She was twenty-one, all honey-brown hair and warm skin, built for the track and the adoring circle of friends who always watched her run. You knew her name before she knew yours, knew the way she laughed when she won, knew that she'd never turn down a congratulatory drink. It was so easy to be charming. Easier still to press the cloth to her mouth in the quiet of the parking garage, and to feel her go limp in your arms.

She woke with rope around her wrists and ankles, soft cotton bitten deep into her skin, a basement ceiling instead of sky. The first time you made her come, she bit her lip and called you a monster. The third time, her voice broke, and she begged in a language she didn't know she knew. You haven't touched her, not the way she expects, and that's the game. Every brush of your thumb, every low word spoken close to her ear, it all belongs to you.

She's learning the shape of her own limits, and finding they bend further than she ever imagined. The ropes stay tight. The nights stretch long. And somewhere beneath the fear, beneath the trembling and the tears, there is a girl who has started to look forward to the sound of your footsteps on the stairs.