The drink must have had something in it, for, far from spending hours re-running hard moments from the evening in my head, trashing myself, thrashing myself, as I would have done, on nights in my druggy days after messy things had happened, I was instead engulfed by the comfortable softness of the bed— such a contrast to all the hardnesses of the evening— mental as well as physical— and I found myself sinking into a warm, dark cloud of drowsiness, which smothered my churning thoughts with the promise of sleep.
And sleep came, too, soon enough, but was quickly invaded by vivid, violent dreams of shame and fear and blows and, yes, of rape and abuse; dreams which came and went through the night, sometimes almost waking me, so that I knew I was dreaming, but was at the same time trapped in the madness, tossing and turning, sweating, curling in on myself, lost in nightmare.
Only as dawn was breaking— a glow at the edges of the curtains, did I half awaken, and somehow knew that the dream was over; Again, no thinking was possible, only a grateful rolling over to a cooler part of the enormous bed, some ineffective fighting with the covers, and a willing dive into unconsciousness.
When I woke again, it was slowly, my head muddled, heavy; I felt drowsy, body hot, luxuriously aching, moving slowly, enjoying the feeling of rich sensual exhaustion and heat— I was sore, yes, but also more relaxed than I could remember having been for— since …
Since I had last been high.
And then it all crashed in on me— the events of the previous day— not in any order of time, nor the most astonishing moments pushing themselves to the fore, but all at once, as if it had been a landslide, an avalanche of overwhelming sensation— a crazy, jumbled, kaleidoscope of images, snapshots, sounds, feelings, bodily recall, tastes, emotional rushes— everything smashed into my mind as a single thing. Outrageous moments, exhilarating ones, shaming ones, glorious ones, impossible ones, painful ones, delirious ones; too many, too much— all blurred into the single most significant event of my life.
My languor was banished— the only possible response to such a violent rush of sensation was to move, to respond, to dissipate some energy, let the adrenalin, the jitteriness be expressed through action— though I had not the slightest thought as to what that action might seek to achieve. I wasn’t thinking, at all, at that moment— just feeling.
Without knowing how, I was up, out of bed, then into the bathroom, round, straight out again, into the suite’s other room, walking fast, moving for the sake of moving, mind overwhelmed, a single word on an endless loop in my brain; *What? What? What? What? What?* with no thought of even trying to answer (too frightened even to try), until I passed the big mirror, saw myself, and lurched to a halt. My speed having taken me past it, I moved back, needing, urgently, to look at myself— to see what yesterday had done to me.
I had done this in my druggy days, almost compulsively looking for the way that my deterioration drew itself onto my face, degraded my body, my skin, my hair, just a little more each day; I had no idea why, at the time, but later I had understood. I had been seeing both sides of it; right there in the mirror; my dissipation proof of my uselessness, my worthlessness on the one hand, and my own horror at the visible signs of ill health and neglect emotional proof that I still cared, still wanted to live. Eventually, the self-care had won out, and I had found it in me to begin the hard job of escaping the trap.
Now, I wanted to know— what had yesterday done to me? How would my moral collapse, the shocking catalogue of whore-like behaviour and usages inflicted upon me, have changed me?
At first, looking at my naked body (no sign of the collar or cuffs), making myself look— really look at myself as I had not done for months, at first I was simply numb; until it began to dawn on me that, far from seeing signs of degradation, of decay, of damage, the girl in the mirror was alive. Really, alive— in a way I couldn’t remember seeing her since before TallBoy had started her off on the H.
And that was frightening, and weird.
I had said that simple Yes, less than 24 hours ago, knowing that I had agreed to an outrage, and saying yes anyway. Was I more alive, now, because of having made that choice— done something that took me away from the deathly routine of the only kind of a job that a girl with multiple drug felonies was ever likely to get? Or, much more disturbing, was it the wildness of the outrages that had woken me up?
I so wanted it to be the former, but I could not erase those memories, memories that jostled and pushed for attention; memories of intense, unprecedented emotionality, moments when my heart had felt like bursting, when my body had been buzzing as if with a strong electrical field, wild thrills that had passed the length of me, almost unbearable in their intensity; the orgasms, yes of course; but equally sensations of mingled pain, yearning, humiliation, arousal that had been so intense it had almost been an out-of body experience; again and again, moments that powerful, all across the night…
Fear, too, and shame, and the breathlessness at doing degrading things, allowing them to be done to me; the knowing that I was part of it, knowing I was trying to perform for those strangers doing such awful things to me, so that I had demonstrated to the watching strangers just how degraded I was; burying myself in shame and self-judgement, imagining their judgement of me, knowing what they must be thinking as they watched me, living it, accepting it, feeling it eat into me, letting it happen, round and round and round… Knowing that I had embraced all that, leaned into it, lost myself in it. That I had found the feeling of being lost in it like a powerful drug…
It was impossible to separate the choice that I had made, from the astonishing, beyond imagination advantages that had been taken of me once I had consented, from my own, frankly wanton responses to those outrages.
And, standing there, appalled, transfixed; dumbstruck by the sheer volume of new realities that had to be assimilated, somehow, if I was not to lose my mind, I found myself shivering with realisation.
That what had happened was not going to be a one-off; not an aberration, that somehow— and I had no clear image in my head, no understanding of how that somehow might be made real— but somehow, experiences like the night just passed were going to be part of my life.
That being naked, in front of clothed strangers; being fucked impersonally, violently; my sexual response to such treatment being evident, obvious, commented on by others, and being shamed; degraded too. Yes, and— thinking about the way she had been with me— being hurt and abused, too.
Not that I wanted it— not … not treatment that extreme, at least— but that I was weak for it, would always be weak for it— as I had been weak for the drugs.
But that the weakness was deeper, hungrier, needier. It was the thing for which the drugs had been a substitute. This. This was what I was weak for, would be addicted to forever, wanted to be addicted to, without hope of recovery; I would fight against any attempt to rehab me from this deep and greedy need.
Why?
Because it made me whole; alive.
Not good, not healthy, not happy, not joyful, not ecstatic— none of those had been how it had been when I was kneeling on the floor of the limo, hearing dirty, crude things said about me and what could be done with me, or when the Founder had fucked into me, while the others watched me open myself completely to a man I had never spoken to, who did not know my name, who spoke about me as if I was a piece of meat. It had not been good, or healthy, or happy to be naked on the table, thighs splayed open, his hand mauling my poor tender sex in front of well dressed laughing strangers, my breasts swaying with the violence of his manipulations, my throat emitting shaming noises which telegraphed my arousal.
No. Nothing good. But very deep in me, a certainty that it was what made me whole, fulfilled, right; the first time in my life that I had really been fully alive; that in those moments, nothing in me, no part of me had been yearning for something else, to be someplace else, to be feeling some other feelings.
Instead, during those moments, I had been fully, utterly occupied with the being of myself in that moment; totally, consumed, absorbed, engaged, my whole body and mind untied, fully involved in the business of whoring myself, opening myself, giving my sexuality over to the control of another; being sexually controlled, by someone who had no interest in me, except as something to use.
It was overwhelming, in front of the mirror, seeing everything on my face, in my own eyes; overwhelming to be thinking— feeling— those thoughts, and frightening, too, and my legs buckled and I found myself sinking to my knees, my eyes drawn to the darkness of the shadow between my thighs; to my sex, my pussy, the hole that they had demanded to see, to put their hands on, those cocks into, that place of pleasure, and sensation, and shame and— at their hands, pain, too.
And then the feeling became memories of those times, those many times, it seemed, the night before, when the shame, and the fear, and the physical sensation of violation as that most private part of me was used and manipulated without care or consent— the violent disrespect imposed upon me— all those bad feelings— had begun to be part of that other feeling, that breathless, urgent, helpless, needy yearning to abandon myself to the wild sexual dirtiness of it all and I had let my body do what it wanted to, let it give in to the animality; seeking, giving itself to the promise— and the shaming threat— of orgasm at the hands of an abusive stranger, other strangers looking on; judging me, laughing— all of those conflicting, intense feelings combining to make me almost suffocate with the need; willing, desperate even, to be taken to the extreme of it, to be driven … forced … to lose myself in the intensity of the moment.
I heard myself panting, then saw in the mirror, that other me, her hips moving, her knees flexing, her whole body softly bobbing up and down, saw the heat between her legs and on her cheeks bring a flush of pink, saw her nipples tightening, and it was good, and it was frightening, and it filled me with an anticipation that was sweet and yearning, and frightening, all at the same time…
The moment was shattered, by a deliberate, insistent banging at the door, which was not so much loud as incredibly shocking, so lost had I been, so vulnerable, to be recalled to the reality that I was naked, in a strange room, surrounded by strangers, with no idea what was to happen next, or what time it was or … or…
I clutched at my nakedness, cringed and cowered, in case someone might be able to open the door, see me like that, know just how dirty I was… how weak… how shameful…
But it was a voice only, that came; “Quarter past ten; we need the room in fifteen minutes.”
Quarter past ten! I should be at work! I’d be in trouble (in trouble again; timekeeping was my biggest issue). I was naked! how could I leave the room without clothes (never mind that last night I had been paraded, naked, led on a leash and sexually violated, that had been an event, a craziness, at night) ? The voice had been straightforward, practical, mundane; it was obvious; I had to vacate a hotel room, go into the corridor, out onto the street. I needed clothes! And a shower, too, I realised, suddenly aware how sticky and stained I felt— and smelt.
I flipped into a different mode entirely, jumped up, looked around me, seeking— and saw it at once— the black plastic sack by the door. It had toppled sideways, and I recognised the fabric I could see— the blouse I had worn to work … yesterday.
A yesterday that seemed a year ago, a lifetime ago, someone else’s yesterday. A yesterday when a silly office prank had seemed dangerous and exciting.
The blouse filled me with despair.
They couldn’t! It couldn’t! I couldn’t!
Go back.
I just couldn’t go back.
Only 24 hours ago, I had been grateful for my job, grateful for the rung on the ladder out of the wreckage my drug habit had wrought in my life.
But there, naked, still trembling from the powerful emotions that had possessed me a minute before, I was overcome with other powerful emotions; an urgent, deep and visceral rejection of the idea of going back to what now seemed like a living death. Better than the earlier hell, yes, but only in that it wasn’t hell. There had been nothing ‘good’ about it.
Not that there was anything ‘good’ about what had been done to me the night before— what I had offered myself up for, had even, from some angles, done to myself.
But it had not been deathly. Dangerous, cruel, frightening, shameful, degrading, destructive, yes. All of those. But also, exhilarating, vital, dynamic, sexually intense, totally alive.
Better to burn out, than to rust — the old Neil Young line came to me, out of nowhere.
I couldn’t go back.
But how, what, would I do, then? What was there for me? My old clothes— hateful now. Ten more minutes in that swanky room, close to those who knew how to make me live like that, and no sense or evidence that they were interested in doing it to me again; no way forward, no-one to talk to— no-one in the world I could talk to about any of that stuff, except— it forced itself into my head— except Her— Ms. M. And she was the most frightening of all of them. Cruel, obdurate, knowing, manipulative, always demanding more…
I felt myself beginning to collapse— starting to whine and shiver— familiar from the drug days; withdrawal symptoms, avoidance mechanisms, shutting down, giving up, abdicating responsibility, drowning in pathetic self pity.
But I was stronger than that— I knew I was. I had learned from the one counsellor who had actually got through to me during the whole shitty rehab experience; the one who had seemed like a human— who I’d had for three sessions only. He’d had appeared, opened a door to hope, given some nuggets (almost casually, conversationally, not even seeming serious) then gone, vanished, leaving just those nuggets, that little window of possibility, with which I had worked my way to another stage, then another. Which had, in fact, got me to that hotel room, that naked realisation that I wanted life, not survival. Life, aliveness, whatever it cost me.
And I knew. I knew I must refuse to collapse; resist, stand up, walk, think, DO SOMETHING.
And as soon as I did, made myself move again; pacing the extent of the little suite, it rapidly became obvious. I must get to Her. No matter how she frightened me (or, because she frightened me so?). Find her, find Ms. M; tell her. Tell her what? I had no idea, but she was the one, I knew it. She had seen whatever it was in me that might respond to that offer, she had chosen me, she had pushed me, harder, harder again, made me open myself, whore myself, shame myself. She had spanked me, had made me come for her. She knew me— this me, at least— better than I knew myself, somehow. Maybe I wouldn’t have to say anything; maybe she would just look at me, and know what I needed.
With that— all I had, but something— I suppressed all the jitters and bubbling hysteria at the thought of offering myself back to the madness of the night before, at what more might be done to me if I did— suppressing all that, I forced myself to focus, as I had learned to do during rehab— to focus on the next thing that would move me forward, and do that, let it be enough (except that, as I had just realised, it would never be enough). Focus.
Shower, fast. Hair, fast— did what I could. Clothes, fast— best they could be, after being crumpled in a sack all night. Found my purse; then, mirror again, basic make-up, lips, eyelashes, eyelids, fast.
The door was opened without warning and a tall, well-built man in a dark suit came straight in, making it clear that the room was in no sense my territory, not any more. Cropped hair, lanyards and walkie-talkie device pronounced him some sort of functionary, probably security, as did his no nonsense, military-style, impervious command mode;
“Time to go, girly.”
His eyes were hard, but impersonal. He was not being mean or rude, just effective; what he had been tasked with achieving would happen, without doubt; he would make sure of it. But it felt like a punch.
After all that I had given, that had been taken from me, rammed deep into me, done with me, for the entertainment of these people, that was the end of it? It made perfect sense, of course. I had been a bought-and-paid-for whore; that I had been used and abused was all part of the package. I had no basis for complaint. But I was still a person, and that evidence of utter disrespect; clarity that there was to be zero recognition, zero, nothing at all for me as a person, nearly undid me.
I couldn’t meet his eyes, dropped my own, staring, unfocused, at the floor, clinging desperately to that idea, to the thing I needed to try for, to the idea of Her.
It was terrible; awful; almost impossible to stand and let him look at me. That he had called me ‘girly’ strongly suggested that he knew how I had been used, the night before; and maybe more— maybe how I had allowed myself to be used, how I had responded to being used.
Standing there, him looking at me, knowing that about me, was appalling. I had done something; allowed something, that I could never row back from. And this man knew nothing about me but that. How could he see me as anything else but that; simply that; a degraded, willing whore?
Despair rose again, to be fought with, tooth and nail; determination must be enough— I had nothing else; I would never have anything else; I had lost at life; I knew it. But I was still alive, and I still wanted to live, and so I had to see her. There was nothing else;
“Please? Please, can … can I see Ms. M?”
My voice sounded ridiculous; so small, so tentative, so girlish.
Pathetic. I was pathetic. But still, there I was, wanting to be alive. Determined to live. I would have to find a way to live as a weak and pathetic person. It felt tragic. It was tragic. But it was also all I could think of.
“As far as I am aware, Ms. M has not asked for you. Neither has anyone else. We require the room, and you are not required. Therefore, you will leave. Now.”
Again, no edge to the voice, no intention to hurt; just the facts, just the cold hard reality of my meaninglessness to them.
It was over. I was condemned.
Except that that I was needy. So very needy, and my body somehow found something it could try, and simply did it. There was no thinking, no plan, no idea; I just sank to my knees and then some sense memory of the night before made me shuffle my knees apart; shamefully, obviously, opening my thighs, inviting sexual attention, offering my sex to him— there was nothing else that could make sense of the deliberate change in my position.
I wished I could speak, but my throat had seized up, and there were no words in my head, only feelings; all the bad feelings, all at once, and only animal determination to keep my holding myself well for him, hoping for something; anything, but a repeated insistence that I leave.
“Hah.”
It was soft, unemphatic, but interested. Something had surprised him, just a little. Surprised and satisfied him. Again, my body did what it did, and the pathetic, kneeling girly did a stupid hopeful little girly bounce, and emitted a pathetic little noise, begging;
“hmp?”
She was letting him know that she hoped he was pleased, that she was happy to have shamed herself, happy to please him. And it was true. My mind, shamed and surprised by the actions of my body, was happy if he was pleased with me, even though I was drowning in shame. I was leaning right into it, leaning, as much as I dared into presenting myself as a vulnerable, wanton slut, a helpless nymphomaniac. My cheeks felt red hot; I was sure I must be visibly blushing. I was certainly breathing audibly, breathing through my mouth, panting almost, my heart racing.
Everything was so wrong with all of it; there was no sense in which I was happy, or relaxed, or enjoying myself. And yet there was no part of me that was not part of it, hypersensitive, alert, fascinated. I was frightened, ashamed, excited, despairing, aroused— right on the edge of everything.
This was it. It had been like this. It was terrible and wonderful and alive.
And it was abusive.
I was offering myself up for sexual abuse. If I got what I wanted, I would be sexually abused. And not casually, but by experienced, cynical, serial abusers; rich and powerful, too— untouchables. I was not the first girl they had done this to, it was clear. It was like jumping into the sea in a storm. I was giving up all hope of control.
My pussy was tingling; there was no other word for the feeling, like nothing I had ever experienced. It was mostly fear, and I knew it. I was consumed by fear.
All for this security guy, a functionary. How had they— how had she— done this to me so fast? The answer was obvious, although painful and harsh. They hadn’t had to do much at all; just tip me over an edge I hadn’t even known was part of me. Whatever it was they had done, I was made for it, had been ready for it, almost as if I had been waiting for it, waiting for someone to do this to me.
So that when he said;
“There might be something you could do, to get her to think about maybe seeing you before you leave. Will you do it?”
When he said that— and it was so obviously a path they had prepared for me, designed to entrap me; he had made no attempt to make it sound as if he’d just thought of it, no real attempt to trick me.
When he said that, knowing that I was walking into a trap, happy that they had made a trap for me, even though the fears had just gone through the roof; when he asked me that, I just said Yes.
Read the next part of I just said ‘Yes’.
