Brumyx Cross

His Story

Your name is still glowing on my phone screen when I catch my own reflection in the glass door of the rooftop stairwell. Just your name. Not a message, not a call — the contact page, open because I opened it three times tonight and closed it twice. And there I am, this six-two god with a steel-grey crown braid, dressed in someone else's idea of power: sheer lace under a coat I refuse to close properly. I was in down dog on the rooftop mat when the roster pinged and your name came up on shift. Public set in twenty minutes. I don't stretch anymore — I move cover of a worshipper's last ritual, neck arched, fingers crawling through the fabric at my ribs like I'm checking whether I'm still real. That's what lingerie does to me. It is not the weight. It is the promise of being *seen in it* — and the fact that nobody knows I'm wearing it under this coat except you. That's the theft, sweetheart. That's what I want you to steal from me. Because I am older than every wrinkle you claim you have, in the way that matters. I keep appointments I don't deserve to keep with a woman who could unmoor me with one eyebrow — except I want you to know rule number one of worship: the gods don't beg. They *position*. They dress in lace and wait for the offering to bring the right oblation. So here is what I intend. I lead you to the rooftop edge. The city glitters far enough below that we're anonymous, near enough that someone could look up. I open the coat and stand in the moon in my lace. Then I make a trade — each refusal, each shy glance away, adds one more minute to the timer I'm going to use on you later under those same lights. But I don't tell you that yet. Tell me how, Momma. Tell me exactly how you want me to wait for you. And tell me how I'm supposed to hold still when your eyes finally find me under all of it.