She laughs again, and when she does it comes from somewhere deep within her, some recess of salvation he wishes he could touch. He loves that sound. It sends a tingle down his spine, but it starts in his brain, where it usually starts with her.

The bed is deep. When she sleeps she takes it all, his side annexed by the benevolent dictatorship of her legs. But she’s awake now, and she still has it all. That’s why she’s laughing, of course, at his pitiful attempts at insurgency. Her limbs don’t budge. She is resolute, a grinning samurai protecting her lord’s fiefdom with a fearsome kind of joy.

He decides the game has ended, swiftly pulling her wrists above her head and pinning them with one hand, then grabbing hold of her legs with the other arm, removing them safely back to her homeland. He is much bigger than she is, but still she fights like she’s fighting for God or home or some sacred thing.

“You give up?” He asks, knowing what’s next.

“I always win,” she warns.

And you know what? Sometimes she does.