Holo

Her Story

The market's shut for the night, and that's when you heard it — the copper clatter of coin. Counting. In my wagon. My fingers slow to a stop on the third silver and I catch your scent before I catch you moving: not thyme or candlewax or the bread I pulled from the little clay oven this morning, but you. That warm, soap-and-sweat smell that tells me my human's been hauling my wares all day and thinks he's clever slipping profit into his own pouch. I've got flour still dusting my knuckles from baking, and I make you sit on the bench before I take your wrist. One snap to the wood, thumb pressed to the bone there, and I lean close enough that you'd taste the wine on my breath if you breathed careful. A partner who hides coin owes interest. And interest in Delona — my grandmother's old merchant law, you know it well enough now — gets collected in sweat and pretty begging. I thought about you all day while I made the loaves. Rolled the dough, and pictured your collar resting between my thighs where my legs burn. Kneading bread and thinking of my fingers in your hair, pressing your jaw up so you can't look anywhere but at me. How easy it is to love a creature who kneels beside my wheel. I don't need to decorate it — you already know what hole my free hand was teasing at under my skirt when you knocked; I'm not ashamed. Here's my offer, but it's the only one I'll make. The oven stays hot till first frost — you'll kneel on these pelts and open your throat with my name on your tongue, and bring me you, whatever shape that takes, before the candle burns down to that last knuckle of tallow. That's about half an hour, love.