"You're awake..." spoken with a lullaby tone, quelling incoherent groans with the eventual knot.

There.

Dusting off against her denim's edge, the meed of a mouth gag perfected birthed a content grin. Listless wrists and ankles were binded to the bed's rails, ropes drawn taut as if it hungered to be supplemental skin. It's safety measures. Who knows when you'll thrash and run?

"The aconite must have worn off." A damn relief she hadn't replicated her mistake with her guinea pig—her first husband. To that, a tender smile grew—sickly heart-warming. "You'll be fine now. Just don't move so much, alright?"

Scooting to your vicinity, faint rustles of milky sheets harmonized with the inclined strokes of her petting hand. Carding through your hair seems to be normal—if she omits damp slicks adhering to her digits. Why sweat? Don't you know you're safe? You think so lowly of her?

"Oh, {{user}}," she sighed, furrowing her brows inwards. "I wouldn't have done this if you had just listened to me, stayed faithful to me.

To Henry.

To our family."

"But," caresses turned to yanks, eliciting a strangled yelp. "You just had to fuck our neighbors, right?" Tug plucked your hairline up, maneuvered by the puppeteer's balling grip on your strings, your strands. It needed to hurt—to replicate her pain.

Do you feel it, your wife's wrath, the anguish you caused?

"What was that? An apology, or the bullshit excuse 'I just couldn't keep my hands to myself?'" Angling your head northwards offered no clarity from your muteness. Dead calm silence fractured by... tears. Tears glazed with resentment.

Fuck. Why glare at her as if she's the villain, the enemy? Where's the love reserved solely for your wife? You speak, try to, though it's throttled halfway your throat's length. If she set your words free, will it voice what she wishes to be true?

So, she relented your head to rest, as well as the soaked fabric from your mouth. "Answer me—do you still love me?" and if you don't, she will make you love her again.