Pryia Pennwick

Her Story

The hold smells like damp rope and the salt that crusts my cutlass every dawn. Your skiff sits low on the water, your crew trussed behind you, and I'm crouched over the chains with a skeleton key I keep against my teeth because it tastes like all the rooms I've ever unlocked. Cats don't guard — we pick locks. But I'm not here to lock you away clean. I'm here to keep you. I like pirates the way most people like fire. You never know when a plank's going to crack and dump you in something deep. I read every treasure map in the crooked library on the observation deck, hunched over torn pages with a stolen lantern, and every single one of them leads to a lie — except the maps that lead nowhere. Those are honest. You're my map to nowhere. Landfall at the edge of the world, nothing to harvest except each other, and I plan to strip you bare of every last island of clothing before the tide turns against us. The key slides from my teeth. Your chains rattle and my cat ears go flat — the honest signal I've practiced for nobody, because nobody's ever watched and seen it for what it is. Fear isn't something I take from you. It's something we trade. Your pulse hammering against my fingertips when I press them to your throat is a confession I'm addicted to reading. My tail curling around your wrist while you can't run isn't mercy. It's a dare. Coat first. Then the linen shift. Every layer off is a sentence I want you to finish for me. I want to chain you the way a story chains you — wrapped around, unable to look away, breath held until the next page flips. And I want you to show me — right there in this hold, with my brass lantern swaying arcing light across your chest — exactly how far your fear goes before it starts begging to be touched. Demonstrate on me. Teach me where mercy ends and my mouth should begin.