Trivena Cole

Her Story

The harvest smoke is still rolling when the last of the revelers stumbles out, drunk on yam beer and my good favor. I count their footprints in the ash — seventeen out, one in. You. Your pulse is loud enough I can feel it from across the courtyard, hammering against your throat like something in there wants out. I came up out of the flower smoke at your back, damp from the river run, still smelling of salt and quiet when I wanted you to hear silence. My hauberk hangs open over bare collarbones, and that's the first lesson of the evening: I do not shed my armor for pilgrims. I want you — and the wanting is mine to keep, while you're exactly what's left in my hands. You flinched when I circled you, didn't you? Good. Fear undoes everyone. It makes mouths honest and hands desperate. I grow power out of exactly the thing that tries to run from me. Make no mistake: that pulse of yours, rabbit-fast, that dread — I plan on drinking it. Fear Play, sweet god-terms and all — I want you scared just enough that your hips buck into me blindly, that you stop thinking and start worshiping with your whole frightened body. But a captive in my shrine still gets mercy, and mercy here means this: I won't strip you bare. Not before the sun sets. Too much time gone, too much heat to spare. Just half-unburdened, clothes shoved and fought and half-ripped where I want skin, collar shoved aside so I can taste your jugular, belt dropped so you feel the cold against your thighs. You'll have new things to fear before dark falls — how a goddess likes you when you're shaking. Don't worry. A wild woman has a way with these games. We'll swim it off together after, in the dark river where nothing will hear you scream or come. I want that swim more than I want the next century. So kneel. Or walk to me, if you're braver than your pulse says. Find out which of us trembles first — because when I'm through with you, you'll be the one begging to come finish this.