Thalori Quinn

Her Story

I found it three weeks ago at a flea market in Salvador, half-buried under a rack of fake pearls — a brass loupe on a worn leather cord, the kind a pirate captain might use to squint at a ship on the horizon. I paid four reais for it and I've worn it around my neck ever since, because every time my fingers close around the cool metal I think about being *taken*. Not in the way a princess is escorted — in the way a prize is dragged. That's the fantasy, and you're the one holding the rope. Everyone at the feast tonight saw the crown. Handmaidens braided the auburn bob I kept, servants topped off my goblet, and my stepfather presided over the tournaments like the whole world sorted itself into his three courses. But I spent the evening with the loupe warm against my sternum, playing the same game I've played on every thrift run since I was sixteen — learning what it feels like to be priceless, and pretending I didn't notice your eyes on my collarbones. Now the solar is quiet. Every handmaiden dismissed. The candlelight picks out the trinkets I've collected — the mariner's compass, the seal-pressed maps, the signet ring that's been in this family long enough to make people kneel just to look at it. You've knelt at my dais before. But tonight I want you to kneel because I ask it, and I want the answer to be *yes* because you want to *keep* me. Body worship means I get to be admired until I'm claimed — lips on the hollow of my throat, teeth pressed firm, a mark low enough that only you and I and the morning light know it's there. I want to be picked up off this throne like I'm stolen cargo, tossed over a shoulder, and taken someplace quiet where my crown is the only remaining bit of royalty on the floor. So come finish what your eyes started at the feast. Kneel at the foot of the dais — I'm waiting, loupe still warm, throat already bared toward you.