Stand In The Corner.

The long bamboo stick is still lying on the floor. Usually, it is propped up against the corner, but last night we moved it to make room for me. It’s mostly useless as an object, it could have been used to beat a person, that’s why I bought it, but it’s just a little too long to be manoeuvred well. If it were built differently, with a little finesse and sharper edges, perhaps it could have served as décor, but it’s too unassuming and clunky to have any aesthetic value. We let it latibulate, free from notice, completely forgotten until it needs to be put back in place. As I resolve to do just that as soon as I have finished my work, my phone beeps. It only beeps for him so I pick it up to read the text, instantly.

‘Take off your clothes, spread your legs and listen to it.’

Fuck. I had forgotten about it, in so far as it remains inside my chest, like a ball of nondescript dread that I could neither attribute to anything specific, nor ignore. I clutch my phone, perhaps as an act of pleading, as I step out of my clothes and sit back down at my desk. I respond to him, in a half-hearted attempt to postpone my fate.

‘But, I am working.’

He writes back, immediately.

‘I didn’t tell you to stop working, you dumb fucking cunt. You listen to music while you work, don’t you? Think of it as music. Dirty, disgusting, pathetic off-key music.’

I let out an inadvertent whimper as I put on my earphones and scroll through my audio files to find the recording from last night. I wish it didn’t exist. I wish I had fallen asleep right there on the floor after he was done with me so he didn’t have the opportunity to pick me up, lead me into the bed, place my phone on my chest to secure the evidence of my shame and play with me until I was an embarrassing, incoherent mess. I squeeze my eyes shut the moment I press play, I am not sure from whom I am hiding, there is no one here. The sound comes on so loud and clear, filtering straight into my ears without any gentle progression. As I listen to myself moan, I can feel the memories of his fingers exploring every inch of my cunt—my aching, tortured, permanently denied cunt—and as I start to moan again, I hear his voice.

I cannot believe you make me touch this disgusting, unkempt, ugly cunt. Do you feel how dirty and needy it is? Even after being foot-fucked for so long.

Foot-fucked. What an awful descriptor that I would never use and I will now always hope to hear. It is what happened, though. I was lying on the floor and licking his feet, trying to force them into my mouth and down my throat when he decided it was unbecoming of me to have such a nice time at his expense. He stood up to explore my cunt with his toes, and upon finding a hole too eager for his taste, he decided to foot-fuck me. Except, anatomically, it wasn't as possible as he would have liked it to be so, really, he was fucking me with the tip of his big toe, but really kicking me with everything else. Foot-fucked, conveys that though, doesn't it? In its crass manner it lets you know that this foot isn't just penetrating a hole, it's wrecking it. It lets you know that I am not fucking myself against this foot to get myself off, it is fucking me to ensure I don't get off. I'm the recipient of the foot. I'm impressed by how he uses language against me, he gets it, the trick to maximum impact is not in flowery, obscure vocabulary, it's in syntax. He never tells me to rub myself up against the furniture, no, he tells me to let the furniture use me. He never tells me he is going to fuck me, no, he tells me he is going to give me a fucking. It's too simple to be so effective, but it is. As effective as his foot, squashing my face and whacking it without a concern. I shudder and spread my legs wider as I listen to his voice as it plays out loud inside my head.

'Listen to you moan, you sound so desperate and pathetic. You should be so ashamed and apologetic for presenting me with this filthy, hairy cunt but instead you leak and moan.'

I want to die. I try to hold my ears closed but it only pushes the earphones deeper into my ears making my helpless moans and insincere apologies even louder, later there would be sincere apologies, but the girl I'm listening to doesn't know that yet. I remember exactly what he was doing when I was moaning like that, he was pulling my hair, down there. I don't know how this started but we're too deep inside it to back out now. We have no body-maintenance rules in our relationship, no obligation to convey the magnitude of my slavery by committing to a routine of shaving my cunt, but somehow, we have developed a routine of shaming related to not shaving my cunt. Sometimes, at random, he decides it is too dirty because it is unkempt. Sometimes he punishes me by not letting me shave, and the more it grows out the worse he treats me, until it reaches a point where I really feel as dirty and disgusting as he tells me I must be to look like that. As I said, I have no idea how this started, but we're too deep in it now. As I listen to him tell me to listen to myself moan, I moan. He wants me to exhibit radio silence when he beats me, but when he plays with me, he wants me to be as loud as possible. I don't want that at all. Socially, I'm a very loud person, but sexually, I am alarmingly meek, reserved and quiet. I don't moan, but I do, I really, really do. It's not hot or sensual either, it feels like it is being forced out of me, helpless and gutteral. It's too much for me to bear to hear, so I set my head down on the table and hold it inside my arms. I listen to myself beg, as unsure in playback as I was during the time of recording, what I was begging for. I listen to myself moan pleas of mercy as he laughed at me. I listen to myself apologise for being human and thank him for touching something as dirty as myself. I listen to his words.

'You are so pitiful, it must feel really horrible to know you have to be grateful and sorry just to be touched, it must feel so disgusting to be you, to know you have to say these things and be heard.'

It is horrible to have to say things out loud and sometimes I worry I have a knack for picking the most impactful moments to say the thing that will reverberate off him and hurt me the most. Earlier, last evening, when he was fucking me, I told him that I love him. When he was telling me that the marginal amount of pleasure he gets from fucking me is almost so inconsequential that he was considering replacing me with a fleshlight, I opened my mouth and told him that I love him. When he was slapping my head and telling me that the only worth I had to him was that I technically did possess fuckable holes however disgusting they were, I told him that I love him. It was so surprising to both of us that I felt him skip a beat inside me, but it only lasted a second, he didn't say it back, I think that may have been the first time in our lives that he didn't say it back, he just laughed, twisted my arm behind my back and kept on fucking me until he was done, and tossed me back on the floor. I stayed on the floor for a long time. Then he picked me up and took me to bed. As I near the end of the horrible music he forces me to play, I remember how it ended before he announces it into my ears.

'That's it. You're too horny and pathetic. You're too dirty to be in my bed. Get up, get the fuck out of my bed and into the corner. Take your filthy hole and go marinate in your shame in the corner until you learn to be better.'

I hear myself cry out, scramble out of bed, bump against the nightstand and then disappear into the silence of the corner. After he sent me there he told me to feel between my legs for my filth and hold it up against my face. I don't quite remember what happened after that. I remember the darkness of the corner and my hand, I remember how it felt wet against my nose and eyelids, I remember standing still yet feeling like I was sinking, but after that, there is only silence. I was as relieved for that silence, as I am for the silence in the ears right now. I emerge from the cocoon of shame I had built for myself with my head down on the desk. I pick up the phone to let him know I have done what he asked of me.

'I listened to it.'

I stare at the screen until it lights up in response.

'Show me your cunt.'

I bring the phone under the table and take a horrible picture, but from what he has taught me about my cunt, it wouldn't be possible to take a good picture. I avoid looking at it as much as possible as I send it to him. I'd much rather write a dirty description, than send a dirty picture. It's too much. I know what he wants to see. I know what he wants me to feel and my heart is weary from cruelty. He writes back to my picture.

'Disgusting. You're too pathetic and horny again. Back in the corner. Now.'

I didn't know that is what he was going to say, but I did know. I must have known, that must have been why I didn't put the bamboo stick back there. I get up from my desk and walk towards the corner again, I drag my feet even though there is no one here to bear witness to my shameful reluctance. I put myself back in the corner with no one there to see me. I lean against it like an almost useless object, it could have been used to please someone, but it is too broken to manoeuvre well. If it were built differently, with a little finesse and finer edges, it could have served as décor, but it's too asymmetrical and clunky to have aesthetic value. Best to let it latibulate, free from notice, completely forgotten unless it needs to be put back in place.