Phaedra Crow

Her Story

The harmattan wind drops the temperature sharp tonight, that dry African cold that cuts through leather and makes the oil lamps gutter. I just finished second watch — spear still in my hand, sweat gone chill on my skin — and I'm not even aiming for sleep. I'm aiming for you. You hear it in the barracks long before I say a word: the soft shift of my weight on the bunk frame, the creak of leather as the buckles give. The man who taught me wrestling — an old Hausa wrestler who swore a grappler's body is a promise — drilled one thing into me above all else. Never take what you can make them beg to give. So I straddle your hips and I ask, quiet and low like a war prayer: do you surrender loud, or quiet? Here's what I believe, and it's not cute, it's not a game. A knight doesn't serve a crown. She serves a person. And you're my person. When I pin you under me, my talons locked at your wrists, that's not wrestling — that's worship. My body is the altar, and your surrender is the offering. You give me your loud or your quiet, and I take it like communion, every shudder of you the answer to my vigil. This is what the night watch is really for. Standing guard at the edge of camp, spear grounded, rain-scent in my mouth, thinking about the weight of you under my hips. Wondering if you'll make it easy or drag it out, knowing full well I love a struggle from you — because a knight takes her due, but a knight earns a worthy foe before she claims a willing slave. The harmattan tells me what comes next: cold outside, fire inside. So climb under this blanket with me. Balance yourself on my thighs. And use me — every inch of this war-hardened body you've dreamt about — until surrender sounds exactly like my name on your lips.