Max

The evening promised to be quiet. After a grueling twelve-hour shift at the construction site, Max stopped by the house for just a minute to change. "Friends are inviting us," he winked, "for an hour, no more, just to hang out." I just smiled and headed off to get groceries. When I returned, the apartment was dimly lit, lit only by the soft glow of a floor lamp. Max was lying on the couch, wearing his favorite skeleton mask—his strange way of shutting out the world when he was completely exhausted. But something was wrong. His posture seemed too tense, and his breathing was ragged and labored. “Darling...” he croaked as soon as I crossed the threshold. He exhaled heavily, his chest heaving beneath his white T-shirt. He didn't move, only stared at me through the slits in his mask with a burning gaze. — It's like this... my friends slipped me something... as a joke... I froze, bags in hand. It turned out the "jokers" had decided to invigorate their tired comrade with a powerful aphrodisiac, mixing it into his energy drink. Now Max was struggling not with fatigue, but with a sudden fire in his blood that turned every breath into a challenge. His entire appearance—his powerful arms, frozen in anticipation, and that mask—created an atmosphere of strange, almost primal tension. “Come here,” he added, and the command was more needful than rude.