Page 30 of Dominion’s Collar

The ink dries. Neither of us speaks while it does. The unease doesn't dry with it.

I know she's hiding something. I've signed anyway. That should disturb me more than it does. The fact that it doesn't is its own kind of evidence, and I'm choosing not to examine what it proves.

I reach into my jacket and set a second object on the table. A box. Black leather, brass hinges. I've been carrying it since I left the townhouse. The collar doesn't come out until consent is documented.

I ordered it when I ordered the corset. Before she'd agreed to anything.

The leatherworker delivered it yesterday. Braided black leather, a ruby teardrop pendant set in blackened steel, and a lock so discrete you'd miss it if you weren't looking.

I open the box.

The collar rests on dark velvet. The braided leather is supple, darker against the lining than I'd imagined. The ruby catches the low light and holds it, dark as old wine. The lock sits flush against the back closure, barely visible. When it engages, the click will be unmistakable.

Natalie stares at it. Not touching. Not speaking. I let her take it in.

I see the moment it stops being an object and becomes something she'll wear against her throat, held shut by a key she doesn't control.

"Kneel," I tell her.

Her eyes snap to mine. The word landed exactly where I intended.

"You can't be serious."

"The negotiation is over, Natalie. The contract is signed. Everything that happened at this table was a conversation between equals." I hold her gaze. "This isn't the table anymore."

She doesn't move. I can see her running the calculation, the writer weighing whether this is a line she's willing to cross.

The researcher knows what kneeling means. The woman who's never done it is discovering that knowing and doing are separated by a distance she underestimated.

"If you can't kneel," I say, "you're not ready for the collar."

The resistance leaves her eyes. Decision.

She lowers herself. One knee, then the other. Careful, controlled, and completely unpracticed.

Her hands start to move behind her back. Wrists crossed. Something she's read.

"No."

Her eyes lift.

"That's what you studied."

Her jaw tightens. "Then what do you want?"

"You. Not the manual."

She holds my gaze from the floor for a long beat. Then her hands settle on her thighs. Palms down. The position isn't textbook. It's hers.

She's never done this before. I knew that. Seeing it confirmed tightens my breathing in a way I wasn't expecting.

Looking up at me from the floor, the angle changes everything. At the table, she was my equal in negotiation. On her knees, the contract stops being language on a page. Her body is acknowledging what her signature put into words.

I lift the collar from the box. Step behind her. The line of her jaw is visible, the tension in her shoulders. The bare skin at the base of her neck where I've seen her fingers reach for something that isn't there anymore.

The collar in my hands is lighter than I expected. What I'm about to promise her isn't.

"This is consideration," I say, close enough that she can feel the words. "Thirty days. If at the end we both decide this is real, we have a different conversation."