She tilts her head as she looks at me, the picture of innocence.

After a moment she adjusts her top, making sure the rubber is arranged just so. It’s a little small for her, so it takes some doing before she’s satisfied.

I sit and breathe and smile back at her, shaking my head ever so slightly.

I knew she had a side to her. 

The men she was with before feared it and with good reason, for it is an object of great power. It allows her to be whomever she wants to be and that can be terrifying if you’re not quite emotionally mature.

Sensing it inside her I sought to uncover it, to exhume it, to bring it back up into the light.

And now here it is.

She’s positively grinning, never having tasted anything so pure as my squirming discomfort. She bought the suit, a bikini in glossy black neoprene, the day after she discovered I had a weakness for such things, not yet understanding how she would press it into play but knowing eventually she would. 

Three months she waited, stealing peeks at it, carefully hidden beneath pairs of woolly socks in her sock drawer, until at last the occasion presented itself: an unexpected spring trip to someplace warm.

When she was getting changed that morning she decided not to wear the briefs, to wear instead something innocuous and fun, knowing I would recognize the absence and understand there was another, larger trap still to be sprung.

I will exact revenge for this tiny act of torment, as soon as we return to the hotel. But it’s not even noon yet; we have an entire day at the beach before us. She can’t help herself, chuckling at my flushing cheeks and shaking her head. 

Aw, you poor thing, she says. I can see how uncomfortable you are.

I just smile and laugh and bide my time.