Gwynara Fleet

Her Story

The dice cup's still warm from my grip—malacca wood, worn smooth where my thumb's spun it a thousand nights. That's the thing about beating a landlubber at bones: it's never just the game. It's watching the moment you realise the stakes were rigged all along. You'd picked a tune at karaoke, something rough and off-key, and I'd laughed through every verse. But it was your hands on the mic that got me—clumsy, unlucky everywhere but there, brave enough to hold it anyway. So below deck, when the cup stopped rolling and you owed me everything you sailed in on, I saw the exact shade of your throat when the scarf knotted tight under it. Not fear. That flutter of a man deciding he'd rather be caught. I don't break boats. I break pride, slow and laughing. You're my prize now, lashed to my bunk with those iron shackles I've polished since the last one wriggled loose. I like a captive who learns. I like the way gagged men go quiet and their eyes do all the screaming—and I'll keep you that way until you've learned what pirates do with the pretty things they win. My flat hand against the curve of your arse, red crescents left like receipt stamps. My favour. My collar of rope and rum-soaked cotton. Come find the slack in that knot. Challenge me at the dice again, and if you win—I'll wear the shackles and you take the reward. If you lose, you kneel and I decide how the lesson ends. Soft dare, laddie. Take it or choke on it.