All Chapters of Mafia’s Virgin Bride: Chapter 11

I did not remove the collar that night.The collar lay about my neck like a question. For months — maybe longer, maybe a handful of repeated evenings indistinguishable in their sequence — it had been both an ornament he liked and an object that signified possession in the terms he used. It was not choker-fashion pretty; it was precise, metal glinting against my throat in a way that made it difficult for other people to look away. I had worn it because he had asked, because it pleased him, because sometimes obedience is its own kind of currency. I had thought, before tonight, that I kept it as a bargaining chip. That it was an offering I could recall, a thing I could take back when I needed to declare my own borders. Tonight it felt less like a bargain and more like a question I could not answer.I lay down on my side, facing the mirror. The mattress beneath me was too soft, the sheets too quiet. I could feel the indentation of my body like a record of a recent animal — the curve of my