I straddle you in the deep blue of the cold afternoon with a fairy bread sandwich in my right hand and your gold wrist watch in my left. You like me to wear my mauve mohair earmuffs. But I like to hear you rasp. Against the hollow of my neck. When you slide inside me.

Sometimes I sip sarsaparilla through a twisty straw. But you say it’s vulgar and you hate the smell. It reminds you of some cough medicine you had as a child. Thick syrup. Like treacle on your tongue. So I only drink it in bed when I want to irritate you.

Fairy bread doesn’t bother you so much. Provided that I chew it softly. You like the way the candy bleeds rainbows onto the bread. I like the way the bread reminds me of Care Bear pillowcases at my mother’s house.

The watch ticks in my palm. I think of metronomes and mechanical heartbeats. The fairy bread has become multicoloured mush in my mouth. You have twenty five seconds left. I hear you rasp and I arch into you. I arch so much that I can no longer swallow. I arch so much that my head floods with transparent purple flecks. And I think about rasps and raspberries. And the way you stain my mouth scarlet.

You buy me punnets of raspberries because you like the way I leave pink streaks across your skin. Possession. I prefer fairy bread and sarsaparilla. You refuse to let peanut butter even cross my mind.

The rasping stops. Your hand on the back of my neck is suddenly heavy and moist. I try to move but you grasp my hips and grind them one last time against yours. I swallow my fairy bread and put the watch back on your wrist. When you can, you release me.

Your fingerprints own me for a time. Until I make another fairy bread sandwich.