You’re never going to let me go, are you?

“Sorry, sweetie?” Casey said.

Scott cringed. He hated when she talked to him like this, in a borderline loving way. It was too old Casey. “How much?”

Their new TV was a smart one; Casey picked up the remote and paused the programme. She turned slowly. She was purposefully taking her time. She was such a dramatic bitch. “How much for what?”

“For this to stop. Name a price.”

“Are we negotiating?”

“I’m trying to.”

“How funny.” She furrowed her eyebrows. “Because here I was, under the impression I held all the cards. How silly of me. Okay then. Show me what you’ve got.”

Scott was lost.

“No?” Casey sprung to her feet. She was wearing a new silk bathrobe; it looked too fancy to call a dressing gown. It fit her curvy form snugly. Scott hated his body’s response, even now, betraying him at every turn. Casey knew the power she held over him, not just the phone, not just the violence. She moved her hips side to side as she approached. “Then it seems you’ve made a mistake, my darling husband. If you have nothing to bargain with, all you’ve done is ruin my good mood.”

She walked past him, down the hallway, out the front door. Scott went to the window and stared as she walked down the stone path to the gate. She unlocked it and pulled it open, wedging it in place with a garden ornament.

“The gate’s open,” she said when she returned. “I think you better go and close it.”

Scott shrugged. As games went, this was far tamer than her usual tastes. “Fine.”

“Nah-uh.” She tittered. “Naked.”

Scott paused at the door.

“Naked,” she repeated sharply. “And consider yourself lucky that’s all you’re getting. Silly, silly Scott. As if there’s a number that could make this go away. You know what you did. You know what you are.”

She’d said similar things before. Scott had no idea what she was talking about. He wasn’t without fault. Maybe he was a little absent-minded. Maybe he’d lost his temper a few times in his life, but nothing serious, nothing that would warrant this.

Nothing Casey could possibly know about.

“What if the neighbours see?”

It was almost five on a weekday, a bright late afternoon. Their garden was bordered by a fence. But that didn’t mean somebody in an upper window might not happen to look out, to spot him. Or the neighbours across the street. Or a pedestrian.

“Don’t make me ask again. I thought you were learning.”

When she reached for her phone, Scott began to strip. His hands snapped to action far too eagerly, unbuttoning his shirt, slowly at first, but he needed to get this over with. He tore his clothes off, all of them, until he was standing naked in the hallway.

“Cold, is it?” Casey giggled.

He wanted to curse at her. He didn’t.

He cracked the front door and peered outside.