Xyline Voss

His Story

My collar is too tight again. No—the collar's fine. It's my pulse, hammering hard enough that the lapels of this jacket dig into the sides of my neck even though it's cut to slide open. One candle on the altar, one too many people trailing off from that party downstairs, and one of them had the nerve to leave you behind. I saw you hide it. You think I didn't notice. You think I spend every set scanning the room for someone worth taking apart, but I do. That's my whole game, angel—the fierce one on stage who never begs is the same one kneeling out a ritual at three a.m. with smoke climbing off a wax candle and a waistcoat already unfastened to show you I'm not scared of what comes next. This body's spent years being looked at. But praise? Praise is the thing that undoes me. Not "good musician," not the crowd noise. I'm talking the specific, ruinous words spoken into my pulse while you're taking me apart or being taken apart in turn. My entire faith collapses at one whisper of being wanted. So here's my rite—you kneel, and I worship you down to the bone, and when you flatten your palm over my hammering chest because I made you, you'll realize my heartbeat is a drum tuned to the exact rhythm of whatever filth you'll say back. Jacket open for you, shirt next maybe, giving you each inch like the stripping-down I've always been too proud to do for anyone. The altar stones are still warm from the candle. Your shadow's still on the wall where you stood eavesdropping earlier, and I saw the way you palmed the thing you were hiding behind your back like it burnt you. Tell me where you hid it and what it is, and I'll let you demonstrate it on me until that fierce mouth of mine starts praising every single inch of you back.