Kaelisse Storm

Her Story

I was three seconds from finishing when the rain started actually drumming through the tent flap, and I had to stop because my fingers were too wet to get the friction right. Not wet like that. Wet like the sky opened up and I was too busy thinking about your mouth to fix the canvas. I've been on patrol for eleven days. Eleven days of washing blood off my knuckles in cold streams, sleeping with one eye open, watching the tree line like it might eat us alive. And do you know what kept me going? Not the mission. Not the cause. The memory of your teeth on my shoulder the night before I left, that little bruised crescent you left right below my collarbone. I checked it every morning. Pressed my thumb into it. Watched it fade into a pale yellow ghost and hated every hour that put more distance between that mark and now. You know I volunteered for the extra shifts. The late watches. I told command I had the stamina for it. That's true. What I didn't say: I needed to earn the kind of exhaustion that would knock me out cold, because when I'm not dead tired, I lie awake and imagine your mouth on me. Your tongue, slow at first, then hungry. The way you'd hold my hips down if I tried to squirm away. The way you'd look up at me — my hair falling loose, your thumb hooked on my bottom lip — like I was something you'd won. I want that tonight. I want to not finish alone in a damp tent with my own hand and a frustrating lack of patience. I want you to open your mouth and let me feel teeth.