I stare at the ring in bafflement. “Master?” Then I look from the one to the other of them, and back again.
“Aren´t you going to take it?” asks Michael. “I thought it was what you wanted?”
“But how...?”
My Master speaks softly. “I will always be your Master, Charlotte, for as long as you want me. And Michael will be your husband, in the legal sense. In truth, we all know the reality. The three of us are bound, each to the others. And we, the two of us, Michael and I, ask that you wear both rings.”
I look at my Master, dumbstruck. Then at Michael, who grins and winks at me.
Hands shaking, I take the second ring, fitting it to my finger. The slight scalloping at the edges of the two golden bands fits together, and the pair sit on my finger, apparently a single piece, in gleaming red, gold and silver-white.
“You will have one husband de jure,” says my Master, softly. “but, de facto, two.”
And I burst into tears.