Nectarine

I watch her.

Light, cold from the fridge dissipates the gloom of the kitchen, turning murky again as indistinct shadows lap at her edges.

Poise.

Her soft curves at once appearing and disappearing as she plays tacitly with the milky glow.

She has her own shadows.

The red has subsided and given way to darker kisses. Her thighs hide then momentarily reveal his attention; now subtle: then violent. Black whorls of haem: breasts; thighs; buttocks; obstinate and rude; cartographic; a quiet narrative tale of her adventure and acquiescence. Each subtle movement revealing further contour lines: from the pale alabaster of her skin graduating to sharper, aching colours, developing in monochrome detail, marking the intense change in altitude of foothills, valleys and hills. Her purpose is indistinct, but she’s hungry.

Sugar isn’t enough.

It needs to be specific, but she can’t put her finger on what, exactly, she needs to consume to silence her screaming brain.

Delicate, sheer black knickers, accentuating the outrageous provocation of her arse; partially obscuring the evidence of blissful violence. One foot flat- the other pointing her toes into the floor; knee bent.

Her head sags. Bitten-lip self-inflicted pain echoes the stinging, searing, structured progression of punishment she endured 2 days and one night ago. Drifting as she leans on the counter-top, she is briefly but completely transported back to the table. He’d arranged her on the table. Days had turned into weeks of seduction- no- not seduction- nurturing- nurturing thoughts- planting seeds. He’d made nuances turn to notions. Turn to fantasy. Then to structured thoughts. Then to precise, urgent, needs.

Her nipples ache. Erectile tissue does its job, and in her personal midnight recollective cinema, she shudders as she sighs. She rubs her wrists. The marks have gone now, but phantom ropes still grip and bite her now, and that cunt Pavlov does his job- even when the stimulus is an imagined one. With irritating causal certainty, she seeps.

Her mouth is dry.

The fridge, door open, whirs into life as the cold continues to flood into the kitchen.

He hadn’t been kind.