“Now,” he said, and took the dishwashing liquid and squeezed some over the sponge, “you’re going to wash these dishes.”

“No,” she whimpered.

He took his wet hand and brought it down on her thigh. “Do as you’re told,” he said. “And you’re going to be very quiet and very good, do you understand?”

She could feel the tears beginning to gather, the lump rising at the back of her throat, and she was afraid to open her mouth.

He pushed his knee roughly between her legs. “Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she managed.

“Yes what?”

“Yes, Sir.”

She could feel her muscles contract, could feel her knees get weak, but when he reached toward the dish-drying rack and grabbed a wooden spoon, her vision went cloudy, and when he brought the spoon firmly down on her skin, her brain was vacuumed from her skull. She could feel the biting cold water and the slick soapy glass and the rough tongue of the spoon hitting her over and over and over, and then his hands were on her body, his fingers exploring everywhere. She whimpered, and he slipped his hand over her mouth. He had caught her with no air in her chest, and she could feel the dull pain of her empty lungs get larger and larger, and when she thought she would either have to fight him or pass out, she realized first that she could sip air easily in through her nose, and second that she had never felt such overwhelming pleasure. She closed her eyes, held her breath, and slipped easily into the sensation. It was terrifying, and yet with each new wave of panic came a blast of rapture, and suddenly, she was back in her canopy bed, made to lie still. She was little and the spankings were harder and the punishment worse because it was fantasy and not Devesh being careful. She was small and deserved it, but no, it wasn’t her, it was some other child being beaten—a boy or a girl, she wasn’t sure—and it was she who was bringing the spoon down, listening to the whistle of the wood, feeling the power of her swing, swinging it hard, harder, harder until she came more violently than she ever had before.

Even when her body stopped shaking, she felt herself going round and round on a pinwheel, stuck like a butterfly, and it was only when Devesh took her chin in his hand and kissed her on the forehead that she realized she was a grownup and that the man she loved was doing these things to her. Her head was still spinning, and she was somewhere between there and here, still trying to catch her breath, and this had never happened before. She had never gone so far away that she was startled to be brought back, but the worst part, the part that made her want to tear her fingernails down her forearms, was that she had orgasmed from thinking that thought, seeing that vibrant image of herself and some child play itself on the screen of her skull. She had to close her eyes and clench her jaw to keep from throwing up.