#purple aint good

You think you’re getting away with something, and then it gets away with you. A little something you enjoy of an evening, that then becomes a daily staple, twice a day, three times, whenever you can, and then it’s dictating your life. A thousand signposts, each one flashing neon to let you know that you’re being taken for a ride by your own proclivities. 

It had started by dictating what she wore. Skirts, unless they were trousers that could easily pool around her ankles (not baggy though; he liked to see the curve). Thongs, or nothing at all. Minor misdemeanors landed her bent, face buried in her arms and back arched ever so slightly. She didn’t want to see like she wanted it. Such a scandalous idea couldn’t slip past the secrecy of her mind. 

And then it was not-so-minor misdemeanors. Nothing at all, really. The wrong kind of look, perhaps the tiniest infraction in protocol and syntax. If she didn’t call him the right title, if there wasn’t enough respect in her tone. He favoured a desk or some sort of support for her; that way he could get a proper swing in, and not have to feel hamstrung by a seated position. He liked to make her hurt. She liked to let him. 

He used to wait for her to heal before he took a hand back to her. He would watch the bruises fade like the saturation on a photograph in the sun, admiring the way her body pulled itself back together, regained its composure and shrugged off the blush in slow motion. It was half the fun, and he’d tell her as much. Until he stopped telling her, and instead kept it red, kept it fresh. Didn’t wanting her to get overripe. Didn’t want to see the purple go. 

She was enjoying it too much to complain, even though the pain had shifted from the sharpness of a fresh blow to the dull ache of something old and remembered. He was burying her in it, where before it had been a wash. Instead of feeling cleansed by the pain, now she was sullied by it. The edge was fading, and it was a dull knife he was taking to her. Then one day she said no. 

One day she said stop. 

His hand faltered, a shadow of confusion coming to his eyes. And then it slipped away, the drunk becoming sober, the addict looking in the mirror. She stood up, winced, and started to talk.

And he listened.