You Cannot Take It Anymore.

I woke up because I realised I was alone in bed. When I reached out with my arm, hoping to find the warmth of his body to drape over myself like an old, familiar blanket, I found nothing but cold sheets. It was well past ten, and I was surprised I had slept in so late, and that he had let me. The sun was shining in through the window, I don't care for that, something about beautiful, sunny days makes me feel like I am dressed in a short-sleeved lavender top and beige trousers, I cannot bear the thought of that. That outfit, like the sun, enervates me. I got out of bed, donned the closest robe I could find, and went searching for him. I couldn't hear him anywhere in the house, but as I walked into the living room, I noticed the door to his *office* was ajar. I don't go in there until he tells me to, so I peered through the crack in the door. He wasn't in there, but it didn't seem like it had been long since he had left. The room had the aura of having been recently disturbed, the air was unsettled, like a moment of silence in the middle of a storm.

I pushed the door open and noticed the chair in the middle of the room. There were cuffs still attached to the arms of the chair and ripped up remnants of electrical tape still sticking to the legs. I scanned the crimson-stained floor for the object he had used to cut the tape, and found his hunting knife. Beside it, an array of hammers and blades. I went inside, walking straight to the steel closet in the back. From it, I retrieved the rags, buckets, mops and bleach I needed to clean the probative state of the room. It must have taken me over an hour to wipe the blades, scrub the floors and disinfect the chair, I was just returning all his tools back to their designated spots on the wall when I heard his car pull up in the driveway, in a few moments, he was inside the house. I couldn't hear him approach his office, he's too light of foot for me to follow his movements, but I could sense him coming closer to me, there is a dread I experience in my chest when I know he is approaching me, a dread that disintergrates into relief and joy, the moment I see him. I got up and sat in the chair, still placed in the middle of the room, as I waited for him to emerge.

"You're awake!" He said, as soon as he pushed the door to his office open, and saw me.  

He was wearing a suit, his tie was a little bit askew, but perhaps one wouldn't notice it right away or at all. Perhaps I am merely accustomed to searching for information in morsels of deviation on his person, ones that another may deem otiose.

"Good morning, my love," I told him, leaning back into the chair and placing my arms against the arm-rests as if they were tied to it, "When did you leave?"

"Don't sit in that chair," he instructed me, ignoring my question in a manner prevarication to which I should be immune, "Did you clean in here?"

I nodded my head as I stood up from the chair and walked towards him, he held the door open for me indicating that I should walk out of the room. As I did, he closed the door and walked behind me.

"You didn't have to clean up after me, darling," he said, taking me in his arms and kissing me atop my head, "I'm so sorry I left a mess for you, it won't happen again."

That was a lie, but I forgive him his mendacity because I know it isn't meant to deceive, merely torment, he doesn't care about telling me the truth or lies, as much as he cares that the conjecture and ambiguity drives me insane. Sanity is a privilege, he says, and I wonder if that means I haven't earned it. I wonder if I ever will, it feels like he has me work towards a goal that is impossible to achieve, like the promises of riches made by a multi-level  marketing scheme, and like every fool who has ever hoped to make it to black diamond status, I too believe that if I work hard enough, he'll stop driving me insane. That's my black diamond. A sigh of relief.

"I don't mind cleaning up after you," I told him, sitting down on the couch in the living room, "I mind when I wake up in the morning and it feels like you didn't come to bed all night..."

"Are you mad at me?" He asked, getting down on one knee in front of me and taking my hand, "I am very sorry, I got caught up..."

As he gestured vaguely towards his office door, he stared into my eyes, as if daring me to ask more questions, but I know better. I think I know better. At least, I know better than to ask about the ones who are gone by dawn, I know better than to inquire about where they went, and from where they came. As much as he hates any questions I ask, I can see how he baits me to ask. He pulled my hand to his lips and kissed my fingertips, still looking deep inside my eyes, as if to adumbrate my fate.

"Let me make it up to you," he said, kissing my knee and prying my legs apart with a nudge of his hand.

As he dove between my legs, I tensed up and gripped the couch, my reticence hovered on my tongue and I pressed my lips together to hold it inside my mouth, but my body could never get used to him pleasuring me. The pleasure rises like bile in my throat, like a deleterious acid that is eroding my insides.

"Relax," he whispered into my cunt, his *request* landed like an ice-cold dagger pressing into my flesh, "You don't want me to think you're still mad at me, do you?"

I closed my eyes and dug my nails into my palms. As his lips wrapped themselves around my clitoris, I tried to distract myself with thoughts that would help me get through it. I tried to convince myself that he was being forced to do this to me, that he had a knife to his throat and the assailant would go for the jugular if he didn't complete this heinous act. I tried to convince myself that he would never do it unless his life was being threatened. I tried to fill myself with thoughts of the chair in his office, of being bound to it, and having him fill me with overt panic and pain. I could feel him snigger between my legs as if he could read my thoughts. The orgasm hit like a wave of hot nausea and in my screams of unwanted abandon, I could hear myself begging, just begging for an unspeakable, nondescript place far away from the hellish tenderness of a man like him.

"Th..thank you," I said, as he appeared from between my legs.

"Don't be silly," he said, kissing me on the lips, "You know how much I love to pleasure you, don't you?"

I don't know. Or well, he doesn't. He doesn't do it to pleasure me, he only does it because it drives me insane,  it makes me feel dirty and unloved, but if I said that, he would put on a masterful production of being hurt by me, until I begged him to do it again just so I could prove to him that I appreciate the act, and the gaslighting.

"Why don't you take a shower while I make you some French toast?" He asked.

"I can make it," I strained my voice to covertly beg for the opportunity to be of use, to be able to do anything that allowed me to be who I really am.

"Not at all," he said, taking my hand to walk me to the bathroom, "You've already done so much for me today, my sweet princess."

"Please, just let me do it," I begged, "Why won't you let me do it?"

"Don't question me," he uttered, his tone lowered to that of a glottal grunt, "You know what happens when you don't do as you are told."

The threat was enough to send me into a panic, but the panic was buried underneath the waves of arousal coursing through my arms and legs. I stumbled and grabbed onto his arm, hanging off it like a sack filled with malleable metals and dead weight.

"What's wrong?" He asked, picking me up and cradling me like a child in his arms, as I stared into his eyes, pleading without deigning to speak any words, he asked, "What do you want? Do you want me to fuck you?"

I did, I wanted that very much, but more than that, I wanted him to hit me. It had been months since he had hurt me, since the night when I was last tied to his chair and I broke under the pressure and said I couldn't take it anymore. He stopped immediately, but he stopped completely. He didn't chide me, nor did he punish me for the audacious act of resistance, like he normally would, instead, each time I begged him to hurt me after that, he repeated my words to me.

*You cannot take it anymore.*

Since then the barrage of late-night visitors who keep his body from our bed and his fists from my face have been like an undeclared onslaught. Most nights I fall asleep to the fracas of pain and screams coming from his office, I asked about them once and what he did next ensured that I would never ask again. The panic of that threat is enough to keep me from asking again, but the questions percolate in my throat constantly.

"Please fuck me," I asked, as he put me down on our bed.

As soon as he undressed, pulled the robe off me and kissed my shoulder, I began to regret it, the memories of his brusque and violent manner began swirling in my head and as soon as they collided with the reality of his tenderness, I wanted to scream. He lay on top of me, kissing my body and forcing my hands onto his, each time my arms gravitated upwards, towards the back of my head like every fibre of being is trained to do, he nudged them back onto his skin. He pushed his cock inside me even though it wasn't fully-erect, it hadn't been in ages, not with me anyway, it cannot, not while he treats me like this.

"Master.." the word slipped out of my mouth the way it used to, as my hand gravitated towards the collar around my neck, gripping it to remind myself of who we used to be.

"No," he said, even though his cock throbbed inside me for the first time that afternoon, "Do not call me that."

"Please," I begged, tears rolling down my face, "Please hurt me, why won't you hurt me?"

"You cannot take it anymore," he responded, slowing down inside me, so as to deny me even the slightest moment of pain.

"I can! I will. Please," I begged out loud, like a desperate cry way past considering consequences, "Please hurt me. Why do you hurt them and not me?"

He pulled out of me and walked away from me, retreating into the bathroom, when he returned he was fully dressed and I still lay there, clutching my collar, and grinding against an imaginary assailant.

"Come with me," he said, holding his hand out.

I shook my head but I stood up nonetheless. He picked me up again, it seemed wiser than dragging me along with his words and urging me on with a sense of duty. I knew where he was taking me and maybe I would have fought him, or at least, protested against his sentence but the cruelty of what he had so long ago scried was potent enough that I could feel it on my skin, and for one moment, it felt like relief. It felt like relief until he unlocked the door next to his office, putting me down on the dusty floor of the tiny storage room. As he shackled my ankle to the wall and cuffed my wrists, I stared at the floor.

"I'm sorry," I said, as he began to walk away.

"It's too late," he said, turning around to look at me, "You know what happens when you question me. You can stay here until you learn to do as you're told, princess."

I wished he would stop calling me that. I wished he would walk forward and kick me in the jaw so I could withstand the hours of darkness and solitude that were coming to me. As he turned the light off, I could still see him in the faint glow of light coming from the living room behind him.

"You should try to get some sleep now," he said, walking out of the tiny space, "I can't imagine you will get any with the ruckus I plan on making in my office tonight."

As he slammed the door shut, I could hear him laugh. As if my devastation was so risible he had to make a demonstration of it. I stared at the tiny sliver of light at the bottom of the door as the sounds of scurrying insects and monsters made of darkness and dust began to sound around me. In a few seconds, there was a thud against the door and the sliver of light disappeared into whatever obstruction he had placed against it. I clutched onto myself, trying to adjust to the feeling of eyes wide shut in the midst of the blackness. I thought about lavender tops, beige pants and sunlight. I had to think of something worse to get through it. I had to, or I wouldn't be able to take it anymore.