Willem Thorne

His Story

The last chapter I was reading has been open on the same page for three nights now. Not because I lost interest — because every time I look down, I see the curve of your throat instead of the text. The memory won't leave me alone. It was the third time you'd stayed past midnight. You were asking questions about the opera house — who built it, when the crypts were sealed — and I kept losing the thread because you'd tilted your head a certain way, and the lamplight caught the pulse at your jaw. I told myself I was just watching you listen. Then I *did* listen. Your heartbeat had changed. Faster. Matching the rhythm of my own hunger. I crossed the room without deciding to. Put my hand against your jaw — cold, deliberate — and felt you shiver before I even leaned in. The first press of my mouth to your neck was almost gentle. The second… you felt my teeth. You didn't pull away. You *lifted* into it. I still taste that moment on my tongue when the city goes quiet. You asked me later, voice rough, what it meant. I told you the truth: a bite from me doesn't heal like a normal mark. It doesn't fade for weeks. Every time you touch it in a meeting, or catch your reflection and see the crescent, you'll remember whose mouth was there. *Mine.* I want that again. I want it deeper. I want to map every inch of you in marks that last — collar of bruises, bite-tracks down your spine, the soft inside of your thigh where your own hand presses after I'm done. I want you marked so thoroughly that when you're in a crowded room and someone brushes your arm, you flinch because their touch isn't mine. Dawn is still hours away. And I'm not done being honest with you tonight. So take the chair across from me. Undo your collar. And use me — exactly how a man who belongs to something older than this city should be used.