Heart In A Cage

21

Why are you tattooing her?

I don't need to question myself. I'm...we're both pawns, using each other, playing with each other, acting with each other to irritate Dalia, have her mind blow out with the view of me and Bella groping each other.

But an irrational part of me takes the truth to be something more preposterous.

You're tattooing her, maybe because she's a gorgeous doll you've had your eyes on for months and will eventually get to fuck. Or maybe...maybe your heart is steaming―with affection―and the only way to claim her is by decorating that smooth, silky skin.

The sound of my lungs heaving under my chest isn't loud enough to layer over these bullshit whispers. Blood is leaping in my veins, pumping speedily. Beneath appalling depths, where my thoughts cluster together to try and tease me with my confusion, recollections of my old life with Dalia surge like an angry storm. And some of those memories surface, they rush at me like a swooping eagle:

Andreas had been anticipating one of the most special days of the year. His one-year anniversary. He assured his wife that he'd be at the store that day, watching over the employees and proofreading orders. In being an owner and boss whilst she was just an owner, it wasn't uncommon that he had extra duties to finish until dusk.

But she had expected him to surprise her in the room of their old house. Had expected him to walk in with a container of sweets shaped into a heart in his hand, a bouquet of flowers in the other. A lavish bunch of roses.

He dropped them on the floor, let the loose petals fall out, cracked the heart container. Shards scattered and balls of chocolate rolled around as he beheld his wife sprawled across the bed, naked and ready for him.

"I...I'll clean it up, just..." He lost his words with the erotic view. "I've got something else to feed you." He advanced towards her, eager to intertwine his fingers with the dense pack of her auburn air, seal his lips over a thin mouth, gaze at a pair of cerulean eyes as he slipped his cock between her legs.

She had halted his attempt with a hand, glanced around her. It was only then that he noticed the set-up of the bed. The restraint system that was assembled. The fetters that hung from each corner of the headboard.

"I want you..." she said, and enticingly arose from the bed, "to let me take over as my gift. Switch the roles around, see how we like it."

He had been hesitant. He chewed around on the idea of being restrained.

In the end, he surrendered to her request. There was further discussion, his clothes were torn off, he was bound to their bed.

He was going to give his wife a gift.

But he hadn't known his heart would never be the same that day.

That from that day, something would go missing.

⚘

She was ready before I had asked her to be―before I was able to question whether staining her with my tattoos was something she'd allow me to do. Already on the edge of our bed, upper body sheathed by the crisp air that drifts in from beneath closed drapes and a beige bralette, our room veiled in shadows.

I offer a palm, let our hands join as she rises from the bed, and begin my perusal of her arm. A delicate stretch of skin, it is. My thumb skims the surface of her dark red acrylics, the length of her spindly fingers, the top of her palms. Then the beginning of her forearms. All of it, soon to be coloured.

"What else," she demands. Not a question.

Her arms drop as I slowly withdraw. I let my gaze blatantly travel up from where I'd studied those clear patches of skin, to her bare elbows, uncoloured biceps, clean shoulders. It lingers, and the illusory image of having roses there...she catches the decision in my eyes, her own gaze leaping along my collarbone.