‘In a minute,’ I whispered. ‘In here first. Please, just for a minute. Then anywhere you like.’

Nervous calculation in the Devaz eyes. I was a modern girl; I knew the modern male math: if a woman was willing to let you fuck her in the ass you didn’t want to blow your load in her cunt. It was depressing how pornography had so emphatically demoted the vagina. The poor old vagina! No wonder the Monologues were such a success. ‘Don’t worry,’ I said, licking his earlobe while he fit the rubber with trembling hands, ‘you’ll get what you want. Just don’t come yet.’

He looked like a man not confident of his control (mouth open, eyes showing too much white) but with a little manoeuvring I got myself under him and eased him in. Thoughts and questions shot up like gun-startled birds. Would Zoë have got used to my absence? Caleb would have been back in the cage. Full moon nine days away. My children would change, crave flesh and blood, young as they were. Cloquet would have to call Madeline. What would the vampires do for Lorcan? Nothing? Add starvation to his sufferings? What was his reality? A world not warm enough, no scent of his kind but presences over him like cold cloud shadows. Like a careful rape. And I’d just let them. Fuck me, fuck me, oh God Jesus yes that’s it...

Meanwhile, as wulf laid shameless grinning claim to my loins, my poor blood-blinded strategist staggered onwards in accordance with The Plan. I’d given Devaz a few preparatory nips mixed with kisses on his chest and shoulders, which he didn’t seem to mind, but I had to be absolutely sure he wouldn’t pull away at the crucial moment. And the only way to guarantee that was to render him incapable of volition. And the only way to guarantee that... I worked my left hand around his buttocks and down to his furiously puckered scrotum. A little fluttery stroking with the fingertips.

‘Like that?’ I asked him.

‘Too much.’

I was wet enough to provide my own lubricant. Nimble manoeuvring with my right hand...

‘Are you going to stick your cock in my asshole?’ I whispered in his spicy ear.

‘Oh Jesus,’ he said.

‘You are, aren’t you? You’re going to fuck my nasty little hole—’

‘Please... don’t...’

I slid my moistened middle finger up against his nasty little hole.

‘You know I want it, don’t you?’ Faster fluttery ball-stimulation with left hand.

‘Wait—’

‘Deep in my dirty, sweet, tight little—’

‘You’ve got to sto—’

‘Oh, angel, come for me, come for your little whore—’

His universe stopped. He said: ‘Oh, my God,’ with metallic neutrality – and in I went with the prepped finger, all the way up his thank-God empty anus to the hapless prostate. Simultaneously I locked my mouth onto his neck.

‘Ahhgggh,’ he said. ‘Fuck... fuck... fuck... ’

I sucked and bit. As hard as I dared, but not so hard it would be taken for anything more than crazy bitch passion. ‘Ummm,’ I said, still biting, still sucking. ‘Ummmm.’

‘Holy mother of Christ,’ he said, seemingly on the edge of tears.

Then, as his universe reassembled and flowed again and the squandered anal opportunity took fresh hold: ‘God dammit.’

‘Shshsh,’ I consoled. ‘Never mind... never mind. We can do it again tomorrow.’

‘God dammit.’

Holding the condom on, he withdrew. He was dazed, not ready for the world. He’d lost his chirrup. His face looked pouchy. ‘You didn’t...?’ he said.

No, I didn’t. And though my strategist was sobbing with relief, the Whore of Babylon was frowning and breathing exasperatedly through her nostrils. This was the downside of The Plan: if it didn’t scratch the wulf itch it would only make it worse. At the very last second I stopped myself from saying: Just fuck off and send Wilson in, will you?

‘It’s fine,’ I lied. ‘It’s okay.’

‘No, it’s not. Lie down.’

Good Lord, the man had completely forgotten where he was! Christ knows how many selves I had in play just then, but one of them was struggling not to laugh out loud. However many selves it was, wulf was the biggest and loudest of the lot, and delighted to find Devaz sufficiently a creature of the absurd to feel it his masculine duty not to leave a woman unfulfilled. Not that I was capable – once he was down there sucking and licking my clit with touching enthusiasm and surprising efficacy – of anything other than grabbing his head and enjoying the ride (I considered trying to get the finger that had been up his ass into his mouth, for the Sisterhood, for revenge, but didn’t trust myself to do it subtly) but in any case what, other than composure, had I got to lose? If my theory was correct then so far everything had gone according to plan.

And in any case, fuck it, I deserved it.

He did, after perhaps ten minutes, make me come, though I nearly took his teeth out with my pubis in the throes. I felt a little giddy afterwards, and, moron that I was, better disposed towards him.

‘Hurry up,’ he said. ‘That’s twenty minutes. You should be back in your cell.’

‘Wait,’ I said.

‘What?’

‘The shower. I need to wet my hair so they’ll think—’

‘Okay, do it – but hurry up.’

He disappeared. A moment later, Wilson entered. He stood, half-blushing and half-smirking as I fastened my smock. Sexually he was less secure than Devaz, needed clear parameters and someone else to be unambiguously in charge. So for him I’d been clipped and schoolmistressy, annoyed by my needs, manifestly the sort of will he could surrender to for twenty minutes. His mother hadn’t doted on him. I doubted he’d had sisters. There was – of course – a pornographied man in him too, but unlike Devaz he wasn’t at ease with it. I could probably have made him fall in love with me, given a little more time.

‘Let the camera see you put me back in the cell,’ I said. ‘And don’t forget the leg-cuff.’

‘Right.’

‘You’re coming to see me tomorrow, yes?’

He didn’t answer, but the heat around him was palpable. His hands shook as he locked the cuff.

‘Good,’ I said, not quite looking at him. ‘I’ll see you then. And make sure you wash, will you?’