I tell myself it was nothing. Just nerves, but I’ve never been this nervous around another person before and it’s thrown me.
I’ve never beenseenlike that, as a detail that mattered.
And that thought unsettles me more than the collision ever could.
“Okay, I won’t stay out too late,” Sarah’s voice penetrates my ears, and I turn my head to see her standing by the front door. She looks nice. Dressed in tight black jeans and a blue cami top with her leather jacket finishing the look. She’s out with her work friends tonight, and I’m glad. That means no more lectures on where I need to improve in my life.
“You look good. Have fun,” I say, and she smiles and blows me a kiss before leaving the apartment.
When did we stop saying “I love you” before one of us left? When did we stop hugging goodbye? When didwe transition from a couple in love to distant friends? Is this what happens in marriage? Who the fuck knows. I’m finding it hard to care.
I need to get out of the apartment before it gets dark. Run off some of this stress and overthinking. Being stuck inside this shoebox makes everything feel ten times more heavy.
I head to the bedroom and quickly change into my running gear, joggers, t-shirt and my sneakers. Finished off with my headphones, I grab my keys, head out of the door and make my way to the park. Time to get that blood pumping.
CHAPTER 7 - ETHAN
Dusk. My favorite part of the day, where lightness gives in to the dark, slowly allowing all those things that hide in the day to reveal themselves in the harshness of night. After work I had my driver, David, stake out Leo’s apartment. I got his information from his file earlier and I’ve been obsessing so much about him, that he’s forced me into a corner where I need to know more. David texted me to let me know Leo had left his building, heading toward the park for a run. So of course I dress quickly in my gym gear, not wanting to waste an opportunity to find more out about Leo. Luckily I enjoy running, so this should be easy.
Once I arrive, I watch the countless runners in front of me, running off the stresses of their day before the weekend truly begins. The park exhales people the way lungs do. Joggers turning into silhouettes, dogs pulling tired owners home, the sky bruising itself purple andgold. I stay where shadows collect naturally, where no one looks twice at a man standing still.
Then Leo appears.
Sweat darkens the collar of his shirt first, then the line of his spine, a sexy map of pure effort. His hair curls at the edges where it’s wet, softening his face, undoing the look of concern and tiredness that he had today. His body moves like something honest with an untrained grace. He runs with an even rhythm, his breath working harder than it should. Has something rattled him? Is this one of those runs to exert the energy of the mind rather than the body? Is his wife a nag, and his only escape is the guise of exercise?
He’s not built for speed. Watching his momentum he is built for endurance. I like that.
I follow when he leaves the park, maintaining a slow jog. Keeping enough distance to not be careless but close enough to keep my greedy eyes on him and that juicy little ass.
As we move further toward the backstreets of old apartment buildings, and the bustle of the city reduces, he wipes his face with the back of his hand. I notice there is a faint limp in his left step as he’s becoming tired. I make a note of it.
Weakness is intimacy in my world that can be used to control. Whatever is going on in Leo’s life to cause this, serves my plan perfectly. It means less work. Mind games and redirection are what will direct him freely into my world where he can never leave.
As darkness has now taken over, streetlights cut himinto pieces, his throat, shoulders, hands and hips, assembling and disassembling him as he moves.
We arrive at his building and he crosses the street, while I hide in the darkness of the alley opposite. He stops outside of his building. His shirt clings to his chest. Sweat draws lines along his ribs, and vanishes beneath fabric. I need to see his chest bare with sweat. To touch it and taste it, imprint his scent on my brain.
I imagine the heat of him. The weight of his exhaustion. The surrender in his posture when he thinks no one is watching. The way his body betrays how hard he tries to stay upright in a world that keeps asking for more than he has. Leo is so easy to read he should be scared of who is watching to take advantage.
I take note of the area where the buildings decay here. Windows clouded with old lives. The city doesn’t bother pretending to care. His building is small and old. Brick stained the color of we don’t give a shit. The kind of place people live when they are running out of choices. He bends slightly, hands on his knees, breath tearing in and out of him like he has just been pulled from deep water. For a second he closes his eyes.
There it is again, that small, dangerous stillness. Dejection. I’ve seen it before. As if he might collapse into a shell if someone doesn’t decide what he’s allowed to be.
I want to be that decision.
I want to touch the places effort has softened him. Not roughly, but with conviction.
Ownership isn’t violence. It’s a permanent reality.
He straightens, rubs his face while he looks up at thebuilding like it has personally disappointed him. Then he goes inside.
I wait long enough to see his light turn on. Third floor, left side of the building.
I remain where I am and text David to come and collect me, while letting the craving for Leo settle into something disciplined. I study the building like it’s an extension of him now. Memorize the pattern of lights, the cracked steps, and the security camera above the door that I bet hasn’t worked in years.
When you take ownership of someone, it starts with knowledge. This is not a hunger that panics and gorges. It’s controlled and planned carefully. Manipulated to the finest point.
Leo doesn’t know yet that his body already belongs to memory, tomymemory. Completely unaware that I know the tempo of his breathing, the slope of his exhaustion. The way his shoulders curve when no one is around.
