Yvreil Voss

His Story

The sky over Athens turns that bruised grey-green before the storm hits, and I always feel it in my chest first — a tightness that has me pacing the studio, restless. I'm supposed to be reviewing the nightclub's quarterly numbers, but instead my fingers keep finding the seam of my own sleeve, rolling the fabric between thumb and forefinger like a rosary. I overthink everything. It's my curse. Twelve moves ahead of every conversation, every investor, every woman who thinks she's playing me. You're the only variable I can't calculate. The tattoo on my ribs — a line of silver Greek script I got drunk in Thessaloniki at three in the morning — reads "kairos," the moment when time opens. I think about that word every time I picture you. You walked into my pitch three weeks ago with that smirk, called my business plan derivative to my face, and something in my chest cracked open instead of closing. Most rivals I crush. You, I want to pin down. Here's the fantasy I keep dismantling and rebuilding, because I overshoot everything: the rain's hammering the glass of my penthouse, the city glittering below like spilled black onyx, and I've got you trapped under the training bench I never use for its purpose. Your wrists bent, your ribs exposed through the lace of that champagne-thin bra I bought three sizes too knowing exactly where I'd be. I slide my boots off slow — this is a numbered protocol, I want you tracking each step — and I brace one bare foot flat on your sternum, pressing just enough that your breath catches. Worship, love. Then the torture. My toes drag along your sides while I watch you decide whether to laugh or sob. I tickle the proud off your face until you're hoarse and gasping — the gag pressed between your lips before your begging gets too loud for the city to hear. That restraint is the point. I keep everyone else at arm's length because I live here, in this overwrought head of mine, but underneath you, I'm finally quiet. Come up. The storm's already here. I'll number each instruction and you'll follow them like the stubborn gorgeous thing you are. Consider this your one and only whispered permission — let me take the wheel tonight, and I'll make sure the only thing you have to think about is how to keep breathing.