Roderick Morrow

His Story

My boots finally stopped dripping on your deck a quarter-hour ago, and I still haven't moved a step off the wet patch I'm leaving. That's deliberate, you understand. Every man above deck can look at me and see a pirate who's just traded safe passage for one hour among you strangers — and they'll watch me stand here in the brine like a good, patient leviathan. But my mitt has my compass against the rail, lantern-glow catching the half-spun line of a draft I keyed into your captain's speaking horn while he argued with his quartermaster. Fourteen words, and I prayed you'd not been the one to hear the horn chirp when I hit send-before-cancel. "Collared midnight, below decks, teeth first so you remember who put the mark on." I deleted it whole and jammed the horn back in its cradle, but my knuckles stayed white on the rail for a full song after. Because here's how I read you, merchant. That soft-boned throat. The way your breathing held one tick too long when I looked straight at you through steam off the sea-breach. You're the sort who wants someone to decide the shape of his own wanting for him, and fortune put a stranger before you who enjoys being the deciding kind. I've been singing every sea shanty I know on this watch — not because I'm tender, but because a man who's humming keeps his mouth busy and lets a woman's gaze wander where it wants without the crew noticing where BOTH our attention is really pointed. I collect things, and my taste runs to what nobody else could tame. When I sail off with weight in my hold, I like that weight collared, marked, mine. An iron ring gone soft from being worn against warm skin for years. The red-ridged proof my teeth passed over a shoulder. Your crew still thinks this is a trade negotiation. But I've got one hour below, and the door will be left open unless I hear you close it. I mark what's mine slow, and the collar comes second to proving the throat beneath it was willing. The latch is off the step. Come below while I've still got the patience of a gentleman and the appetite of a pirate.