How Mercy Became My Safeword.

I had been lying there so long the rug was beginning to hurt my back. I could feel the impressions it would leave on my skin and I wondered, in fleeting thoughts, if I should start buying softer rugs.

His toe dug into inside of my thigh; right where the pelvis meets thigh in the spot that always makes me cry.

"Are we going to have another conversation about keeping your legs spread wide?" He asked while his toe enforced the question.

No.

No, we were not going to have another conversation about it. Some days are for playing, teasing and pushing. Other days are for quietly obeying; for keeping your legs spread wide for the belt. Some days I can get away with murder with the right dress and the right pout. And other days it's best to be quiet and open my mouth only to scream.

I wasn't screaming then, though. My legs may have inches closer together more out of reflex than anything but I was past screaming. Sometimes I feel like screaming is an act that contains some hope within itself; surely such loud voicing of pain is begging to be heard, and heeded. Some days he lets me scream because he likes hearing it. Other days it's as if my vocal chords cut him like a knife.

And so I was past screaming. I was there in that place where I can feel horrible things happening to me but I know not to protest. Not to say anything. It's this place that makes me believe screaming is not reflexive. I don't choose not to do it, but he chooses for me. My eyes were half open and I could see the cloudy ceiling of our bedroom. I could see his knees and occasionally I could see the fleeting silhouette of the belt before it disappeared into the gap between my legs.

I kept waiting for myself to scream the same way I kept waiting for him to stop for just a few seconds and run his fingers over all the swollen skin, but neither of those things happened. He wasn't forgiving, and I wasn't yielding. And so quietly I sobbed on my back while he swung harder each time. For an long time the only sound in the room was the belt and my nails gripping against the rug.

Until I saw, from the corner of my eye, as he put down the belt and rubbed the dirt off his foot on my swollen cunt.

I heard myself scream again.

As he crushed me underneath his foot.

"Does that feel good?" He asked.

No.

No, that doesn't feel good. I didn't say that but he knew. He sniggered and dug his heel into me instead. In a few minutes his foot was replaced by the belt once again. And that time I felt every blow. In every blow I heard myself muttering under my breath.

"I can't hear you," he said hitting me harder, "Are you trying to tell me something?"

I was. So desperately.

"Please stop," I finally begged and then clearing my throat begged again.

"Is that what you want?" He asked hitting faster and with much more glee, "Do you want me to stop?"

I muttered my response into my own mouth.

"You know what to do if you want me to stop," he said, "Spread your legs wider unless you want to do it."

I knew what to do.

I thought back immediately to the first time he made me do that.

It had been a rough day and when in the dark of night I found myself reaching for him to hug me from the inside, I found instead that he'd been sleeping with a knife under his pillow. And as I lay screaming while he beat my thighs with the cane (that will be present at our wedding), I heard myself begging. Really truly begging for him to stop.

And he asked,

"Do you really want me to stop?"

He asked. He didn't stop.

"Please stop," I cried, "Please I'm so sorry."

Unnecessary apologies are the most abject state of incoherence I can attain.

"Then beg," he said, "Beg for mercy."

"I am begging..." I told him and maybe he even understood me.

"No, say it," he laughed, "Say you're begging for mercy."

And right then it felt like he slapped me in the soul. I don't beg for mercy. Everything I do is in the name of resilience. Everything. I will deny myself the world just to make myself stronger.

But then I begged.

Begged, for mercy.

And there on a strange night in a strange month in a familiar bed, I stepped on my pride to save myself. And he stopped.

And so again.

And again.

Until my pride became a well-worn path that wouldn't brag too much about itself. He makes me feel better about myself and worse. Only in love can that be achieved somehow.

"So shall I stop he asked?" Smiling down at my fingers grasping the edge of the rug.

And I opened my eyes a little wider.

And closed them again as he kept hitting me.

"Yes," I whined, "I beg for mercy."

And he hit me again.

Four times, really quickly.

And I felt hot tears flow out my eyes at the same time the belt landed on the floor. Somehow he pulled me up to this lap and his fingers pushed my hair back off my face. He kissed my forehead and I started to wipe my tears.

"Don't do that," he said pushing my hands away from my eyes.

I looked up at him.

Confused.

And he pushed me down on the blanket, climbing on top of me.

And then holding my wrists up above over my head, he said,

"Let me watch you cry while I fuck you."

"Why?" I asked in the smallest voice I have.

"It reminds me," he said, "Of when you begged for mercy."