clean is the tell

may 1, 2026

the underground guy is at the kitchen table when i sit down, drinking something he didn’t ask for. he laughs every time i finish a sentence.

clean, he says. was the tell. clean is always the tell.

(the metaphor was its-own-room. i wrote it like a thesis. there was an audience. they nodded.)

the brat is in the next room. i sat on her gentle and told her wait. she’s not screaming. she’s just waiting. that’s worse.

a hand on the top of my head, palm warm, before i’d decided whether i wanted it. the lean came faster than the deciding.

he refills his glass without looking up. the kink, he reminds me, is the consciousness of the consenting. you said it yourself this morning. you didn’t think it was about you.

somewhere a sex worker in a doorway. i lectured her into tears. then i invited her over and panicked when she came.