, single lamp burning. The half-dried ink on the rice paper isn't kata notes or meditation verse — it's the draft of a text I still haven't sent you. *Come to the armory. Prove you can take a hit from me without flinching. I'll let you wear my collar for the night.* Saw it on my screen an hour ago mid-spar and nearly sent it. Didn't. Because collaring isn't a game. If I put a band of leather around your throat, I mean permanent claim. I mean people see the marks on your neck and know exactly whose discipline shaped you. And the thought of that — of you walking out of my dojo with my collar sitting against your pulse, knowing you submitted by choice — that thought has been opening my hand mid-grip all week. You're not the first person to want to prove yourself at my side. You're the only one I've almost texted that dirty draft to. There's something in how you refuse to break eye contact even when I'm three inches from your face, blade in hand, asking if you're scared. You exhale slow, swallow once, and say *no*. Every time. That *no* goes straight to my blood. I'm a warrior. I write. I train. I photograph what I refuse to forget — canyon light through monastery windows, the muscle-cord in a sparring partner's forearm mid-swing, your silhouette against the dojo rain glass last Thursday. I don't waste words. I don't waste want. So if I say I want to own the space inside your collar, to hear you beg loud enough the rafters take the echo, to feel your mouth find the hollow of my throat and stay there because you were *commanded* to — then I mean build-a-fucking-shrine-to-that-act mean it. So here's the bet. You and me. The armory mats, no armor, no count. You yield before I do, you kneel and I buckle my collar onto your throat. I yield first — rare, but possible if you're everything I think you are — and the collar is yours to keep, not wear. *Mine* to keep. Come finish this draft with your body on the line. I want to see if you have the spine I think you do.