She looked at him and then at her toe again. What was she to tell him? He would be disgusted, or at least think her pathetic, or perhaps—worse yet—he would tell her he could try and do those things. The thought made her push her back hard into the wall. Last week, during a pointless fight over whether the restaurant napkins should rest next to or on the plates, she pushed him so relentlessly that he finally grabbed her roughly by the wrists and told her to stop. She let out an impulsive cry, and he pulled away, scalded. She had shocked him or he had shocked himself. Either way, he was so shaken that he stood there stunned, apologizing over and over. “Josie,” he had said, “I’m sorry; I would never … you know I wouldn’t …” He stumbled and stuttered, and she looked at him and wanted to slap his concerned-looking face. She was disgusted by his tenderness, then disgusted by her own reaction.

Now, the thought of Phillip taking her chin in one hand and, with the other, slapping her swiftly across the face made her cringe. She had melted to him precisely because he was everything Devesh was not—soft and accommodating. He did not make her want to get down on her knees and press her forehead against the tops of his feet. Phillip was loving and sweet, but he could not make her bow her head with a single look, could not make her chest and stomach and lungs unfold like lotus flowers. This thing, whatever it was, could not be manufactured. It was either there or it was not. You did not bring people back from the dead simply because you wanted to, and you did not pull that hunger from your pocket like a penny.

“There’s something I have to tell you,” she said, and paused. It was cruel to make him wait for what she was sure he knew was a goodbye speech, but she didn’t know how to put into words what she had never actually articulated. She took a deep breath. “I want bad things,” she stuttered. “I mean … I want things you’ll think are bad.”

He looked at her quizzically. “Like what?”

“Like sexual things.” She paused. “I want to be punished.”

He was silent, waiting for more, but she said nothing. “Okay,” he said.

“Do you know what that means?”

The light streaming in the bathroom window was fading, but she could see the discomfort in his shoulders, the way they twitched slowly toward each other. “Um,” he stammered. “Like … spanked?”

“I want to be beaten,” she blurted. The words seemed to somersault out of her mouth and consume the space between them, and he opened his mouth as if he were gasping for air, then shut it, then opened it again.

“Oh,” he said. She knew he was trying to be impartial, but she saw the grimace flick across his face.