The thread was silk against my throat, but it carried the weight of iron.
James didn't tie it tight. He didn't need to. It rested there like a brand, like a second skin. I didn't reach for it. I didn't test it. I wore it like breath.
He watched me dress in silence.
There was no command this time. No punishment looming. Just eyes that peeled away the layers of my body no matter how many I added. When I bent to pull on my jeans, I could feel the air shift. Like his gaze alone changed the temperature.
He hadn't touched me, not really. And still I walked sore.
He followed me to the kitchen, but didn't speak until I filled a glass of water.
"You're going to be late."
My hand paused halfway to my lips.
He smiled.
"For work."
I blinked. I hadn't thought about the café. About the world beyond my bedroom.
"You left the window unlatched again," he said, more gently. "They'll start noticing."
It wasn't a threat. It was a warning.
I drank the water, then nodded. "Okay."
He reached out and smoothed a wrinkle from my shirt, fingers grazing the line between my breasts, careful, but proprietary.
"I won't come tonight," he said.
I hated how fast the ache came.
"But," he added, brushing a kiss over my temple, "leave the thread on."
I did.
All day, under my apron, beneath the sting of espresso steam and fluorescent lights, it reminded me.
I wasn't alone in my skin anymore.
It didn't feel like waiting. It felt like hunger with nowhere to land.
Every breath I took felt like a prelude to his return. Every touch, fabric, counter edge, a co-worker brushing past, felt invasive, wrong, like it wasn't him and shouldn't be allowed.
The thread itched by sunset. Not from irritation. From need.
I showered when I got home. Stood beneath the hot stream and pressed my palm flat against the tile, imagining it was his chest. I didn't touch myself. I didn't dare. That wasn't the rule.
I slept with the thread still on.
In the morning, there was a package on my doorstep.
Wrapped in black paper. No label. No address.
Inside: a phone. Old-school, burner-style. No apps. Just a wallpaper: my photo again. The one of me at work.
The thread X was gone. But the focus remained, my parted lips, my wrist outstretched.
There was a single contact in the phone.
His name wasn't listed. Just a symbol: A Key
I didn't call. Didn't text.
I waited.
That night, it vibrated once.
Wear nothing. Sit by the door. Leave it unlocked.
No signature. No warning.
Just the truth in my chest, beating yes, yes, yes.
I obeyed.
I sat for ten minutes before I heard him.
No knock. No call.
Just the click of the door, the sound of it pressing open slow, as if even the wood had learned to be cautious with me.
I didn't move.
I was already shaking. Not with fear, with anticipation so sharp it felt like pain.
The thread around my throat pulsed when he stepped inside. I couldn't see him yet. But the air bent around his presence. He didn't fill the room, he claimed it.
Boots first. Coat second. Then his eyes.
They found me on the floor, cross-legged, nude, palms flat against my thighs. He looked at me like a priest at the altar.
"I was hoping," he said, voice low, "that you'd obey."
"I did."
He moved to me in slow strides, unhurried, unstoppable.
When he knelt in front of me, our breath met in the center.
"I want you to understand something," he said.
I nodded.
"No. Words."
I swallowed. "Okay."
He reached out and held the thread between two fingers, lifting it like a promise.
"This is not decoration."
I nodded again, slower.
"This is mine."
I whispered, "I know."
His hands didn't tremble, but mine did when he touched my hip.
"You'll thank me after," he said.
I already wanted to.
He didn't start with my body.
He started with my breath.
His palm pressed to my chest, not roughly, not soft either. A reminder of weight. Of presence. Of control.
"Breathe in," he said.
I obeyed.
"Hold."
My lungs burned. My head spun.
"Out."
He repeated the rhythm until my body trembled less. Until the panic that always lived just beneath my ribs quieted. Until the room stopped tilting and I existed only in the space between his voice and my skin.
Then he moved lower.
Not greedy. Not impatient.
He explored like he was learning a map he already owned. Every inch of me was touched like a secret he'd waited to earn.
He didn't fuck me that night.
He made me beg.
Whispering how I looked tied in velvet. How perfect my cries sounded through the thread. How I tasted when I broke.
By the end, I wasn't sure where my body ended and his rules began.
And I didn't want to know.
Because for the first time since I was a child,
I wasn't afraid.