Snap

"I don't understand why you can't say it."

He was nearing the edge, he knew. She was sensitive about it, and if pushed too far, she could snap.

"I don't know, OK? I just can't. It's so hard, you don't understand. Can't you please just do it for me? I don't ask very often."

"Ask for what?" Almost taunting.

"You know."

"Come on, tell me."

"Don't be like this, damn it. Please." Her voice took on an insistent tone.

"If you don't say it, I won't do it for you."

As soon as he said it, he knew it had happened.

"That's it," she said, quiet but menacing, and stormed toward him. He stood stock still, like a deer in the headlights, not cowering, but bracing anyway for impact. With surprising ease, she pushed him to the floor and knelt over his chest, pinning his arms beneath her legs. "You're going to die," she said, practically spitting the words into his face. "And I'm going to be the one to kill you. And this is how I'm going to do it. Breath. Control. Satisfied, my little bitch?"

He nodded, meekly, taken aback, and swallowed, hard.

"Good. And no, I'm not going to sit on your face, like you love so much. Nobody's getting off this time, not me, and certainly not you. This is just about my hand, your mouth and your nose, all pressed very close together. Total control for me, none for you. Got it?"

He nodded again. Her legs were making his hands go numb. He clenched and unclenched his fists to try to get some feeling back into them, in vain. She noticed it and smiled in a very unamused way.

"I see that. That's not going to work this time. It's all the way, toy." She reached over to the coffee table and pulled on a long leather glove. "For protection. I'm not going to have you bite the hand that...well, you know." Then she held her hand over his face, feinting, teasing him. He tried to time his breaths, gasping out and then in as quickly as possible to avoid being caught short. At length she tired of this game and slammed her hand down hard over his nose and mouth. The thick leather effectively cut off his breathing.

God, he panicked, she's not serious, is she? He shook his head back and forth, in a vain attempt to buck her hand off. "Good, very good, slut. I'm going to miss this part of it. You always were the best." He lifted his head, with the intention of getting some slack in her arms, but she redoubled her pressure, keeping his head pinned on the carpet. Oh god, he thought, she's really going to do it. His arms and legs were in distress from the oxygen deprivation, much worse than he had imagined, and his chest heaved underneath her, rhythmically up and down.

Still her hand covered him. He stopped struggling, and simply looked up at her, and shook--no, he nodded his head, as if to say, "Yes, I'm yours. I accept it." Then he closed his eyes and hoped he could succumb as painlessly as possible.

There was a brief instant of blackness, and then he heard her voice, sane again, as if waking from a dream. "Oh my god, shit, what did I do to you, David? Please say you're OK." He tried to speak but he couldn't at first. He managed to nod his head, and then, at last, the words came to him. "I'm OK," he said weakly, "OK."

In her relief, she rested her head on his chest, and listened to him breathe for several minutes, during which neither of them said another word. When she spoke again, her voice sounded distant and sad.

"What kind of monster am I, David? Why do I do that?" She lifted her head and looked down at him. "Hmm?"

He thought about it a bit. "Because it's me you do it to, Mina. You love me," he said, with something approaching supreme confidence, "and I'm the only one who deserves it." He closed his eyes. "And needs it," he added, almost as an afterthought.

Mina considered this a while, then lay back down, with a contented sigh. They fell asleep together, and by the time they woke up, it was dark, and the streetlights outside played a tangle of zebra stripes over their bodies.