As she sat at the vanity nude, she looked in the large lighted mirror and saw him stripping his clothes off and stepping into the shower. He left the glass door open purposefully and bathed in the warm streams. He butchered a Norah Jones song, “Come Away with Me,” but the shower stifled his voice. His terrible voice brought a smile to her lips as she applied a dark shade to them, a mix of blood and merlot, to match her dress. The tube was out and in place on the countertop, placed there by her lover. He has thought of everything, she thought but did not say, looking more in the mirror at him than at her face. As she finished her hair and makeup, he showered, shaved and dressed in a new tuxedo. Black pants, white shirt and white jacket. She got up to find lingerie to wear beneath the bruise-colored dress. She went to her dresser to find a good purple set, but he blocked the way. He held the dress in one hand, a pair of painfully high stiletto heels, a garter and hose in the other.

She looked up at him and knew he meant it. He adjusted the garter to her waist, the straps curving over the roundness of her hips. He then told her to lift her arms. She raised her arms for him to slide the dress over her head. Her nipples stiffened with the cool touch of the silk. Both knew her nipples would be hard all night. He bent down to her to slide her feet into the hose one at a time and cleave them to the garters. The hose were not fishnet so much as dozens of diamonds of black thread, a contrast of geometry to the natural curves of her flesh. He put her feet into the stilettos. The red gave such a contrast to the dark regal color of the dress. Gold buckles were reminiscent of some of the buckles he had used on her. Reminiscent of the bonds.

He stood up and took her into his chest without a word. The low growl in his throat said it all for her, a song she loved to hear. He slid a small box out of his tuxedo jacket pocket. She knew instinctively the kind of box and opened it to find a solid gold choker with a lock on the back. The lock resembled a padlock. She turned for him to put it on her. Standing behind her, he clamped the choker into place. It was perfectly snug. He locked the tiny padlock and his hand went to rest on her throat, to pull her back into him. His hand often searched for the delicate hollows of her throat, her collarbone. Softly he would feel for her pulse and often find it racing. As it was now.

She turned and looked up at him. “How did you know what size?” she asked.

He smiled and put his two hands together in a perfect circle. “I showed him what size to make it.” Her cunt flooded at the image of his hands making the intimate circle that had become a part of their lovemaking. Feeling the embrace of his hands on her throat so often, she had become accustomed to it, like the dog and the dinner bell. She had been undressed, bathed, shaved and dressed by a man