This story was first published on Substack. It’s now free there, and published here, with slight improvements.
It … I … I don’t think you can realise just … just how … how hard it has been for me to … to live with the— to know that I let you have me … have me DO that … that stuff!
It’s not … it’s not that I’m … angry with you. Because I’m not— really, I’m not. not ever. I … I can’t be angry with you— God knows I’ve tried, but … but you know— I know you know. That I can’t … can’t let this go. That … that I need this. Need you … your your attention … your … Need you to want me. Want me around …
Alina blushes, looks down, visibly agitated, shakes her head a little, clamps her jaw for a second, her hands tighten, her wrists twist back and forth.
“And?”
The older woman’s voice is not cruel, but not kind, either; calm, relaxed, patient, yes; but equally unrelenting, dispassionate, without sympathy.
“Say it. You know what is required of you.”
Picture: Alina, distressed
The picture says it all; the beautiful girl, not in the slightest used to being the weak one in a conversation, the uncertain one— a girl who has been more or less in control of the direction of her life since she was eight— looks up, projecting her seriousness, her assertion that she has meaning as an individual, her determined self-possession. At the same time, her pose, her semi-undressed state, her sadness make it clear that this is defiance in the context of defeat, not strength, that she is just about holding onto her nerve; worried rather than calmly confident.
It’s the aftermath of a shoot; the beautiful girl is a model, with a hopeful career beginning to take off. Her interlocutor is her agent, Fawzia, a wry and knowing older woman.
I … I need you to want to … to fuck me. I … I need to be the one who can satisfy you … who you can … can get what you need from.
There are tears glinting in Alina’s eyes, now, but it is taking all her strength to keep her head up, to maintain what self-respect she can, even in this admission of humiliating need.
The older woman smiles, now, raises her eyebrows a little, in mock puzzlement;
“So, I’m afraid I don’t understand, really, why you’re even bothering me with this? I mean … you tell me, very clearly, that you’re the needy one; that your needs are— frankly— very powerful, and rather humiliating— especially, perhaps, for a girl like yourself, privileged upbringing, blossoming career as a runway model, in the magazines, too.”
“But at the same time, you seem to think that your vulnerability, your demands of me, make it somehow important for me to— what was the word?— ‘realise’, just how difficult it has been for you to comply with my wishes. My very simple wishes, I might add— requiring nothing much of you save acceptance.”
“Even more incomprehensible to me is that you might think it matters in the slightest to me whether you can find it in yourself to be ‘angry’ with me— or not.”
While Fawzia’s manner remains light and teasing, the savagery of the message she is delivering is clear between the two of them; the girl is highly intelligent, and this is not their first conversation on this subject. Her face gradually loses its small defiance as the words sink in, and her eyes fill with pain and soft despair. Tears trickle on her cheeks now, as her heart is breaking, knowing that she has once again failed to make a stand, failed to make it clear that there are limits to what can be expected of her. She is in turmoil, but she keeps her composure, using her training and experience as a model almost without noticing to manage how she presents herself— ‘Always, attractive, always sexually interesting— no matter what— you’re not you, when you’re working, you’re a fantasy creature in the mind of the audience.’ the mantra of the hard-bitten, emotionless coach at the Agency, repeated again and again in the classes.
Even though she feels so weak, so hopeless, she demands of herself that she make one last effort;
I … I know it’s m-me that’s … that’s the needy one, here; the one who’s … begging…
But … but I am — begging. I … I just can’t …
… she trails off, her mouth working, chest rising and falling, now, breathing deeply, obviously getting quite worked up, but controlling herself carefully.
Fawzia waits a little— her complaisant smile softening, expressing empathy for the girl’s suffering— but without making any move to alleviate it. Both of them know that she is in fact enjoying watching the girl put herself through this— she is openly entertained by the swelling of the lovely breasts, the tautening of the belly that accompanies each intake of breath. This knowledge is hard for the girl to bear, but she has no other options; it is taking her significant effort not to crumple herself into a hunched ball— she dare not, knowing that the woman cannot abide a girl who fails to present herself well.
Her needs are real as she has described them— she has tested herself; trying to stay away from this woman for weeks at a time; waiting, praying, hoping for a message— ‘How are you? Want to come over? I’ve missed you’ — never getting it, crawling back herself at last, with humbling apologies which are more or less ignored — ‘Really? I didn’t realise it had been that long. Kiki and I went away for a long weekend; that girl is almost pathetically eager to please— nothing is too much for her. Were you having fun?’ She knows now that each time she has tried to break free, she has simply set the scene for being drawn in more deeply.
Eventually, Fawzia explicitly takes control of the conversation (of course, she has never not been in control— it’s more a matter of how she chooses to express this), asking;
“Can’t what, my lovely? What is it that you imagine I ought to understand you can’t cope with? Tell me, now, or I may begin to be irritated.”
Again, everything is known between them. The woman is simply making it clear that the girl must be specific— must put into words things she would rather not speak of at all, so shaming are they, so destructive of her self-image, not to mention risky for her public and professional reputation. Mention of irritation is also a well understood message. When the woman does become irritated with the girl, she tells her so; she will then ask how the girl wants to repair the damage— will she leave, or does she want to suffer? Since to choose to leave is to risk never being asked back, she almost always chooses to suffer— even though the cruelty is always terribly distressing (not always painful, often at least superficially cute, or funny, but always, always, psychologically destructive in the worst ways— always memorable, always deeply shaming, the girl’s self-respect deliberately, explicitly undermined— the undermining usually analysed verbally during and after the suffering, to ensure maximum impact).
The girl’s face nearly crumples; she bends her neck, her cheeks flush— a soft but intensifying red, almost shocking on her pale, fine skin; “Delicious,” thinks Fawzia, enjoying herself hugely; “to have a girl like this— an unapproachable beauty, according to the gossip sites— sitting in front of you, half dressed, thinking about how to describe being offered for group fucks to sleazy businessmen, used as a fist slut by nasty old WASP society dykes; how she is required to encourage those awful people to use her to the max, as if she were a meaningless street whore; disposable, vulnerable to any abuse. How she is required to smile and say thank you for whatever is done to her, no matter how degrading.“
Read the next scene of Fawzia and Alina.
