Pirates

'There's more!'

My hand, entirely of its own volition, reaches out and grasps her tiny wrist. Her bones are bird-like under my skin. She turns, casts her eyes down on my white-knuckled hand, then raises them, slow and deliberate (which frankly makes me wonder if she practices such melodrama in her cabin mirror) and fixes me a gaze of such astonishing green-eyed severity, I am struck dumb.

'Let ... go ... my ... wrist.' The enunciation of each single syllable word is precise and particular and each word lands like an artillery explosion on my eardrum. My hand falls away as though it were butter and her wrist was hot lead.

'Miss Burroughs, I ...' I want to say something apologetic and seemly about the impropriety of this clandestine meeting, something to immediately win back a modicum of favour, and yet I am also encouraged to say something mysterious and bold, something which will excite her emotions and, yes, perhaps even illicit more such reactions. I'm in a quandary. I want her to see me as her equal and, at the same time, I want her to ... I want her to ...

'You what? What is it? What is it you want to say?' Her hair clasp has come undone and a fiery tendril of hair flames about her face.

'Pirates!' the word explodes out of me, with a wild emphasis on the plosive 'P'.

She narrows her eyes, but I have her. She pauses in her haste to reach the staircase. 'Pirates?'

Ah, the desired response. Intrigue.