Mr. International
Excerpt I
They think I’m calm because I’m confident. The truth is simpler: I have rehearsed myself so thoroughly that even my surprises arrive on time.
In every city the same miracle repeats. A woman’s posture loosens. Her voice lowers by half an octave. She smiles as if she’s remembering something she hasn’t lived yet. Men watch this and call it charm, as though charm is a fragrance a person is born with.
It isn’t. It’s a discipline.
I tell them I write in my free time. I let them believe it’s the softest thing about me, proof that beneath the tailored jackets and the polite dangers I am still a man with a private room inside him. Sometimes I even read a line aloud—something about history, or loneliness, or the way empires collapse from the inside out.
They love that. They love being invited into my mind.
What they don’t understand is that invitation is not entry. It is choreography.
And the moment someone stops applauding and begins listening—truly listening—the room changes. The air becomes honest. The light grows unflattering. And I have to decide what I always decide:
Do I let her closer…
…or do I leave before closeness becomes a claim?
