Page 77 of Hollowed

This was not stillness. Not submission. This was the sanctity of beingwitnessed.

I stood before him, naked beneath the robe I hadn't bothered to tie. My hands were already lifted, wrists crossed over my chest, palms angled like a vow I was offering him without shame. Like relic. Like proof.

He sat on the edge of the altar like a man who had forgotten how to pray.

He didn’t speak.

He rose.

Moved toward me.

His robe dragged behind him like sin worn thin from worship.

And when he reached into the basin and drew out the soaked ribbon, I realized—he had waited for this. Hoped for it.

He stepped behind me, and his heat touched my back before his hands did.

I didn’t turn.

I closed my eyes.

And waited.

His fingers brushed my skin, not hurried, not hesitant—just certain. The silk whispered around my wrists like breath. He wrapped slowly, reverently, like a priest preparing an offering. Not to bind. To anoint.

He didn’t knot.

He didn’t pull tight.

He held.

And then he lowered his head.

His mouth met the inside of my wrists—once, twice—soft and slow. Not like a man claiming what he owned.

But like a man kissing something he didn’t believe he deserved.

I trembled.

Not from fear.

From ache.

From the unbearable weight of being wanted like this.

He turned me gently.

Faced me.

Looked down at what he had tied—what I had offered—and breathed like it hurt to see me still there.

“Do you know what you are now?” he asked, voice like coal scraped through velvet.

“Yes,” I said.

“Say it.”

“I’m yours.”

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