It was mid-afternoon. The sun had come out, and the dim light through my window had woken me. Sa’afia and I had fallen asleep, a tangle of limbs and crumpled sheets. I lay on my side, pressed against Sa’afia’s back. The heat from her bottom and thighs blazed against my cock and my legs, and I savoured it. I glanced down, as much as possible without moving, and admired purple-red bruising and the raised welts across her buttocks and upper thighs.

I felt immensely proud. I’d done well by her. I’d met her apparently inexhaustible need for orgasms and pain, and I’d kept her safe.

I wasn’t sure what had raised her passion to that intensity, but something in that passion had changed me a little. I’d always been careful with her, as I had been with other lovers, to say she was lovely rather than saying, “I love you”. She had not been careful; she’d given herself to me. She’d held nothing back, and that had touched me.

Why should I always be careful? What was I protecting? Telling her that I loved her would be welcome, and it would be true.

I’d made up my mind. But I had to wait for her to wake up.