I wrote this after cobbling together some old scribblings that I'd written when I was in a love affair that had gone south. It's a story about what BDSM relationships look like after they've soured past the point of no return. 

(That's something we don't talk about in the scene, you know: Sometimes things go badly wrong. It's not just vanilla, heteronormative couples that develop problems, growing abuse cycles like cancerous growth. Kinked people can have miserable relationships too. Kinked people can get abusive to each other. It's not all safe, sane, consensual utopia for us. We're human. Like all human beings, we are imperfect. Like all human beings, we can hurt each other in bad ways, ways we never bargained for).

Trying to show lovemaking after the love had more or less gone, trying to depict sex that was desired but only with growing amounts of ambivalence, and trying to write about kink that had spoiled as badly as the vanilla aspects of the sex had was an interesting challenge. I wanted to write something that was not romanticized sexual assault but was not joyful by any stretch of the imagination, either. I wanted to show two people who were in pain, and who were lying to themselves and to each other about the health of their relationship.

It was a fine tightrope that I walked, and I did it all for the sake of showing off a couple of characters who I hope the reader agrees with me should have broken up with each other ages ago.

If anyone reading it finds elements of the story arousing, but it's the most damned uncomfortable sort of arousal possible, good. That means I succeeded in capturing the miserable ambivalence of what it feels like to be in the late stages of an unhealthy relationship that is in its death throes. 

Because here's the thing about abuse: It starts slowly, almost undetectable. The red flags are so small, and they don't wave much. Eventually, once things have degenerated, love begins to turn to hate, and it hurts because hate is not the opposite of love - it's love gone to rot. The opposite of love is not hate. It's indifference. 

The worst part of abuse is that the only way to end it is to leave. Caught early on, couples therapy might mend things, but the vast majority of abusers don't want to change anything about themselves, thus, don't want to change the relationship. 

The worst flashbacks and dreams are not the bad memories, either. They're the happy ones. You will be forever haunted by what could have been.

I triggered myself while writing this.

Speaking of triggers, here are some trigger warnings: Implied domestic and financial abuse. Miserable sex that I won't dignify by calling it "lovemaking," although I'm sure the characters in the story would. Impact play, bondage, power exchange, and above all, sorrow.

I came to explore the wreck.

The words are purposes.

The words are maps.

I came to see the damage that was done

and the treasures that prevail.

- Adrienne Rich

She watched him look about the room in dismay.

"You still haven't done the dishes. The litter boxes haven't been cleaned in two days. There are dust bunnies the size of antelopes on the stairs. You haven't sorted your mail in two weeks - and your idea of straightening up is to move the unsorted piles of paper from one part of the house to another. You haven't put away the laundry..."

He is at least right about that, she thought.

She was a terrible housekeeper and always had been. Her style of cleaning and tidying was to put all chores off until the weekend, then try to tackle everything in one fell swoop, usually only succeeding in getting around to half the chores on her to-do list.

Gesturing at the highest pile of clothes, which was probably the clean laundry, he bellowed, "Do I have to do everything around here?"

Oh, no. Not that old argument. Not on Valentine's Day.

She hadn't been able to get him the flowers she'd wanted, because there were no bouquets of long-stemmed roses on sale for less than fifty dollars. No romantic dinner of "Marry-Me Beef Stroganoff," because she was a lousy cook. No wine. No Romeo and Juliet performance. No money.

She hated herself for not being able to hold down the sort of job that paid enough to give them all the things they wanted, or failing that, a gesture at the conventional trappings of romance. These arguments about her failings as a housekeeper only served to remind her of another area in which she would be deficient. The timing couldn't have been worse.

Then again, they'd never managed to have a good Valentine's Day.

Last year, their girlfriend broke up with them, saying she felt like a unicorn they were trying to put in a stable and ride on whenever they needed to forget their relationship problems.

The year before that, she'd been living in Glasgow, and he'd decided to fly over to surprise her, which would have been fantastic, except she'd already made plans with her other boyfriend, who was local to the area and thus far more likely to be available on Valentine's Day than he, and the resulting diplomatic kerfuffle climaxed with the Scottish boyfriend quite understandably having a complete meltdown. Romantic, what?

And before that was their first Valentine's Day together as a couple. Their first Valentine's Day, their first six-month anniversary, their first month together in their very first apartment. That time they'd had enough money to buy long-stemmed roses, with which they'd planned to beat each other, but both of them had terrible fevers due to flu, so the kinkfest they'd dreamed of never happened. That night, all the SM consisted of Sneezing and Moaning.

This year's Valentine's Day didn't seem to be looking any better.

"Enough," he said, and grabbed her hand.

And so she found herself dragged behind him as he led her down the stairs into the basement.

"The washing machine won't bite you. It's me you should worry about, not the washing machine."

She didn't like the basement in their building. She didn't like basements, period. They were chilly, moldy, damp places, full of dark corners and scary. No matter how well-lit the basement was, how organized and tidy, it was still a basement. She only liked basements to be used for one purpose: hiding from tornados.

The washing machine stood against the west wall of the basement, solid and stubborn. Equally solid and stubborn was the load of laundry that sat in front of it. She'd managed to get one load done that day: a load of white socks that she hadn't yet dried.

He sighed when he opened the washing machine door.

"Put those in the dryer."

"I don't take orders. I'm not a waitress."

"Really? Fine, then. I'll do it. I do everything else." He threw heaps of socks from the washer into the dryer, tossed in a dryer sheet, and hit the button that would start them baking. He then put his arms into the heap of dirty laundry on the floor, shoveled clothes into the washer along with a couple of detergent pods, and checked the settings on the washer. "At least this way I can set the temperature myself. This is the last time you ever wash my dark shirts in hot water and dry everything for seventy minutes."

"Do we have to start that again?"

"Yes. Hopefully, it won't become a habit."

She sensed a row coming on.

This time, however, instead of launching into the usual argument, he grabbed her by the waist. She didn't even have time to protest before she found herself tossed over the washing machine.

Her body landed on the lid with a loud whump.

She found her hands pinned behind her back. Within seconds, the Velcro restraints were on her wrists, and her sweatpants were on the floor. Her athletic shirt stayed where it was since he couldn't take it off around the restraints. Then came the blindfold.

Usually, their arguments were of the nasty, spoken, acidic kind. This was new. This was just plain weird.

"You realize," she said, "that anyone can see into the basement? The lights are on. It's lighter in here than it is out there. We're in full view."

"So we are. You've been a stripper, haven't you? Why the modesty? I'm not ashamed of what I'm about to do. I'm not ashamed of us. Are you?"

She was so busy mulling that over that she barely noticed when he shackled her ankles. She did notice when he gagged her, though, because she hated gags. At least it wasn't a ball gag. Those were the worst. She had a hard time breathing around ball gags, even the small ones. They made her choke on her mucus until she felt like she was drowning. They made her wheeze. It wasn't asthma, exactly. She wasn't sure what it was. She just knew she didn't deal well with gags.

"That," he said, "is so the people upstairs can't hear your screams through the heating vents."

Oh, like they can't hear whatever else comes from the basement?

She chuckled softly to herself. This seemed an absurd way to solve their problems.

"Chuckle all you want. You won't be doing it before long."

That was all the warning she got.

The paddle laid into her hard and fast. Dammit. She hated that thing. It wasn't a sex toy; it was a fucking meat tenderizer. She'd threatened to whale on him with it one day, the same way he used it to beat her buttocks into a solid mass of bruises. She didn't think he'd enjoy it, though, which meant he would be unlikely to put up with the abuse long enough to sustain that kind of bruising. Unlike her, he wasn't one to grit his teeth and put up with activities or people that he hated. His pride was a different sort of pride from hers.

Despite her best efforts to cut off her perve wiring, her body responded. She wriggled against the washing machine. She wasn't sure whether she wanted to relieve her tension or just escape the paddle. It wasn't much of a success, either way. She was too well restrained.

She felt his fingers teasing her between her legs, sliding deep into somewhere wet and slithery.

"You're enjoying this."

My body is enjoying this, she thought to herself and grunted, because that was the smartest comeback she could make.

"This was supposed to be punishment."

Despite the gag, she did her best to mumble, Then why are you touching me like that when you know it's getting me off?

He slid his fingers in and out a few times, gently, imitating coitus, and probed a little more.

Just as she was about to come, he said, "You're right. I don't really need to be doing this, if it's punishment," and pulled out.

Bastard. He knew how hard it was for her to come most of the time. She took whatever orgasms she could get, and she hated herself for it. She tried unsuccessfully to hump the washing machine.

"Don't worry," he said. "I won't use the paddle anymore."

That sounded ominous.

She nearly screamed when the fishing pole lashed into her, right on top of her raw backside. It was bamboo. She wasn't sure which was worse, bamboo, hickory, or birch - really, they were all awful, and she tried to avoid knowing the fine lines of difference between the woods. There was fun pain and not-so-fun pain, and she had decided long ago that everything made from wood was not fun.

He was precise in laying the thin parallel lines, working his way down from the top of her posterior down. The worst part was when the bamboo pole landed just above the backs of her knees. She had no padding there.

Her throat was raw. She hadn't screamed yet - she was too proud - but strangling her scream and converting it into a muffled augh made her sore.

She felt him shove something into her. His cock? No, not quite warm enough. It met no resistance. She was a river. Her body had betrayed her again; it always did. It didn't care how she felt. It was utterly single-minded. It didn't care how it got its orgasms, so long as they were good orgasms. Bizarrely, she felt her core start to throb in time with the thrusts. She realized that he was using her favorite dildo. It was fat and long. Most of her sex partners, regardless of gender, found it intimidating.

"Having fun yet?" he asked. "No, don't try to answer."

Once again, just as she was on the verge of coming, he stopped, sliding it out gently and slowly, taunting her.

"Don't worry. You'll get your chance, if you behave."

She couldn't kick him. Her ankles were not only manacled, but held with a cord to the nearby pipes.

"I want you to know what these next lashes are for. I'm going to hit you hard. I'll be surprised if you think it's fun... This one," he said, "is for ruining all of my shirts in the wash the one time you actually voluntarily did a load of laundry, shrinking them all and covering them with red stains from the lipstick you had in the pocket of your jeans."

It wasn't the bamboo cane anymore. It was something worse. She wasn't sure what it was. Whatever it was, it was hard and thin and extremely whippy. She moaned.

"This is for the pile of dirty dishes that's stacked up to the kitchen window... This is for the dust elephants... This one, and I'm going to make it a special one, is for all the crap you buy on eBay... This is for making me wear condoms..."

The list of complaints was not very long, but she was sure she was bleeding by the time he was done.

He paused to let her catch her breath; she was strangling on her tears, snot, and saliva. His arm was probably starting to get tired, anyway. Then he flipped her over.

"I'm not done yet," he said, pulling off her blindfold. The dim basement suddenly seemed blindingly bright to her. "I'm nowhere near done. I'm still pissed about having to wear condoms after years of trusting you to be on the pill." He unfastened the panic clasp at her ankle shackles. One of her legs remained tied to the laundry sink pipe. Yanking her legs open and holding her down by her right leg, the free one, he said, "This is for making me wear condoms. Don't think I'm going to just let that go. And no, don't close your eyes. You always close your eyes when we have sex. I want you to keep your eyes open and look at me, at what I'm doing to you. No, don't look away, because I'll only go harder on you. Look at me."

His right hand fell down hard between her legs.

She jerked.

"No. You are not getting away from me. Don't try it. Don't even think about it," he murmured, as he proceeded to hammer at her. Smack. Smack.

He was holding her down too hard; trying to get away from the blows, which was automatic on her part, hurt her back. She kicked out at him and missed.

"That won't help you. I'll remember that. I think I'll remember it for at least twenty more smacks."

She moaned...

Eventually, his hand wasn't hitting her nether regions anymore. It couldn't, because it was inside them. How did it get there so quickly, so easily? She cursed her stupid, stupid body.

"I said look at me. Look at me, or I'll stop."

Since he had given her no choice, she watched him lower himself to the level of her groin, put his mouth close to her, gently exhale wet air on her, and establish contact between his mouth and tongue and her sex. She wanted to close her eyes when she felt the inevitable approach of the oncoming orgasm. She didn't think she could even come without closing her eyes - it wasn't physically possible for her. She didn't think... She felt herself spasm, hard, and cried out against it into the cloth gag that was still shoved in her mouth.

His hand rocked inside her gently, riding the waves of her orgasm until she was done, and pulled out slowly. His fingers lingered on the outside of her, touching her so delicately, so lightly, that losing herself in a happy, sated cloud was not an option, and making her groan with torment.

He ascended - oh, rats - and climbed onto the top of the ancient washing machine.

He tore off the gag.

"This," he said, "is for the countless times you've promised me a blowjob, and didn't deliver; or went down on me for a few brief seconds and stopped because you wanted 'real' sex."

He took her mouth.

She wasn't able to control him with her hands the way she liked to. She was used to boyfriends who were sensitive at the tip and who were perfectly fine with just a little sucking and teasing and hand work. Not he. He had always wanted to go all the way in. She had a gag reflex from hell, and tried to avoid triggering it; whoever had the notion that women enjoyed deep-throating men, anyway? She was hard-pressed to keep herself positioned in a way that kept him from going in all the way to the base of his cock, which she knew she couldn't handle.

He was stubborn, and methodical, and careful, and he started slow, but it didn't take long for him to start moving quickly and urgently.

And then he stopped, thank God.

Dismounted. Flipped her over again, so that she was once again prone. She felt some kind of hard wedge underneath her, brushing up against her clit, but also raising her hips. From behind her, she heard a wooden scraping sound as the nearby footstool got dragged into position.

"This," he said emphatically, "is for making me have to use a bloody condom because you wanted to go off your birth control!"

He plunged into her, making her groan again.

He was not wearing latex. She hoped fervently that he would either pull out at the last minute or go the anal route. Damn him. Then the washing machine began a spin cycle. Bloody hell. Who would have thought it? All the stereotypes about bored housewives who like to sit on the washing machine during its spin cycle were all true... Her breath escaped in gasps. She heard his breath get ragged. No, she thought, no, what if I'm ovulating? I don't want to be pregnant... He pulled out and entered her again, this time taking the tighter hole (thank God), which pushed her up against the wedge. The wedge vibrated merrily along with the manic washer. He slid in and out a few times and then, after one last and painfully hard thrust, he gasped and stopped, collapsing onto her.

A few moments later, after she had collected herself, she was able to say primly, "That wasn't punishment. Happy Valentine's Day."

Eventually, they burst out laughing. There was no other way they could have reacted, all things considered.