I Always Choose Filth.

I crawled towards the bowl. I couldn't get up off the floor because my leg was chained to the metal screen. It looked a little like my yoga bars, or a very sturdy ladder. There wasn't enough slack or length or strength in me for me to stand up and walk to the bowl but I could crawl within it's reach.

The *water* looked disgusting. It seemed only like it was two parts water at that point. It smelled earthy and there were specks of dust floating on top of it. The yellowish tinge was apparent only when I moved my head to block half the light coming through the small window. It was disgusting but I was thirsty and so I held my nose shut and lapped up the contents of the bowl. At least it was cold and because I lapped at it instead of lifting the bowl and drinking it, I couldn't taste that much. At least not until I stopped drinking.

I wondered though, why I didn't just lift the bowl and drink. He wasn't watching me, he wouldn't have known but there are two parts to putting on a role I think: First you put it on and then you really teach yourself to believe that's the role in which you belong. You find all the details about that being and apply them like balm over your searing skin so you feel like you belong, and belongingness requires committment. Committment is only real when a spectator is irrelevant, and I like to *become* things. It feels good to replace my emotional make up for a little while and *really* believe in my place; that place where I am chained to the dirty floor, in a dingy room and living on filth.

After that I lay on my side, in wait, but it was a kind of deferred waiting with no end point in sight and no real definition of what an end point might look like. A few years ago I learned a neat trick to bear the passage of time while incapable of incapable of engaging with time. I use it now, every day, to fall asleep. I lie on my side and I engage my brain with my body. Playing back the events of the day and fixating on the ones that make me feel that heat at the pit of my gut.

I turned to my back and I put my arms beside me and just thought. I thought about everything we were doing and why, and I measured my reality by the responses in my body until, my body was thinking for me and my brain quietened into slumber.

I was woken, rather unceremoniously with a splash of sticky water on my face. I yelped, but as soon as I opened my eyes, I remembered and looked over to see him holding the empty bowl. I was thirsty again, I am always so thirsty when I wake up, but I still had a shred of pride. I didn't lick the water off my face; I didn't let myself look at him either. In some situations the slightest shred of defiance in my eyes is what makes him continue to be mean, I can't help the defiance sometimes but I try to avoid looking into his eyes. It works. When he believes in my dulcet acceptance of nothingness, he comforts me through the torture.

And he did.

He gave me the water bottle he was holding in his other hand. I looked up at him to ask if I could drink the water but not with words. I was worried if I asked with words, he'd be tempted to say no. Sometimes just reminding him that he has the option of denying me something is an invitation — or a challenge — to do it. Which, I don't love. I do however love that place where sex and strategy combine to create something truly heady; like breathing vodka while time stands still.

He took the bottle from me and undid the cap. He held it against my mouth and I titled my head to sip. I don't know about everyone else but I never feel as devoid of dignity as when someone else is controlling my water; on the way in and on the way out. I never forget to appreciate water. Not when it comes out of my refrigerator or when it's a glass someone hands to me or it falls out of the sky. I never forget because I never forget that there is nothing romantic about thirst; nothing crushes your will like debilitating thirst.

When he decided I was finished drinking, I thanked him. There is some strange shame in expressing gratitude. There is none in feeling it but showing someone else you feel it is hard. I don't know why, maybe just because it exposes things from deep inside you; things you feel to make yourself believe you are a good person, but never show because, what if someone else sees that you really do want to be good? I'm happy to wear my worst on my skin all the time, but wearing my best is uncomfortable. Like wearing a gown to a shady bar. It felt wrong to expose my finery in that state, but I had to. I had to because that's part of it. The game is about expected codes of behavior and failing to meet them only means I lose. I don't like to lose, but more than that, I like the excitement of doing things that feel so uncomfortable. Of being in places that look so painful.

There was a little bit of water left inside the bottle, he poured it into the bowl and put the bowl back in place. I lay back down as he turned my his back to me and walked to the middle of the room. I tried not to look at him. I did not want my curiosity roused and I managed to keep it that way. At least until he left the room and returned with someone by his side.

I had never seen her before and I wasn't all that interested in seeing her then but I looked anyway. I peeped. She was cute. Petite. Personally I am rarely attracted to tiny women but I know that he is. For some reason I've developed the belief that all huge straight men like tiny women because they make them feel bigger and stronger. I'm not tiny. Even if I try extremely hard I don't think I ever come across as fragile or dainty. Yesterday while I was on the phone with a resort to confirm a booking the consultant called me scary. It was a friendly comment but it's always that one. *You look scary. You sound scary. You seem scary.* Never sweet and friendly. Or gentle and kind. It is not their fault. I talk this way and I walk this way.

But she looked gentle and sweet.

I realize that I made this association on the because of size-based stereotype but it came naturally about her.

"Come inside," he said to her, "Don't be shy. Come say hi."

Shy.

There's another thing I don't know how to be. Oh, I can be strategically shy. I can put on shy as a role on the route to seduction but anyone who knows me, knows it's a façade. Is it strange to be envious of truly bashful people? I'm not bashful. I crave attention. Maybe that's why I wear my worst, because my worst stands out, and is often naked.

She walked towards me.

I didn't look up but I liked her shoes. At the bottom of her heel there was a sort of extension; the thing that keeps heels from digging into the soil. I meant to buy that ages ago but I never did, because I only wear my heels when I am wearing nothing else and that's usually inside the house. Is it weird to be envious of someone because they have more occasion to put on their heels that you do? It felt weird but I realized that when allowed to feel envy, I will feel it for any reason. It wouldn't have mattered who walked in through that door. A big girl or a small one. A smart woman or a dumb one. An artist or a banker. It wouldn't have mattered because I would find something to envy in all of them.

I would find something to envy because, of late, this is how my view point is designed. Of late, I see the world in terms of who is better than me and how, and the answer is always everybody. It's usually awful and I work very hard to stop, but then in that scenario, it was wonderful.

It's wonderful to feel like less than everybody else. It changes the nature of your envy by making you lesser while everyone else stays in the same place. It takes all of the pressure off when you are nothing and you can really accept that, even enjoy it. Because who cares if I am bigger, she was smaller. She wore heels, I don't. She doesn't forget to paint her toenails, and I always do.

Who cares about that.

The reality was in our choices. I chose to be on the floor, she chose to stand before me. She chose to be better than me, because I chose to be lesser than everybody.

The reality was in our choices.

The reality was that she could say whatever she wanted to me, I couldn't even say a word I wasn't told or taught to say. She could walk around, I couldn't even lift my head without permission. She could touch me, I couldn't even touch myself. In the simplest of terms, I wasn't free and she was. The envy was situational and in that situation I would have taken absolutely any reason. You don't walk carefully if you want to fall down the cliff.

Because once you fall you reach a meadow of shamelessness, and in that meadow nothing matters.

And so I felt nothing when she asked that I kneel up so she could touch my body. No shame and no pride. What good are either of those things when we were all exactly where we wanted to be? It's freeing to be rid of that instinct that in a faint nagging voice tries to convince you that you're better than what you get. It's freeing when you stop trying to be better and just be as designed.

And so I felt nothing.

Nothing except her fingers on my skin. Shy fingers. Sometimes the juxtaposition of situations amazes me. I was naked, swollen and covered in dirt, yet I felt brazen. She was clothed, standing and clean, but she seemed so shy. Shy fingers usually make me want to retch but for some reason I liked her fingers on me. I like that everytime she gathered a patched of dirt on her fingertips she wiped them off in my hair. It's the little things. The really little things that I often remember.

"Do you like her?" He asked coming up behind her.

"She's.. sticky and dirty," she said turning away from me, "Can we go back upstairs?"

That hurt.

Being left out of the fun hurts from infancy to forever.

"Of course," he said in the voice he uses only before he has had sex with you, "But you know, she gets really thirsty..."

I hate when he delivers his death blow because he gets so excited and I can hear that in his voice, and I realize that he may put his dick in someone else but he's still having sex with me. It makes me smile. I hate fucking smiling. Especially when I am supposed to be miserable.

"Her bowl is almost empty," she said sweetly.

It was and clean too. I would have happily kept it that way. Maybe. Even an centimeter of water is a big wide bowl is a lot more than two inches of filth.

"Didn't you say you had to pee sweetie?" He asked her just as sweetly.

I hate that fucking tone of voice. Just be cunts. Why pretend to be kind cunts?

"I did," she said, "Very much. So much."

I closed my eyes very tight. I do that when I want to pretend I have disappeared completely. I'm shortsighted and I have always believed because of it that if I can't see them, they can't see me. That belief is so strong in my head that I believe when I close my eyes, the whole world disappears. See I have no shame in being seen in my wretchedness but it's hard to be seen when you're enjoying being treated like filth. I can shed a lot of shame, but some shame is etched bone deep.

And so I kept my eyes squeezed shut while I heard a trickle and then a stream pour into a big, light bowl of aluminum.

"I finished," she said.

And then giggled.

"Let's go then," he said ignoring me completely.

I kept my eyes closed I heard them walking away.

Click. Click.

Tap. Tap.

"Is she really going to drink that?" She asked him at a slight distance that felt so far away, "Is she?"

"Well, really," he said loudly, "It's her choice."

And I always choose filth.