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“You’re right. He probably is sorry, but he wasn’t sorry. And we can’t make him not-dead now, but if we could make him not-dead he would probably stop being sorry. And probably carry on doing all the awful things he was doing to other people, too”

“He was?” she enquires, a flicker of hope in her tone. I’m not lying, I’m providing a statistical likelihood based on behaviour and cultural context.

“Yes, baby, he was. He wasn’t a good guy. You don’t get to be that guy’s bodyguard and enforcer by being a good guy. It’s in the name, isn’t it? En-force-er.”

She nods and starts to think, when a bang and a bump starts to ensue from the bathtub.

“Give me one minute, okay, I’ll be back”

“Soon?”

“Soon.” Reluctantly she lets go of my hands.

I walk into the bathroom and close the door behind me, and my little worm is struggling in the bathtub.

“Hey Craig, here’s the thing. Terrible timing, I know, but I’m having a really important conversation right now. So I would appreciate it if you could bear with me for just a few minutes, and I’ll be right with you”

He kicks out both his bound feet, making a large bang on the bathtub. I lower my voice.

“The outcome of this conversation may well determine if you live or die.” I turn on the shower, and he can’t tell if he’s going to drown, but his body knows instinctively that it will - and his instincts are wrong ish. I turn off the shower, and continue my instructions.

“If you didn’t know you’re in a fucking bathtub right now. You can guess why. So until I return to you, how about you shut… the… fuck… up”

I leave him trying to cough through his gag, and attempting to clear his nasal passages, but ultimately doing his best to stay still. Because she needs me right now. Closing the door behind me, I soften myself sufficiently to support her. Worship takes many forms.

I kneel before my Goddess, the small remaining fragments of soul I possess aching to take her pain away. The broken pieces urging me to make Craig suffer to rebalance the scales.

She seems different again, warmer but still distant. Her questions come at a much slower pace than normal, and they’re much more closed than I’m used to. With no punctuation of humour, sarcasm, wit, or anything except a need for information.

“You okay, baby?”

“You said I was beautiful and gentle”

“I did, yes.”

“Then you killed him”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because your world was less safe for him being in it, so I removed him”

“You killed him for me”

“He hurt you, I didn’t like that”

“Are you going to kill more people?”

I sigh at that one “Probably.”

“Have you killed many people before?”

The word many stands out to me. I’m not going to lie to her, but I’m also not going to inundate her with my entire career right now. “Compared to some, yes. Compared to others, no” I avoid giving her a direct answer deliberately. She frowns at that one, her vulnerability still penetrates me.

“That means lots” she accurately surmises

“Lots of different shades of shit” it’s not a lie.