This episode still has no sex in it. It will make more sense if you have read the previous parts.
It is ridiculously hard to step out of the stately old limousine they had put me in, in the street outside my home.
To get out will be to break the dream of the day. And it has been such a dream— so highly saturated with feeling, with experience, with emotion both intense and grinding; so complete, so all-absorbing. Right from the business of dressing myself through someone else’s eyes, then with the taxi driver at the start of it, through everything in the clinic, even to this ride, where the chauffeur is so bold, making no secret at all of the way he looks at me in the rear-view mirror, while I am making no secret of the fact that I am carefully positioning myself in such a way as to give him reason to stare, and reason to believe that he is free to stare, just as he likes, think any dirty thoughts he likes about me.
The quiet, elegant, hushed interior of the exclusive clinic, the not speaking, hardly being spoken to; continuously all but naked, manipulated, accepting, docile — all this had engendered a powerful insulation against all normal considerations— I had allowed so much— way beyond what seems possible even now, as I carefully nurture the last wisping remnants of the dream around my psyche, knowing, knowing that the transition back to everyday reality is not going to be smooth.
For, while I was in that dream, everything made a crazy sort of sense— everything about the experience conspiring to make it possible for me to go along with it— all of it— no matter how strange, how transgressive, how disturbing, how abusive, even— because it was all of a piece— all part of girly’s amazing adventures in Karshland.
But at the same time, it is obvious that girly’s adventures, amazing as they have been, are a one-way trip; that each new step is a step of no return, taking her deeper and deeper into a world of which she knows nothing, and where each step takes something away from her— some power, some control, some self-respect.
That’s how it has been since … since the minute, the second I met Karsh, I realise— I have been losing control over myself, having my self-image, my picture of who I am, what I mean, what I expect of myself— having all that undermined, degraded, diminished. Not in some random, haphazard way; it’s not that I’m going crazy, simply losing the plot, however much it might be easier to understand if that were true. Karsh very definitely has a plan for me.
But even though it’s obvious, in outline, what the plan is— that he’s going to turn me into a sex toy of some kind— even though his plan has driven everything, it’s not all him. It’s me, too. In fact, it’s disturbing just how very much I like the idea of him having a plan for me, how it brings a tightening in my chest, a catch in my throat, just to think of it.
And I make it easy for him. I keep taking the steps. I keep thinking just exactly how to take each step, so that it will please him the most.
All sorts of things are odd about this last part of the dream, as the luxurious, old-fashioned car glides through the London streets— the ordinary world all still there, millions of people going about their humdrum business, all the streets, buildings, cars, parks, just as solid as they have ever been, while inside the car, girly (somehow referring to myself in the third person, using the patronising diminutive, makes perfect sense) is able to form the words sex toy in her mind perfectly calmly, even with the understanding that it describes her probable future.
Of course, this general idea has been in my head for days - it’s not new. But today, girly has had some real experiences which make it clearer just how it might actually feel like to be a sex toy— those moments under Mrs Stratten’s control, naked, exposed to strangers, manipulated, her sexual arousal a matter for general conversation, and then the other moment when she had realised they were going to pierce her labia, without even warning her, without even considering how she might feel about it— (Anya had asked, quietly, if it would be necessary to strap my thighs to the table, or whether I would hold myself still and open for them; unable to trust my voice, I had responded by opening myself further, pushing my thighs hard down into the gynaecological stirrups they had me in, making myself smile a little— pantomiming my self-restraint, despite the fact that I was trembling with fear. And I had managed to behave for Karsh; let them do the terrible thing to me. Even though it had hurt, really quite a lot; even though it appalled me, never even having had my ears pierced (though that truth wouldn’t last long; they had done the shocking, transgressive, painful thing first, ringed me like a cow or a pig, before seeing to my ears— big rings there, too, though much lighter).
But, even after these moments have made the presentiments girly’s mind has been skirting around the edges of for days real, crystallised them, made them into stark and difficult reality, girly is somehow just sitting there in the car, offering herself like a slut; the tiny dress ridden up, legs unnaturally splayed, shoulders held wide, back, hard against the leather of the seat, her bra-less breasts half on display, deliberately thus, so that a strange man can see just what she is for; see that she is a creature which is for fucking, for sexual use— and sitting too, without any resistance, sitting with the idea of herself being made into a sex toy, to be used and abused without consideration.
I can, of course, access that part of me which is shocked, horrified, disgusted, outraged at the idea of that being my fate— I have been changed, yes, but not become a different person; I am still the girl who grew up quiet, thoughtful, softly but truly fascinated by the world, by its possibilities, who enjoyed people, and beauty, and happiness; the girl that saw the unfairness and danger of the world, too, who had chosen, from a early age, to protect herself, not to put herself in places where she was at risk, or too noticeable. Not a frightened girl, but a careful one— I am still that person; still love that person, and that person knows that all of this is wrong, and is screaming about it, whenever she gets the chance.
In the dream, though, all of that intense, urgent distress is trapped in a box— a glass box. I can see the box, see exactly what is in it— I know just how terrible all of this is for me, how wrong it is, the way I have been treated this day, how awful it is to know that I have allowed myself to be treated like that; demeaned, patronised, insulted, been ringed, holes made in my body, made to bleed (they used a hole punch on my pussy lips!). But somehow all that knowledge, the reaction to it, is somewhere else.
I could, if I choose, go into that box, where the girl I was, the me that I love, to where she is screaming, where the anger and the insistence would be loud— deafening, even; where the mood must be bordering on panic— I could go in there; but while I don’t, I can somehow let all that turmoil be true, accept it, honour it, and the part of me that feels like that, without having to let it stop me going along with what I want to do; which is to keep taking Karsh’ steps, keep taking them as prettily as I can, each one an affirmation to him that I am still in thrall to the strange offer he had made to me, in the restaurant. So that Karsh will approve of me, keep planning for me. So that Karsh’ plan will change me.
It seems, though, that no matter the urgency of the clamour from inside the box, it seems that I am not going to go there— that I am softly determined to keep all that part of myself confined, like a fly trapped in a bottle, while Karsh has me turned me into a sex toy. While I turn myself into a sex toy for Karsh, by meeting the steps of his plan with willing eagerness to please.
In the dream, it is easy to think about all this, almost dispassionately; I am curious about this choice of mine— to ignore my ‘better nature’— because this is nothing Karsh can control, nothing he can even know about— except, perhaps in the most abstract sense. This is me, making this choice; choosing to suppress all those aspects of myself which might save me from being reduced to girly; Girly, whose obvious future is to end up as a rich man’s sexual plaything; kept, controlled, well-trained, compliant and weak and eager. A thing whose purpose is to be fucked.
I keep making the girly choice. And it seems, against all sanity, all sense, all social norms, that I am going to keep making those choices. And, despite everything, I know that I want to become girly. That I am in falling in love with a fantasy of myself as girly. A creature that Mrs Stratten will find ‘satisfactory’, which Anya and those other girls will look at with wonder in their eyes, half-fascinated, half-appalled. A creature whom Karsh will fuck, just as he wants to.
But now, now, it is time for the day’s dream to be over, cease to be the alternate reality where girly makes sense. And since today I have been reduced, diminished, damaged, the dream will become a memory of a place where I had been more of a person than I will ever be again; a dream which embodies a permanent loss, and which, once over, will be a dream another girl had, never to be revisited. I will never experience a first bonding with an Anya, a first inspection by a Mrs Stratten, a first experience of having someone else decide how my pubic hair should be styled, my first experience of being displayed, naked, to strangers, my sexual attributes discussed as if I was a show animal rather than a person, never again experience, for the first time, what it is to hold myself open to physical pain which I urgently do not desire, to allow my body to be disfigured.
Next time, it is crystal clear, all that will be taken for granted, assumed; there will be less and less of even a pretence that I am a client, a person, anyone who has a choice about anything.
It is all so strange, and— yes— dreamlike, at the same as I know that, through this dream, I am sleepwalking, entirely of my own volition, into what any sane person would consider to be a nightmare. A living nightmare. Except that I am not mad.
But the car has been stopped for a while now, the driver is beginning to shift in his seat; now, here, today’s dream will end, and I will, temporarily, at least, be outside the direct control of whatever it is has taken me.
I will have to control myself. I will have choices again. Including, should I wish it, the choice to go to the police station and tell them what has been done to me, or to call a journalist and offer a story about the famous Karsh and the sinister Mrs Stratten. A choice I know I will not make, but a choice that will weigh on me, that will require thinking about, that my decision not to do any of those things, not to save myself, will lay guilt and shame on my own head, will condemn me, when something awful is imposed upon me (I am already certain that unacceptable demands will be made of me, enforced on me, enacted upon my poor body, if I can’t free myself), to the knowledge that all of this is on me. My choice.
And I would infinitely prefer it if I was not required to live with that. Why has Mrs Stratten freed me? Why didn’t she just keep me? She could have, and so easily. I was so weak, so meek, so mild, even when I saw that they were about to put a ring through both my labia, heard them deciding how it should be, how to pierce my soft flesh, without involving me, or even looking at my face. Deep in the dream, the idea of protesting, or even having an opinion, had been meaningless. I made it so easy for them that if they had told me, that they were going to keep me— no, not even told me, just had Anya usher me into a room, then leave, locking the door behind her— I would have made no trouble. I would still be in the dream, still be girly; naked, obedient, without any idea what would next be required of her, accepting of everything.
But now, now, it is going to be on me.
I want— ever so much, while knowing it is ludicrous— perhaps dangerous even — to want it so much, but, nevertheless, I wish I could make some small, easy sign to the driver (I am reluctant to speak, still), which will have him start the engine again, turn the big car around and drive straight back to the clinic, so that I can be admitted there. For what? I couldn’t say— apart from to be relieved of the requirement upon me now, as the driver opens the door, stands, expectantly— the requirement to stand on the real, humdrum tarmac of the street, to go back in through the big front door, through the hallway, and up the stairs— where any of my neighbours might see me— might see the new me, my new hair cut, see this elegant but so very flyaway little dress, these insane heels, the new hoops in my ears, the bright red lipstick, the smoky green eyeshadow; to have them judge me— or, just as bad, for me to imagine them judging me. What kind of girl doesn’t go to work for days, and is dropped off in the late afternoon, alone, made up to the nines, in a scandalous dress by a uniformed chauffeur who drives a giant, gleaming, Bentley limousine?
Nothing saves me, though, and I can’t bear the driver’s pitiless eyes on me, either, so that there is nothing for it but to climb, as elegantly as I can, from the car.
I have become obsessed, these last days— and it has been further exaggerated by the long, bizarre afternoon— obsessed with moving with maximum elegance— smoothly, controlled, unhurried— and, yes, the word is in my head, along with Karsh’ ugly smile, his eyes— moving seductively. Moving so that he will want to fuck me. So that any man would want to fuck me.
Moving for Karsh, feeling his eyes on me, wanting his eyes to approve of me, for him not to be reconsidering, deciding that he had misjudged me, that I am not, after all, as desirable as he had thought.
It takes all my concentration, simultaneously to manage myself in this way, to perform for a man who is probably thousands of miles away, thinking of something else— with some other girl, perhaps, but still, moving with his gaze in mind— and at the same time, to manage my embarrassment at acting like this; so eye-catchingly, obviously, acting the whore. An expensive, sophisticated whore, hopefully— but still— a whore is a whore.
It is non-negotiable, though; the way I am walking; I canot let myself off this demand that I make these deliberate moves, the studied care, the invitation offered to anyone present to watch as I play act my best version of some black and white movie seductress, all the way to the door of my flat. Unseen, this time— as far as I know— but still, tingling with the possibility of being seen, of being asked even the politest, most neighbourly, most inoffensive of questions.
Because there is something else in me, too, something that has only made itself known to me at the end of the afternoon, that I have only been able to think about in the car, and it is this; that I don’t think I can lie any more. I mean, I probably could— people lie all the time, often with the best motivations. But still, I’m not sure I can, any more— certainly not lie to make my own path more easy. Again, I have no way of knowing what an extreme situation might drive me to, but there is little belief in me that I could lie to a neighbour, if they should happen to ask why I have been at home rather than at work, these past days. Not to save my own embarrassment, anyway. Something about Karsh’ relentless, easy honesty about such difficult subjects, such shocking requirements, Mrs Stratten’s directness, too, that I feel some heavy duty has been laid upon me to follow suit.
It’s nerve-wracking, this realisation, but at the same time, as with so much of my new situation, it is also remarkable. I am no longer a liar. It’s not that I have ever had a problem telling the truth, but I have, more often than I’d like to admit, covered up for myself, for my embarrassment, to avoid awkward questions, to avoid upsetting people, avoid trouble.
To know that I am no longer going to allow myself to do that, to be sure, to have the feeling inside me that I won’t be able to hide what has happened to me, what Karsh has done to me, is a remarkable thing.
It is not that I want to tell people that I have given up on my life, my career, in order to become a sex toy for a rich foreigner that I hardly know, not in the slightest; I am appalled at the prospect; it is rather that I know that, if asked a direct question, I will be compelled, for some reason to do with him, although not anything he has asked for or ordered or even spoken about, that I will find it necessary to tell the truth of it.
How is he doing this? Making me into a different person? Or is it, rather, that it is me who is doing this to myself— that he is only the catalyst?
All I know is that I can’t resist it; that I am too fascinated by it to heed the warning signs that are all too obvious. Or, is it that the things that I am warning myself about are the very things which fascinate me?
This useless train of thought is brought to a halt by the sight of a large, plain parcel, there, outside my door, without any postage or delivery markings, only my name in strangely formed handwriting.
That there should be more, that day, overwhelms me. I have not even allowed the events of the afternoon’s dream to really register, have not let them become real— for all that the the ring joining my labia, down at the base of my sex, is unavoidably, painfully real with every step I take, I have not let it sink in, what it means for me to have permitted such a terrible thing.
And now, this box, portentous, mysterious, since everything that comes to me from Karsh has been deeply impactful, enormously significant.
And the dream bubble bursts, and everything hits me, as if it had all happened in single second; my knees buckle, my vision blurs, and — just like that— I’m on the verge of a panic attack. It is only with a concentrated effort that I make it into the flat, where I sink to my knees, all my energy, all my being, focused on the almost impossible business of breathing. The glass box is gone, and my whole self is screaming at me.
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