Am I still in sub-space? Who knows.

But I come to understand what Zahir means about making sure I don’t hurt myself. The sex we had that afternoon and into the night was unbelievably rough. My body is battered and unusually sore…definitely more than a little bruised. Yet in the bath, while “teaching” Zahir how to French kiss, I climb back into his lap, all previous thoughts of soreness falling away as I lower myself on to his swollen staff.

His hands come to my waist on a seized breath, and he guides my hips…forcing me to take it slow as his massive erection stretches me wide. I initiated this new bout of sex, but he firmly takes the reins back, lifting me up and down on his cock as if I weigh nothing. “Just this once more,” he growls against my lips as he works me on his dick. “Then you must rest.”

I explode around him before I can agree or disagree, and he comes soon after, ripping away from my lesson on French kissing to seize up with his release.

Afterwards, he lifts me from the bath and dries me off with one of the four towels Nabida must have placed on the seat Raima usually occupies while I’m bathing.

The sight of the towels makes me wonder just how much of this the two women witnessed. Wonder, but not care…especially when I discover Zahir’s form of drying off isn’t nearly as efficient as mine or Raima’s.

He lingers between my legs, rubbing the towel in circles over my still engorged clit. “I will not put myself inside you again this night, habibti. But I will give you this to help you sleep.”

My body soon shudders with the orgasm he draws out of me with the towel. He catches me in his arms when my legs crumple, no longer able to withstand the constant onslaught of pleasure.

But Zahir takes care of me. He carries me out of the bathroom and pours me into my bed a few moments later, dry and clean.

And the next day, I am awoken not for breakfast, but for brunch. The clothes, I notice, have been returned to the walk-in closet off the bathroom. But Raima binds my wrist with the rope, just as before. And soon after, Zahir quietly feeds me in his lap, just as before. But this time when breakfast is done, he issues a soft, “Stand there…” after he puts me out of his lap.

I do as commanded, my pussy feeling heavy and achy as I watch him reposition the chair away from the table and unzip his pants.

“Are you satisfied?” he asks, positioning my naked body between his legs, facing away from him.

“No,” I reply. Easily this time, dripping with the obvious answer.

“Good…” he says before lowering me down. He lines me up and begins to slowly sets me down on his bulging erection. “You’re soaking, habibti,” he teases when he slides in more easily than expected. “I’m beginning to think you can’t get enough.”

I could deny it, but my long moan when he pulls me all the way down is the only evidence he needs. Fully embedded, he moves his heavy thighs beneath mine so I’m once again sitting.

I get a sense of his true strength then. We are no longer in the water, and with my hands tied, I can’t provide any help at all in this position. But he lifts me up and down on his dick, doing all the balance and muscle work, until I’m creaming all over him in a babble of breathless words. And it turns out I’m not quite as powerless as I previously thought. My vagina clamps down around his staff as I seize up, tighter than a fist, and he abruptly comes soon after, flooding me with his cum.

I lose my day count not long after that, but the next morning, a fleet of replacement suits are brought in for Zahir to change into after our “meals.” And we spend the next few days lolling about like cats. Eating only to sustain ourselves and barely noticing as Nabida and Raima come in and out. I lose track of how often I enter subspace, but it is a lot.

Which makes the nights that much harder to manage. Zahir lolls but never sleeps in the same bed with me. And the one time I point out to him that he might as well stay the night since there are now at least ten of his suits hanging in the walk-in closet, he stiffens.

“Pardon me. I have a business meeting in early tomorrow morning and I must leave.”

It’s a lesson, I sense as I watch him get up from the bed and leave. And I’m right. He stays away for two days.

The fight when he returns is one for the ages. “You could have just said no, Sheikh Zahir,” I point out. “Instead you bounce and leave me hanging like a straight up cowardly mother fu—!”

That’s as far as I get. He ruthlessly subdues me, pinning me against the wall. “You will not talk to me in this manner,” he informs me. “I am your boundary. I am your control.”

He brutally takes me, his beard rough against my shoulder as he drives himself in. And I come apart on a choked gasp, my breath disappearing like my anger inside the cage of his arms.

“Go sleep in your own bed,” I tease him afterwards as we lie side by side, spent and happy. “Take another two days off if that’s how you’re going to come back to me.”

He grumble laughs, but then says, “Do not ever call me by my title again.”

My eyes bug out and I turn my head to look at him. “Seriously, me calling you by your title?—that’s what got you so angry?” I ask. Because, I would have laid odds it was the “cowardly motherfucker” part.

“Yes, seriously,” he answers. “My title is not what I want from you. Not then. Not now. Not ever.”

Then he turns onto his side and kisses me for a very long time…before getting up and leaving to sleep in his own bed.

This is how we fight. And this is how we make up.

Fucked up. That’s the only way to describe what we are in the days that follow. So very fucked up. But it’s paradise to me, a routine I quickly become used to, and I feel weirdly at peace. I’m even able to start studying in earnest for the bar exam. Save those two punishment days, I see Zahir on the sexy regular, and three days before he’s due to leave for Asia, he drops by for afternoon tea. I think he’s trying to bank more time with me, since he’ll be gone until right before Ramadan. I’m going to miss him while he’s away and he’s going to miss me, too. We don’t tell each other that, but it’s obvious in every touch.

I also talk or text with the twins daily, thanks to him letting me have regular phone time after our Two Unnecessary Days Away fight.

The girls miss me but seem to be thriving. Kasha only has to be left behind once by her much more studious sister to figure out how to get ready on time. And after spending spring break with Holt and Sylvie, Sasha books them both a gig at a Tribeca Film Festival after-party.

Everything is strange, but everything feels right.

Until it doesn’t.