Using more care and precision than even her obvious drunkenness seems to call for Amelia tips the bottle and fills that glass about halfway with a clear, viscous liquid.
“Careful now, Jaime honey! No spilling allowed!”
Giggling excitedly she caps the bottle again and stows it away. Then my beloved wife unclasps the chain around her neck and removes that little key for the first time since she hung it there in mid-August. Irrational hope flares within me at this. Yet there’s no mistaking the vindictive triumph shining from her as Amelia lifts that tiny tab of metal significantly up and gleams down at me chained supine in the center of a ring of gloating, breathlessly expectant lesbians. The direst foreboding grips me with nightmare certainty.
“A New Year’s toast!” Mistress declares. “He
