“Your eyes are beautiful.” I’ve told you this before, and I’m telling you now. The light is off in your room but you wouldn’t know it. Today I brought thirty candles, a lighter, an honest-to-God brass candle snuffer that made you laugh for a solid thirty seconds, it was so typically me, and an actual miniature fire extinguisher. When I asked why you didn’t laugh at me when I brought that one out of my bag you looked at me with such fondness in your eyes, saying, “I don’t know, your obsession with safety is cute.

Earlier… We’re watching television, sprawled across the couch with your feet in my lap. I’m rubbing your feet and you keep apologising and blushing because the youth from Burnsall is making himself known. The burps have stopped—he’s too far gone for that. “Don’t apologise. I find it cute.” You stare at me sceptically over a belly whose mound is lower, more diffuse. “You did not just say that.” “It’s all— it’s all part of the process.

So today… We play with rope. After I wrote a little bit about it you asked if I actually tied people up. I explained that I’m no expert but can do it safely, then held your hand and asked you if you’d let me tie you. I think you found the slight shyness in my voice cute, and the intensity in my eyes a little hot. After some discussion and teasing you said yes, and the predatory look came to my face again, which you have come to learn is linked with a desire to feed or please you.