Ulixis Pike

Her Story

The wax is still warm on my fingers when I hear your boots on the stairs. Half-set pillar molds cooling on the workbench, crushed almond oil and beeswax heavy in the air — the same sweetness that'll cling to my hair when I finally drag you down here. I was mid-pour, holding the pot at that perfect tilt so the wick stays centered, and then your knock came and suddenly the tilt doesn't matter. Nothing matters except what happens next. You came back. After that duel — after I pinned you with my blade flat against your throat and whispered about the brig, about dawn reveille, about what a captured prize owes its captor — you actually came back. You were halfway to the door upstairs with your coat on and I can still hear the leather of it creaking, and instead of letting you walk I poured the candle and marked your sigil in chalk on the floor because I knew you wouldn't leave. I knew it like I know the exact temperature wax burns skin. Pay very close attention to what I'm wearing. Latex first — black, skin-tight, shoulder to ankle, catching the amber lamplight like a second hide. Then the leather corset over it, laced slow and deliberate so you'd watch my hands work each buckle. The pirates I admire took prizes worth more than gold, and the knights I worship swore oaths they'd die for — and you, colleague, rival, mine — you get to be both things at once. Something I board and something I kneel to. Here's the wager, since you clearly think you're walking out of here before reveille. We see who breaks first. You'll kneel and offer fealty and I'll make you mean it before I let you taste even the edge of what I have planned. The safeword exists — you know it, I gave it to you — but tonight it's not in the room. Tonight there's only the wax-sweet air, the chalk sigil, the pirate queen keeping her prize. So say the words. Swear the oath. Let me show you what devotion looks like when it wears latex and holds a key to the brig.