4-24-2017 Fiction

Blotted

He knows he's tried to tell her, but she would never listen. Every day he observed her, hiding as if she knew he was watching. Now, she can't hide, not hanging up there on the wall like a butterfly being pinned and preserved on a mounting board. Her head follows the sound of his footsteps and he carefully places black tape in an “X” across each indentation of the blindfold where her eyes are. He steps back and grabs a marker. On the tops of her thighs, he writes “Little” and “Girl” respectively. He walks a short ways away, turns abruptly, and stares at her a moment.

“I wrote the words “Little" and "Girl” on you,” he announces watching a grimace register on the lower half of her face, “You don't seem to like that. Tell me, how do you feel about being a little girl?”

“I hate it,” she says squirming a little in her restraints as if she can somehow run away from the words labeling her.

“You can't run from it, the words are clearly on you,” he chuckles, “but, if you want, I could help you blot those words out.” He watches her head bob up and down ecstatically. “You have yet to accomplish the job yourself, you realize,” he approaches her head and lowers to a whisper in her ear. She whimpers in response.

“Erase her,” she spits and yanks against the chains. As they rattle against the wall behind her, he moves over to her left and grabs a riding crop. Without warning, he strikes her lightly across the word “girl”. She doesn't register much of a reaction. He flips the crop and strikes at the same word with the handle, just a bit harder. Then, he attacks the word “little”. As he alternates, he picks up intensity. “Are you going to cover her up in bruises?” She asks him.

“Yes,” is all he says.

Her thighs turn a dark pink and occasionally he covers an area with his hands to feel the heat rise off her flesh. Each time he stops, she rattles the chains in protest, egging him on to cover the little girl in bruises; to do what she herself tried and failed to do each and every day. Then, he stopped abruptly but no hand went to calm her. She moved her head from side to side, seeing nothing. She heard nothing.

“Are you there?” She called out.

“I am looking at you,” he replies casually, “some bruising is starting to set in already, but I can still see the little girl. By tomorrow morning, she will be completely blotted out by purple and black.”

“It's a shame I can't see her go away,” she laments and he laughs, “what's funny?”

“That's the whole point of the blindfold,” he chuckles. He reaches up and playfully flicks the knot of the blindfold that sits leaning towards the right, behind her head. “Why should I let you revel in my accomplishment, after all? It's me doing the work here, blotting her away bit by bit.”

“Just, erase her,” she sighs, exasperatedly. He continues to strike for a moment then stops again.

“She scares you, doesn't she?” He asks but she stays silent. “This little girl inside of you is where you hang all your failures and blames. A little scapegoat, if you will, and you resent her for taking all the punishment you couldn't.”

“Shut up!” She rattles the chains and leans forward the best she can. Her fist ball up above the cuffs and he dares to go up and kiss her knuckles, backing away just as quickly.

“Do you feel less pain?” He quizzes her.

“No, it feels worse.”

“Do you feel that the little girl inside of you is gone now?” He continues as he walks away to put his crop back into its place.

“No, it's like she's filling the entire room right now.”

“Hrm. That's telling because I can't see the words anywhere now,” he tells her as he turns around, “the words have long since been buried.”

A long pause hangs on the moment, nestling in between them even as he walks back towards her, closing the gap. He reaches her and releases her arms, catching her as she slumps forward. She removes the blindfold herself and immediately looks down at the tops of her legs.

“Or ...” he says slowly as he helps her over to a chair, “maybe those words were never written on your thighs at all."

4-22-2017 Fiction

Devotion

She moves forward timidly. We are recalling the conversation we had the other day, out loud; words paced with her every step. The slower she walks, the fewer words I say, but my tone tightens with audible disappointment.

"I thought you said you wanted to test your devotion," I call out to her across the room. She takes another four-inch step towards me and stops. She tries to straighten her shoulders a little bit but cannot, the handcuffs have grown so tight from her previous struggling with them. She is visibly uncomfortable. When she doesn't answer, I clear my throat.

"I do, I just," she pauses a moment, "I always walk slowly when blindfolded." I chuckle a bit under my breath. It's true, her instincts run wild with her imagination when she cannot see. Every step is an invitation to stub her toes on furniture or place a tender bare foot on a Lego. And she has been told already that she will walk over broken glass for me today.

"It was your idea," I remind her.

"It was an expression," she hissed, "I wish I'd have just said I'd walk to the ends of the Earth instead." Then she giggles despite herself, probably imagining me constructing some scenario where she'd endlessly walk for hours. Perhaps on a treadmill. I smile at the thought and tuck the idea away for another time.

"How close are you to the broken glass?" I ask. She stops abruptly and raises her head feverishly looking around the room regardless that she is blindfolded.

"Shouldn't you know?" comes her question and I tell her that I am also blindfolded. I watch her shudder. "Shouldn't you be watching me so I don't go off path and walk right into a wall?"

"I should", I say slowly, "but I'm not. I am just as blind as you are without your devotion, just as helpless. So, until you prove your devotion, there's no way I can guide you at all." She seems suddenly more motivated and takes two large steps forward then stops again. "Come on, you have to be close to the glass by now."

"You're making me do this all on my own," she mutters and takes another small step. Then she raises up on her tip toes and makes a short ballerina run covering about two feet. She settles back down onto the soles of her feet. She is unknowingly one step away from her fate now. "I can't do this," she admits.

"Are we to forever be blinded by your fear, little girl?" I ask. I watch her face distort with a painful grimace. "Come on, it's just a few feet of broken glass. You can take that for me, can't you?" She sighs loudly and purses her lips. She goes back onto her toes to make another choppy run. Then, on her first step, she hits it. There's a loud popping sound. She wiggles her big toe around and feels small pieces moving with and over her toe.

"Ow!" She yelps. "I'm going to end up bleeding all over your carpet, is this far enough?"

"Keep going, this is about your devotion and your fears, not about my carpet."

She sniffles a bit and takes another step on her toes. I can't call her out for cheating the test so I remain quiet as she toes her way through it.

POP POP POP POP

She bumps right into me at the end. I catch and embrace her. I spin her around and remove the handcuffs. She rubs at her sore wrists asking if she can now take off the blindfold. I remove it for her without a word.

"What?" She gasps looking at the floor. On the floor in front of us is only a swatch of bubble wrap sprinkled with some uncooked rice, not the shards of painful glass she was expecting. She turns around and sees that I never had a blindfold on myself. Her eyes narrow at me.

"Not that I wouldn't make you walk through broken glass if I felt like it, but pain itself was not your test," I say, "we already know you'd endure pain for me."

"And no blindfold?" She asks, toying with hers in her hands.

"Do I not guide you even when you are blinded by fear and refuse to trust me?" I ask and her expression gives me my answer.

"It really felt like glass," she sighed leaning into me and I wrap my arms around her.

"I know. Just imagine, your little mind creates broken glass when there is none all the time," I reply. I squeeze her lightly. "Now, about the tip-toeing your way through it..."

4-20-2017 Fiction

You Don't Deserve This

She rested comfortably in her restraints up against the familiar wall, but what was to unfold here tonight would be anything but familiar. I had prepared her by mostly ignoring her for two days. Every time she'd talk, I'd grunt in reply at best and otherwise made it clear I gave no fucks about whatever she was droning on about. Last night, I had brought home dinner and didn't bring her anything. I ate a meal from her favorite take-out restaurant gleefully in the kitchen while she slowly dragged a pan out of the cupboard to prepare her own dinner. I'd cut her off in conversation. Often. The evening before I didn't show up at home until after midnight with no so much as a call to ease her worried mind. I had acted like every single ex she ever told me about. She never said a word, but her shoulders had settled into a defeated slump by the time our playtime arrived.

"You don't deserve this," I mutter as I attach a clip to her left nipple. She looks down at her nipple then at me with confusion. "I'm not talking about the clip, you moron." If she could have recoiled into and through the wall behind her, she would have. I can see her pressing up hard against it, trying to disappear. I attach the other clip and repeat my prior statement. She still says nothing.

Her face is a deep red but she's learned well enough not to hide her face from me anymore. She instead locks eyes with me. I can see the glassy, trembly look of them and I turn away quickly. I walk over to the table and grab my bottle of water and my dragon tail. As I return, I stop over by the potted plant near the window. I open the water and let it run over the very tip of the dragon tail, humming softly as the run off waters the plant below.

"Why do I even water your dumb plant?" I ask over my shoulder as I twist the cap back onto the bottle.

"Because it needs water..?" She answers in a shaky voice.

"It's your plant, it doesn't deserve my care," I say and turn around to smirk at her, "does it?" She stares at me, her mind obviously whirling around trying to figure out what's gotten into me. I approach her slowly then I slingshot my dragon tail at her left breast. It knocks the clip off her nipple. She gasps loudly and looks down at the nice red upside down "V" forming on her tender chest. When she raises her head again, I hit the next breast also knocking away the clip. "Look, if your breasts were fuller, this would be an upside down "W" which we both know stands for whore."

"It's a letter M," she says quietly with a tinge of defiance in her voice now.

"We both know that M stands for moron," I sneer at her, turn around, and walk slowly to the table. I lay down the dragon tail and pick up the chain. I curl my fingers around the cold links, then wrap it over my knuckles as I walk back to the wall. "You don't deserve this," I smile at her as I start to wrap the chain around her neck. I grip it carefully to put the bulk of pressure on the sides rather than on the front of the throat. Just enough pressure to reduce some blood flow. "Do you deserve this?" I ask. My eyes have grown wild and I can feel her fear rising; I feel her pulse race along the chain and I hear her breathing change.

"D-Do I deserve to live?" She asks and I just laugh in her face.

"That's not the question I asked you, you big dummy," I snort and kiss her forehead tenderly, never letting go of the chain noosed around her neck. "Since you brought it up, do you deserve to live?"

"Of course I deserve to live," she says back almost too quick. We lock eyes for a tense moment and I tighten the chain a bit before releasing it and pulling it behind her along her shoulders. I am rough as I do this. I click my tongue in her ear and then nibble slightly on her earlobe. I whisper that I don't believe her. Then, I walk back to my table. I am half way across the room when she speaks again. "You don't believe I deserve to live?" Her voice cracks on the last word.

"I don't believe that you believe it," I sneer over my shoulder, "You don't deserve this. Not at all." I feel a swell of energy behind me, almost as if she had unlocked herself and ran up to my back. I don't turn around.

"What the fuck don't I deserve?" She asks very loudly. I turn to face her. She has squared up her body the best she can while restrained to the wall. She is stiff and unyielding, her wild eyes meet mine. I can sense she is gathering energy and strength fro all her emotions. However, she starts to shake, then, the tears come. I turn away and continue my way to the table and lay down the chain. all nice and neat. I don't turn around. I pretend I am preoccupied with something else at the table. I hear her sniffle. "You know what I don't deserve?" She asks with a tone I haven't heard before now.

"Everything," I say and turn around. She looks like a fucking mess. Tears, red face, makeup askew, struggling to hold the snot inside her nose, her limbs shaking as if they're prepared to leave without her body, but she has this insolent smile on her face.

"What I don't deserve is how you've been treating me for the past few days," she says nodding her head up and down violently as if that one sentence alone has proven her entire case. "What I don't deserve is this humiliation. When I gave you consent to be a bit mean, I didn't realize you were such a little asshole!" And with that, she sucks in her breath and becomes small again, like a child that had a fit of frustration and said a dirty word in front of Daddy. Her blush deepens. I simply smile at her, from ear to ear. She watches me in confusion.

"Like I said, you don't deserve this," I say slowly, "You don't deserve how I have treated you these last two days. and yet, you said nothing. You didn't deserve the name calling. You know I am aware that you don't like it. You didnt deserve that. But you deserved this scene, didn't you?" She closes her eyes and thinks for a moment. A weak, barely audible 'yes' escapes her mouth. "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you," I say sternly.

"Yes, Sir, I deserved this scene," she says.

"Why?" I ask and begin putting my things away with my back turned towards her.

"I don't know," she admits.

I stop what I'm doing and go to her. I release her arms and hold her against me, kissing the top of her head. I feel slight convulsions throughout her body and know she's crying again. I pat the very back of her neck and pull her even closer into my chest.

"You needed this scene," I whisper, "You are so used to accepting whatever is dished out at you. Your past was violent and abusive and it stole any confidence you had." I feel her nod her head. I push her away enough to grab her chin and tilt it up. "Your parents didn't decide your worth. Your Exes didn't decide your worth. This scene didn't decide your worth. I don't decide your worth. Your worth has to come from within you. And we caught a glimpse of it tonight, didn't we?"

"We did," she said and rushed back into my chest, "I promise to communicate better, Sir, I promise to stand up for myself."

4-19-2017 Fiction

The Cruelest Things

I adore the way she tilts her face downward when she blushes. I eat that up, but I noticed a while ago that she does it to make herself small, to hide. The blushing never gave her the same warm feeling it gave me. Realizing all of this made the act such a tragedy. So as I fastened the zip ties to her wrist this evening, I grabbed a posture collar.

It's brand new and her eyes light up sniffing the leather as I hold it close to her face. I fasten it and caress her chin. We smile at each other and I have her by the shoulders.

"Now, I'm going to say the cruelest things to you," I warn. I watch her smile twitch a little and her eyes seem to plead for me to stop before I even begin. I shake my head and let go of her shoulders. "You are beautiful."

She tries to look down but cannot. The posture collar keeps her face reluctantly aligned with mine. There's desperation in her eyes now. She keeps wiggling her arms. I see the familiar blush start at the top of her ears and trickle into her cheeks. I see her eyes water and she blinks repeatedly to hold back the tears. Tears already? I think as I step back about a foot further away.

"You are absolutely gorgeous and I am proud to have you on my arm," I say. The blush deepens and stretches across the bridge of her nose. It looks like a red butterfly across her face. I step another foot backward from her. "I'm in love with you," I say. Again, she tries to lower her head but fails. Her arms keep struggling against the ties. I know she desperately wants to rip her hands free so she can remove the collar. I walk backward another foot.

"I find you stunning," I say. I noticed she hasn't said a single word, but her face is saying an awful lot. I take my step back and I am at the doorway of the room now. Her face is distorted in panic. She's going crazy because she can't hide her face from me anymore. She starts to pace and I command her to stop. She stops in mid-step, slowing putting her foot down as she looks at me with a raised eyebrow.

"This is your last chance," I tell her at the door, "you are beautiful." I raise my foot into my next step which will lead me out of the room and I leave my foot hanging in the air a moment, then slowly I put it down mimicking her earlier move, complete with raised eyebrow.

"Thank you, Sir," she says timidly. The blush is still there, spread all across her entire face, but she is no longer fighting against the collar or the zip ties on her wrists.

"Good girl."