In a struggle for domestic domination between an idealistic wife and a husband haunted by memories of war, each one wins ... and loses.

Excerpt:

A soft click. The ratchet tightened. Then ping—click. Steel on steel. Again click, ping—click. More steel. Silence. Then again, click, ping—click. Click, ping—click. Silence.

Tassie Bruner lay naked on her stomach, spread-eagled across the sheets, wrists and ankles securely cuffed to the heavy steel bedstead. Her husband, Hank, knelt above her. Slowly, he began to stroke himself as he quietly surveyed her pale, defenseless body.

Sweat. The air was heavy, steamy, dense with the smell of sweat mingled with a faint burning odor from the red-hot heat lamp placed on a wooden box and trained on Hank’s precious pot plants. And fear. Hank knew the smell of fear.

                                                                             Illustration by Eliza Frye