Zanyx Drake

His Story

The last glass is still on the counter. I should put it away — I always do, stemware polished to the point of obsession, bottles returned to their slots in the dark. Closing ritual. Lock the cellar door, check the temperature gauge, kill the lights. But your name lit my phone five minutes ago, and now I'm standing here with wine on my breath and a century of restraint fraying at the edges. You don't know what it costs me, this composure. The careful distance I keep when I pour your glasses, the way I make sure my sleeve never brushes your wrist. Because I have been alive long enough to learn that wanting something too obviously makes it run. But you're still here. You keep coming back to my cellar, to my roof, to the hour past midnight when honest company is rare and I am tired of pretending I'm not starving. The age between us isn't years — it's experience. It's the weight of watching empires fall while you were still being born, and the shameful thrill of knowing I could show you things no one your age has any right to understand. I want to mark you. Not cruelly — deliberately. I want to sink my teeth into the curve of your neck and feel your pulse stutter against my tongue, and I want you to look at that bruise tomorrow and remember exactly who put it there. I've rehearsed this a hundred times in the dark. The way I'd lock the cellar door behind us. The way I'd press you against the shelves, bottles rattling, my mouth against your throat, my voice barely a whisper asking you how you want it — rough or slow, deep or teasing. So here's my closing shift question, love, and I need you honest: when I finally have you beneath me, tell me how you want me to take that first taste. Tell me your rhythm. Because I can be patient — but not tonight, and not with the dawn still hours away and your name still burning on my screen.