have found a piece of old twine and an empty wine bottle, and I’ve been using them for my project. Also some vermouth, of course. I am ready.

Discipline. This will take discipline and focus. I am up to the task.

I array myself in Desi’s favorite look: delicate flower. My hair in loose waves, perfumed. My skin has paled after a month inside. I am almost without makeup: a flip of mascara, pink-pink cheeks, and clear lip gloss. I wear a clingy pink dress he bought me. No bra. No panties. No shoes, despite the air-conditioned chill. I have a fire crackling and perfume in the air, and when he arrives after lunch without invitation, I greet him with pleasure. I wrap my arms around him and bury my face in his neck. I rub my cheek against his. I have been increasingly sweeter to him the past few weeks, but this is new, this clinging.

‘What’s this, sweetheart?’ he says, surprised and so pleased that I almost feel ashamed.

‘I had the worst nightmare last night,’ I whisper. ‘About Nick. I woke up, and all I wanted was to have you here. And in the morning … I’ve spent all day wishing you were here.’

‘I can always be here, if you like.’

‘I would,’ I say, and I turn my face up to him and let him kiss me. His kiss disgusts me; it’s nibbly and hesitant, like a fish. It’s Desi being respectful of his raped, abused woman. He nibbles again, wet cold lips, his hands barely on me, and I just want this all over, I want it done, so I pull him to me and push his lips open with my tongue. I want to bite him.

He pulls back. ‘Amy,’ he says. ‘You’ve been through a lot. This is fast. I don’t want you to do this fast if you don’t want to. If you’re not sure.’

I know he’s going to have to touch my breasts, I know he’s going to have to push himself inside me, and I want it over, I can barely restrain myself from scratching him: the idea of doing this slowly.

‘I’m sure,’ I say. ‘I guess I’ve been sure since we were sixteen. I was just afraid.’

This means nothing, but I know it will get him hard.

I kiss him again, and then I ask him if he will take me into our bedroom.

In the bedroom, he begins undressing me slowly, kissing parts of my body that have nothing to do with sex – my shoulder, my ear – while I delicately guide him away from my wrists and ankles. Just fuck me, for Christ’s sake. Ten minutes in and I grab his hand and thrust it between my legs.

‘Are you sure?’ he says, pulling back from me, flushed, a loop of his hair falling over his forehead, just like in high school. We could be back in my dorm room, for all the progress Desi has made.

‘Yes, darling,’ I say, and I reach modestly for his cock.

Another ten minutes and he’s finally between my legs, pumping gently, slowly, slowly, making love. Pausing for kisses and caresses until I grab him by the buttocks and begin pushing him. ‘Fuck me,’ I whisper, ‘fuck me hard.’

He stops. ‘It doesn’t have to be like that, Amy. I’m not Nick.’

Very true. ‘I know, darling, I just want you to … to fill me. I feel so empty.’

That gets him. I grimace over his shoulder as he thrusts a few more times and comes, me realizing it almost too late – Oh, this is his pathetic cum-sound – and faking quick oohs and ahhs, gentle kittenish noises. I try to work up some tears because I know he imagines me crying with him the first time.

‘Darling, you’re crying,’ he says as he slips out of me. He kisses a tear.

‘I’m just happy,’ I say. Because that’s what those kinds of women say.

I have mixed up some martinis, I announce – Desi loves a decadent afternoon drink – and when he makes a move to put on his shirt and fetch them, I insist he stay in bed.

‘I want to do something for you for a change,’ I say.

So I scamper into the kitchen and get two big martini glasses, and into mine I put gin and a single olive. Into his I put three olives, gin, olive juice, vermouth, and the last of my sleeping pills, three of them, crushed.

I bring the martinis, and there is snuggling and nuzzling, and I slurp my gin while this happens. I have an edge that must be dulled.

‘Don’t you like my martini?’ I ask when he has only a sip. ‘I always pictured being your wife and making you martinis. I know that’s silly.’

I begin a pout.

‘Oh, darling, not silly at all. I was just taking my time, enjoying. But—’ He guzzles the whole thing down. ‘If it makes you feel better!’

He is giddy, triumphant. His cock is slick with conquest. He is, basically, like all men. Soon he is sleepy, and after that he is snoring.

And I can begin.