You will want to have read the first part of this story before reading this.
I slept most of that day, woke, showered, ate a little, then slept again. I didn’t allow myself to think, much — I suppose I was in shock of some sort. Intense flashbacks would seize me momentarily, leave me cringing, or panting, or grinding my nails into my palms, but each time I simply forced myself to shut down. Eventually, I simply zoned out on the couch, and slept for something like 15 hours straight.
I awoke, bleary, confused, sore, stiff, throat dry, shaking from the after-image of a disturbing and immediately forgotten waking dream. I sat up with a shock when the reality of the past 48 hours hit me, trembling, and began weeping.
I wept, softly, for a while, hugging myself gently (whip marks were turning darker now, almost purple, all over my body, I was bruised and sore everywhere — throat, sex, asshole not the least) — and then stopped; stood up, dropped the throw I’d slept in a tangle with, and walked into the bathroom to look at myself in the big mirror there.
I was a mess; but I felt no horror, no shock, no shame, no anger, then. Rather, I marvelled. This was me. Little, hopeless silly girl me.
Marked as I was, naked, hair all tangled, eyes full of the reality of what had been done to me — what I had allowed — asked — to be done to me, the feeling I had was — believe it or not — pride. Utterly bizarre, but true. I was proud to be the girl who had been the object of their desire, the object of their cruelty too — to have been the focus of attention of those magnificent women. I was the one who had let them do that. There couldn’t be too many girls that would have done that for them, could there?
They had wanted me, wanted to do extreme things to me — wanted me to behave perfectly so they could do it to me, and I had satisfied them. And I had come for them, shown them that I was for real — not just acting for the money — I hadn’t even expected the money — just done it because Madame F had asked me to.
Madame F! The money! So many surprising aspects to this strange experience.
And then, suddenly, I was trembling all over again, trembling, and weeping. I fell to my knees, in a slow crumple, then let myself topple over sideways, curling into a foetal ball, really crying now — big, racking sobs as the pain and fear and shame and degradation of it all came back to me. As the reality that I had let myself be treated so destructively ripped through me, at how terrifying it had been, how damaging; the whole weekend on fast forward, shaking me, tearing at me, wringing me out, until I was on my knees, curled over myself, not weeping any more, just wailing; a long, helpless, distraught, keening moan that I kept up, interrupted only by gusty in-breaths — that I kept up until it seemed I had never been doing anything else, until there was nothing left of feelings, only the wailing. Until I couldn’t do it any longer. Until I had no option but to stop.
Only then, after allowing that, after letting it take its course with me, could I think about it, could I make myself think.
I could hardly move — simply sat up, huddled myself into a corner, pulled down a towel, and hugged my knees, feeling weak, helpless, pathetic, but myself, for the first time in days.
Myself.
But what was I?
Not what I had been, for sure. That was over. I was a different person — I had been changed, profoundly, within the space of a week. The world looked different, too. Nothing would ever be the same again. Being beaten, fucked, whipped, degraded, shamed, taken, again and again, beyond my limits, beyond what I could bear, beyond anything I had ever imagined possible. To have allowed myself — and so easily, so helplessly — to be taken that way; a hole had been ripped in the fabric of what I had been assuming was my life — a hole so large, so ragged, that it could never be patched up. A hole through which something obviously, urgently, insistently real had been revealed, which could never be unseen, never be ignored.
Was I the good time girl — party animal, spendthrift, chancer — risky dates, shitty jobs, always on the edge of something dangerous, but somehow steering clear, making her way through by never — never, ever — taking the chance on anything serious. Was that me?
This was easy, for the party girl, as I sat there, was already dead. Not that she had ever been alive, really. But that existence — the parties, the wild living, the drugs, the clubs — even my girlfriends — all of these had simply dropped away from me like worn-out clothes, all drab and meaningless in this new reality. I wouldn’t even look at another chat message from any of those people, not ever again.
It was appalling how easily I saw this, accepted it — by extension, too, it made clear how utterly meaningless had been the last few years of my young life — years which should have been the most creative, the direction-setting, the foundational years of my adult self. They had been pissed away, wasted, not even a learning experience. I had made nothing of myself, nothing of my life.
I had become a nothing — with what passed for a life so flimsy as to be tossed away, discarded, in a heartbeat, without such a loss meaning anything either.
What did that leave?
Was I to become — to accept myself as — this new thing? Hardly a girl, or even a person, but simply a sex toy, a helpless, wanton, lust-driven slave to the wild and abusive desires of others, a sex toy that would be beaten as much as fucked, shamed and degraded as much as desired or caressed, sneered at and humiliated as much as complimented. Was that to be me?
I began to shake and quiver again at the thought. I had no illusions that Madame F cared about me — still less her fascinating friends, Cool Blonde and Green Eyes. However stupid a life I had been leading, I wasn’t actually that dumb. I knew just how dangerous it could be, to let cruel and greedy rich people use you up — I’d seen other girls have experiences (although nothing quite like this, as far as I knew), and be full of it for a while, glorying in excess, in wildness, until they got seriously fucked-up, or just dropped-out, or simply disappeared, leaving behind an uneasy feeling — had they just got the bus back home? Why did they never call their former best friends?
I couldn’t — just couldn’t — accept that level of abuse, of cruelty, of humiliation and degradation as my life, could I? How could I survive being treated like that? How could I live with myself in between such episodes, alone, here, in my little apartment, with nothing but horrorshow memories of insanely crude abuse to fill my mind? I must go mad, surely? Or be killed — whether intentionally or carelessly — for it is sure that none of them, not Ms F, not Green-Eyes, and certainly not Cool-Blonde, care for my well-being in the slightest; and equally certain that all of them, and their friends, are cruel and unashamed sadists.
It got really bad, then, for a while, and, by turns frightened, appalled, ashamed, and at the same time horribly aware of the powerful surges of careless, eager lust in my gut, I shook, and quivered, and wept again (where could all these tears come from?).
At last, I calmed myself again, forced myself to consider another option; that, at the last, then, I might perhaps just be the girl from Arkansas — the silly girl who had craved adventure, thought she could thrive in the shark tank of the city, thought she could be someone, but had in fact been defeated, who was now little more than chum, food for the sharks.
The girl who had just been delivered a big, burning, unmistakable signal that it was time to go home, that she’d been here in LaLaLand too long — that she should admit defeat — go home, back to Morrilton, back to her drab old life, look for a job, forget excitement, settle down and accept that she can’t handle the big city. Was that girl me?
This was harder; drab and dull though my hometown had been to my teenage eyes, it was not dangerous, it wasn’t crazy, the people I know there wouldn’t seek to use me and degrade me. They managed to live lives; if not shiny, smooth, fast-lane lives, at least decent, secure, manageable lives. All this was true, but at the same time, I could not but recall just how terrible it had become before I left — how I had felt the whole place, my whole life, closing in on me, shutting me down; not evil, just unremittingly, endlessly, grey, average, pointless.
Nevertheless — this was what it seemed I had to be, had to go back to — if I was to survive.
It was hard, and I wept some more, but now — now, the weeping was cleaner, somehow. My life was a bust, perhaps, but I would survive; would not be destroyed by the monstrous appetites of dangerous, smiling sadists. And maybe — perhaps, there was a chance that, somehow, I might grow into acceptance of average, grow to value safety. I didn’t believe it, but I couldn’t prove it was impossible.
In any case, I was exhausted by emotion, and that strange feeling which had been growing in me was revealed, suddenly, as nothing more than simple hunger — starving, urgent hunger.
It dragged me to the kitchen, still in just a towel, to discover that my fridge had nothing sensible or edible in it beyond some junky nibbles. Grabbing those, I went in search of a fork, then sat and pulled open the packaging — only to discover that I couldn’t face them. That my body refused them. What it wanted — what I wanted — was mountains of fresh salad, high quality meat, deli-counter cheese, tangy olives, good bread and good butter. Looking at the crap I had been living on, I felt disgusted. I threw the lot into the trash. That was something else I had to leave behind.
The hunger in me growled again; I had to go shopping.
Then, when I went to pull on sweats, sliders, thinking to slouch to the nearest supermarket and take my chances, again my body refused. What if I saw — what if they saw me — Ms F, or any of them, looking like that?
It became non-negotiable, and I didn’t fight it.
Without really thinking about it, I put myself — rapidly, but thoroughly — through a cleansing regime; hot, then freezing, then hot shower, scrubbing at myself harshly with a rough loofah, intense work on my hair, careful make-up job — concentrating on eyes and lips. Then, choice of dress — again, no choice. I would wear again the skimpy white dress I had come home in, the heels, the collar, the cuffs. The outfit they had presented me with. Unquestionably. Anything else was unimaginable.
Still, I refused to think about this — just went with it; drove my shitty junker to Grand Central Market and spent stupid amounts of money on everything that made my mouth water, drove straight home and spent time preparing, then sat at my table, TV off, drinking water, and ate, solidly, steadily, healthily, voraciously, for a long time.
I sat up straight while eating, put my knife and fork down while chewing carefully, held my head up, but kept my eyes low, as if I was being watched, watched and judged. By them. As if they were assessing me, continuously. As if it mattered to me to meet their standards, at all times.
Halfway through the meal, again, without allowing myself to think about it, I stood up, went to the bedroom, took off the dress, hung it up carefully, smoothing out the creases, then went back to continue my meal, naked, but for the slutty heels.
It felt better to be naked. Strange, certainly — but also, definitely better. It felt better, too, to spread my thighs apart (‘Don’t you ever close your legs to me, little whore. Open yourself to me, beautifully, or I’ll take my cigarette lighter and ruin your cute little nipples.’).
And that was it. The floodgates were breached. Remembering Cool-Blonde’s casual, cruel, degrading words had smashed away my resistance to thinking.
It was nonsense. The idea that I was going home. The idea that I was not going to do whatever it took to be .. to be .. what? It wasn’t going to be up to me, was it? She would make of me what she wanted of me.
I was shaking — but not in a bad way — just .. just .. intense.
It was the idea that I had any choice at all that was the foolish thing. I had wasted hours, it seemed, worrying about choices I must make, when, all along, there had been nothing that concerned me, really. No choices.
It wasn’t up for debate. They would ordain, and I would .. what would I?
I didn’t know. Except that I would try. Try to be what they wished of me.
So that they would want me. Want me with them, want me to submit to them, to entertain them, to degrade myself for them. It didn’t matter.
It was so obvious, so simple, so stunning in its completeness, its simplicity, its removal from me of all responsibility, that I couldn’t help laughing. Softly, laughing, as I got up from the table, went into the lounge area, and did what seemed right. Put myself, as Ms F had had me, on the coffee table, naked, on my knees, thighs spread, hands behind me, back straight.
It was ridiculous — utterly ridiculous — that I would do this to myself, alone, in my own flat, the door locked, as if they were watching, to please them. They weren’t going to be thinking about me, were they? They had important lives, things to do, meaning, purpose. Even when they wanted a girl to hurt, to fuck, to degrade, they had choices (the redhead in Beverly Hills they had abandoned me for). So it was stupid, embarrassing, pathetic of me to be posing like this, for women whom I hardly knew, who would not be aware, who almost certainly didn’t care.
On the other hand, there was, literally, nothing I could think of that I would rather do. Even if they would never know. Even if they never called me again. This was where I wanted to be, how I wanted to be, now.
And there was nothing I wanted in my head, either, nothing other than them, other than what they had done to me, what they had had me do for them.
I don’t know how long I was held, there — held myself there — recalling, carefully, slowly, in detail, striving to make it as precise, as intimate, as real as possible, every single thing, right from the very first time I had noticed F looking at me, as I did some playfully slutty shimmy, sparking off a girlfriend who was dancing with me, the only two in the room up on our feet — she doing her own sexually suggestive moves, having wound each other up to see who could get fucked that night by a half-famous film director with a wild reputation, whom we had noticed talking with a minor star in a corner (he to count as second prize).
It took hours, I guess, as I worked my way through everything — through all of it, right to that morning, to the last clack of Green-Eyes’ heels as she had left; left me, dress hiked up, legs obscenely spread, sex smeared with my juices, gaping wide — still stretched from Cool-Blonde’s shocking invasion — mouth straining at the continued presence of the fat roll of stale-tasting, dry banknotes, heart thumping, mind reeling; devastated, delirious, ruined.
At any rate, it was dark, and late, and my hips and knees were stiff and sore from being in that position for so long as I raised myself up off the low table. Not that I minded; in fact it was a pleasure to understand that I had served, without complaint, a joy to be so calmly certain again as to what I should do; certain because I had given myself — entirely, for the moment, at least — to some imaginary composite of Ms F and her cruel friends, putting her in control, serving her imagined preferences, so that she does not have to even state them. Just knowing that I will be doing whatever makes the most sense for her. For the Ms F that I have enthroned in my mind. For life to be this easy, this calm, this ordered.
If they were here, now, I knew, that they would be wanting to hurt me again. It had been too long for that not to be the case. But they weren’t here, so all I could do was make myself helpless; make it impossible to protect myself, as they liked to do.
Again, there was no controversy, no internal debate, it was obvious. I did my necessaries in the bathroom, then inspected myself, carefully, in the big mirror — all the marks, all the hurts — looking at them principally on the basis of knowing them as the imprints of F’s desires on me. She had made these marks — caused them to be made — they were hers, although I bore them for her. I should know them, so that I could bear them well. Also, though, I couldn’t help myself tracing them, softly, with fingertips, pressing, scratching, just hard enough to ignite sensation, tingles of pain, my mind filled with wonder that it could be possible to feel this degree of calm — of satisfied, soft pleasure, even, at the knowledge with the evidence of such shocking, such intense and heartless cruelty having been inflicted upon me, by the woman, in the service of the woman who I now considered to control me.
Were these the price of the ease, the peace of mind that having accepted control gave me? Or were they, rather, to be considered as trophies, as benefactions, bestowed on me as gifts, tokens of her attention, her interest, however superficial, however self-serving, however cruel. Her interest in me — in my body, at least?
Such thoughts were meaningless; self-indulgent. What did it matter what these marks were to me? They were not my business, ultimately — but hers. It was enough that they were there, that there would be more, in future, if I was lucky enough to have her attention again.
It was strange indeed to feel so calm at the thought of future agony — for there was no fooling myself — to be beaten was agony, was terrible; to be hurt, intentionally, viciously, having consented, having begged for it, to be used like that for nothing more significant than a passing entertainment — that was truly a terrible and destructive experience; degrading, dangerous, psychologically damaging on a permanent basis — there was no desire in me to hide from this truth.
I suffered a bad wobble, then — for they had, truly, terrorised me that night — several times, in different ways; each as hard to bear, each inflicting different damages, each undermining of my self-respect in different ways, all destructive. This calm contemplation of the aftermath, of the potential (no, the certainty) of more — this was insane, surely?
The trembling got stronger, my knees buckled, and calm was gone, replaced by jittering fear, incipient panic, deep and out-of-control breathing, chest heaving. But I held on. Held on to what mattered most to me. The possibility of peace, of simplicity; the absence of choice; the relief that acceptance could bring.
And I forced myself, then, to look the terror in the eye; to relive, again, the moments of agony, which I had somehow smoothed over, earlier, on the coffee table, treating them as dream sequences rather than reliving them as they had actually been — pissing myself in fear as the four of them had me running around that big room like a frenzied bullock at a round-up, mad with the desperation of knowing that I couldn’t avoid their whips, with the humiliation of being unable to prevent myself from abject begging, ridiculous writhing and jerking, their laughing comments about how my breasts jounced, about how close they had come to catching my clitoris, about my pathetic squealing - all burning into me.
And again, how it had been, in the shower, to be so helplessly aroused that I had begged them to whip me, begged them to make me scream, how it had been to be strung up and simply, violently, beaten, helpless to protect myself, to hear them planning where to concentrate my suffering next — undersides of my poor breasts, inner thighs, soles of my feet .. to know what was coming and be unable to mitigate it in the slightest.
I made myself confront these realities, jaw set, tears hot in my eyes, shaking. These. These things would happen to me again. I must acknowledge them; accept them, even if I could never welcome them; must understand that these, as much as any other usage — perhaps more so — would define me, unless, by some miracle, I could escape the logic which my body, my subconscious had been imposed upon me, that afternoon.
That I must surely be driven insane by such treatment, unless I could, now, face their reality, face the certainty of torment, and at some deep, emotional level, accept. Decide that this was what I wanted.
It took an age — these thoughts chasing themselves round and round my head, looking for a way through. But the implacable logic of what it felt like to strip myself naked in order to eat, to display myself naked, despite being alone, that could not be evaded, and, at last, soft tears once again washing my cheeks, cowering a little, on my knees, tracing the darkening weals, the spreading bruises, I achieved acceptance — another layer of it, another level of it.
I was going to be terrorised by these women, and I was going to accept it — and the physical and mental damage it would surely bring — in return for peace. In order to do this, I was going to have to teach myself to accept, and to do this often — this exercise of looking at myself, at my hurt body, seeking to love the signs of that hurt, at least. So that to be marked would, indeed, be considered a beneficence, however tragic, however diminishing.
Then, something announced itself; it was time; time for the next step. There was no hurry, no hesitation, either. Equally, though, there was no possibility of delay, of hesitation, of dithering. It was time.
I walked into the bedroom and took the three possibilities — two robe ties, and a long sash — and assessed each, dispassionately; testing strength, twisting and pulling at them, placing them against my wrist to see which looked most striking. I chose two of them — a cord and the sash — rejecting the other as both too flimsy and too pale. Next, I looked up knots that could be tied easily, that were tight.
Here, I made a near fatal mistake. Ignorant, mulish in my refusal to to think in any terms except those which I imagined might be Ms F’s, I chose one which I thought she would want to inflict on me — easy to tie, and and also controlling in its operation — a knot that would tighten if I struggled — that would enforce good behaviour, but also, crucially, a knot that I thought I could definitely manage to untie with my teeth. I practised it, many times, on the bedhead; practised tying it one-handed, with my eyes closed, too, and practised loosening it with my teeth, too, until I was satisfied.
Always a klutz at practical tasks, I cried tears of frustration before I convinced myself I had learnt how it went, that I could do what I planned, that I was ready. At no point did it even occur to me to stop.
I took a black pillow case, and placed it ready, at the bottom of the bed. I tied three loose versions of the knot in the cord, one left in a large loop, then wrapped the cord three times around the horizontal rail that ran along the top of the bed end, before making the other two loops, close together, further down the cord, smaller.
Next, I took the sash, and tied it to the same bed rail. Then, blinking back rising nerves, I lifted my left knee high, right up to the rail, and tied another knot in the sash around my leg, behind the bend of my knee — so that I now had my right foot on the ground, while the left foot, still wearing the fuck-me high heel sandal, dangled from my hiked-up knee, my sex split wide open — vulnerable.
Then — refusing to think anymore — just executing my plan, rejecting all the doubts and fears which were demanding to be heard — I pulled the pillowcase over my head, then felt on the bed for the large loop in the cord, carefully lifted it, then pulled it down over my head. I opened my mouth, pulled the cord between my teeth, then tightened the loop, the knot in it, so that the pillowcase was now held by a tight yoke that was in my mouth and round the back of my neck; it was already uncomfortable, and at the same time my wriggling was tightening the knot at my knee, inflicting a burning sensation there. Again, I swallowed my panic and forced myself to continue; reaching out — blindly now — I searched for and found the two smaller loops, now dangling from the bed rail, then pulled at the cord until my neck was forced down to the rail, my back now bent. Finally, I slipped my wrists into the two smaller knots and — whimpering with fright, now — used my fingers to snug them down, until my hands were now tightly tied, close to the top rail of the bed end. Blanking my mind, I forced myself to pull at the knots until they were tight — really tight.
Within seconds, I began to understand how stupid I had been. The constrictor knot is called after the snake, of course, and it works in the same way, effectively — each movement of the tied object — the snake’s victim — acts to pull the knot just a little tighter — and since the knot is held by the friction of the many overlaps it provides, it gets harder to undo, too. Worse, tied onto flesh — rather than the unyielding metal of the bedhead, where I had practised, this tightening forces itself into an ever deeper groove in the skin.
By the time I had pulled the last knot tight on my wrists, the knot around my leg was already sawing into me, agonising — the only saving grace there was that the width of the cloth sash meant that it could not cut itself deep into my leg — and yet I already knew that the blood flow to my left foot was being affected.
The position I had forced myself into, bent over the bed end, standing on one foot only, was also horribly unstable — my back and my leg were already protesting, and it had been a few minutes only. It was impossible to keep still; I simply had to move, often, to alleviate the mounting tension in my right leg, but every time I did so, the knot around my head cut into my mouth more, and that around my left wrist — closest to the rail, directly pulled at whenever my head moved, was rapidly becoming a tourniquet.
Ruthlessly suppressing panic, I told myself this was just something I would have to live with — that this was what I had chosen, that this was what I needed, that I must bear it for ten minutes, at least. As panic gnawed at me, the act of breathing through the pillowcase became more and more stressful, and I began to cry. I was counting what I hoped were seconds, but kept losing my place.
Too, try as I might, I could not hold myself still enough to avoid tension in the ropes, and all the knots bar the one on my right wrist were now burning lines of fire; my left hand felt as if it was swelling, unbearably hot and tingly, and breathing was getting harder.
Survival instinct drove me, suddenly, to begin picking at the knot to my right wrist with my teeth. Of course, I hadn’t practiced through the pillowcase, or with a rope so tight there that I thought it must rip the join of my lips apart if it got any tighter, or with a knot that had embedded itself so tightly into my skin.
The fight against panic — panic which I had finally understood could perhaps cost me my hand, or even my leg — made even untying this loosest knot almost impossible, and I was weeping and keening in despair when it came free at last, only to have an even harder job, fighting with my right hand to get any purchase at all on the ligature that threatened to cut my left hand off, it felt. I succeeded at last, and screamed in agony as the blood flooded back into my left hand, which seemed paralysed, swollen, afire with the worst pins-and-needles feeling I have ever felt. I could not stop, though, for my leg was also suffering badly — and I knew that I had to release this before I could attend to my head, despite a terrifyingly urgent need to see again, to breathe fresh air, scrabbling at what was left of my mind.
Somehow, somehow, I freed myself, and collapsed, sobbing convulsively.
It was awful, truly terrible. Quickly, though, what became uppermost in my mind was not the terror, but rather the feeling which the terror had drowned — the feeling of being tied, naked, in a position of extreme vulnerability; helpless — one knee up, bent at the hip, sex split, naked, hooded, gagged.
The knowledge that I had done that to myself. As an offering — an offering to Ms F. That feeling had been frightening, too, but in an altogether darker, slower, twistier way, that was akin to the feelings I had had under F’s control, that first night. It had made me feel almost deliciously weak, and breathless, and, yes, wet between the legs.
Terrifying and dangerous as this had been, I knew that I was not going to be able to forget that feeling. That I would need to experience it again. That something in me yearned for it.
On the floor again, thinking these thoughts; huddled in a ball again, emotionally and physically drained, I must have simply fallen asleep, because that’s where I was, cold, stiff, sore, face marked with drool, when I was woken by a no-nonsense rat-a-tat on my front door.
