The room was a softly lit contrast to where she had come from.

They had pulled her from the street. Lifted suddenly off her feet, they bound her in soft cloth and canvas straps. Restrained and weightless, supported only by the harness, she was serene in her complete vulnerability. A mis-timed pull, a single error in the physical calculation of bondage would send her plummeting back to earth. Dangling in the fading day, in the autumn smell of leaves and damp pavement, their hands were strong, their ropes firm, their machinery precise.

That is how he took possession of her; bound at dusk, through a window, softly covert. That is how he set her gently to rights, slowly stripping her covering away as though he were trying to peel a tangerine, trying to pull the rind from the soft flesh beneath in one long uninterrupted string.

She sat uncovered, unbound, free of the cloying safety of the restraints. He closed the door and drew the blinds.