He was still breathing heavily from what she had done to him. The normal lightheartedness of their role-playing was gone tonight, and Victoria saw the deep purple welts wrapping around his thigh and shoulders as he lay on his back. She had been particularly violent with the whip, but he hadn’t protested. She needed his body to look very different from the home video she had secretly taken of both of them. She walked over to the bed and climbed on top of him, straddling his waist. The silk robe slid off her shoulders and crumbled into a pile behind her. She leaned over and put her lips to his ear, whispered in the seductive way she knew would turn him on.

“I want to make sure you know how I feel about you tonight.”

As she kissed his ear, she slowly dragged the length of rope she had hidden behind her back along the side of his face and over his head until it was around his neck. She immediately felt his arousal and knew this would be easier than she imagined. She pulled the rope upward and the slipknot tightened down on his skin. His hips rose up into her. Victoria laid the end of the rope on the bed. It curled over the pillows like a serpent’s tail. Then she kissed him again, this time on the mouth. It was a deep, forceful kiss—almost violent. She could feel that it sent him into a state of euphoria. Then she kissed his chin and his neck and his throat and his chest. She continued her descent along his sternum and down to his navel, where she paused for a moment to look up at him. He was panting like a dog. Waiting. Wanting. So vulnerable and distracted that he would never have a chance.

She finished her descent and heard him moan. She wanted to bring him to the edge of ecstasy, but no further. Victoria wanted him to die at the same proverbial place where he had killed her—on the cusp of bliss and joy, and completely blindsided. When she felt that he was close to climax, she stopped and quickly jumped off him. Two quick steps put her at the head of the bed, where she grabbed the rope before Cameron’s eyes were open. She wrapped the rope in her hands and pulled with all her strength. With his hands bound to the bedposts, Cameron was helpless. It went on for close to a minute before the rope binding his right wrist broke free and he clawed at his throat, trying but failing to loosen the rope that Victoria was strangling him with.