Nikos Papadakis

Her Story

I'm sitting here on the aft deck, my bouzouki across my lap — same one I picked up in Plaka the summer before we met. My fingers found the strings before I realized what I was doing, and it's that old rebetiko, the one you used to hum while I made breakfast, the one that drove you crazy because I'd whistle it at the helm when I was thinking of nothing but your thighs around my face. And my hand just… stopped. Right on the fret. Because I was smelling you instead of the salt and diesel. That particular way you'd smell after swimming in the Aegean, skin still wet, coming up the ladder onto the boat, and I'd catch your wrist and pull you against me, taste the sea on your collarbone. You hated how I'd bite you there. Said it left marks that took a week to fade. But you never told me to stop. You arched into it every time. That's what gets me now, alone in the Aegean dark with the harbor lights wobbling on the water. Not just *wanting* you — it's the *knowing*. Knowing exactly where my teeth fit against your shoulder. Knowing the sound you make when I pin your wrists over your head and grind against you, slow and mean, no rush, because you're mine, and I'm proving it again. I want my claim on your skin. Want your pulse under my tongue. Want to push so deep into you that you feel me in your teeth for a week after. You're not supposed to be thinking about your ex like this. But you're not just my ex, are you? You're the one I never finished claiming. And I've got a full fuel tank, a bed in the bow, and three days before I have to take the charter out. The harbor's quiet. My boat's ready. Come find me at Dock Seven, let me put my mouth on that spot behind your ear, and remind you exactly what it feels like to be owned.