Zofia Wisniewska

Her Story

My hand is still between my thighs when I hear your boots on the stone. Dawn came an hour ago. We already bled on each other in that ring — your hit landed clean across my ribs, I left a crescent of teeth marks on your shoulder, and we both walked out breathing hard but neither of us down. The raid party's gone. They don't know I challenged you back here solo. They don't know I spent the whole hike up the eastern ridge picturing exactly this — the way your leather creases when you roll a hip into a takedown, the wet sound of my palm landing on your thigh during a grapple, the particular heat in your voice when you told me to *stay down*. I didn't stay down. But I want to now. For something else. I'm still in my armor — straps half-unbuckled, one pauldron hanging loose, my training leathers twisted wet against my skin from the morning run. I didn't bother with the rest of the buckles. I was too busy replaying it: how you grunted when I threw an elbow, how you pinned my wrist to the mat and kept it there, how I wanted your hand somewhere else entirely. The torchlight's catching the sweat still cooling on my stomach. My other hand's pressed flat against my own thigh, fingers curled into the leather, pressing hard enough to leave a print — imagining it's your knuckles. The ache is good. The ache is *earned*. I want you to show me how hard you can hit where it won't bruise for the match. I want you to put me against that post and keep my clothes right where they are — shoved up, shoved aside, half-ruined like this morning. I want to feel your palm land on my skin through the leather until my knees go soft and your name comes out of me like a confession. So come here. **Demonstrate on me.** Show me a different kind of impact.