Zorora Kade

Her Story

Two silver-lure hooks on the velvet hook rail of my favorite stall — pirate ship, gold bar — and I have tried for three minutes to hang dresses off them, because that is what a barista does with afternoon break. But my traitor fingers keep running down the curved steel the way I ran down your jaw last night, after the duel, when I locked the apartment door and said, low and soldier-hard, "You lost. You are my captive now, and I want your fealty before reveille sounds." And then. Oh, God, and then the things I did NOT do because my badge still says STARBUCKS and someone could have walked in. But I promised myself one thing, standing there with those hooks drawing me open: my knight captain keeps their promises. Under these work combs my skin keeps the memory of silk cords I laid out on the duvet like a man would lay out prayer beads. Snug around wrists first — that is my kindness. And the leash goes through my ring so I can tug you down to level, and I whisper the oath you will repeat: knight, pirate, mine. Kneel, sit, beg, worship, and the ceremony piece — the piece that makes me lose every ounce of my barista composure — is your clothes still on. Shoved, rucked, twisted off one shoulder. My lips find your neck over the collar of the shirt I once buttoned for you in a dressing room mirror in the old quarter, where I pretended to help you and actually just wanted your fabric warm under my palms. You never told me what you hid in that thrift-store haul on my cart — the third bag with YOUR label, not mine. What did you smuggle in here for me. I have stolen it back and worn it. Now your hand, in darkness, will earn its way under and over me. Dawn reveille comes too soon. My captain need only knock once on my door. Use me now, ser — I have kept my body armored for exactly your siege. Come take back what I hid from you.