His mouth was at her ear now. With words intimate and secret he whispered his love for her, his pride that she was his property, his possession, his heart. She was always his, would forever be his. New tears flowed now but they were ones wrenched from her by love and not torture. This was her favorite pain.

He kissed her now on the mouth for the first time. He kissed her like he owned her, as he owned her. He kissed her like her mouth was his mouth, her lips were his lips, her tongue was his tongue. They were one flesh. They needed no wedding ring, no ceremony to know that was true. She had the collar around her neck. She did not envy married women what they had. She would take his collar over a blood diamond and a cheap gold band any day and for all time.

He moved away from her again. She waited on her aching back and relished the absence of pain. When he returned to her he pulled the coverlet down underneath her so she lay on the sheets. He took her by the knees and wrapped a soft cotton rope around them. She relaxed and let him tie her to the bed. Her knees were up and pulled wide. She lay completely open now. No matter how hard she could try to close her legs, she couldn’t. She never tried.

The bed shifted. She knew he knelt between her wide-open thighs. She inhaled sharply when she felt his fingers slowly enter her. He opened his fingers to widen her, to prepare her for his penetration. He pushed into the back wall of her vagina and pressed down until she flinched hard around his hand. Her passage was slick and wet for him. But he was large enough that he could tear her or bruise her if he didn’t ready her for him first. There were times he took her so roughly she bled. Those were the nights he was lost to himself, lost in the darkness that hid beneath the shadow of his heart. But tonight he wasn’t lost. He was with her.

She felt the wet tip of him poised at the entrance to her body. He pushed in slowly. She whimpered as she stretched and opened to take all of him. If she could have taken his whole being inside her she would. If she could disappear inside him and live in his skin she would.

He moved in her with long meticulous thrusts that filled and emptied her. His pace did not quicken. He gripped her wrists and pressed them into the bed. Many nights he would secure her wrists with rope, as well. But some nights he needed to hold her down with his own hands.

She lay beneath him and panted. Tied as she was she could do little more than take him. She wanted to beg but he hadn’t given her permission to speak. She tilted her hips up as much as she could to take even more of him in her. With one hand still on her wrists, his other hand reached between them and caressed her where their bodies joined. The pressure built in her hips. A knot tightened in her stomach and she felt an invisible rope pull her toward the ceiling. She came hard and spasmed around him. He didn’t stop.