Can you die of shame?

She was going to die of shame.

The anguish which was tearing into her, her mind on fire, her body quivering with desperately contained energy ——- energy that should be being used to resist, to run, get away from this insanity, but which for some unimaginable reason she was viciously suppressing ——- this anguish would kill her, surely?

Except that experience had taught her it wouldn’t ——- that she would survive this, this devastating, self-image destroying humiliation ——- that tomorrow morning, she would wake from a drugged sleep (she hasn’t managed to sleep without pills for weeks), alone in her small iron bed, alive, healthy (apart from the tendernesses), but with a snake-pit of burning shame mixed irretrievably with the unlooked for excitement (be honest, call it arousal ——- as wonderful as it is hard to accept) writhing in her brain, in her belly.

That she would jump upright, unable to sit, let alone stay lying down, her mind jittering non-stop, in the daily crisis of indecision: ——- leave, leave now; right now ——- save yourself! ——- or … or stay, and live through the trembling, the slow-building anticipation, the not knowing, but still knowing, the fear, the desire (yes, desire!), the quivering each time she was near him, the shaming wetness between her legs, her stiff nipples, the terrible imposition of silence, of His insistence that nothing is ever said about it, the waiting, waiting (god, going to bed after a day of quivering expectation, a day when nothing has happened, when He hasn’t touched her, hardly noticed her, with nothing more than; ‘pass the salt’ and ‘take a letter’), waiting, agonising, trembling.

And never actually making any decision at all, really ——- just letting momentum and the ticking clock (6.42! ——- almost no time to get ready!) propel her into the routine, so that by 7 she is all buttoned up and tucked in to one of her ‘neat’ little outfits - mandated by Him from mail-order catalogues, unbendingly enforced (random inspections often being the start of an ‘episode’) ——- ready to take notes as He reads the newspaper, having to allow Mrs Crooks to speak to her, to look at her, as if she were dirt (well, isn’t she dirt? honestly?), knowing what this woman has seen her accept, seen her do; committed now, in for another day of it; having put herself into the trap once again.

But yesterday. Yesterday, she had managed to make it worse. Yesterday made it a week since the previous ‘episode’. A week! She’d been about to boil, to explode ——- or implode. Sometimes she had had to work hard to stop herself simply screaming, wordlessly screaming at the top of her lungs. She felt she was going mad, that she must be. Because all she could think about was another episode. Something, something ——- however shaming to resolve that impossible pressure (did it have to be shaming? She was too frightened to allow herself to even examine the idea that it did).

If she was going to stay ——- if she was going to let Him do those .. things .. to her. Then .. then He had to - had to! ACTUALLY DO those things to her - not just ignore her, treat her like a machine ——- a toy that He could pick up or ignore!

Except, of course, that the whole situation is one where it isn’t Him that has to do anything at all. He’s free. It is she that is trapped.

Yesterday, in her need, in her frustration, she had tried provoking him. She dared almost nothing, but when she had dripped tea on the crossword ——- only a drip ——- they both knew it was a deliberate accident. She had panicked, almost gone to pieces, shaking - the cup had rattled crazily on its saucer.

But he’d simply smiled at her; His impenetrable, one-size-fits-all smile, that nevertheless she found inexplicably wonderful, and said; “Careful, now.” After which the day was completely sterile. Nothing ——- nothing at all but the routine business of a personal assistant to a famous writer, alone with Him in the big house (apart from the frightening Mrs Crooks).

Revisiting that moment had defeated even the sleeping pill last night.

And now, this morning, in front of the visitor, He had brought it up ——- entirely casually; her carelessness, the idea He had that somehow she had done it on purpose, asking the visitor what he thought ——- a young man, a stranger, closer to her own age, fresh-faced, the sort of man she might have hoped to meet, before, before…

And the young man had said, simply enough;

“Sounds unacceptable to me. If you let them get away with that sort of thing, who knows where it could end? She needs to be taught a lesson, I’d say. Do you normally spank her, or use a cane?”

And she had nearly dropped the teapot outright, her heart immediately pounding, face burning, knees weak. No .. no .. No!

But despite the intensity of feeling, the fizzing desperation, the incipient and mounting panic, she had been entirely unable to do anything other than attempt to carry on as normal (even without the help of oxygen; it seemed that breathing was, at that moment, beyond her).

“So far she’s not done anything that’s required the cane, so just spankings.”

Still no air - it is as if she has forgotten how to breathe. There are tears in her eyes, but she dare not cry. She must hold herself together!

And now, only a few impossible minutes later, here she is, on her hands and knees, skirt up, His hand in her silly, tarty red knickers, and he’s spanking her arse while the stranger looks on.

“Tell me, have you used her ——- for relief?”

“On occasion, as the mood takes me. She’s really rather biddable after a warming up ——- rather eager, you might even say. Why, do you want a go? Be my guest.”

Maybe, she thinks, as the stranger pounds vigorously into her sopping sex, as she hears herself moan, her needy arousal helplessly advertised to all, maybe there is no depth of shame, or exploitation, of degradation, which will allow her simply to die on the spot. Maybe there is no bottom; just deeper and ever deeper turns down the spiral.

And at that thought she is over the threshold and into an all-consuming, writhing, jerking orgasm, emitting heart-breaking, desperate cries through the sobs.

Hearing the urgency, the despair, the depth, the girlish helplessness of her own cries (which her mind insists upon interpreting as if they come from a different person, so unacceptable to it is the idea that it is her, here, on her knees, having a mind-bending orgasm in the middle of His office, being roughly fucked by a random visitor while He looks on) ——- the unmissable condition of vulnerability of the animal that makes such sounds feeds into and multiplies the impact of this ‘episode’, this new low.

The effect is devastating. Something has changed, she knows. Most immediately, at lunch (always eaten in silence, He reading some learned journal or other, she at the other end of the table, with nothing to occupy her but the requirement not to disturb Him ——- by her chewing, by a clink of cutlery, a cup in a saucer, a chair scraping, and the effort of keeping an outward appearance of calm under Mrs Crooks’ disparaging stare), when her mind turns as always to the way in which she will get herself out of this insane setup (not that it’s complicated; as ever, the plan is to go to her room, pack her few things, walk down the stairs and out of the front door, get on the bus and go to her parents’ house ——- barely four miles away), she is met with the realisation that even this simple plan will never work.

Why? Because she can no longer escape the truth ——- however unacceptable ——- that she wants this. Wants it all ——- and more. No, not wants - it is stronger, deeper than that - she needs it. This is insane ——- yes. This is abusive ——- yes. This is sick ——- yes. This is feeding some sickness inside her ——- almost certainly. Mrs Crooks is a sinister old witch ——- yes. It won’t stop at one visitor fucking her ——- clearly not.

Obviously, at some point, she will be caned. Obviously, there is zero prospect of Him ever treating her seriously as a human being, acknowledging that there is some relationship beyond the functional (as she has fantasised about in sleepless nights, stupidly conjuring up romantic endings). All this is true. But none of this ——- enormous, unimaginable, appalling as it all is, can stand against the need of Him. Need for Him to be with her exactly as He is; cold, unbending, demanding, controlling, the way He uses her for sex ——- with no consideration for anything but His own satisfaction ——- the purity, the violence of that, the way that being used like that, impersonally, makes it possible for her to accept her own sexuality ——- so horribly repressed at all other times.

She’s not going to leave. She’s going to provoke Him more ——- goad Him onto abusing her more frequently, taking it further, and she’s going to get fucked by more men, in humiliating circumstances. And she is going to walk herself towards that, not away from it. If the shame doesn’t kill her. Maybe it will. Maybe that will be the way she escapes. Of course, she knows that no-one can die of shame; that her only escape will be in those fleeting, infrequent moments like today ——- which means that each escape will just drive her lower, deeper…

She can’t help it then ——- despite the awesome stuffiness of the imposed silence, the weight of it, she begins to have something like a panic attack ——- or hysterics ——- or something; she doesn’t know, has never been like this before. She begins to emit little, stifled screams, despite her best efforts; she’s gripping the table so hard she wonders why her fingers don’t break, but still, the legs of the chair begin to rattle on the floor, and it’s getting louder the more she tries to suppress it. Tears are brimming, her breathing ragged, until she has to open her lips and a real moan of despair breaks out ——- at which He lowers His journal and looks at her, face calm, and watches her. She tries to look Him in the eyes, fails, tries to control herself anew, fails, tries to speak, fails, tries to stem the tears, fails, tries to stop the moaning, fails.

“Well, well, Mrs Crooks, the crisis would appear to have come for this one. Will you take Miss Dainty out into the hall, strip her, restrain her and warm her up with the cane, please, while I finish this article? Oh ——- and use the deep gag ——- the heavy one, would you ——- I do really need to concentrate ——- these French academics write the most godawful prose ——- I need quiet to have the patience to see if there is any meaning there at all. She can scream while I’m finishing her off, if she must.”

Bizarrely, this quietly delivered little speech, which Mrs Crooks accepts with no more response than if she had been reminded to water the pot plants, this speech whose meaning she is refusing to process, this speech has a calming effect upon her ——- the level of tumult in her body, in her brain, in her heart, begin to subside a little.

Somehow real shame, shame experienced in the here and now ——- the shame of meekly obeying Mrs Crooks’ curt command to go and wait in the hallway, to stand with her face against the wall; the shame of allowing herself to be stripped (not quite naked ——- the knee high socks, the clunky high heels, the little choker stay), of co-operating as her wrists are cuffed and hooked to a chain that is lowered by a little handle, of opening her mouth to accept the fat, intrusive gag, of having to accept Mrs Crooks’ hand exploring her sex, of hearing her muttered, disgusted comment (‘wet, the little tart’) ——- all this real, intense and awful shame is better than the imagined shame experienced while thinking about her situation.

No, not better; worse ——- infinitely worse, shockingly so ——- but she welcomes it, pathetic, simply because by virtue of its immediate awfulness it leaves no room at all for imagination ——- its terrible intensity occupies her whole being so that she is there, right there; that there is simply no space for thinking. It occurs to her, in a tiny moment of calm, while Mrs Crooks goes to the heavy sideboard and opens the bottom drawer, that this, this intensity of immediacy is what those dumb magazine articles about ‘being in the moment’ really mean.

It is awful to be caned, to be caned by Mrs Crooks; chained, naked. Truly awful. But it is a fascinating awfulness, a full body experience that makes sense. This shame, this pain, this abuse is in His service. It is ordered, measured, considered, fits into His plan. Because of who He is, because of how He operates, because of her respect for Him, being caned like this, as hateful as it is, does mean something ——- something that is more real than the endless spiral of stupid thoughts that chase round inside her head.

By contrast her panic at the lunch table had been nothing but pointless, pathetic, ridiculous, self-indulgent nonsense. He is saving her like this ——- saving her from being ridiculous by treating her like this, by forcing her to live with the implications of her thoughts, her desires, dragging them into the real world. And she knows herself to be deeply grateful ——- despite the anguish.

And when He arrives, and stands, watching her, paying close attention as she jerks and writhes ——- unable to prevent her body from uselessly attempting to escape the cane, all dignity shredded ——- when she sees how keenly interested he is, despite His relaxed expression, the shame and gratitude become inextricably mixed, still more intense, and when He comes in front of her and puts His hand between her legs, she cannot resist an obvious, eager surge at her hips ——- her whole body asking to be fucked, asking without reserve, without expectation, humble, needy, submissive.

He smiles his smile at her, meaning what, she has no idea, then;

“Give her a couple of rather heavy strokes across her bottom now, would you, Mrs Crooks? Really hurt her.”

His hand stays with her, hard between her legs as the blows land, as her body jerks and flexes, and she knows He cannot possibly not feel how powerfully sexual her response is, how helplessly, how wantonly she opens herself to his hand’s ruthless possession of her sex; knows that he can feel the way she is moving her sex for him, seeking maximum pressure, offering herself as shamelessly as some street whore might, even as - perhaps because of, it is the appalling, impossible truth that he is having her whipped by his housekeeper; that she is chained and naked in front of both of them.

“I’ll take over now, thank you Mrs Crooks. From the way she moves I’m not sure this is a even a deterrent, as yet.”

Once again she doesn’t know how she can continue to live as he methodically rolls up His sleeves, looking at her steadily, inscrutable. When He steps behind her, though, she wants Him back, wants to see His face, despite it all. But of course nothing she wants matters anymore, and then Mrs Crooks removes the gag and He really does make her scream ——- not limiting himself, as Mrs Crooks had, to her shoulders and buttocks, but treating her belly, her breasts, her inner thighs to a taste of fire, too. She loses all restraint, screaming her pain so desperately that her voice is husky, her throat raw and sore for two days.

It is desperately hard for her afterward, too, having been lowered so that she can kneel, Mrs Crooks looking on, face full of something that was either hatred or contempt mixed in with satisfaction, to take His stiff cock from His pants and put her tearstained lips to it - always, before, she has been under the desk, already serving Him when Mrs Crooks has known ——- but having the old woman watch, see how willing, how keen she is to give Him pleasure this way (she always is; after the pain, she always feels incredibly tender toward him, humble, deeply eager to serve him exactly as he wishes, to let Him know how deeply she worships Him).

This time, though, He doesn’t finish in her mouth, but flips her over, has her come up on her knees, her face pushed sideways into the cold parquet, and forces himself, slowly, relentlessly, into her virgin back passage, making her squeak and squeal and cry out in distress, one of His big, bony hands holding her wrists tight at the small of her back, His right foot on her face, His breathing a little heavy ——- a sound that she finds fills her with warmth and desire to please.

“Pleasure her, Mrs Crooks, will you? I want her to understand herself a little better.”

Her whole body revolts at this idea, and even more so at the immediate reality of it, but she is trapped, helpless, her struggles weak and ruthlessly overcome - and helpless, too, to resist the waves of unwanted physical pleasure that pass through her under Mrs Crooks impersonal but expert manipulations, despite urgently not wanting to show any sexual response at all to either the painful invasion of her rear end or being ‘pleasured’ by the older woman.

Embarrassingly soon though, she is actively, needily, obviously grinding her buttocks up to meet His thrusts, and her sex down, into the plump, clever fingers that have discovered already just where her most sensitive places are; panting and moaning and then, of a sudden; unbearable, bringing new and burning shame with it, coming hard, crying out with the intensity of all the warring feelings, tears flowing freely, triggering His climax; pumping himself into her with a savage long growl that she has not heard before but which she finds heartbreakingly welcome.

She collapses, when He pulls out, sure that she must die now, that it cannot be possible to live with such contradictions, so sharply imposed.

The reality, though ——- of course ——- is that it is His instruction to Mrs Crooks that determines how things will go for her;

“See that she is back at work within fifteen minutes, please Mrs C. We’ll take tea half an hour late today ——- and supper too, I’m afraid, due to this little distraction and the one earlier.”

And indeed, weak and defeated though she feels, she is back in the study within fifteen minutes, wearing a clean outfit (tomorrow’s: ridiculously buttoned-up and demure, considering), having to suppress her jumbled, jangling thoughts with desperate ruthlessness in order to be able to concentrate as He dictates notes on the turgid article He had been reading at lunch. All as if nothing unusual had ever happened, as if she was not in such convulsions of inner turmoil, as if he had not just had her strung up and caned by his servant before caning her himself and then violently fucking both her mouth and her virgin back hole.

The rest of the day goes just the same way ——- the quiet, staid, serious routine of the locked down normality of his working mode, she boiling inside while desperately maintaining the required calm facade, whatever it costs her psychologically.

That night, though, after the usual thrashing at backgammon in the three player league that they play each evening, His usual thirty minute dissection and discourse on the day’s main news events that she and Mrs Crooks listen to in silence or with respectful questions, bedtime goes a little differently, once the malted milk drink is finished.

Mrs Crooks follows her out of the room (she is always dismissed first with some variation of; ‘You’ll be needing to get to bed now, Miss Dainty, I’m sure.’ from one of them), and without speaking, indicates that she should follow.

Instead of her old room, she is taken to the one next to His ——- a larger room than hers, with an en-suite (an alcove, really, since it has no door), but no furniture other than another iron bedstead, with no bedding but a sheeted mattress. She is asked to strip, and after hesitating a second - which brings a pointing finger from Mrs Crooks, indicating the small selection of canes, crops and whips arranged on hooks on a door ——- she complies (realising, with a lurch, that the door must communicate with His room).

Alarmingly, the knowledge that strange men may be invited to fuck her without the slightest consultation has already been more or less assimilated ——- but the fact that Mrs Crooks can beat her with His authority is still very raw ——- seems impossible to process, and her whole body urgently demands that she give no excuse for the woman to beat her again, so that she finds herself complying with haste, using any body language she can think of to signify the absence of desire to resist; red-cheeked, quivering, hating herself, but deliberately signalling her docility, her eager willingness to obey.

Mrs Crooks’ expression again mixes pleasure and disdain, but it simply has to be borne, with what shred of a smile she can muster. The woman gathers up her clothes, clearly intending to take them with her when she goes, then points to the toilet and the shower.

Having the older woman watch is yet another degrading experience that simply has to be borne. There is only cold water, only one towel, small, scratchy and thin, and she does her best to dry herself, uneasily aware, under the cold glare of Mrs C’s blank eyes, of the way her body moves. Next Mrs C indicates a cheap-looking, gauzy baby-doll nightie on another hook ——- baby pink and extremely skimpy; both tacky and slutty, like nothing she has ever worn before; nevertheless, she signals complete willingness as she puts it on.

Once she’s wearing that, the bed is indicated, from underneath which Mrs C pulls a collar and cuffs attached to chains. Wonderingly, she allows herself to be manacled (another first) ——- hands behind her back ——- and then collared. She is shown how the short chain from the collar has been welded to the bed frame, then the light is switched off and she’s left alone, a snick making it clear that the door has been locked.

It takes a while, lying there, all but unable to address the day that has just passed, the chaotic jumble of outrages, defeats, degradations and shockingly searing intensities ——- of pleasure and pain both ——- also those even more difficult memories where the two are impossible to pull apart. Gradually, though, the soft tears come, and she curls inward, as best she can in the chains that are already chafing, hugging herself softly.

Insistent in her ears are the horrid words the young man had used to her as he had jerked his seed deep into her belly; ‘slut’, ‘cunt’, ‘skank’, ‘whore’, ‘tart’, ‘slag’. Her employer had not used those words, but the young man had. At the time, she had heard them as insults, as abuse, but as they swim in her head, along with the shame, she begins to consider that they are in fact true descriptions.

What other girl of her acquaintance ——- no, of her imagining, even! - could have been brought - and so easily! - to this condition; all but naked, chained, available for her employer’s easy access, for any abuse he ordains for her, her acquiescence proven many times over ——- what kind of girl other than a true slut ——- a whore, skank, tart, slag ——- a cunt ——- could have been brought to this point after such a short time, without any coercion, any constraint, any trickery?

How can she not accept these labels if she is willing to accept such treatment, willing to stay here, willing to be caned, chained, fucked, humiliated, treated like an object; not learn to know that the meaning of these awful words must apply directly to herself if she can orgasm so wildly, so deeply, from such abuses, if she feels herself so simply, sincerely eager to serve His sexual whims without reserve ——- however shaming it might be?

The shame eats into her soul, into her self-image, like acid. She knows, now, that while it won’t kill her ——- won’t release her from the agonies of the situations her own weaknesses have brought her to ——- that it can be escaped from, at least momentarily, in those moments of intensity ——- and she is forced to address the terrible implications of the reality that, for some reason, the intensity of being punished and the intensity of degrading sexual usage are approximately equivalent in her mind; that while being beaten again by Mrs Crooks is a prospect that makes her skin crawl, the imagining of Him taking the cane to her again ——- tomorrow, perhaps ——- even of Him checking her sex for evidence of arousal afterward, is not as awful as it should be.

And so she rehearses these new words that describe her, soft, slow and sad, repeating them to herself, trying to get used to them, to inhabit them, since it seems she won’t be going anywhere soon;

“I am a slut. That now is what I am ——- maybe have always been: a slut,”

“I am a tart. That now is what I am ——- maybe have always been: a tart.”

“I am a whore. That now is what I am ——- maybe have always been: a whore.”

“I am a skank. That now is what I am ——- maybe have always been: a skank.”

“I am a cunt. That now is what I am ——- maybe have always been: a cunt.”

“I am a slag. That now is what I am —— maybe have always been: a slag.”

“Slut. Cunt. Tart. Skank. Whore. Slag.”

She’s trembling, but the tears have dried up, and she’s staring, wonderingly, at the stars she can see through the roof-light. Ancient starlight falling on a chained, naked slut, for whom the ideas of being both fucked without consent and beaten without mercy are not totally abhorrent, but a new fact of her existence. Tomorrow, she will try to please him. She cannot touch her sex, with her hands chained so awkwardly behind her back, but her hips are rolling, and her tongue tip comes out, flicking at her lips, suddenly dry with arousal. She closes her eyes, feels the way her belly quivers, and finds herself laughing ——- sad, soft laughter, to be sure, but laughter.

She ——- Chloe Dainty ——- the goody-two-shoes demure little miss from the nerdy swot corner ——- she’s going to be fucked and beaten a great deal, in humiliating circumstances, with no say in anything at all, until He decides otherwise, and she’s going to come for him, from his abuses, and suck his cock, and take Him in her ass, and fuck his guests, and work as hard as she can to please Him that way.

Laughing, or sobbing?

She’s not sure, but the sweet intensity of emotion that possesses her is like balm, whichever it is. The chains, too, are strangely welcome ——- they hold her so well, beyond argument; no shame in not trying to escape from these, and Mrs C had taken the clothes, too. In any case, where else would a slut cunt like her be welcome? Where else would she get the fuckings she needs, the harsh, unbending control that she needs in order to be brought to accept the fuckings?

She has no difficulty at all in sleeping.

None of this makes the experiences of the next year any easier, of course. His iron restraint, his unpredictability, his lack of emotion, the denial to her of any but the simplest (and the most wanton) forms of self expression deny her comfort, relaxation, confidence.

The gradual but relentless increase in the severity of punishments, the excesses of sexual usage, the power of Mrs Crooks over the most intimate details of her existence make it necessary, whenever she has the chance, to spend moments like these - usually alone, chained, cold, sore, agonised at the most recent outrage ——- to take these moments and deliberately, sadly, softly, use them to integrate whatever new low she has been brought to into herself. It’s a survival strategy ——- but it is also a one way spiral.

So effective is the regime that He and Mrs Crooks impose, that when, the following Spring, it is announced that a house guest ——- at whose disposal she has been serving (as sweetly, these days, as she would serve Him, despite the frighteningly cruel way the man has of abusing her) ——- will be taking her with him back to Japan (‘for good’) after his next visit (‘in a few weeks’), she simply curtseys prettily, as Ms Crooks has taught her, and lisps in her ‘girly’ voice (an affectation that He required she adopt months ago which has become habitual; her tongue tip always on display, always in motion, always drawing attention to the open-ness, the wetness of her lips ——- the fuckability of her soft mouth, she shaming herself with pathetic pride at how effective this is at encouraging all sorts of visitors to ask whether they can use her that way, at her arduously acquired ability to take the biggest of members deep into her throat and allow the convulsions her gag reflex brings to massage them inside her, her ability to smile through the tears this forces from her eyes);

“Yeth, Thir, Thank you, Thir” smiling sweetly, her expression calm, even as the emotional turmoil in her belly threatens to cause her to faint.

And still, still, she does not die from it.