The light of the late November afternoon filtered through the black velvet curtains, drawing warm, damp streaks on the dark wooden floor. The air was still impregnated with the smell of warm latex, of leather treated with sandalwood oil, and with that faint metallic scent that remained after intensive use and the smell of intimacy, obedience, controlled pleasure.

It had been four days since they had seen each other, and he came in without knocking as always. She heard him before she saw him: the sharp click of leather shoes on parquet, the barely perceptible rustle of his leather duster coat that wrinkled with movement.

She didn't turn around, she was lying on the bed, naked, only a black leather collar around her neck, her arms stretched out above her head as if in a silent offering. The helmet, the mysterious object, lay on the bedside table between a glass of now warm water and a jar of lubricant.

He stopped in the doorway, looked at her, smiled and said nothing, it was useless. She smiled, without moving her head,

 "You remembered me, then."

"I couldn't forget you," he replied, his voice low, as if he was afraid of breaking something.

"Although... I don't quite remember what happened last night anymore."

She raised an eyebrow. "Me neither."

She rose slowly, with a grace she had never had before, too fluid, too fluid, too much perfect. His muscles did not tremble, there were no uncertainties and every movement was calibrated, as if his body had been reassembled by invisible hands. He approached, he felt the warmth that emanated from her, not that of desire, but something deeper, colder, as if his skin had become a smooth, uniform surface, free of imperfections. She took his wrist, with a delicacy that was all hers, guided him to the bed. She didn't push him, she didn't force him, only... she invited him. He lay down next to her, without speaking, without resisting. Then, with a breath that sounded like a velvet breath, she whispered in his ear:

"You know... while you were motionless, with your eyes closed and your body obeying me like a dream made flesh... I felt for the first time what it means to have power. Not to dominate, to possess. I decided how much you breathed, how much you trembled, how excited you became; I slowed down your heartbeat, then I sped it up. I ran the latex over your chest... and you didn't say anything, you didn't ask me to stop, you didn't ask me to change. You stayed there... perfect... mine."

He remained silent. His heart was beating too fast. Too slow, too... docile.

"Don't get used to it," he said at last, in a tone that was meant to be joking, but which broke on the word "habit."

"It won't happen again."

"I know," she whispered, stroking his neck with her fingertips, "But... I will."

He closed his eyes and for a moment, he didn't think about fear, he thought about the warmth, the silence, the sweetness of being used without anyone having to ask him. And he knew, with a certainty that froze him to the bone, that it wasn't a threat, it was a gift. And he... he didn't want to give it back. But he would never admit it, because admitting it would have been like admitting that he was no longer a man but an object.

He dozed off next to her as she stroked him, and she watched him sleep. It was a deep, silent rest. His shoulders lifted not with the anxiety of a dreamer, but with the regularity of a well-oiled mechanism. His breath was a constant whisper, like that of a device on standby, and yet, in his face, smooth, immaculate, without wrinkles of tension there was something sweeter than any expression of pleasure he had ever seen.

Sooner or later you will be mine again, she thought, without moving her lips, without her breath shaking and if I have to use the helmet again to do so... then I will not miss the opportunity. It wasn't a desire, it wasn't even a plan, it was an echo. An echo that resonated inside her, louder than the beating of her heart, deeper than the voice of reason. Because it wasn't just sex anymore, it wasn't just fetish, it was possession. And she knew... She knew that sooner or later, during a night of sex when he would let go, when the pleasure would make him vulnerable, when the breath would become heavy and the closed eyes would stop fighting, she would take control.

... He would put on his helmet, and make him his slave...