Promises and Pomegranates

Though Elena acquires more control within their relationship in this section, Kal still objectifies her in a way that highlights The Boundary Between Obsession and Love. For example, he repeatedly refers to her as “little one,” especially when they are engaged in sex acts, and while this is a term of endearment, it makes her seem childlike and diminutive, highlighting their difference in power. In his office, he asks, “‘Do you get it, little one?’ [as he] plung[es] two more fingers inside [her]” (196). Kal seems to enjoy pointing out her relative lack of power in their dynamic, even cutting off her air supply while her mouth is around him until she follows his directive to touch herself. However, during one sexual encounter, Elena describes him as devouring her wetness “as if it was the juice of a pomegranate and he was starved in the Underworld” (160). This flips the Hades-Persephone myth on its head, as Kal becomes the one who is starving, the one who needs, rather than herself. Her metaphor of starvation underscores the irony that while she interprets his actions as driven by desperation, he assumes she is reluctant to reciprocate his desire. Both misread the other, sustaining the illusion that intimacy is one-sided when in fact both are increasingly dependent on one another.

Though Kal is developing feelings of tenderness and affection for Elena, he routinely objectifies her, perhaps as a way of denying the deepening of his feelings for her. Yet because Elena consents to and even craves these roles, the balance of power in their intimacy remains more equal than it initially appears. Submission becomes a space where Elena can exercise choice, while Kal can deny the depth of his own feelings by framing her as an object. He uses a metaphor to compare her to a piece of art, saying, “I’ve seen many works of art in my lifetime […], but I’ve never seen any as breathtaking as her. The pale canvas of her supple flesh painted with the evidence of our sins” (192). He describes her as something inhuman, repeatedly. However, Elena willingly submits to this characterization as a “thing” rather than a person. When Kal comments on the clarity and beauty of her skin, she tells him to “[m]ark it,” referring to her body as an object, isolating it from her entire human self. This active invitation complicates the power dynamic: Elena turns objectification into a mode of agency, redirecting his gaze by deciding how she will be marked.

Even when Kal acknowledges her strength, he does it by comparing her to another thing, saying that “the strongest glass cracks under enough pressure” (190). Kal says that one kiss from Elena “solidif[ies] [his] obsession [with her] once and for all” (158), while she feels that he is “giv[ing] [her] some of the power” in their relationship (194). Here again the irony is clear: Each thinks the other holds the upper hand, proof of how much intimacy has grown even as both characters underestimate the depth of their partner’s feelings. The way Kal and Elena think about one another and their relationship demonstrates how confusing The Boundary Between Obsession and Love can be, as well as the every-changing power dynamic involved in Reclaiming Agency Within Forced Marriage. The dynamic is further complicated by Elena’s increasing willingness to participate in his metaphors of violence, licking her own blood from his lips and interpreting it as empowering, which reveals her internalization of Kal’s symbolic framework.

Further complicating the development of these themes is the violent language both Kal and Elena use to describe their couplings. While Kal recognizes the trauma Elena has endured, he continues to think “of pinning her against the wall and spearing her on [his] cock” (151), a description that conveys the power and submission that defines their sexual relationship. He wants “her covered in [his] marks. Purpled from [his] fingertips, lips red and raw from [his] own […]. Flesh broken and bleeding for [him]” (152). Elena routinely characterizes Kal as “impaling” her, and she refers to the base of his penis as “the hilt,” as though it were a sword—a weaponized blade intended to do violence on whoever it is wielded against (159). The recurrence of weapon imagery turns sex into a battlefield, yet Elena interprets this violence as a source of arousal rather than rejection, reinforcing her complicity in Kal’s symbolic framework.

Both Elena and Kal continue to think of their relationship in terms of the Hades-Persephone myth, which forces into perception the fact that Hades stole Persephone, abducting her to the Underworld, just as Kal stole Elena when he forced her to marry him. When they discuss birth control, however, Elena asks if she has a choice in the matter. He says, “‘I’m not so old that I can’t recognize bodily autonomy,’ […] reaching up to cup [her] jaw. ‘It’s your body. I just thought it would be easier’” (164). Kal seems to want to be like Hades, but he also demonstrates an understanding of Elena’s agency. Likewise, Elena wants to be Kal’s Persephone, but she also wants freedom and power. Both positions are contradictory, creating narrative tension as both characters wonder how the relationship can proceed. Yet their mutual contradictions—his insistence on autonomy despite domination, her desire for freedom alongside submission—demonstrate how intimacy is being built through paradox. Each believes their love is unreciprocated, but both are wrong, and their failure to see this truth is what sustains the cycle of obsession. The question of consent is complicated not because Elena resists sex with Kal—she consistently craves his touch and even asked him to “ruin” her on her 18th birthday—but because their marriage itself was coerced and orchestrated through manipulation. Kal enforced the union, Rafe sanctioned it for his own gain, and Carmen’s past relationship with Kal blurred boundaries across generations, leaving Elena caught in her family’s power struggles. These foundations trouble what might otherwise read as a freely chosen intimacy, showing how personal desire, family betrayal, and power politics intersect in their relationship.

Kal’s reflections on his past in these chapters add layers to his characterization. His anger at his absent father, his sense of rejection by Violet, and his memory of being sexually entangled with Carmen as a teenager illuminate how abandonment and exploitation shaped his obsession with control. The trust fund contract with his grandfather further reveals how his personal relationships are entangled with legal and financial obligations, casting his marriage to Elena as a transactional performance even as he longs for it to be more. This duality—marriage as contract versus marriage as salvation—illustrates the tension between his belief that Elena is a strategic pawn and his recognition that she has become indispensable to his emotional survival.

Elena’s encounter with Vinny and her arousal at his murder sharpen the novel’s interest in the overlap of violence and desire. Watching Kal kill Vinny does not repel her, but excites her, complicating the reader’s sense of victimhood and showing how Elena begins to embrace Kal’s world of brutality as a source of intimacy. The Ricci card left on her body also ties her victimization to her family’s machinations, suggesting that her parents’ power games are as threatening as Kal’s violence. Elena’s exhilaration in watching Kal’s violence signals a decisive shift: Intimacy for her is no longer about resisting Kal, but about aligning herself with him against outside threats.

The repeated imagery of Elena’s barren garden functions as a symbolic counterpoint to her attempts at cultivating intimacy. While her plants wither in the “air of death,” she continues to invest in Kal emotionally, hoping her care will coax life out of their relationship. This failure contrasts with the lush imagery of Persephone as goddess of spring, highlighting the tension between Elena’s mythic role and the actual sterility of her new life at the Asphodel. The barren soil becomes a metaphor for their mutual blindness: Even as both pour effort into the relationship, they assume the other cannot reciprocate, making growth impossible until acknowledgment occurs.

Finally, Elena’s jealousy when she meets Violet underscores how quickly her longing for Kal has shifted into possessiveness. Her confrontation in Jonas’s office, followed by her sexual submission, demonstrates how suspicion and insecurity fuel their intimacy. Kal’s delight in her jealousy shows that he equates possession with love, while Elena’s willingness to confess vulnerability reflects her gradual reorientation from resisting him to seeking validation from him. Their dynamic continues to oscillate between empowerment and diminishment, revealing how obsession sustains itself through cycles of fear, arousal, and dependency. Both characters therefore confuse vulnerability with weakness in the other, not realizing it is proof of reciprocal desire.