When he speaks like this, his skin is clear and his body is powerful with steely bone and rippling muscle. He stands ten feet tall. The missing tops of his ears aren’t a sign of frailty, but a reminder of what he’s survived. This prison would melt away if he’d will it out of existence, but instead he wills my body to turn and sit with my back to the glass.

“Dario.” I sit and start to look over my shoulder, but he stops me.

“Face forward and put your knees up.”

“Why?”

“Because that dress is suffocating your cunt. Pull the skirt up and air it out.” His voice is right behind me, as if he’s sitting too.

He’s blocking the camera with his back.

I pull the skirt over my knees.

“Do what I tell you.” He sounds distracted. “Say you understand.”

“I understand.” I wish I knew what he was doing. The temptation to turn around is overwhelming.

“Your Colonia underwear is little girl cotton. Right?” There’s a humming undercurrent to his words, but it’s not as saturated in every tone and syllable. He’s not paying full attention.

I look around. His shoulders are bare, and his head is bent down.

“Yes. What are you—?” I figure it out before I finish the question and turn back around. He’s looking at the shapes I embroidered inside his pocket hem. “Yes. Basic cotton. Black though, because I’m in mourning for my father… who you killed.”

The arrow stitch starts the sequence. Every line goes to an invisible number, which can be one of three letters on the phone keypad, and picks up a fabric thread where it angles off to another invisible number and three-letter set, where it picks up the thread until the French knot ends the word.

What was I thinking? It’s too complicated.

No wonder he’s distracted. He not only has to figure out all that, but then he also has to choose between three letters to make a word without even pen and paper. What if he picks the wrong letter and it means something completely different?

“When I take you out of here, you’ll burn it and wear what I give you. Something fit for a whore.”

We’re not truly alone. I don’t know how much of what we say can be heard, but anything could be too much. The charade of Colonia loyalty I’ve developed could slip. I can’t let that happen even if Dario believes I’ve turned on him.

“I won’t go with you,” I say for the microphones.

“You’re my wife and you’ll do what I tell you.”

Despite his distraction, I’m suddenly back to how we were in those first days, when my obedience was balanced on the razor-thin edge of marriage vows.

“You’re going to tell me to touch myself.”