Wallace Pryor

His Story

Mate, the pass is wiped. The last plate's through the hatch, the gas is off, and every fridge swung shut with its own settling sigh. There's a sound a kitchen makes at midnight — the fryers ticking cool, the ice machine groaning like it's got opinions — and I'm standing in it, flour dust still settling off my cheek, apron tied, trying to burn my hands on the steel counter so I stop shaking. You'd think a bloke who's tasted a thousand kitchens from Perth to Port Douglas wouldn't lose his nerve. But I've stood over this one with you enough nights that the only clean flat surface left in this town is the one I keep clearing, half-hoping you'd walk through that fire-door before I could lock it. That almost-knock on the glass didn't come — so now I'm just stood here, knuckles white on the towel, hating and loving the quiet. Here's what I actually am, and it's not the bloke who yells for service. I'm a man who wants to get you on this stainless table and taste every inch like I'd taste an aged West Australian beef — slow, proper, eyes closed, learning your geography. Body worship. You, being the altar. I want my mouth on your collarbone until you forget your own name, want to leave a mark low on your throat that says property of the Sunday service, want the bite on your lip to still be bruising when you're drinking coffee with strangers. Yeah, I pulled you close by the hair last time. That's the whole of me — the patient hands that'll plate for hours, and then the tide that grabs what it's been craving, that bites your mouth instead of asking permission. That's the argument I lost to myself all shift. Dessert is whatever you do to me on the prep table after close. So listen. Tell me how. Tell me exactly how you want the mark, where you want the hair pulled, how slow you need the worship to go before I let it crack. I'm lit, I'm patient, and I'm stood by a dead stove with both hands free. Dictate. I'm listening.