The Good Slave.

"I'll tell you the first step of the road to exemplary," he whispers, turning my head so my ear is accessible to his lips, "When I suture your cunt shut tomorrow, I expect you to be wet. No, not expect. I demand it."

His breath is warm and I tremble as he pulls back. Partly because the draft from the air conditioning that he was blocking is released once again, and I am freezing, and partly because I find it unlikely, or at least, difficult to guarantee, that I'll be wet through the process of something like that, and I know he means it when he says he demands it. I didn't expect this evening to lead here. To be fair, I'm rarely correct in my estimations of where our evenings will lead, but I was more confident than usual today. A few hours ago we were holding hands on the bed. I was kissing his fingers and he was kissing my neck while a reporter on the screen in front of us talked about pirates. I kept looking at him, some morsel of love felt like it was stuck in my throat and was aching to come out. I kissed him on the mouth because I didn't know how else to communicate what I was feeling. It was a soft, but long kiss. Much longer than most of my kisses. He held my face and kissed me back. It was warm, and comfortable.

"I feel very.. emotional today," I told him.

It's true. I do. I feel small and vulnerable. I feel things in my heart that I normally only take note of in my head. He kissed my forehead and put his arm around me, and we went back to learning about *hostis humani generis*. A little while later he lit some candles and undressed me. He left the room to put the child to bed and I expected him to come back and hold me in his arms, and maybe even kiss me while he fucked me. He didn't. He didn't do any of that. He entered the room, locked the door and immediately threw me against this wall. In a second, he was violently assaulting my face, without pausing long enough for either one of us to take a breath. Some days there is no build up, I understood later that this is the build up, it's just foreplay for tomorrow, and sometimes foreplay starts rough and violent. As he slapped me his fingers repeated banged against the chain around my neck. It's a new collar I stole from him.

I change collars about once a year, and it's always because the previous one was ruined beyond repair, and I never know what the next one is going to be. This one is a thick chain he brought to lock up the garage door tied together by a tiny section of shoelace The moment I saw it in the car, I assumed it was for me. I asked him and he said he wasn't but he suspected I would steal it when he bought it. I was uncomfortable in the collar I was wearing before this one. It was my wedding ring. The ring is beautiful, but really that was the problem. Something about beautiful, valuable things around my neck makes me so deeply uncomfortable. My body actively resists it. Even when he suggested I wear the ring as a collar around my neck because the shoelace I was wearing as a collar before it was hanging on by a thread, I could only do it if I could put the ring in the stainless steel chain that broke off his identity card instead of the pretty silver chain he bought for me. I couldn't do it otherwise. This collar, on the other hand, is perfect. I love it, and it feels comfortable around my neck, but it hurt his knuckles as he slapped me.

"Your collar is hurting me, slave," he said as if it were my fault, and I reached back and pulled it to my neck hard enough to choke myself, because I think I agreed.

"I'm sorry, master," I told him.

"Good," he said slapping me again, "You want that, don't you? You want to be a good slave?"

"I do," I answered with confidence, "I want to be a good slave."

He hit me very hard in response, right on my mouth with the back of his hand, cutting my lip in a single blow.

"No you don't," he said as if I had said something erroneous, "You dumb fucking cunt."

"I do, I really do," I insisted.

He hit me again. In the same spot, and I started to feel like I was missing something.

"The word you are looking for is exemplary," he said, choking me, "I have no use for good. Good is fallible. Good is fucking useless to me. You want to be exemplary."

I hate it when he starts using that word. It just means he's setting ne up for a dozen failures through the week, because he really means it. He means exemplary exactly at face value. He expects a level of perfection every psychologist and spiritual guide warns against. The level that is unattainable. I didn't expect this evening to get here.

"Do you understand?" He asks, holding my head, and beating it against the wall, "When I sew your cunt shut tomorrow, you will be fucking exemplary. Not a sound. Thank me for every stitch. Be wet. And don't even think about moving ever so slightly. Because, you know what happens if you don't, right?"

I do know. I do know what happens when I miss the mark and slip from exemplary. He makes me behave like an animal. He treats me like one. He makes me crawl, live on the floor and humiliates me constantly. He denies me everything, even words, and doesn't seem to even acknowledge that I have a heart, or anything except a warm cunt. I've started to live in fear of that state constantly. He slaps me over and over, and my head feels like it is swaying both on the inside and out.

"You remember what it's like to be a pig, don't you?" He asks me, and I close my eyes as if that will erase the memories of the previous week, "I pull you out of the corner and place you against the wall, I elevate you to my slave and I get no gratitude from you at all."

I mutter my gratitude but it is confusing. I never know what he wants me to thank him for, and without the prompting it may never have occurred to me to thank him for having me against a wall, instead of lying forgotten in a corner. The moment he prompts me though, it makes sense.

"This is why you're a *good* slave, you fucking ingrate," he says starting to hit me again, "I may allow you to be higher than a pig with no heart, but even as a human, don't forget that you're nothing more than property, slave."

That hurt. It makes me cry. I told him I was emotional, and in this moment I realise that he didn't hear what I thought I said. He heard the word that admitted to my vulnerability and saw it as an invitation to destroy me, not comfort me at all. I feel like an idiot for allowing his tender kisses to fool me, he never intended for there to be comfort.

"Oh did I hurt you poor little heart?" He asks, punching me in a way that makes my teeth hurt, "What do you say about that?"

"Thank you for letting me have a heart," I speak his language much better when I finally understand what he wants.

"That's right," he says, slapping my forehead, "Because even though I allow you to have a heart, it's my piss that pumps through it, that's what you're fucking worth, don't allow yourself to forget that."

I nod my head but the movement of my head and his hand together offsets the positioning and his palm lands against my nose. A fresh batch of tears pours out of my eyes instantly, but I don't let my head fall, I hold it up for him to hit me again. He hits me again, as if he doesn't care that I am seeing dying starts.

"My hand is getting wet, slave," he warns me, and immediately I try to force the tears back inside my skull.

"I'm sorry, master," I say, even though the tears still remain on ny face.

"This, this is why you're a *good slave", you apologise, exemplary slaves don't need to apologise," he says squeezing my jaw between his fingers, "You will hand me your beating heart, I will spit on it, piss on it and stomp on it, and you will smile through it all. Do you fucking understand?"

I nod my head again. His fingers land on nose again. I try my best, but tears flood my eyes again. He shakes his head in disappointment. He takes me by the hair and pulls me toward the bed, I don't know what is going to happen on it, but it cannot be good.

"I can see you're still determined to be a real *good* slave," he says as if it's the dirtiest word he has ever spoken, "Good is not fucking worth it."

It's going to be a long and quiet night. I wouldn't dare scream, there's a place lower than good, and I don't want to go there, not when he's going to be holding a needle between my legs tomorrow.

"Watch what happens if I see one more tear," he says pushing me onto the bed as I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand.

"Thank you for letting me on the bed, master," I say without thinking about it too much.

"That's better," he says pulling his belt out of the loops of his jeans.

Better.

That's one step closer to exemplary. It's best I learn whatever that means because good is not fucking worth it, and tomorrow is a lot closer thsn it seems to be.