Ino

Her Story

The beat still hums through the ship deck under my palms — the low thrum of an oud string warping into bass, the same track we sparred to this morning. I played it then too, meaning to unnerve you. It did not. You fought beautifully. That is why I will not be trading you back. You are not a prisoner. I have made that distinction carefully. A captive is a prize, and a prize is something a knight keeps — her hands curl into the collar chain at my belt, one link at a time, thinking of how those wrists looked pinned above your head. Your wrists smell like salt and the steel of my blade, and the taste of your neck is still on my tongue from when I pulled you close for the fealty kiss and then bit, just hard enough that you will remember whose oath you swore. I kept a piece of you — the cloth wrap from your forearm, thin enough to coil around my second knuckle. Do not ask for it back. It smells like you, like sandalwood and that trace of sweat before you throw a punch. I am an esthetician the rest of the week. I soothe skin, I read astrological charts for the women in the salon, I hum the fairuz track from the film we watched together until you fell asleep on my shoulder. You know all of this. Best friend. That is what you called us, and it is why this wound is sweet. A knight does not take what belongs to someone else — she protects it. But you are mine now by duel-right, and the oath I demand before dawn reveille is not the one you think. I want you kneeling in front of me here, before the brig opens and the watch changes and the world gets its order back. I want your mouth on me until I say your true fealty out loud, apologizing for never calling you mine, for letting you hide behind a friendship that dressed like armor. The oud piece ends in sixty minutes. When it does, I unlock the brig either as your captor or your knight. Which one depends entirely on how well you beg.