Fallen Angel

He followed up his frighteningly businesslike demand by belting each of her ankles. She screamed as he marched his strap up the backs of her aching legs.

Equally repulsed and drawn to this strange, dangerous man, Magdalene had intentionally antagonized him by bringing up a potential second visit. Detecting her continued misbehavior, he returned to his terrifying question. "If you expect to be invited back," he said, "you need to pick the number; tell me how many stripes."

The intensity of the pain should have constrained her judgment more than it did; it should have rendered her powerless to decide. Instead, by some miracle of femininity, it did not. Instead, her head cleared, and she turned tranquil. Hoping it would be enough to please him, she answered, "Twenty, mister."

Dissatisfied, he pressed her. "Thirty," he insisted. "Thirty, or I will not have you back."

"Thirty, yes, I will; I mean, for you, thirty, Mister."

He corrected her again. "You will not do it for me," he maintained. "You will do it for you, Magdalene. If a woman surrenders to a strapping, she submits because it is best for her; she understands that it nourishes her. A man simply does her bidding. Now begin."

She nodded and, fighting back sobs, counted. He hit Magdalene at exact intervals, once, then twice. When she said, "Three," he hesitated, repositioned himself to the other side of the table, and struck again, this time doubly hard.

By then, her voice had drowned in tears. He continued nevertheless, crisscrossing his stripes into a pattern of swelling across her delicate skin, his tactic leaving her a mass of searing streaks.

Once underway, every inch of black and blue etched itself into the vexatious woman's inner self. Repeatedly, he repositioned, as did her emotions. Now, however, that changed. Unthinkably, resignation replaced resolve; on some level, she turned into someone who wanted more.

In defiance, Magdalene initially hid behind a prostitute's veil. She had turned her head away from where he stood. Yet, with the passing seconds, her hurt matured; her quest for apartness disappeared too. Disguising her humiliation with silence, her screams turned inward.

By then, her tormentor had turned her body into a ribboned mass of scorching streamers. Conflicting hurts clashed with irrational pleasures as she struggled to master an inexplicable longing for more.

Upon noticing the change in her, and for the first time since eleven o'clock, he spoke softly. "Since you won't play working girl for a while, I will see to your needs. Women like you do not learn much from a single beating, so I might have you back." She stopped crying, turned to face him, and smiled.

Surprising herself, her heavy breathing subsided, and she confessed. "You make me want this, Mister."

"And next time?" he asked.

Magdalene, unexpectedly liberated from the burdens of being herself, lapsed into safe mode; all but her essential programs shutting themselves off in a newly found comfort called submission. Having found serenity in pain, she was free.

"Next time?" she heard herself whimper. "Next time, Mister, hit me more."

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