sacrifice and redemption, because it is only when you take in what you have given, that you can ever trust, and kiss, and make love and live. We would turn into dust inside if we had not done what we did last night.

Greg was not beaten. He was not tortured. He was merely given a master’s lifetime of a Sub’s lessons in extreme edge-play in two hours. It was overwhelming and that stress, tapped out his strong heart and his body. The manipulation pushed him over an edge and for me; he was not brought back through the thread of a voice or a touch.

When he was able to lift his chin off his chest and he looked at me, his head trembled like a fall leaf shuffled in a breeze, at any moment his head would drop back down, like the dead leaf would fall. There was no emotion on my face. There couldn’t be. Inside I was a steam of memories. Inside my muscles began to remember, throat felt dry, my neck hurt, and my chest began to burn.

I know that leaf wanted to fall, I know that the lines of blood seeping through his silk shirt was chilling him, but he couldn’t look away because I was everything and anything before him.

My face locked in the memory of that moment when I realized in his madness while being high that night that he wanted to kill me. I had never recovered safety from that night. We had never been where we were. I had never been able to give myself completely to him, yes, we have fucked since that night, but never have I allowed him all of me, since.

“You killed me. You strangled me to death. I would not be here today if Fetch hadn’t bit you. You would have my ashes in a vase on your fireplace, or tucked into a tiny plastic sack in your prison cell if my neighbor didn’t break open my front door when he heard your tires tear up the concrete as you left me there, on the floor, on the floor dead.”

It was all things that I wanted to say to him but never did. It was the mantra in my head since that day.

“Someone would have called my son and told them that I was dead. I would have never seen my son graduate high school. I would have never seen the family he would have made. That night you took that away from me, and although I breathe, I have not lived since.”

Greg his head a brittle stem fell down and broke. I got up off the bed.

“There have been people who have done worse.”

I picked up his shaking hands. His wrists were red and slightly swollen, most likely from him being tied up and being suspended from a T-post. I brought his chin up level to my face and I kissed him. There was no tenderness in this kiss, because there was no tenderness in strangulation.

I treated him harshly. I kissed him without love, but need. I took off his clothes without care as to how his silk shirt was stuck to the small superficial wounds on his chest, arms, back, legs, and torso. I manhandled him to the bed. I told him I loved him, but that he should not have done what he did that night and I lay on top of him, my knee in his stomach. While looking into