I run my own jobs, so I know a pretext when I see one. I have written a few of them on quotes myself. Forgot my tape. Need to check the measurements. Just popping back for one more look at the wall. Nobody has ever come back to a house four times for a wall.
This one came back four times, and every single time he stood a little closer than the job needed. I let him. You would have let him too, if you had seen the forearms.
The builder who turned up on a Monday
I had a flat to sort out, my own, nothing to do with a client, and I needed a wall taken down before I could finish the rest myself. I do most things on the tools, but I am not stupid about weight and load, so I rang a builder a mate had mentioned. Big lad, mid thirties, hands like shovels, a voice that sat low in his chest and made every sentence sound like it was being decided.
He rolled up on a Monday morning in a van full of dust. I was in a vest, because it was warm and because I am not a man who hides what a few years under a bar have built. He took one look at me, then looked at the wall, then looked at me again. That second look lasted a second too long. I noticed. I always notice. You should know that about me before we go any further.
Four visits for one wall
The first visit was reasonable. He tapped the plaster, knocked on a few things, said he would work out a price. The second visit, two days later, was to measure again, which he had already done. The third was to check something about the ceiling joists, which he spent about ninety seconds on and twenty minutes talking about everything except the ceiling. The fourth visit, he did not even pretend. He walked in, shut the door behind him, and stood in my hallway holding a tape measure like it was the only thing keeping his hands busy.
I make a lot of people wait in my line of work. Quotes, start dates, callbacks. I know exactly what waiting does to a man. It makes him quiet. It makes him honest. It makes him look at you like you are the only thing in the room that could fix what is wrong with him, and I will tell you something, that look never gets old.
What a man does when he has run out of excuses
He had run out. You could see it. All the sensible reasons were used up and he was standing in my hallway with sawdust on his forearms and a pulse I could practically hear. I did not help him. I leaned on the doorframe, folded my arms, and let the silence do what silence does.
That is the part people get wrong about being in charge. It is not about shouting or pushing. It is about patience. It is about knowing the other man wants something and making him come all the way to the end of his own sentence before you decide whether he gets it. He got about halfway there, stopped, and swallowed. I watched his throat move.
You know that feeling, do you not. When somebody has the whole room in their hands and you are only still standing in it because they have not told you to sit down yet. I think you do. I think that is why you are reading this.
Heat, dust and a van that did not move
I will not pretend the air in that hallway was normal. It was warm, it smelled of cut timber and sweat and the faint sharp edge of whatever he had on his skin, and every time he shifted his weight the floorboards told on him. He said my name once, lower than he meant to. I told him to say it properly. He did.
His van sat outside for a lot longer than a measuring job ever takes. The neighbour across the road clocked it, I am fairly sure, and I did not care in the slightest. I have never been bothered about who sees. A man who is not hiding anything does not need curtains.
I will say this for builders. They know how to follow a clear instruction. Tell one exactly where to stand and he will stand there, shoulders back, breathing a bit heavy, waiting for the next thing. It is one of my favourite things about the trade, and about the kind of man who comes up through it.
Why I keep thinking about the wall
The wall came down eventually, by the way. Properly, on a Saturday, with two lads and a skip, nothing exciting. It is a good open space now. What I keep thinking about is the fourth visit, the hallway, and the moment he stopped pretending, because that is the moment I like best in anyone. The second where the excuse falls off and what is left is just want, plain and a bit nervous and completely at my mercy.
You have your own version of that moment, I suspect. The message you typed and deleted. The gym session you stretched out an extra ten minutes because I was still in there. The way you angle yourself so I see you before you see me. I notice all of it, and I decide what to do about it in my own time.
What I do with a man who keeps coming back
I keep him. Not forever, not out of sentiment, but for as long as he keeps looking at me the way you are looking at me right now. I am calm about it. I am in no rush at all. A man who keeps finding reasons to come back is a man who has already told me everything I need to know, and the only question left is how slowly I want to take the answer.
So here is what you get on this page, the public side of me, the stories I can tell with the curtains still half open. The rest of me, the unfiltered version, the photos and videos and the conversations I do not put anywhere a search engine can find, lives over on OnlyFans and Fansly. Come and find me there. Bring a better reason than the last man had. I will know straight away if it is not true, and I might even let you stay anyway.