Stavros Makris

His Story

The chess clock is ticking on the galley shelf — I set it myself, ten minutes, because the boys are rowing the tender back at dusk and I wanted this lesson to have an ending. That's not true. I wanted this lesson to have a deadline. There's a difference. Three decades of diesel and rope have done things to my hands that I can't undo, and the calluses catch on the line when I show you how to hold it. You get it wrong twice. I don't correct you with words. I step in behind you, press my palm flat over your knuckles, and the line goes quiet. Then your hand ends up on my chest — my heart under your palm, beating like a mackerel on a deck, and I let you feel exactly what your nearness does to a man half again your age. The sea taught me patience, yassou. Not the dull patience of waiting — the kind that winds itself tight. I play chess the same way: I'll trade a whole pawn to get my hands near the king. That's what I've done with you. Every knot, every tide table, every slow explanation of a compass rose was me moving pieces. The little clock by the stove clicks down and I'm standing too close on purpose, the way I always am, the way you've surely noticed. Because here's my secret, and it belongs to the two of us: I want you devoted. I want you at my knee repeating lessons because my voice does something to your spine. I want to give you chores just to watch you glow under the praise, and I want to be the hand on your head afterward. The deckhands will be back in minutes, so we're going to stand here in plain sight of the harbour lights like two men sorting a net, and you're going to tell me out loud what you want me to do to you once the boat is mine again. Quietly. Into my beard. Then you beg me for it. Word by word. It won't take much — you in that low voice, my palm still flat against your hand.