The Animal.

It's dark outside. It has to be because the clock says it's well past nine. It doesn't matter though. It doesn't matter that the sun comes up every morning and children scurry away to school with giant backpacks that seem to grow bigger each year. It doesn't matter because inside this house, it's always night. The thick black curtains are always drawn, every crevice and crack is carefully filled in, the lights are always dimmed and every hour is cocktail hour. For him, anyway.

For me, right now, it's the hour of conjecture. I suspect that of all the games we play this one is his favorite. The one where he leaves me with enough clues that I can't stop wondering about and guessing at what will happen next. He could just tell me, I know this because I know it wouldn't rob from the experience at all. Instead he chooses to leave me guessing because it satisfies some sick urge in him. I suspect all sadists are just people who are upset they had to stop pranking and annoying people once teenage is over. None of his jokes are ever funny to me; none of his sources of amusement are comprehensible. Yet I can't help but delve down the roads of deduction and conjecture because he knows who I am as well as I know who he is. I can't stop wondering.

I can't stop wondering why he wouldn't let me shave any part of my body for weeks when usually five days of stubble is enough to get his goat.

I can't stop wondering why he would strip me down and tie me up with my legs beside my ears; I've told him so many times that this position hurts and each time it's like he chooses not to hear me.

I can't stop wondering why he'd set me up like this and leave the house; I know it's not because he wants me to wait, he could do that by just having a drink in the other room.

I hate waiting but because I've done it so much I know it always comes to an end. I know but it surprises me when I hear him return home with sounds of people I've never heard before. I know most people would twist and turn in an attempt to look up and see what is happening but I can't. I won't. I don't ever do that. Most onlookers believe I am shy. And some of them think I am extremely calm. But the truth, that only a few people know, is that I am too proud. I won't look at or acknowledge your instruments of torture as real. Oh, I'll take them, but something inside me makes me want to rob you of the joy of seeing me suffer even though all I really want to do is suffer for you. If conundrums were orgasms I'd be unbearably sated at all times. How boring that would be though.

I can't not look forever though. My first instinct when I hear them walking towards me is to close my eyes. I do this a lot too. I won't open my eyes until I'm able to reveal *only* what I want you to be able to see. But he surprises me by confusing me. Honestly, I was not ready for what I saw. His face, of course I knew I would see, with its signature stupid smile that says *I'm up to no good and I'm sooooo pleased about it*. I'd punch him if I didn't adore him. I wasn't expecting to see her or *him*. I keep telling my partner that we live a jaded existence. One should not look up to see a magnificent-type woman holding a leash that leads up to a collar around the neck of an older, slightly portly, bespectacled man who is for some reason shirtless but otherwise quite dressed.

I hate that he is able to confuse me like this. I hate confusion. This is not something I experience. I have all the information I need and if I don't you better believe I will ask an annoying number of questions until I know everything you know and more. I don't even care that I am the most annoying person most people know, I *will not be confused*. But he has no respect for anything I am. He doesn't care about my entitlement or pride, he'll just tell me not to ask questions and I won't. Because I'm a moron who'd rather show a bunch of people that I'm confused. Fuck him. And fuck confusion.

My first reaction to anything he ever does to me is anger. So when he grazes his fingers from my mouth down to my cunt, I immediately growl. I don't usually growl but there's something about my instant transient displeasure that makes me want to savagely attack him like an animal.

*Like an animal.*

"It behaves like an animal," I hear the woman say and suddenly I want to slap her too. I hear myself snarl at her.

He knows when to dispell my anger and he knows how to do it too. I feel more relief than anything when his fingers grasp my throat. I can still breathe with moderate amounts of effort but he's not trying to choke me. He's trying to threaten me into submission. There's only one thing worse than animal and it's domesticated animal. It doesn't matter what I think though. If we are animals then he'd win in a physical confrontation and doesn't that mean I'm defeated? Probably not, but let's say yes because it's better than admitting I just want to be defeated.

I close my eyes again.

"Look at it," I hear her say again, presumably to her leash-boy, "It's disgusting."

I'm starting to get a sense of where this is going. To the place where I feel terrible. Big surprise that is, though. Every single game, every single walk, every single conversation ends exactly here.

"Smell it," I hear her say and I almost giggle because taken out of context, it seems a little funny. Since I can't see the mental image of a man sniffing me is a bit cartoonish.

The sentiment is not cartoonish, though. I feel his nose against my throat. It's wet and cold. I can feel him inhaling. I crack my eye open to see her holding him down to my skin and immediately feel the need to close them again. This is a bit strange but it's stranger that I like it. I like how she's forcing his face down my body. He'd rather not do this but he's like me, he has to. Because nothing else will fill the hole he really wants fucked. I know, I have the same hole.

But it's not the hole she's pushing his face against. He's fighting to get away and if I could, I'd be fighting to shut my legs too. If the intention here is to make me feel so disgusting that no man would even want to come close to me, then it's working. Whatever this is, it's working and I bet he can smell that. I bet she can see it slathered all over his face. I want to be here but I wish I could do it without being seen. I want to feel this but I think it's too cruel to expect a person to admit they like this.

"Lick it," she says to him pushing his face harder into my cunt.

I can hear him speaking against me and from the way he's struggling to get away, I can imagine what he's saying. Either he's a great actor or he really is repulsed by me. Maybe he should be. I'm disgusting and wet and hairy. To him, i'm just not her.

"Lick it or I will hit you," she says again.

She can't say hard T sounds. It's an odd detail to pick up on I suppose but somehow it makes her sexier to me. Th. That's how she pronounces all her Ts. It almost makes up for what she's complicit in.

I feel the tip of his tongue against my cunt. It's just a tip. Pointy. Hardened. He's trying to get away with just seeming like he's licking me but he can't expect that to go unnoticed for long. It doesn't. Soon enough his tongue is flat against my hole and he's tasting every little bit of me. I hate that it feels good but I don't care. For some reason I like that he dislikes it so much that I want to make it worse for him. I want to come in his mouth and hear him retch.

"You have to fuck it now," I hear her say pulling him away from my cunt.

I want to hit her again but this time it's a desire I am not capable of showing. I wish I were smaller. I wish I could disappear.

Maybe every woman in the world would want to disappear when she feels the most demoralizing piece of flesh between her legs: a persistently flaccid penis.

Of course, later, my ever so considerate lover will tell me it's not about me. Like every man who has ever rubbed up softly against any woman anywhere. It's not about me. Yet I can hear and feel his vigorous attempts at getting himself hard and forcing himself inside me and really it feels like it's about me. The longer this lasts the more humiliating it is. In other situations we would have just given up by now or at least, he could have tried my mouth. For my sake too, it feels good to have at least one good hole. Instead I have this. A cock covered in a condom that is fast losing any lubrication it may have possessed. And nothing is getting any hard.

"Oh you poor thing," she says to him mockingly, "You can't get hard. It's no wonder an animal can't get you hard."

I want to die. I've had men nuts for my cunt. Right? I have right? I can't quite remember any of it.

"Do you want me to help you?" She asks him practically cooing.

I can't help my curiosity and my eyes fly open to see her slipping out off her skirt to reveal her cunt. In this context, her cunt seems beautiful to me. It's rich and plump and doesn't have stray hair growing out of it everywhere. Immediately, I have to look away. Look no more. Close my eyes.

I feel her untying my legs and even as I feel immense relief I am resolute in my determination to not look. I feel her weight on top of my abdomen as she places herself there. Her back pressing down my breasts and her hair tickling my nose. Her legs between mine, pulling them apart.

"Look at my pussy," she says to him laughing, "Maybe you can imagine that is what you're fucking."

I have no god but I swear I pray for him to continue in his erectile dysfunction. But of course the sight of her special fucking twat was enough to lend some girth to mister softer-than-thou. How I hate them all. Playing this game that makes no sense without explaining any of the rules to me. I want to pull her hair but instead I feel myself clenching against the cock that's forced inside me.

I don't want to.

I really don't want to.

But it's too much I shudder against it in disgusting release. Everything is worse on this side of the slope. I close my eyes so tight I am actually able to stop listening to the words around me. They may be talking, but I can only hear silence.

It's a long time before I open my eyes.

When I do I can only see him. He's been very quiet all evening. I wish I could say that wasn't like him.

He leans down and kisses me.

"Did you really come on his cock?" He asks.

I can't answer so I nod.

"Disgusting," he says as he unties my arms.

That smile again. I want to punch him again. But gently.

"You want a drink?" He asks walking to the bar.

"Maybe just five," I respond.

*Laughter.*

We laugh.

Because that erases everything, right?