Sina's hand closed in his hair before Sadegh had finished swallowing. The pull came sharp at the roots, yanking him sideways off his heels, and his knees dragged across the wool—that rug, the one he'd picked out on Valiasr with Marjan eight years ago, the one they'd knelt on the night they married—scraping the same raw patches he'd worn into himself over the last hour. He caught himself on one palm and the buckle of Sina's belt glinted on the floorboards, six inches from his fingers. He'd heard it hit the floor earlier. He remembered the sound.

"Up," Sina said. Not loud. He never had to be.

Sadegh came up on his knees, and Sina walked him that way—by the hair, like leading a dog on a short leash—around the foot of the brass bed to the side where Marjan lay on her stomach, her cheek on the pillow, her dark hair fanned across the cotton. Sina stopped him there and pressed down on the back of his skull until Sadegh's face was level with hers. The bedframe was cool where it brushed his temple. Marjan's eyes were open. She looked at him the way you look at a mirror you've stopped checking.

"Both of you," Sina said, "need to learn your places."

He let go of Sadegh's hair and stepped back. The absence of the grip was worse than the grip. Sadegh stayed exactly where he'd been put, hands loose at his sides, mouth still tasting of her—salt and something faintly metallic, the ghost of another man's cum he'd licked out of her an hour ago and not been allowed to rinse away.

"Off the bed," Sina said to Marjan.

She moved without a word. Slid off the mattress, the sheet dragging with her, and knelt on the rug on the other side of Sadegh, close enough that her bare shoulder almost touched his. Her lipstick was gone. Her mouth was swollen. She folded her hands in her lap like a schoolgirl called to the front of the class, and Sadegh watched her do it and felt something in his chest turn over and go still.

She'd never knelt for him. Not once, in eight years.

Sina paced. The rug gave under his bare feet, and Sadegh found himself tracking the sound—heel, ball, heel, ball—the way you track a clock in a waiting room. Sina's cock hung half-hard between his thighs, dark and heavy, still wet from Marjan, and he didn't bother to hide it or hold it or do anything but let it swing as he walked. He stopped in front of them, one hand on his hip.

"Look at the two of you," he said.

His voice had dropped into something low and even, the voice a man uses to read a bill of sale. Sadegh's glasses had slid down his nose. He didn't dare lift a hand to push them up.

"A wife who spreads her legs for a better man. A husband who licks up another man's cum off her cunt and calls it love." Sina tilted his head, considering them. "You know what I see? I see two people who never figured out what they were for. Eight years, and neither one of you learned."

Marjan's chin lifted a fraction. Sadegh knew that movement. He'd seen it across dinner tables, across the car, across the room when he said something that disappointed her. It was the look she got before she decided whether a thing was worth answering.

Sina saw it too. He crossed to her in two steps and caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger—the grip Sadegh had seen him use on the back of her neck, on her wrist, on her hip all night. He turned her face up toward his, and Marjan let him, her lips parting, her breath coming quick and shallow through them. The gold at her throat caught the lamplight. She looked at Sina the way she'd looked at nothing else in this house, and Sadegh, kneeling beside her on the rug he'd bought for her, watched his wife's face go soft for a man who had never once done anything for her except want her.

"You're going to watch him take my cock in his mouth," Sina said to her. Quiet. Almost kind. "And you're going to tell me how good he looks doing it."

Marjan's eyes flicked to Sadegh. Just once. Then back up.

"Yes," she said.

Sadegh's hands had gone cold. He pressed his palms flat against his thighs to steady them and felt the damp of his own sweat on the wool through his trousers. His cock was hard. It had been hard for an hour, straining against the stain he'd already left there, and he hated it, and he couldn't make it stop, and the worst part—the part he'd have to live with—was that some thin, buried wire of him was glad of it. Glad to be looked at. Glad to be *chosen* for something, even this.

Sina released Marjan's chin and turned to him.

His thumb came up under Sadegh's jaw, pressing into the soft hollow there, and tilted his face until his throat was stretched and his eyes had nowhere to go but Sina's. Up close, Sina smelled of sweat and cedar and the faint iron tang of the same thing Sadegh still tasted on his own tongue. His stubble had gone silver at the jaw. His eyes were flat and patient.

"Open your mouth," Sina said. "Show her what you are."

Sadegh's jaw trembled. He could feel Marjan's gaze on the side of his face, and he could feel Sina's thumb pressing, and the room had gone very quiet—just the tick of the radiator, the far-off hum of the city through the window glass. He thought, absurdly, of the mirror in the hallway, the one he avoided. He thought of the wedding band on his finger, warm and tight. He thought of his mother's voice, years ago, telling him what a man was supposed to be.

He opened his mouth.

Sina didn't move. He stood there, thumb still under Sadegh's jaw, and let the moment stretch until Sadegh's face burned with it—mouth open, tongue flat, eyes watering at the corners from the strain of holding the position. Then, slowly, he brought his cock forward and laid it across Sadegh's lower lip.

The weight of it. The heat of it. The salt. Sadegh's whole body flinched at the contact, but he didn't close his mouth, and Sina didn't push—not yet. He just rested there, letting Sadegh feel it, letting Marjan watch her husband's lips part around another man's flesh. A thin thread of pre-cum smeared across Sadegh's tongue. He tasted it and his throat worked and his eyes squeezed shut.

"Eyes open," Sina said.

Sadegh opened them. Marjan was watching. Her hands were still folded in her lap, but her knuckles had gone white, and her lips were parted, and there was color high on her cheeks that Sadegh had never once put there.

"There he is," Sina said softly. "There's the man who married you, Marjan. Look at him."

Then he pushed in.

Sadegh had never done this. He'd been on the receiving end of Marjan's mouth a handful of times in eight years—brief, shy, always in the dark—but he'd never been the one kneeling, never been the one with his jaw stretched wide around a thick cock sliding past his teeth, filling his mouth, hitting the back of his throat and making him gag. Sina went slow. Deliberate. He fed himself in an inch at a time, watching Sadegh's face the whole way, and when Sadegh's throat seized and his eyes watered and a wet sound escaped him, Sina pulled back just far enough to let him breathe, then pushed in again.

"That's it," he said. "Breathe through your nose. There you go."

Sadegh's hands had come up—he didn't remember deciding to move them—and found Sina's thighs, gripping the coarse hair there, needing something to hold. Sina's skin was hot and damp with sweat, and the muscle under it didn't flinch. He took Sadegh's mouth the way he took everything: like it was already his.

"Marjan," Sina said, not looking away from Sadegh's face. "Tell me how he looks."

A pause. Sadegh's eyes slid sideways, watering, and found her. She was still kneeling, still with her hands in her lap, but her thighs had pressed together and she'd leaned forward a little, and her tongue had come out to wet her lower lip.

"He looks—" Her voice came out rough. She cleared it. "He looks like he's trying."

Sina laughed, low, and pushed deeper. Sadegh gagged again, hard, and spit ran down his chin, and Sina held him there through it, one hand coming up to rest on the back of his head—not pushing, just present, a weight. "He's not trying," Sina said. "He's doing. Look at him. He's got my cock down his throat and he's still hard. Look at his trousers, Marjan. Look at what your husband is."

Marjan looked. Sadegh felt her look—the same way he'd felt her look at the stain earlier, the same way he'd felt her eyes on him all night, patient and unimpressed—and his face burned so hot he thought his glasses might fog. His cock twitched against his thigh, leaking into the wet patch, and he made a sound around Sina's length that wasn't a gag and wasn't a moan and was, God help him, somewhere in between.

"There it is," Sina said. He pulled out slowly, letting Sadegh feel every inch slide back across his tongue, and stood there with the wet head resting on Sadegh's lower lip again, letting him catch his breath. Sadegh's chest heaved. Spit and pre-cum strung between his mouth and Sina's cock, and he didn't wipe it away. He couldn't. His hands were still on Sina's thighs, and he was afraid if he let go he'd fall forward onto the rug.

"You're a whore," Sina told him, matter-of-fact, almost gentle. "That's not an insult. It's just what you are. You've been one since the day you married her and didn't notice she was already mine." He glanced at Marjan. "And you're a slut. You've been one since you came to my site eleven years ago and let me bend you over the plans table. Don't look at me like that. He should know. He's earned that much."

Marjan's face had gone still. Not ashamed—Sadegh knew shame on her, he'd watched her wear it for other things—but something quieter, something that had been waiting a long time to be said out loud. She didn't deny it. She looked at Sadegh, and Sadegh looked back at her with his mouth still open and his chin wet, and neither of them said anything at all.

"Back on," Sina said, and pushed in again.

This time Sadegh took him deeper. He didn't know why. He only knew that his throat had stopped fighting, that something in him had gone slack and open the way it did when he was very tired, and Sina slid in past the gag point and stayed there, and Sadegh breathed through his nose and let him. The room narrowed to the taste of him and the sound of his own swallowing and the low, even rumble of Sina's voice above him.

"Good," Sina said. "That's good. Look at her while you do it. Don't close your eyes."

Sadegh looked. Marjan had shifted closer on her knees—close enough now that he could smell her, the musk of her still on her skin, the same musk he'd had in his mouth an hour ago. Her eyes were dark and fixed on the place where Sina's cock disappeared into her husband's mouth, and her breath had gone shallow, and one of her hands had drifted up to her own throat, fingers resting on the gold chain there. She was watching him the way she watched things she wanted to remember.

Sina fucked his mouth in slow, deep strokes, one hand steady on the back of Sadegh's head, and talked the whole time—about Marjan's cunt, about how wet she'd been when he first put his fingers in her that night, about the sounds she made when he was inside her that Sadegh had never heard. He said it all in that low, even voice, like a man reading out a list of debts, and Sadegh knelt on the rug he'd bought and took it, mouth full, cock aching, wedding band cutting into his own thigh where his hand had clenched into a fist against it.

"You're going to come for me," Sina said to Marjan, without looking away from Sadegh. "Not yet. When I tell you. Watch him. Watch your husband. This is the last time you'll ever see him like this—on his knees for a man who's better than him. Remember it."

Marjan's hand had slid from her throat down between her thighs. She didn't hide it. She touched herself slowly, watching, and Sadegh watched her watch him, and the wire in his chest pulled tighter and tighter until he thought it might snap.

Sina's strokes quickened. His grip on Sadegh's hair tightened, and his breath had gone rough at the edges, and Sadegh could feel him swelling on his tongue, could feel the pulse under the skin, could feel the whole thing building toward something he couldn't stop and didn't want to. Sina pulled out to the head one last time, held it there on Sadegh's lip, and looked down at him.

"Open," he said. "Wider. Tongue out."

Sadegh obeyed. He obeyed the way he obeyed everything tonight—without deciding to, because the deciding had already been done for him. He knelt with his mouth open and his tongue flat and his glasses crooked on his nose, and Sina stroked himself twice, fast, and came.

The first stripe hit Sadegh's tongue. Hot and thick and saltier than he expected, and he flinched, and the second stripe caught his cheek and his glasses and the corner of his eye, and the third landed across his open mouth and dripped off his chin onto the rug. Sina kept stroking through it, slow now, milking himself dry, and Sadegh knelt there and took it and didn't swallow and didn't move.

"Don't swallow," Sina said. "Not yet."

He stepped back. Sadegh stayed where he was, mouth open, cum cooling on his face, one lens of his glasses smeared opaque. He couldn't see out of that eye. He could see out of the other, and what he saw was Marjan, still kneeling beside him, her hand still between her thighs, her eyes on his face—on the mess of it, the shine of it, the way he was holding it in his open mouth like a dog told to wait.

Sina crouched down in front of them both, elbows on his knees, and looked at Sadegh for a long moment.

"Now," he said, "kiss her."

Sadegh's whole body went rigid.

"Kiss her," Sina repeated. "With that mouth. Give her what I gave you. And she's going to take it—aren't you, Marjan. She's going to take it and swallow it and thank you for it."

Marjan's breath caught. Sadegh saw it—the small hitch, the way her hand went still between her thighs—and he saw her look at Sina, and then at him, and something passed across her face that he couldn't read and would spend the rest of his life trying to.

She leaned in.

Sadegh leaned in to meet her, because that was what he did, because that was what he'd always done, because when Marjan moved toward him he moved toward her and there had never been a version of him that didn't. Their mouths met over the rug he'd bought for her eight years ago, and he opened his and let Sina's cum slide from his tongue onto hers, and she took it—she took it, her lips soft and sure against his, her hand coming up to cup his jaw the way she used to, and she swallowed, and then she pulled back an inch and looked at him with her dark eyes and said, so quietly only he could hear it:

"Good boy."

The word landed in him like a stone dropped into still water. *Good boy.* Not from Sina—from Marjan. His wife. The woman who had watched him kneel, who had watched him take another man's cock down his throat, who had just swallowed his shame from his tongue like it was honey. And the word had warmed him. That was the terrible part. That was the thing he would carry into the grave with him: not the humiliation, but the way his chest had loosened at her praise, the way his cock had throbbed against his thigh, the way he had wanted to lean into her hand on his jaw and stay there forever.

He was still kneeling. His knees had gone past numb into a deep, bone-aching throb. The cum was cooling on his cheek, drying tacky on his chin, smearing the one lens of his glasses opaque. He could see her through the other eye—Marjan, close enough that he could smell her, her hand still resting on her knee, her fingers glistening faintly in the low light. She hadn't pulled away from him. She was still there, still looking at him, and for one wild, stupid moment he thought she might kiss him again.

Then Sina moved.

He didn't hurry. He stood up from his crouch with the easy, unhurried grace of a man who had never once in his life felt the need to prove he was in charge. He stepped over Sadegh's thigh—stepped *over* him, like a man stepping over a low table—and walked to the bed. The brass frame caught the light as he passed. The mattress creaked under his weight. He sat down on the edge, facing them, and undid his belt.

The sound of it—the leather sliding through the buckle, the metal clink—cut through the room like a knife through silk.

Sadegh's throat worked. He swallowed the last of the salt still coating his tongue and watched Sina draw the belt free of its loops, slow, deliberate, the black leather curling in his hands. Sina didn't look at him. He looked at Marjan, still kneeling on the rug beside her husband, and he held the belt out to her, folded in half, an offering.

"Come here," he said.

She went. Of course she went. She rose from her knees without a sound and crossed the rug in her bare feet, her silk blouse still open, her gold chain catching the light, and she stood in front of him, between his knees, and took the belt from his hand. Sadegh watched her fingers close around the leather. He watched her look at it, then at Sina, then back at him—and there it was again, that look he couldn't read, the one that had been passing across her face all night like weather.

"You know what this is for," Sina said. It wasn't a question.

Marjan's jaw tightened. She looked down at the belt in her hands, and then she looked at Sadegh—really looked at him, the way she used to look at him, eight years ago, when he was still something she wanted.

"He's been a bad husband," she said. Her voice was quiet. Almost gentle.

"He has," Sina agreed. "And you've been a bad wife. That's why this is punishment for both of you."

Sadegh's breath caught. He watched Sina take the belt back from Marjan and fold it again, and he watched Sina's hand come up to cup her jaw, the way she had cupped his, and he watched her lean into it. The intimacy of it was worse than any of it. The way she tilted her head into his palm, the way her eyes half-closed, the way she was his in a way she had never once been Sadegh's—that was the thing that cracked him open, that was the thing he felt in his chest like a rib breaking.

"On the bed," Sina said. "On your stomach. Head on the pillow."

She moved. She climbed onto the brass bed she'd shared with Sadegh for eight years, and she lay down on her stomach, and she turned her head to the side, and she put her cheek on the pillow—the pillow that still smelled like both of them, like their marriage, like the life they'd built together. Her dark hair spilled across the white cotton. Her silk blouse had ridden up, showing the small of her back, the dip of her spine, the curve of her hips under the thin fabric of her skirt.

Sina stood beside the bed, the belt in his hand, and looked over his shoulder.

Sadegh was still on the rug. Still kneeling. His glasses were still crooked, one lens still opaque, cum still drying on his face. He hadn't moved. He couldn't move. His legs had gone dead beneath him, and his hands were still pressed into the wool, and he was staring at his wife on their bed, at the man standing over her, at the belt in that man's hand.

"Stay," Sina said. "Watch."

The words fell into the silence like stones.

Sadegh stayed.

The rug was rough under his knees. He could smell it now—sandalwood and old sweat, the years of their marriage ground into the weave. He could smell himself in it, his own fear, his own arousal, the shame he had been leaking all night. He could smell Marjan's musk still on his mouth, and the salt of Sina's cum still drying on his skin, and he could hear the tick of the radiator and the far-off hum of the city and the sound of his own breathing, too loud in his ears.

Sina raised the belt.

Marjan's eyes found Sadegh's across the room. She was on her stomach on the bed, her head turned toward him, her dark hair spread across the pillow, and she was looking at him with those eyes he still loved, those eyes he had been falling into for eight years, and she didn't look afraid. She looked—he couldn't name it. She looked like a woman who had been waiting a long time for something, and it was finally here.

"Watch," Sina repeated, and brought the belt down.

The crack of it against her silk-covered ass was loud enough to make Sadegh flinch. Marjan's whole body jerked, and a sound escaped her—not a cry, not a moan, something in between, something that went straight to Sadegh's groin and twisted. He watched the red line bloom across the fabric of her skirt, watched her fingers curl into the sheets, watched her back arch just slightly, and he thought: *I did that to her once.* He thought: *I touched her once and she made a sound like that for me.* He thought: *She never made a sound like that for me.*

"Count," Sina said.

Marjan's voice came out rough. "One."

The belt came down again. Harder. Sadegh heard the whistle of it through the air before the crack, and he watched Marjan's body take it, watched the way her hips pressed into the mattress, watched the way her thighs clenched, and he felt his own cock throb against his thigh, leaking into the wet patch of his trousers, and he hated himself for it and he couldn't stop it.

"Two." Her voice was steadier now. Almost eager.

Sina worked the belt in slow, even strokes. He didn't hurry. He didn't rage. He stood over her with the same unhurried patience he'd had all night, and he brought the belt down across her ass and her thighs, alternating, measuring, and Marjan took it and counted and kept her eyes on Sadegh the whole time.

"Three."

Her skirt had ridden up. The red lines were visible now, crossing the pale skin of her thighs, and Sadegh could see the dark triangle of hair between her legs, could see the glisten of her—she was wet. She was soaked. He could see it from across the room, the way her thighs shone, and he thought of her hand between her thighs earlier, and he thought of her watching him with Sina's cock in his mouth, and he understood something he had never understood before: she had wanted this. All of it. She had wanted this for years.

"Four."

The belt cracked across the backs of her thighs, and she gasped, and her fingers clawed at the sheets, and she said, "Four," in a voice that was almost a whimper, and Sadegh felt his own throat close.

He was still kneeling on the rug. He was still wearing his wedding band. He was still her husband. And he was watching another man punish his wife with a belt, and his wife was counting, and his wife was looking at him, and his wife was wet, and his cock was hard, and he didn't know who he was anymore.

The buckle lay on the floor where Sina had dropped it. It had landed near the edge of the rug, glinting in the dim light, and Sadegh stared at it because he couldn't look at the bed, because watching his wife take the belt was going to break something in him that he couldn't put back together. The buckle. The glint of it. The way it caught the light from the bedside lamp. He fixed his eyes on it and counted his own breaths and tried not to hear the crack of the belt, the sound of Marjan's voice counting, the low, even rumble of Sina's voice between strokes.

"You're doing well," Sina said. "Both of you. He's watching, Marjan. Look at him. Look at your husband on the rug, watching you take your punishment."

Marjan looked. Her eyes found him across the room, and she held his gaze through the next stroke, and the next, and the next, and the word *good boy* was still ringing in Sadegh's ears, still warm in his chest, still the only thing keeping him upright.

"Eight," she said, and her voice cracked, and she said it again, "Eight," and Sina paused, and reached down, and smoothed her hair back from her face, and Sadegh watched the tenderness of it, the way she leaned into his hand, and he felt something in his chest give way.

"Good girl," Sina said softly. "That's enough."

He dropped the belt. It landed on the floor beside the buckle with a soft thud, and Sina climbed onto the bed behind her, his weight making the mattress dip, his hands finding her hips, his mouth finding the back of her neck. Sadegh watched him push her skirt up over her ass, watched him spread her, watched him settle between her thighs, and he heard Marjan make a sound—a sound he had never heard her make, a sound that went through him like a blade—and he knew what was coming next.

He stayed.

He knelt on the rug, cum drying on his face, one lens opaque, his wedding band cutting into his finger, and he watched Sina push into his wife from behind. He watched her arch into it. He watched her turn her face toward him, her dark eyes finding his, her lips parted, and he watched her mouth form his name—*Sadegh*—and he heard her say it, broken, as Sina thrust into her:

"Watch."

He watched.

Sina didn't finish inside her. He pulled out and stood up off the bed, and Sadegh saw his cock come free of her, wet and dark and thick, saw the way Marjan's hips stayed lifted for a moment, waiting, before she let them drop. She turned her face on the pillow and looked at Sadegh, and her eyes were glassy, and there was a red line across her ass and her thighs like a map of what she'd let him do.

"Don't move," Sina said to her. Not unkind. Just a fact.

He crossed to the dresser — Sadegh's dresser, the one with the loose drawer that had been sticking for two years, the one Sadegh kept meaning to fix — and he pulled the bottom drawer open and reached in behind the folded sweaters, and his hand came out with something Sadegh had never seen in his life. Black. Long. Thick at the base and curved, and Sina held it up to the light and turned it, and it was wet already — he'd slicked it, or she had, or it had been waiting there all along, hidden in their bedroom, in their drawer, in the life Sadegh thought he knew.

Sadegh's mouth went dry.

He had lived in this room for eight years. He had folded his shirts into that drawer every Sunday. He had never once looked behind the sweaters.

"You knew about this," he said. His voice came out thin, cracked, not the voice of a man who had any right to ask.

Marjan didn't answer him. She watched Sina come back to the bed with the thing in his hand, and she pressed her cheek harder into the pillow, and her fingers curled into the sheets, and Sadegh understood that she did know. She had always known. It had been here, in his house, under his folded shirts, the whole time.

Sina knelt on the bed behind her and put a hand flat on the small of her back, holding her down.

"Spread," he said.

She spread her knees. The skirt was bunched at her waist now, and Sadegh could see everything — the red welts, the wet shine between her thighs, the small tight furl of her ass, and the way it fluttered when Sina's thumb pressed against it. He watched Sina work the tip of the dildo against her, slow, patient, and he watched Marjan's whole body tense and then release, tense and release, and he heard the sound she made when it started to go in — a low, open sound, nothing like pain.

"Breathe," Sina said. "You know how."

"I know how," she said, and her voice was thick, and she breathed, and Sina pushed.

Sadegh watched the black thing sink into his wife an inch at a time. He watched her ass stretch around it, watched her back bow, watched her hands tear at the sheets, and the sound that came out of her was not a sound he had ever heard her make in their bed. It was a sound from somewhere deeper than her throat. It was a sound she had been keeping from him for eight years, and now she was giving it to Sina, and to the room, and to Sadegh, whether he wanted it or not.

"There," Sina said. "All the way. Look at that."

He pulled it back and pushed it in again, and Marjan cried out, and Sadegh felt his own cock jump against his thigh, wet and aching and traitorous, and he hated it, and he didn't look away.

Sina fucked her with it the way he'd fucked her with his body — slow and even and deep, no hurry, letting her feel every inch, letting her climb. He reached around her with his free hand and found her breast under the open blouse and squeezed it, and Marjan moaned into the pillow, and then Sina pulled his hand back and brought it down flat across her tit.

The slap was loud. Marjan's body jolted, and she gasped, and the flesh of her breast went pink where his palm had landed.

"Again," she said.

Sadegh's chest seized. She had never asked him for anything. Not once. Not in eight years.

Sina slapped her again, the other breast, and she cried out and pushed her ass back onto the dildo, taking it deeper, and Sadegh watched the red bloom across her skin and watched her face in the lamplight, and she was beautiful, and she was gone, and she was not his.

"Harder," she said. "Sina. Harder."

He gave it to her. He fucked her with the black thing in long, hard strokes that made the whole bed creak, and he slapped her tits until they were both flushed and stinging, and Marjan sobbed into the pillow and kept pushing back for more, and Sadegh knelt on the rug with his hands on his thighs and his wedding band cutting into his finger and watched his wife come apart under another man's hands, and he did not move, and he did not speak, and he did not know what he was anymore.

She came like that — with the dildo buried in her ass and Sina's palm cracking across her breast, her thighs shaking, her voice breaking on a word Sadegh couldn't make out. He watched her ride it out. He watched her go limp. He watched Sina pull the thing free of her, slow, and lay it on the sheets, glistening, and Sadegh thought about the drawer, about the sweaters, about every Sunday he had ever spent in this room folding his own shirts over the thing that had been waiting for her.

"Up," Sina said. He took Marjan by the hair and lifted her head off the pillow, and she came up on her hands and knees, unsteady, her face wet, her lipstick gone, and Sina swung his legs off the bed and stood in front of her, and his cock was still hard, still wet with her, and he held it at the base and brought it to her mouth.

"Open."

She opened. Sina pushed into her mouth and Marjan took him, and Sadegh heard her gag once, softly, and then settle, and then the wet sound of her working him, and Sina's hand fisted in her hair, and he fucked her mouth the way he'd fucked everything else tonight — slow, deep, all the way to the root, holding her there until she had to pull back for air, and then again.

"Look at him," Sina said. "While you do it. Look at your husband."

She turned her eyes. Sadegh was still on the rug, still kneeling, and his glasses were crooked and his face was streaked and his cock was straining against the wet ruin of his trousers, and Marjan looked at him with her mouth full of another man's cock and something moved across her face — not cruelty, not triumph. Something almost like grief. And then Sina thrust deep and it was gone, and her eyes went unfocused, and she gave herself over to it.

Sadegh watched. He watched her throat work. He watched the spit run down her chin and onto her bare tits, watched Sina's hips find a rhythm, watched the muscles in Sina's back move under the black t-shirt, and he heard himself breathing, ragged, loud in the quiet room, and he heard the radiator tick, and he heard the wet sound of his wife's mouth, and he thought: *this is my life now. This is the room. This is the bed. This is what I am.*

Sina pulled out of her mouth and stepped back, and Marjan swayed on her knees, wiping her chin with the back of her hand, and Sina turned and looked down at Sadegh for the first time since the belt.

"Come here," he said.

Sadegh's legs had gone dead. He got up anyway — hands on the rug, one knee, then the other, standing like an old man, and his knees screamed, and he crossed the room and stood in front of Sina with his ruined trousers and his crooked glasses and his cum-dried face, and he waited.

Sina studied him. Then he reached out and took Sadegh by the jaw, the way he'd taken Marjan by the jaw, and turned his face to the light, and looked at him.

"You want to be useful," he said.

Sadegh couldn't speak. He nodded, and the nod hurt, and Sina's thumb pressed into the hinge of his jaw.

"Then clean me," Sina said. "You've done it before. You know how."

Sadegh looked at the cock in front of him — wet with his wife's mouth, still hard, the vein running up the underside, the smell of her on it, the salt of her, the taste he already knew. He looked at it, and he looked at Sina's face, and he looked past him at Marjan on the bed, on her knees, watching him, her mouth still wet, her tits red from the slaps, and she didn't stop him. She didn't look away. She watched her husband kneel down on the floor of their bedroom and take another man's cock into his mouth, and her eyes stayed on him the whole time.

Sadegh opened his mouth. Sina pushed in. The taste hit him all at once — Marjan's cunt, her spit, the salt of Sina's skin, and Sadegh closed his eyes and worked his tongue along the underside the way he'd learned to tonight, the way that made Sina's breath change, and he heard the low sound Sina made above him, and he felt the hand come to rest on the back of his head, not forcing, just there. Just holding him in place.

"Good," Sina said. "You're good at this. That's the one thing she ever got right about you."

Sadegh's throat closed. He kept working. He took Sina deeper and breathed through his nose and swallowed around him, and his own cock ached and leaked and he didn't touch it, he wouldn't, and above him Sina's hips began to move, slow, fucking his mouth the way he'd fucked Marjan's, and Sadegh let him, and Sadegh took it, and Sadegh heard Marjan say his name — *Sadegh* — soft, from the bed, and he didn't know if it was pity or cruelty or something else entirely, and he didn't stop to find out.

Sina's hand tightened in his hair. His breathing changed. His cock swelled against Sadegh's tongue, and Sadegh knew what was coming, and he stayed.

"Don't swallow it," Sina said, rough. "Hold it."

Sadegh held. Sina came into his mouth, hot and thick, and Sadegh kept his lips sealed around him and let it pool on his tongue, and he didn't swallow, and he didn't move, and Sina pulled out slowly and looked down at him with his jaw set and his chest moving.

"Now her," Sina said.

Sadegh turned his head. Marjan was still on her knees on the bed, watching, and Sina nodded at her, and she came off the mattress and knelt down on the rug beside her husband, close enough that Sadegh could smell her — sweat and musk and the sharp sweetness of her shampoo — and she opened her mouth, and she waited.

Sadegh leaned over and kissed her. He pressed his mouth to hers and let Sina's cum pass from his tongue to hers, and Marjan took it, and swallowed, and then she kissed him back — hard, hungry, her hand coming up to his face, her thumb wiping the spit from his chin — and Sadegh felt her tongue in his mouth and tasted the two of them together, her and Sina, and he made a sound into the kiss that he had never made in his life.

She pulled back. She looked at him. Her eyes were dark and wet and she was still holding his face in her hand, and for a moment — just a moment — she looked at him the way she used to. Eight years ago. Before any of it.

Then she let go and turned to Sina, and Sina pulled her up by the arm and onto the bed, and the mattress creaked, and Sadegh stayed on his knees on the rug with the taste of both of them in his mouth and his wedding band still on his finger, and the radiator ticked, and the city hummed somewhere far away, and he watched the two of them settle into the sheets he had bought, in the bed he had made that morning, and he understood that the night was not over.

"Come here," Sina said to him, without turning around. "The floor's cold. Get on the end of the bed."

Sadegh got up. His knees cracked. He crossed the room and climbed onto the end of his own bed, and Sina reached back and took his wrist and pulled him closer, and Sadegh lay down in the last narrow strip of mattress his wife had left him, and Sina's hand stayed on his wrist, and Marjan's foot found his calf under the sheets, and the three of them lay there in the dark with the lamp still on, and Sadegh did not close his eyes.