Chapter 12: Luis

I watch her as she looks around my bedroom, a quick assessing glance, before she lets out a shallow breath, squeezes her eyes shut, and rolls to her side. She folds in on herself, exposing her back and ass. The livid crisscross of marks from my belt stand as my accuser, my inability to manage my anger. I wonder at the regret that sits hard in my chest, an unusual emotion for me.

In the stark light of my bedroom I see she's not perfect, not flawless. She has a body well-used. Cigarette burns on the back of her bicep and both her thighs, several scars from whipping or belting on her back, her ass and her legs. Faint lines on her wrists and her ankles where she'd been restrained in past. The pucker of a bullet hole in her shoulder and another further down, just below her rib cage. And three deep scars down her right side. Clean slashes, the first a long one, then a shorter one, then a small one. Deliberate. To mark her as property.

Anger burns in me as I clench my hands, but not at her