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I hold them out. She turns each one, checking my palms, my nails, and the skin around them. Next she checks the rest of me with the same concentration. She presses the fading bruise over my ribs, examines the mark at my throat and runs her fingers over the scars high on my thighs. When she finishes, she remains kneeling in front of me.

“You had a clear head today,” she says. The ruler rests across her lap. “How many people could have helped you?”

I look at the ruler instead of answering. The wood is pale, straight and clean.

Heather strikes my thigh. Pain lands flat and sharp. My cock lifts.

“That wasn’t one of your rewards,” she says. “Answer me.”

“The man outside your house could’ve helped.” I keep my hands open at my sides. “The woman with the tomatoes, the stocker with the box cutter, the butcher, and the cashier.”

“Five.” Heather stands and circles behind me. “Who else?”

“There was a woman with two kids by the cereal.”

“That makes six.” The ruler slides across my lower back before she steps in front of me again. “You counted the exits too.”

I look at her face.

“One beside the registers,” she says. “One past produce.”

“Knowing where the exits are is kitchen habit.”

Heather holds out her hand. “Right palm.”

I give it to her. She supports my wrist with one hand and lays the ruler across the center of my palm with the other. The wood is cool against my skin.

“The man at the curb,” she says, and strikes.

My fingers jerk inward. I open them again. Heat spreads across the center of my hand.

“The woman in produce.”

The second strike lands over the first. My shoulder tightens, but I keep my arm where she put it.

“The stocker.”

She strikes harder. Pain shoots into my fingers, clean enough to wipe everything else out for half a second.

“The mother near the cereal.”

My cock is fully hard now. Heather looks at it before bringing the ruler down again.

“The butcher.”

The fifth strike catches lower, near the heel of my hand. I push my palm toward the ruler as it lifts.

Heather stops. She lowers my wrist and puts the ruler against my chest. “You don’t take more.”

I want the next strike badly enough that my teeth ache with it. “Sorry,” I say. The word tastes wrong, but not wrong enough to take back. “Please finish.”

Heather studies me before lifting my left hand. “The cashier.”

The ruler cracks across my palm. I hold still this time, even when the pain opens hot beneath the wood.

She turns both my hands beneath the light. Red bars cross the centers, the right marked darker than the left. “You forgot someone.”

I look at the marks instead of her.