Bitch.

"If you're going to act like a bitch, I'm going to treat you like a bitch," he said clasping the choke chain around my collar.

I am bitchy, I suppose. Most of the time I'm just snarky and mean for fun but sometimes I pick the wrong moment. The wrong person. In my defense, it's second nature to me and in his defense, he'd like it not to be. I guess I can see why it's annoying. It annoys my father too, he doesn't ask me any questions anymore because he's just accepted that he'll only get a hyperbolic snarky response. Funny thing, the older I get, the more I understand why I drive (drove?) my parents insane. They have a point, you know, I really am quite annoying and I can even understand why someone who isn't fucking me and/or in love with me would find me insufferable.

When we first started dating, him and I, he was told me this story about a girl he found really annoying. Apparently she came to a party at someone's place and asked for chamomile tea (when the hosts said they didn't have any, she brought it up from her car) and then for the rest of the party as people got drunk and frisky, she continued to try and engage them in "boring" and reasonable conversations. Plus she was bitchy, apparently.  Immediately, I had to confess to him that I was exactly *that* girl, just sluttier. He thought I was kidding or at least exaggerating. He wrong and he knows that now.

Still, he doesn't love the bitchiness. I didn't care so much that he didn't like the bitchiness because mostly I am just mean-sounding but I don't hold malice at all. Sometimes I'm just bitchy. Can't help it. It's like a really revealing dress that you know you shouldn't wear to a family thing but you do anyway because, damn it, it looks so good. I don't think bitchiness is so bad. Sometimes, it's almost artful. Plus I can be really good at it but only when called for. Promise.

I'll tell you another thing though, I'm a total fraud. Right now, here, while i write I'm so cocky and willing to stage protests in support of bitchiness but then when he was being all..disapproving, my immediate thoughts were:

*You should apologize. And never ever be bitchy again. Bitchiness is so bad. How could you? The shame! You are the worst person in this kitchen. Bitchiness is a terrible personality trait and now you have made him unhappy because of it. Just, horrible. Bad, bad girl.*

(Eternally) In my defense though, it was very hot and I was very turned on.

I can't help it and also I don't want to help it. I just like it when he shows me that he doesn't like my behavior and makes me change it. I like how it flips some switch in me when he's being that person. I become someone else too. I become this person who feels respect and deference. It's a very strange person to be as I am sure anyone else who is would know. It's almost embarrassing. Like being someone who still values honour. Intense emotions are fine but sincerity is hard thing to admit to feeling. I know this shame is unnecessary because in reality I do want to be this person but somehow it's easier to be a dirty whore doing it with two guys in an alley than it is to be sincere about feeling subjugated. One is even easier to write than the other.

It's very weird to allow someone to control your behavior, even the little things, because it's everything I've learnt not to be from the sum total of my life. The funny thing is that I always thought that if someone were to usurp control from me they would chart the course of my life in the big ways— career, family, finances, lifestyle— but it's the little things that seem relevant. He doesn't control the story of my life but he does control a lot of the story of my day. I wake up how he wants me to. I do all the things he needs me to do for him, at some point in my day. Every day, I add them into my schedule. I dress how he likes. I open the door how he wants me to. The details of rituals don't matter, just that there are rituals. I resist the *idea* of this kind of relationship (though less and less every day) but this actually is my relationship. Every day I give up more control.

Like in the kitchen that day.

It's a general rule of thumb that if you screw up in **my** kitchen I will be bitchy and possibly berate you. Because it's **my** kitchen. The kitchen is my room in the house and you can't do whatever you want in my room. You can't make me do whatever you want in my room. It's really not as juvenile as it sounds. I am quite a control freak and having absolute control over the kitchen (and nutrition, by extension) is my way of retaining equality of control in our relationship. For some reason. I don't know what reason. It's not a good reason. And to him it was just a justification for being bitchy. So I didn't, justify. Because I don't anymore. Because he doesn't like it.

"I'm sorry," that's all I said.

"Bitches don't talk," he said, "I don't want to hear your voice. Bark if you have something to say."

More turned on. It hurts so good when he's being mean two minutes after being the nicest man in the world. Hurts so much. Yet my fingers kept chopping the vegetables and roasting the nuts and separating the cous cous and making sauce. I have 70 fingers. Everyone who cooks does. He stood there, in one place, letting me choke myself as I moved around the kitchen searching for things. I didn't look at him but I know he didn't stop looking at me.

I was slicing green chillis when I felt him right behind me. Fiddling with the chain around my neck. Coiling it. Running it over my back. So gentle. Too gentle. And then suddenly, not so gentle at all anymore.

I fell down with the first blow.

I think.

Chains are heavy and metal is cruel. I could feel my back get red and swollen in seconds. I love how that heat feels. I hate that he knows when I am feeling good so he hits me..differently. So I won't feel good. I like when he doesn't want me to feel good. It's all very counter productive.

But that's not what I was thinking.

I was thinking...

Pain.
Chop.
Pain.
Don't fall.
Stand.
Chop.
Dinner.
Nuts are burning.
Cry out.
Pain.
Pain.
Pain.
Silence.

It's so hard to be present when you're in pain. It's impossible to be absent when you're in pain too. I have no actual memory of preparing that entire meal. I just know I was sweating, somehow still standing, my back was on fire and there was a bowl of fully garnished food somehow in front of me. I remember barking to beg him to stop because I thought surely he would stop to eat dinner. I don't think he understood what that bark meant. It's a good thing we have cats and not dogs.

When he started to hit me harder I knew he would stop soon. He wouldn't touch me at all which is horrible because you have to soothe the skin that you break. That's the rule. He wasn't following the rules but I knew he'd stop because this seems to be the universal rule of sadist: They'll hit you hardest before they stop. They have to make sure you'll remember that one.

And sure enough, he stopped. He put the chain in my mouth, all bunched up and massive. It hung half out of my mouth no matter how wide I opened. Steel against teeth is not a pleasant sensation. Even more unpleasant is having steel links forced into your mouth. That sound it makes against teeth is unbearable. Like nails on the chalkboard.

"Bring dinner," he said as he walked to the bedroom.

I followed less than a minute behind and I set the bowls and plates down. He sat on the bed. I do this every day. Serve dinner but it felt more servile that day. This is why I am embarrassed by these desires, they turn you into a moron. I put the food in his plate and gave it to him. I looked at him for approval before I put food in my plate. He didn't give me any but he didn't admonish me either so I figured it was okay. I was going to climb up on the bed and maybe I was hoping he would be nice.

"No bitches on the bed," he said and pointed to a bed of jagged seeds, nuts and stones on the floor, "Go kneel there."

I learnt something that day. It's really hard to eat and scream at the same time.

......

Warning: Don't beat your pets. Just your girlfriends. Pets can't consent to beatings.