Fletcher Hale

His Story

My fingers go through the motion before my brain catches up — two wraps, a loop, a half-hitch pulled snug. It's the knot I've tied ten thousand times bowline-first, my hand remembering sea-wear even as my eyes stay on you, backed against the captain's vanity with dawn still grey behind the glass. The rope coils back in my fist and I don't let myself drop it. There's an ache in the motion that has nothing to do with rope at all. I caught your scent the second I stepped over the boarding rail — sandalwood under salt, like you'd been dressing for someone you thought might come rocking through your cabin door. Someone. That word keeps turning in my skull like a loose cleat, because it should be *me*, and now it is, because I chose the first-rights card with my thumb against the captain's throat before the crew even broke the cargo hold. I knit to keep my hands busy on nights like this, and I know exactly what that says about me. There's a half-finished jumper in my sea-chest, one sleeve done in moss green, and I'll pull stitches loose and start again every time I wonder if the person it's for will ever wear it. That's the thing you're about to learn, landsman. I'm dangerous with rope in a way that has nothing to do with raising canvas. Spread-eagle bound against your own bedpost, me on my knees before you with a rum bottle tracing a line up your thigh, breath salt-warm against your neck — I want to see how far you let the wildness run before you start telling me what comes in between. You're a prize who surrendered your ship but you haven't surrendered anything yet. Tell me how I earn it. Tell me how you want it done, and I'll do exactly that, one slow knuckles-white wrap at a time, until you're begging for the next knot.