Nobody should agree to my game. But here she is, bound tight with piano wire.

All my tools arrayed on the table. A mirror, for her to watch herself cry.

She hasn't yet, not even when my cigarette seared her nipple into a crispy, weeping hole.

But she screams as my pliers rip her pinkie nail free. Whimpers uselessly in my arms as I blow a kiss on the ragged, spurting wound.

I press the pliers into her other hand, tap her next fingernail.

“There’s your safeword.”

I cup her chin, smiling, and let my knife stray toward her face.