Rather in a gutter than on a pedestal—EM Cioran
She called me god from that point on, never wavering from that practice a single time.
I didn't take it as flattery. I took it that Anna was finally understanding the true nature of our relationship—I was her god and she was my girl. I owned her body, her time, her freedom—what else is that but god?
And what was she to me? Pussy, ass, fragile mind. She was someone to destroy, like a tsunami destroys entire countries and doesn't give a shit. That's nature. And that's god.
At night she cried out for more meth or a blanket but I stayed in bed. I always let her flatten out before I gave her more—creating a meth addict was not my intention. And as for a blanket, forget it. Those are creature comforts deserved by real people, not slaves. The crate was temperature controlled. She would not get sick sleeping in there naked. And sleeping in there naked under the halogen floodlights was part of her treatment. She was under light and camera at all times—she was never to think she had a private moment. Sometimes we reviewed the security files together in the morning—not that there was anything she could do in the way of escape. But I'd replay the moments when she took a shit or peed, noting their times in my tablet just so she'd see me do it. I didn't give a shit when these things happened. But I wanted her to think that there was nothing she did that wouldn't be observed by me. I wanted, when she was in the act of letting her bowels go on the stainless steel chair, to have the feeling that I was watching—or would be.
In the morning her lips would be cracking and she would beg me for ChapStick, her own cherry lip balm. Of course I didn't let her use her own lip balm—this was about the time I put her clothes in one of the large cabinets to hide all remnant of who she was. The only thing of hers that she could see were parts of her own body, and I was gradually convincing her that even those belonged to me.
When she begged with chapped lips for me to bring her ChapStick, when she mouthed, "Water," I knelt over her and put my penis in her mouth, and as I urinated she sucked on my cord like a feeding tube, taking whatever moisture she could get. I shook off my dick in her mouth, and she licked at its tip for the remaining drops. It wasn't sexual for her—she was just fucking thirsty.
When I woke with a hard cock, whether it be midnight or morning, I simply went to the crate and fucked her. She was a tool I used to get rid of my morning wood so I could comfortably go back to sleep or stay up and start the day. When I fucked her, I felt the scars (from the lightbulb scorching) tear off the inside of her pussy, and flecks of the healing/covering skin stuck to my cock when I pulled it out of her.
"Lick them off. Lick off the scabs."
She did it.
"Swallow."
She swallowed her own pussy scabs.
"What's my name?"
"God."
"Who brought you here?"
"God."
"Who's going to take you away?"
"You are."
"Who is going to take you away?"
"God."
I'd sit with my stool between her legs, holding the loaded Glock between them while we watched The Last Picture Show over and over and over again. When I got excited—during certain scenes that I liked—I'd stick the barrel of the Glock up her vag and fuck her with the weapon while I kept my eyes on the movie screen. Behind me, I'd hear the squishing sounds of my gun fucking a very wet pussy.
"If I decide to, I'm gonna shoot you up the puss."
"Yes, god."
The submission made me want to pull the trigger, give her the fright of her life as she felt a nine millimeter bullet race through her insides, causing all sorts of internal bleeding that would certainly kill her. I had to catch myself a couple times, pull the gun out and set it on the work bench, go into one of my many drawers and pull out other long slender things to stick between her legs.
I put screwdrivers in her, actual dildos, mini Maglites, fishing rod handles, drill bits on and off the drill. I'd put a stonemasonry bit on my DEWALT and insert it into her vagina and hold my finger on the trigger, letting us both think of what would happen if I pulled it. One twitch..one sneeze..one ill thought from me. We'd watch The Last Picture Show like this, on repeat, with the drill bit up her vag.
Then I'd put up the DEWALT, carefully wrapping its cord.
I'd stick a giant silicone dildo—the lifelike kind with veins and shit all over its surface—up her vag and get it nice and snug and let it sit there, not moving it, just holding my hand on its base so she didn't squeeze it out. Then we'd watch The Last Picture Show.
"What are you doing?"
"Desensitizing you to the value of your pussy."
"What does that mean?"
"It means, by treating it casually, I'm making you think less and less of it, until you see it as an object, like I do."
"Doesn't telling me that defeat the purpose?"
"Not really. Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. That's what we used to say."
"Where you used to work."
I hesitate.
"Yes."
"With the government."
"Just watch the movie."
"Do we have to watch this?" she'd say.
"This is one of the greatest pictures of all time," I'd say.
"Do you have anything else?"
"I have everything."
"Well can I choose next time?"
"No. Forcing you to watch the same movie again and again is part of the thing."
"Doesn't telling me that defeat the purpose?"
"Not really," I'd say. "It doesn't matter what you know. All that matters is that you go through it. It's like a magic trick that if I explain it to you, still works—still amazes you. Have you ever seen a magic trick like that?"
"No."
"Well you're seeing one now."
And we watched The Last Picture Show with the silicone dildo up her pussy.
Then we watched it again.
"I have to pee."
"Then go ahead."
I didn't turn to look at her. I felt the warm piss trickle down the dildo, down my hand, and heard it dripping on the concrete floor. The slant makes it run toward the gutters at the sides of the crate.
"Can you give me a break and maybe stick the Glock up me for a while?"
"No."
"Well I don't know if you noticed but this dildo is way too big for me and I feel like I have a giant slug inside of me."
I keep my eyes on the movie.
"Hey! Can you hear me?"
"Hey is not my name."
"God! Can you take the giant dildo out my puss?? Please?"
I keep my hand firm on its base.
"Seriously this thing is making me feel like I'm being invaded."
"We have a winner!" I say.
I get up and grab a roll of black duct tape. I duct tape the base of the dildo to her thighs, her ass cheeks, her abdomen. I leave her clit exposed and I doodle it with my thumb for an entire watching of The Last Picture Show.
I look back at her.
She's looking up at the halogen floods, her eyes wide open, tears streaming out of them, making none of the usual crying sounds.
I put a hand on the dildo and twist it.
She shakes her head wordlessly.
I put the movie on repeat and leave the crate.
She goes through phases.
The quiet phase.
The begging-god phase.
The screaming phase.
The request-to-change-the-movie phase, which includes about a thousand suggestions of actual movies she'd rather be watching instead of this one.
Then she starts to cry choked up with tears and sniffling, saying unintelligible things about her home in Lehighton, PA.
"..then we were going to see Dillinger but Maxine couldn't get off work on time so we played Centipede at the hoagie place but Beth ran out of quarters and I was like is it pepper-chini or pepper-chino."
She sobs.
"Which is a question I could never get anyone to answer. These are the deep questions of life—these are. Sir—god, sir! I know this is a classic and shit but I can think of ten movies more classic than this!!! If your goal is to depress me to death then you're about halfway there. About halfway there. God, I'm dumb. I'm not talking to you I'm talking to the real god—" she hacks up some phlegm "—I actually thought you had pigs. I'M LEARNING A LOT," she yells at me. "ABOUT LYING, MOSTLY. I'll give you that, you are a fantastic liar. Fucking. Virtuosic. I get it! I GET IT NOW!! When you lie you're actually insulting the person to their face. Or..what would you call it? Degrading—that's it. You're degrading them by seeing how much ridiculous shit you can get them to swallow right before you lock them in a gyno chair in a shipping container!! Fuck."
Then she went through a quiet phase.
And then I knew I was making progress when she started to recite out the lines of the movie as it played before her. When Sam the Lion said, "Bein' crazy about a woman like that is always the right thing to do!" Anna Miller would shout it out in different ways each time the movie played and I waited like a kid in line for the circus to see how she would say it this time. Sometimes it was angry, like she was mocking the actor for having ever been born. Sometimes it was tender and realistic, and I thought she could have played the part better than ol' Ben Johnson had in the first place. But then it was sad and quiet, and she said it like she had some regret somewhere deep inside her where she had done the opposite of what the line suggested, and I wondered what story of regret lay below that final line reading that she settled on, said like someone who had given up being crazy about some man or woman that she should have been crazy about but didn't. Maybe it was herself.
That night I blindfolded her—but I left the movie playing. She heard it loud and I hear it quiet from my bed inside the house. She said that line her sad regret way until about 3am and then I heard her lightly snoring.
In the morning I went in and fed Anna her morning drink through my penis, and she sucked and swallowed my urine as if it had been a Slurpee and she was a kid sucking Fanta Blue Raspberry out of a cup on her way to an amusement park.
I took off the blindfold and hosed her down.
She tried to drink as much of the water as she could catch with her mouth.
We went on that way for seven days, with the silicone dildo taped inside her pussy and The Last Picture Show playing back-to-back, twenty-four hours, seven days makes a week.