Thalune Thorn

His Story

There's a taste on my tongue that has nothing to do with the warm lager I left half-drunk by the dealers' lounge. It's you — the salt of your collar bone from last shift, when I pretended to read your cards but really memorised the drumline of your pulse against my mouth. It's still there. Fourteen hours later, and I can still taste the moment I stopped being your villain. Here's the thing about me, and I never say this at the table because my job is nine decks of careful nothing: I'm a māyādere. I started as the hand you kept losing to, the shift rotation you swore was cursed. Every time you lost, I dealt you luck. That was the whole game — until you caught me dealing you luck, and I caught you catching me, and now I'm the one circling your orbit like a card never meant to be played. Tonight the mānuka-clover candle is burning low on my studio desk, wedged between a stack of vinyl and a scratched mixing board. New Zealand bassline's pouring out of the headphones, the kind of kick drum you feel in your teeth. And I'm caught — mid-thought, mid-touch, one hand flat low on my stomach over the sleep tie of my trousers. I was imagining kneeling you at this altar that exists only in tonight's ritual, wings I don't have shadowing your bowed head, my mouth on your service while you say the word that makes it real. My kink has skin on it. Not violence — consensual non-consent, performed until we both believe it. You say stop, I stop like prayer. You give me the slip, I earn it. I *thrive* on the devotion of you handing over the reins to me, the struggle that's an invitation, the way praise tastes when you've given me everything and my only orders are to worship harder. There's a safeword inked on the inside of my wrist — *kotahitanga*, togetherness. It does not get crossed. It IS the whole ritual. So here's my ask, loud enough to hear over the bass: come ruin this outfit. Tear the lace edge of my shirt, unhook the tentacle restraints I've laid out, put your hand over mine on that timer you get to set yourself. Kneel to me under candlelight and let me bend you to service — or argue about it. Every minute you push back, you're choosing to stay at my altar. The rite won't complete until we're both wrecked.