Keltham sees, and is happy.

(How much of the part that isn't pain is real?  Is the pleasure-reaction more real than before?  Keltham isn't reading her too hard to try to figure it out.  They've made enough progress for one day and he'd be pretty darned surprised to find that it solved everything.  He's not going to try to stimulate her deliberately and seem to be demanding her response to that.)

He finishes inside her, touches her handcuffs and murmurs the command words to unchain her if not uncuff her (he likes the look of the cuffs), and then snuggles up to Carissa and her lingering illusionary light knife-wounds and surface burns.

"I can't remember having been this happy before," he murmurs to her.  "It's not just the sex, it's the sense of progress, and things I was afraid of that didn't happen, and obstacles that weren't impossible after all.  Maybe everything here is just solvable if I try."

Keltham sees, and is happy.

(How much of the part that isn't pain is real?  Is the pleasure-reaction more real than before?  Keltham isn't reading her too hard to try to figure it out.  They've made enough progress for one day and he'd be pretty darned surprised to find that it solved everything.  He's not going to try to stimulate her deliberately and seem to be demanding her response to that.)

He finishes inside her, touches her handcuffs and murmurs the command words to unchain her if not uncuff her (he likes the look of the cuffs), and then snuggles up to Carissa and her lingering illusionary light knife-wounds and surface burns.

"I can't remember having been this happy before," Keltham murmurs to her.  "It's not just the sex, it's the sense of progress, for you and for myself, and things I was afraid of that didn't happen, and obstacles that weren't impossible after all.  Maybe everything here is just solvable if I try."

Keltham sees, and is happy.

(How much of the part that isn't pain is real?  Is the pleasure-reaction more real than before?  Keltham isn't reading her too hard to try to figure it out.  They've made enough progress for one day and he'd be shocked to find that it solved everything.  He's not going to try to stimulate her deliberately and seem to be demanding her response to that.)

He finishes inside her, touches her handcuffs and murmurs the command words to unchain her if not uncuff her (he likes the look of the cuffs), and then snuggles up to Carissa and her lingering illusionary light knife-wounds and surface burns.

"I can't remember having been this happy before," Keltham murmurs to her.  "It's not just the sex, it's the sense of progress, for you and for myself, and things I was afraid of that didn't happen, and obstacles that weren't impossible after all.  Maybe everything here is just solvable if I try."