There are, of course, some nice things about moving in with him. Aside from my not having to constantly worry about how to make too-short ends meet, there is Magister himself. Every day, he cooks for us (unless I'm taking a turn in the kitchen, which he has me do every few days or so - he wants to get me comfortable working from a cookbook and making meals that don't rely on pouches or boxes of something cheap and preprocessed, for some reason). Every day, we do our tai ch'i together in the living room. Every day, we read to each other. He reads me poetry or short stories (not all of which are erotic in nature) or essays he thinks I might find interesting; I usually read him poetry when I do the reading.

His work schedule generally involves afternoons and evenings, so it's compatible with my own evening shift at the newspaper call center (I've cut my hours at his request - he thought the dark circles under my eyes indicated a lack not just of nutrients, but also rest, and it was his opinion that I ought to get caught up on the rest I've been denying myself, especially if I'm recovering from food insecurity and cold exposure. He was correct in his assessment. Damn him). So, every night, I have him.

Every night, I have him. And every night, when he is done with me, I tie our wrists together before we sleep, our hands entwined, our flesh united by a length of securely fastened black silk.

The living room stereo plays Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade. We're eating truffles and celebrating Valentine's Day, although it's a week after the official date. The main reason for this is that we like chocolate, but we also like buying said chocolate on clearance. It makes no sense to pay extra money just to celebrate a holiday on time, especially not when the holiday is a commercially hyped celebration of a romantic love that we two celebrate every day that we're together anyway. Chocolate gets celebrated here on a fairly regular basis as well, come to think of it.

"Roses," he murmurs into my ear, as he slides a chocolate cherry truffle into my mouth. "It wouldn't be Valentine's Day without roses."

"It's a bit late to run out to the florist." I lick chocolate from his finger.

"We already have the roses."

"We do?" I start unbuttoning his shirt, to run my fingertips lightly along the nerve endings he showed me. When I start flicking my tongue along one of his nipples, his breath quickens. I like the way it sounds. "Maybe I could get you to turn a nice shade of rose. The color would rather suit you." I start unfastening his belt, then his trousers, and use my lips to coax his member out through the flap in his boxers. It's a shame there's no chocolate syrup nearby. He's pleasant enough without chocolate syrup, but the holiday we're celebrating makes chocolate syrup seem appropriate.

He reaches for my head. "Not that I object to your ideas for the course of the evening, but let's save them for later. No, I was thinking of different roses." He runs his fingers through my hair caressingly before grabbing a handful and holding me firmly in place, making me inhale sharply. "I was thinking of the roses I gave you for Yule."

Oh.

Those roses.

I gulp. "That does seem fair," I say, my voice carefully steady. "It has been almost two months since you gave me my Yule present, hasn't it?"

"Yes," he agrees, and somehow manages to rise off the couch while still holding me by the hair. He lets go of me just long enough to pull up and refasten his trousers, then takes me by the hair again. I have no choice but to follow him when he pulls me along to the center of the room. "Strip," he says, in that incongruously soft, velvet voice of his. It's amazing how many different ways that voice can send chills up my spine, some of them more comfortable than others. The chill I feel now is not one of the comfortable ones.

As I go about removing my clothes, he disappears into the bedroom and returns with the silver-handled flogger, two sets of manacles, and rope. "If I was feeling particularly evil, I'd make you use your own effort to stay in place," he says, "but I'm not feeling that evil. Besides, I think that would involve unrealistic expectations on my part. I doubt even you could hold still for what I'm about to do."

Oh. Thank you. You're so very kind.

He arranges me over the wooden chest and ties the rope between the manacles and around the chest and the bottoms of my thighs, just near my knees, so that I can't move anything other than my head. I'm not sure how he's fastened the manacles at my ankles, to keep me from lifting my lower legs, but he's managed to fasten them to something. "You're still far too thin in your upper body," he muses. "I can only safely target the area between your hips and your knees right now. Given the way your voice carries when you are not under silence, I think we'll also have to address that. It wouldn't be fair to not allow you the release of screaming tonight. Would you prefer a gag, or something to bite down on?"

"Biting," I reply faintly. I imagine the repousséd silver of the whip handle, roses shining in candlelight. I will suffer for this beauty tonight. I doubt it will be the last time that I do so. At some point, I should probably reflect on this.

He disappears for a moment to go into the bedroom and returns with his riding crop, which he puts between my teeth. It is covered with bite marks that hadn't been there a year ago. It's been put to this use many times.

I whimper. Some Stoic I make. It occurs to me that I've shed more tears in the months we've been together than I had in all the years of my life combined before I met Magister. I'm not quite sure what to make of that. For the most part, they haven't been tears of sadness, exactly, and I'm not sure what to make of that, either. It is just an odd fact: until I met Magister and gave myself to him for apprenticeship, I seldom cried. I could go for years without shedding a single tear.

"I think ten blows would be appropriate," he says. "It would certainly be at the upper limit of your endurance, but I'm reasonably sure you can handle it. I'll count them out loud to help you know that they won't go on forever. Later in life, should you inflict this on one of your partners, please remember that the business end was designed for causing two things: pain, and lacerations. Go light. Do not lay into a person with all your might when you wield it, do not allow the whip's weight and momentum to escape your control. You can flay a person to ribbons that way, and I'm not being metaphorical when I say that. Make no mistake about it: the handle may have its own recreational uses, but as a whip, this is not meant to be a toy. It was designed as a weapon. Be very careful. Use minimal force only, or if you want to play with momentum, step far enough back from your partner so that only the steel tips make contact with their flesh. And then beware of wraparound so that you don't accidentally tear your skin apart. Speaking of which, I recommend testing it out on your own skin, by yourself, to get an idea of how much force to use. It will be a distinctly unpleasant experience for you, but it would be the responsible thing to do. Your whip is as dangerous as it is pretty."

Lacerations?

"Brace yourself, eromene," he murmurs. "One."

When the steel tips bite into my flesh, I scream behind the stick and bite down hard enough to make my jaw ache.

I don't think my brain could even have encompassed this.

"Two."

After the fifth stroke, I am sobbing hysterically.

I stagger, my arm draped over his shoulders. My knees are so wobbly that I can barely walk. My vision is blurred from the tears I am still shedding. He has to help me to lie down before he can start performing basic first aid on my wounded backside: warm soapy water, followed by a medicated antiseptic ointment that, blessedly, has a topical anesthetic in it. I don't know how I will be able to fall asleep tonight. I've rested on top of injuries he's left before, but they were never quite this extensive.

When his fingers enter me, I moan.

"I thought you might need some consolation," he says softly. "Is this a good consolation?"

"Oh, yes," I cry out, as I rock my hips to get him deeper into me. "Console me more." My sobs become slightly crazed laughter; my laughter becomes sighs and gasps; my sighs and gasps become ecstasy.

Our days pass in poetry and philosophy and meditation, our nights in love and pain. We move together in a golden glow, bathed in sweetness.