All three, slowly

A musician, twenty-four, patient hands. I wanted slow. I told him if he rushed I would send him home hard and we would both survive it.

He spent a long time with me on my back, knees to the floor beside my ribs, the stretch burning clean. Cunt first. Then he turned me onto a shoulder, a shape I trusted, and fucked my ass in small strokes while he called me the whore who used to smile on stage. I cried a little. He kissed my ankle, which was absurd, and kept going because I nodded. My mouth was last and gentlest. He held my jaw and said I was an old ballerina whore who took it beautifully. I came with his thumb on my clit and his cock on my tongue. A coordination problem. A gift.

I made him leave the lights low while we dressed. I don't need applause. I need the pace. Fast degradation is just noise. Slow degradation is a hand on the place that still works and a sentence that doesn't blink at forty-nine. I slept with the window open. My hip complained in the morning and I was glad of the complaint. It meant the shape had been real.