The cage stayed on through the third night

The knife on the board kept a steady beat, and I could tell from his back that he wanted to ask. He was chopping onions for dinner, and I sat at the table with my tea and waited. Third evening running he had asked for something before bed, and third evening running I was going to say no.

For two weeks before that the cage had kept office hours: on at seven in the evening, off at ten, when he took it off himself, set it on the nightstand, and every time I heard him breathe out — long, from the belly. That breath was what I had grown tired of. On Sunday I cancelled the hours. I didn't announce it — I simply didn't say "take it off" that night, and he didn't. That was the first night, then the second. The first he tossed until three. The second he woke at five and asked permission to go to the kitchen. I didn't give it.

"Could I go without it tonight?" he said to the board, not turning round. "I'm not sleeping."

"No. Bed at ten."

He nodded and tipped the onions into the pan. I didn't explain it to him; I'll explain it here. If I had said "tonight you can", the next request would have come tomorrow, then the day after, and the cage would have gone back to evenings only. One yes on the third night costs you two weeks. Not another word about it all evening, and I noted that: two days earlier he would have started explaining.

Ten

He went to the bedroom first, as he is meant to. When I came in he was lying on his side of the bed, on top of the duvet, in just his briefs, looking at the ceiling. I sat beside him and pulled the waistband down. Cage in place, ring snug, the skin under it dry. I ran a finger along the edge — he flinched, and not from pain.

"Did it pull today?"

"Not in the day. In the evening, driving home."

"Tomorrow you'll tell me the same. Without being asked."

"Show me your back."

He turned over. Between his shoulder blades, a film of sweat, though the room was cool. I laid my palm there and kept it there. Then I switched off the light.

He was asleep in twenty minutes; I could hear it in his breathing. I stayed awake longer. I was thinking that if he really didn't sleep a third night running, and he was driving in the morning, then that was on me. It was the only minute of doubt I had that week, and I didn't waste it: I decided that if he asked a fourth time, the answer would be the same.

Three a.m.

He woke me not with a word but by sitting up. The bed rocked, then a floorboard creaked.

"Where."

"Just to walk. The hallway. Five minutes, Mistress."

I knew what he wanted the hallway for: to stand in the dark and wait for it to pass. At night it pulls harder than in the day, he had told me. The steel won't let him rise, the ring presses, and the body tries for an hour and then gives up. He wanted to get through it standing, and alone. The first two nights I had allowed it and lain there listening to him breathe behind the door. Then I thought: if the hardest part of the cage happens in the hallway, without me, what is the cage for.

"Lie down. On your back."

He lay down. I put my hand on his chest, below the collarbones, and said:

"Breathe. Count the breaths out. Out loud."

"One. Two."

By fourteen his voice had levelled. By thirty he had gone quiet, and I took my hand away. He didn't ask whether he could turn onto his stomach — he knew the answer. I listened to the ring letting him go, by the way his fingers loosened on the sheet. Then he slept, and I lay with my palm over the cage through his briefs — not for him, for me. Warm steel, him under it, and that whole hour settled not in the hallway but here, under my hand.

At five it came again, shorter. He didn't sit up. Only his breathing broke, and without fully waking I covered the cage with my hand. He breathed out and went still.

I didn't sleep again before seven. I lay thinking that the first two nights he had got up and I had let him, and we had spent both nights apart: him in the hallway, me in the bed. This night neither of us had gone anywhere, and that was the first thing to change.

The shower

At seven he got up on his own, no alarm. I listened from the bed: the water came on cold straight away, no pause for warm, and ran for seven minutes exactly, as agreed. Then he came out with a towel round his hips and stood at the bed for me to look.

I looked. Moved the towel aside, lifted the cage on my palm, checked under the ring. Skin clean, a little red on the left where it had pressed in the night. I dabbed on some cream; he stood and didn't move. My fingers smelled of him and of metal, and I didn't wash my hands until after coffee.

"Did you sleep?"

"From half three. Till five."

"That's enough."

He didn't argue. Got dressed, poured my coffee, left. At lunchtime a text came: "It's pulling." I answered with one word: "Bear it." He didn't write again.

The fourth evening

He came in, hung up his jacket, and the first thing he did was unbutton his jeans and show me. I hadn't ordered it; in three days it had become as much a reflex as taking off his shoes. Over dinner he talked about work and I watched how he sat: upright, not shifting. Two days earlier he had changed position every five minutes. Then the kitchen. The knife on the board, steady, and his back easy. He didn't ask.

At ten I went into the bedroom and he was already on his side of the bed. I checked the ring, laid my palm on the cage and left it there for a minute. He closed his eyes. Under my hand it was warm and hard, without the tension of the first night, when he lay as if sitting an exam.

"I didn't take it off," I said. "And I won't. You worked that out last night, counting."

"Yes, Mistress."

He was asleep before me. In the morning the water came on cold again, and I didn't get up to check. There was no need any more.

• Don't announce "forever" on the first nights. Just don't say "take it off" in the evening — and again the next evening.
• If he asks to remove it: "no" or "tomorrow", one word. Discussion only in the morning, after the shower.
• When it pulls at night, don't let him go and walk it off. On his back, your hand on his chest, breaths counted out loud.
• In the morning check the skin under the ring yourself and put the cream on yourself. That minute is yours, not his hygiene.
• During the day don't ask how he is. One word from him at lunch and one from you back.