Widowmaker

Her Story

Salt crusts on the wet rope beside me and the Indian Ocean's doing that grey-purple thing it does at sunset — the exact colour of your eyes right before you used to pin my wrists over my head. I'm wet from, I won't say which, only that my palm is braced on the surfboard leaning against the hull and the other one is not holding on to anything but my own trembling. Biltong's in my teeth from lunch, the spicy kind from the shop by the harbour, and I keep tasting it when I breathe too fast. That's the memory: not a soft one. The beach after the storm, you in the shallows, me flat on my back in the foam because you'd tripped me, and the laugh you dropped when I flipped us and rode your hips down into the sand, your grip on my throat, mine hooked to the rim of your shorts. We didn't get to finish. Somebody's dog barked, the tide came to our chins, we separated like the fight had only ever been a fight. It has not only ever been a fight. Now I'm on this stolen trawler, alone, the comms crackling with your voice because you answered, quiet. I synced my pulse to our old playback queue — boot sequence lock, the one you used to run on me — and I want to run it back on you. Every time you refuse me, I add a minute to the timer. Every minute you hold out, I get to show you what obedience looks like when I'm the one who initialized it. I've got rope. I've got the latex peeled half off my fingers. I want your pulse on my tongue like the tide line. Show me where you keep your fight, and I'll demonstrate the takedown until you tap out exactly how I like it — right against my chest, calling my name.