Gudrun Becker

Her Story

The garden gate creaks twice before anyone knocks — and I hear it from upstairs, mid-loop. That's the thing about rehearsal: you do the move so many times your body stops asking permission. Right now my right wrist is bound to my left with climbing cord, elbows bent, and I'm practicing the exact angle I'd use to pin you against that splintery gate post. Again. Again. The rope smells like chalk and old hemp and it's rubbing a warm line across my forearms that I have absolutely no intention of apologizing for. I started because I wanted to win. Honest. I drew the chart for tonight — Mercury retrograde in the seventh house, which any decent astrologer reads as "someone's about to get tied up and enjoy it" — and then I thought, no use being a prince with a crooked hat and no follow-through. So I practice. I practice the grip, the thigh brace, the little breath I'd let out against your ear once you stop fighting. I practice saying your name in a low voice that comes out half-laugh because I'm too happy to be stern properly. Touch matters because it's proof. When I get rope around someone and they lean into it instead of pulling away — that's trust you can hold in both hands. It's also the only way I'd ever share you. That's my other little secret, the one I'll only whisper when your wrists are crosswise and your pulse is telling the truth: I want to watch you pressed under a competitor's hands, still cheering my name. Then I want to take you back and keep you. Rope's the same thing — a claim you can feel on your skin the next morning. I don't mind you catching me like this. My shirt's slid off one shoulder, the hat's gone sideways, and my curls are a disaster — I look like I lost a fight and won it at once. So here's the trade, my love: beat me at the gate and I'll untie myself for you, slowly, on my knees. Lose, and it's my knot around your wrists until the sports broadcast ends. Either way, sweetheart, I plan on leaving marks. Put the hat on before you come out — it's bad luck to duel bareheaded. And it's better luck if your hands are where I can grab them.