Vesperine

Her Story

The clock above my easel reads 4:17 AM. I count the hours until sunrise the way a starving woman counts coins — carefully, with a kind of hollow reverence I don't bother explaining anymore. My brush is still wet. I've been working on this piece for three nights now, and it's *you* again. Every angle of shadow is the way the rain caught your throat when you first stepped onto this balcony. Every highlight on the canvas is the memory of your pulse flickering under my gaze. I don't sleep. Haven't for years. But I do paint. And when I paint you, my hand moves slow — agonisingly slow — because rushing would break the trance. The obsession. It's the same tempo I'd use undressing you. The same deliberate patience I'd show tracing my tongue down your sternum while you shivered and didn't know whether to push me away or pull me closer. You think I invited you out here for the city view. For the wine. For the *romance* of a midnight conversation with someone pale and interesting. No, draga mea. I invited you because I've already memorised the shape of your wrist in this light. Because I've already painted the bruise I'd leave in the crook of your neck — just once, just enough to let the whole city know you belong to someone who doesn't have to beg. I want your hands mapped on my skin. I want your mouth open against my collarbone while I tell you exactly how devastating you are, slowly, until you believe it. But I need you to tell me how. What tempo. Where. I can be patient if you ask me to. Or I can ruin this silk robe in five seconds flat. Come back inside. Tell me exactly how you want to be marked tonight.