The origin may be the - symbolically dehumanizing - treatment in Antiquity of a slave (by the harshest definition legally not even a person) as mere livestock: just a biological entity owned and sold for arbitrary use and abuse (as agricultural work unit, house slave or toy).
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The rope pulls against her wrist and ankles, rendering her helpless. Garbled sounds of her cries sit trapped and muted in her throat by a crumpled rag.
She had said her vows to him that night, fervently, with her head bowed. Between them a union was forged, free from any religious bindings yet drenched in worship.
Her back arches suddenly with the hiss of the hot metal against her bare skin. His body presses into hers, burning into her.
It was a different kind of ceremony to the one they engaged in, only hours earlier. Though years later, he would trace his fingers over that that little insignia seared into her body and remember the vow she made to him.
