I got up and crossed the room to the tray on the floor.
Her food hadn't been touched. Not one thing on it had moved since Monica set it down in here. The light sat across all of it the way it sat across everything else in this basement.
I picked the metal fork off it. The tines were dull. Better than nothing.
Behind me her breathing had gone uneven again. Not the ragged fighting from earlier. Something faster, and climbing, and no longer being resisted.
I came back and knelt on the bed between her legs. The metal frame took my weight and ticked against the stone, a thin complaint that ran the length of the rails into the headboard. Up close the heat of her was sharper.
"Do you like what you see?"
I looked once.
Bare. Open. The outer lips flushed darker than the rest of her, already slick enough that the light found a thin shine along the inner edge. Her stomach hollowed with the next breath.
Then I looked at the rope on her ankle and put the tines of the fork into it.
