Untying the Knot: Ally's Story

Chapter 01 - Admitted

Garth dropped me off just before dawn. He seemed sad. Sad and yet angry. Here we were again.

I’d traveled in my pajamas but they made me take them off in a room just beyond the front desk. They gave me gray sweats, a white tank top and a gray hoodie.

They also found the bullet vibe I’d put in my suitcase.

These people were serious, but at least they let me keep my chocolate.

I eyed the great beast of a woman processing me and wondered what her gloved fingers would feel like probing about inside me; whether she could make me come.

I didn’t have to wonder for long.

They took me down the hall to a quiet tiled room filled with damp air. She put her fingers up inside me, digging in both of my holes. It did nothing for me, which honestly, surprised me. Maybe if she put fingers in each hole at the same time I’d have at least gotten something out of it.

After that, they dumped me in my dorm room and slammed the door. There was a bunk in each small room, kinda like in all the cells in prison movies. The clinic was a mixed facility but the sleeping arrangements were kept to the same sex for what should be mostly obvious reasons.

Trix was my “cellmate”. She had the bottom bunk.

I asked her if it was short for Trixie.

She said no - it was because she was a hooker.

She was pretty, for a street hooker. She had this great big fizz of curly brown hair.

Why did a hooker need rehabilitation and treatment for sex addiction? Wouldn’t that be detrimental to business?

She laughed when I asked.

After a while it stopped mattering whether they paid or not, she said.

She would fuck guys all day for money and then go out at night and pick them up at clubs and fuck then for free. She’d fuck them in club toilets or lift her skirt on crowded dance floors or go home with them.

It made my own shit seem like rookie numbers. She blew fifteen guys at a house party and three of them ran a train on her. They fucked her ass raw and she got chlamydia in her butt. That’s when she knew she had to stop. I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to share my own story in return, but I chose not to.

Trix had been at the facility for two weeks. I knew this because kept talking, all motormouth, as I unpacked my stuff and laid it all out on the top bunk; measuring the meager items that would mark the sum of my existence for the coming weeks or months.

You like chocolate, huh?

Only thing that comes close to sex, I told her.

I have a couple of Hershey bars under my mattress, if you eat my pussy you can have all of them.

For the tiniest moment, I thought about how much this place must be costing Garth. My stay - and eventual supposed rehabilitation - would run up a bill into the tens of thousands, without a doubt.

Sure, I said.

I was taking off my shoes when something occurred to me.

Wait, do you still have chlamydia in your butt?

No, she said, pulling up her dress.

I pushed her onto her own bunk and rolled her white panties down over her legs. She wore socks but no shoes so they came right off.

Trix had a fat, meaty labia and a great big dome of a clit. It was like sucking on a marble. She must have been starving for it as she came almost instantly. She clasped a hand over her mouth as her thighs crushed in around my head. Then she went limp and she pulled her dress down.

I went to sit on my bunk and after a few minutes she got out of hers and tossed me a bar.

I thought you said all of them?

That didn’t count, Trix insisted.

She said that she came too soon because she’d been locked up here with no relief.

Forget the chocolate then, I said, just do me back. We can go again for the chocolate.

Go down on you?

She seemed almost afraid.

Yeah, I said.

I don’t know how, she said.

I didn’t believe that for a second. But Trix continued to refuse.

I’m not a dyke, she protested.

I never said that you were, I clarified.

In the end, she agreed to fingerbang me.

Pressed up against the cold metal of the bunk ladder, Trix put her hand down the front of my sweats and snaked her fingers through my lips. I was already damp there from going down on a woman I’d met only minutes before.

Her fingers sent electric sparks through my body. It was rough, cold and loveless, and she didn’t even put a finger inside me, but she brought me off in minutes. She was rubbing my cunt so hard I thought I was going to hyperventilate.

Be quiet, you moron!

As she mouthed those words I crested and my orgasm crashed through me. She didn’t stop rubbing at me but she put her hand over my mouth. Doing so pushed my head back against the metal frame and held me in place as she drew the last of the climax from me.

Chapter 02 - Warned

It was late so we went to sleep without another word.

The next morning I was up before Trix was even awake. She looked beautiful when she slept. I watched her in her bunk, her chest rising and falling. She seemed at peace. When she was awake she wore a permanent scowl.

I was gasping for a coffee or a cigarette, even better to have both. None were available. The door to the dorm was bolted electronically from the outside.

I’d been to rehab before. But never anything like this. It all felt so pointless. I could fuck Trix’s brains out every night and as long as we were careful about it I could be having plenty of sex even locked away here. Shit, I could just fuck myself.

Nevertheless, the locked doors and the internal exam on day one proved to me this place did not mess about. I would need to be careful.

We had a window but it was high up. It did not have bars but it might as well have had them. It was made of that glass with the wire baked inside of it.

Are you planning to escape?

Trix was awake.

I’m gonna go crazy in this room without something to look at, I said.

We’ll get you some magazines or books, Trix said kindly.

I didn’t want to think about such trivial and menial shit. I wanted to live. I wanted to drink and fuck and get high and just live in bliss. Everything in between fucking sucked.

How come they let you wear a dress? I asked Trix as she got up and pulled it over her head.

I admired her tight body. She had scars. Not self harm, but scars that all had their own terrifying stories, of that I was sure.

They don’t let me wear a dress, she said, but I put one on when I get back here. It helps me detach what’s out there to what’s in here. Kinda like taking off a school uniform or your work kit.

I’d never had a job, and I never really went to school, but I understood what she meant.

What did you do before you came here? Trix asked as if reading my mind.

She pulled on the same issue sweatpants that I had been given (and was still wearing from yesterday).

What do you mean?

Well, do you have a boyfriend? A girlfriend? A job? How come you ended up here?

I shrugged.

I’ve never needed a job, I’ve always had people looking out for me, I explained.

Trix smiled.

What you’re saying is that guys kept you around as long as you kept putting out?

Kinda.

There was a rap on the door. The bolt shifted and opened.

Morning, ladies!

It was a man in his forties. He was wearing white overalls, as if this was a mental facility. He gestured for us to leave and we did.

Down the hall and to the left, past countless other dorms, we fell into rank and file with dozens of other men and women, all in gray sweatpants and white tanks or gray hoodies. After the dorms were various breakout rooms, and rooms that looked like doctor’s offices; ones like what you visited back home.

At the end was the biggest room, kinda like a sports hall. Chairs were arranged in tight circles.

Trix and I separated.

I got taken by the guy in white to a circle of newcomers. There was six of us.

Linda, a harsh woman with a leathery, over-tanned face led the session. She too was wearing white. She needed to attend a rehab center for sun-bed addicts.

Opposite me was Mark who kept hooking up with guys on Tinder and then self-harming afterwards. Surely, being a closeted gay man was something that needed to be addressed, but not in a place like this?

Linda nodded away when he told his sad story.

Katie had cheated on every boyfriend she had ever had. She broke down in tears as she told the group.

I had done the same, but I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t see the big deal. This bitch was pure drama. The pretty ones always were.

Lauren had a similar story. She’d cheated on her husband fifteen times in ten years.

I’d cheated on Garth too. It was why he had brought me here. But this woman, why the fuck was she married? She met black guys at a motel. When her husband found out she fucked two black guys at the same time he said it was divorce or rehabilitation.

I knew Lauren would be back on the black cock eventually. Even if she didn’t know it herself. She clearly wanted that lifestyle. You could see the excitement in her eyes as she told her steamy story about how they had shared her on the dirty motel bed, taking turns to dick her down the way her husband just couldn’t. It was like reading bad erotica.

Then there was Kyle, a handsome man by all accounts, who was addicted to booking escorts. He had spent tens of thousands on visiting them this year alone.

And then there was Wanda. She was a big woman. She got fired from the supermarket at which she worked for stealing cucumbers.

I’d use them three at a time, she sobbed. Two in the front, and y’know, one in the back.

She said she got addicted to the feeling of being full. She had a boyfriend who thought doing it in the ass was disgusting. Even when she jammed shit up there as he fucked her pussy. So they broke up and Wanda began her life with the cucumbers.

I was going through twenty cucumbers a week, she cried.

I let slip a laugh. It happened before I even realized what I’d done. It was too late to peddle back now. Linda’s beady eyes glowed in her sallow leather face. She was clearly furious with me.

I mean, this is ridiculous, I tried to explain. Wanda, why didn’t you just pay for the cucumbers?

Mark chuckled. Lauren smiled but immediately checked herself and put her hand to her mouth.

Wanda sputtered, her face going red: it was a compulsion, please, I couldn’t help it.

I crossed my arms.

If you’re a klepto I think you’re in the wrong facility, I said.

Enough.

Linda stood.

We do not judge or question others whilst they are staying here with us at Renew. You might also be new here, Ally, but we have a zero tolerance policy towards this kind of thing. I will have to inform the Overseer.

I don't really know why I did it - it might have been because Linda reminded me of my mother as well as every single teacher that I could remember - but I found myself repeating her words back at her in a whiny, nasally voice.

We have a zero tolerance policy towards this kind of thing!

Linda's expression did not change, but the woman blinked.

You see fit to mock others, but you have not shared with the group the reason for why you too are here, Ally.

I smiled.

Well, I said, I put fifteen carrots up my ass and came so hard that I went blind. I didn't realize, on account of the blindness, that only fourteen of those carrots came out—

Enough, Linda said again.

-that last carrot was really lodged up in there, and any time I walked around or took a shit I'd come again and again and again. I couldn't go outside because I was constantly coming—

Enough, cease this nonsense at once.

-so the police arrested me 'cause I'd stolen a five tonne pallet of carrots from the cash and carry and they had this doctor—

I said enough!

There was silence, not only in our circle, but in the whole hall.

You will return to your dorm room at once, Linda said calmly, as if she had not just exploded.

I was relieved to be offered a way out of the most boring circle jerk in history, and so I got up off of my chair and headed from the hall without looking back. Another goon in a while overall caught up to me and fell in with my pace.

You shouldn’t have done that, you know, he said.

He was gigantic, I realized, but he had soft and kind eyes.

What are they going to do? I said, dismissing the matter.

Carry on with your bullshit and you’ll soon find out, he said.

We got to my dorm and he unlocked the door with his keycard and let me in.

Reconsider the path you are on, he said, pulling the door closed behind him.

Fuck you, fat man.

He stopped. The door swung back open. He looked down at me. His eyes didn’t seem so kind anymore. He came into the room and took me by the neck with such force that I let out a yelp, like a dog that had just been kicked.

He pinned me up against the ladder of the bunk, exactly where Trix had fingerfucked me last night. But this time, he was pressing me down so hard, so violently, that the metal was piercing into my back. With his enormous hand around my neck I was seeing stars. I easily could have just melted into unconsciousness in his grip.

Reconsider the path you are on, he said again.

He let go of my neck. My vision swam back in and my body tingled. He struck me in the face with his open palm.

Silly little whore, he muttered to himself.

Seconds later he was gone and the door was bolted shut.

I stood there, my chest heaving. I was afraid, but adrenaline was pumping through me and I felt so fucking exhilarated. My nipples were hard against my tank and when I ran a finger between my legs it was slick with wetness.

On the top bunk I drifted. To call it sleep would be generous. I played with resisting myself. I could have rubbed my clit raw to the thought of that giant hand around my neck. But I waited, and drifted.

I’m not sure how much time had passed but the door unlocked and stirred me. Trix came into the room and it was immediately closed again behind her. She looked at me and shook her head. I watched her undress from her sweats and into the dress she loved.

After a few minutes I climbed down off the bunk, drew the dress up along her thighs and then pulled it up over her belly. She acted shocked and bashful but she wasn’t wearing any underwear this time so I wondered if she had half expected me to do this.

I slid my face along her musky gash, parting her lips with my nose. She raised her legs so I pushed them wide and stuck my tongue inside her.

Chapter 03 - Punished

I still hadn’t gotten my Hershey bars. Trix had fallen asleep after she came, so I went to bed frustrated and horny. I tossed and I turned. I lost all track of time.

The door went, I think, some time before dawn.

Get dressed, said a firm voice.

I could hear Trix stirring.

Not you, her.

I climbed down off the bunk still wearing my clothes from yesterday. The man in white - a different one again - grabbed me by the arm and led me from the room.

Can’t I at least brush my teeth?

He shook his head in silent disapproval.

With Trix bolted up inside the dorm, we walked the corridor again and went into one of the activity rooms. There were books and games and other bits of bric-a-brac.

On the wall next to a bookcase, the man scanned his ID card on a small black box and a latch released. He swung the bookcase out.

How cliche, I stated.

Ignoring me, he dragged me down the previously hidden corridor. Despite the theatrical entrance, the corridor looked much like the one to my dorm. There was doors leading off everywhere. We stopped in front of one, opened it, and walked inside. Linda was waiting here, her arms folded.

Good morning, Ally.

What time is it? I asked.

It is not yet dawn, was the explanation that she offered.

What is going on here? I asked, looking between Linda and the man in white.

Oh, you are to be punished for yesterday’s performance, Linda said.

She looked pleased with herself. For a moment we all stood in silence.

You disobeyed me three times, so you will get ten lashes of the cane for each infraction.

The cane? Are you fucking kidding me?

Another outburst from you, and we’ll make it up to forty, Linda said.

The guy in the white seized me by both arms and dragged me towards a small table.

Get the fuck off me, you idiot!

It was pointless. I was like a rag doll to him. He dumped me chest-down onto the face of the table, which took the wind out of my chest. Rough fingers slid inside my sweatpants and pulled them down over my bum and thighs. The same thing happened with the thin material of my underwear, and my behind was exposed to them both.

I’d have let me him fuck me then, I realized. I’d be glad for it.

I’d been in this position so many times. So many guys had pushed me over like this. There was always that moment of anticipation after my clothing had been pulled out of the way. How long would they look at their prize before they claimed me?

But no cock slapped against my ass or brushed against my clit. Instead, a firm, thin hand cupped one of my cheeks, then gently squeezed. It felt good.

It was Linda. Linda was playing with my ass.

Start at medium, Linda said to the man, she seems supple enough.

A giant hand pressed down on the small of my back and then a great thundering crack resounded as the cane was administered to my bum.

Jesus Christ! I screamed.

It felt more like a belt than a cane. A great strip of my ass now felt like it was completely on fire.

The man struck me again. I grunted like I was being drilled and my eyes began to water.

The third lash took the breath from my chest. I heaved.

Please—

They hit me again.

Again.

And again and again.

That giant hand pinned my body to the desk. I’d have rather they held me down and let the whole faculty take turns on me than put me through this.

Again.

And again and again.

I was sobbing, I realized. Crying like a pathetic child.

Again.

I howled.

Stop, said Linda quietly. She’s bleeding.

I lay there, crying, my face sliding around on the table in the pool of tears that I’d made. They washed my ass with a warm rag, and then talked at length about whether they should continue.

I have no qualms for her discomfort but need for her to be able to sit in sessions.

We could defer the punishment.

Out of the question.

Then what?

Get her up off the table.

The man took me by the shoulders and lifted me into a standing position. The trousers were tangled around my thighs and I couldn’t really walk properly, so he spun me around.

Take off her tank top, Linda said.

I made zero attempt at resistance as my arms were lifted and the fabric roughly slid away from my body.

Linda looked up and down at my body. Her eyes stopped at my tits, and at what was between my legs.

We will continue administering the punishment to a secondary site, Linda said. Strike her breasts, but telegraph the strokes, we don’t want to cause permanent damage.

Linda took the cane from the man and smacked my left tit. It stung, but nowhere near the pain I’d felt on my behind.

Like so, Linda said, returning the cane.

The man walked around, staring at my chest as if answers would come to him. He hit me. It was harder than Linda had done, but it was still manageable compared to the beating they had given me on my ass.

My tits soon became red and sore but my nipples stood like bullets on end. With each crack of the cane against the flesh of my tits an electric shock of pleasure shot through me. I yelped and cried every time they struck me because I thought it was what they wanted to hear.

I wondered if I could come from this. I figured it was probably possible, but it seemed the punishment was over.

Get dressed, Linda spat. We will take you to see the facility’s Overseer this afternoon. He will discuss your punishment and reiterate our mission here at Renew.

They took me back out of the bookcase door and down the corridor to my dorm. The door buzzed, unlocked, and they pushed me inside.

You have an hour until sessions start. Clean yourself up.

Chapter 04 - Controlled

They hit you, huh?

A little, I admitted.

Trix smiled at me weakly. She was lying on top of her blankets in her dress.

They haven’t done it to me, I’ve kept my head down, she said. It felt almost like a boast.

I went to climb up onto my bunk.

Where are you going?

I just need to lie down for five minutes. I need to compose myself.

No, she said.

No?

That’s right - no. We don’t have much time and I want your mouth on me.

I had every right to keep climbing but I just hung there on the ladder like a monkey. My thighs were killing me and my butt stung like hell. I should have told her to go fuck herself, but for some reason I got down from the ladder.

She pulled up her dress. I could see her cunt was wet. She must have been playing and waiting for me to come back.

OK, but I want my Hershey bars.

I dived in and lost myself in the smells and sensations of her. I hadn’t seen her shower since I got here. This was, what, day three? Her taste was getting pretty intense. I ate her clit and slid a finger inside her for the first time. She gasped, and then came quickly.

You really took me by surprise, she said, catching her breath.

Cough up the chocolate, I said, holding out my hand. I need it after the morning I’ve had.

Trix cackled.

There is no more chocolate, you dumb bitch, are you dense?

But you said—

I was joking. It was a joke. You were really eating my pussy for chocolate bars?

I blushed and looked at my feet.

I knew a girl I’d been in high school with who blew a guy for a packet of crisps, but that wasn’t going to help me now.

I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, Ally, but I also didn’t realize that you were that stupid.

I’m not stupid, I said, defiant.

Yeah? Which one of us is lying here in an afterglow, and which one of us just got beat down by the goons? You’re gonna have fun sitting down for the rest of the day, that’s for damn sure.

Fuck you, Trix.

No, fuck you, Ally, she spat back, climbing out of the bed. Screw your damn head on, and then keep your damn head down.

She touched my arm.

Stick with me, do as I say, and I will protect you here.

I frowned. How many times had I heard that before?

So what, you’re gonna keep me as your pussy-eating slave, and in turn you’ll protect me from the morons running this shit show? Is that what this is?

She stroked my cheek.

That’s the idea, babe. You want me on-side.

Well, this certainly had taken a turn.

What if I refuse? I asked.

I’ll tell them that you forced yourself on me.

The way it casually rolled off the tongue sickened me. I’d liked Trix. I’d certainly liked her enough to eat her out several times, chocolate or no chocolate. But this was like she was now a totally different person. Maybe she thought she’d make her move after seeing that they’d taken me and punished me. Maybe she thought that made me weak. Perhaps this was her endgame all along and she brought it forward. Fuck knows.

If you’re good I’ll still do you like I did the first night, would you like that?

She was trying to win me now. I decided to play her at her own game.

I’m in. We’ll stick together. Get ourselves off and get ourselves through this.

I held out my hand and she went to shake it. I moved it away.

But you need to start eating me too.

Trix went to open her mouth in protest.

I know you want it, I said. I’m saying it for you as much as I am for me.

She came close to me, and took me in an embrace. I winced as my tits mashed into hers. They were still very sore.

She slid a hand into my sweats and circled my clit. Despite myself I started to pool in my panties.

Are my fingers not enough for you? She whispered into my ear.

I turned my head and kissed her. She froze.

I want to feel your mouth on me, I purred.

I was trying to seduce her, to weaken her armor a little. I wasn’t sure if it was working.

Don’t ever kiss me again, she said. I’m not a dyke.

She pushed me away, and turned to take the dress up over her head.

Neither am I, I said, but she ignored me.

She washed her face in the sink and then brushed her teeth.

Bring yourself off, she said at me, looking at me via the mirror. If you go out there in the state you’re in, you’re going to do something stupid. Coming will bring you down.

I stared at her naked body as she did what she needed to do. I put a hand into my trousers watched her butt and her taught legs as I did what I needed to do.

I gasped as I crested. Our eyes locked in the mirror and I came hard. I could have cried. I drew out my fingers and sucked them clean.

Get changed, she said, ignoring my actions and spitting out the foamy toothpaste. They will be here soon.

Chapter 05 - Dictated

They split us up in the hall. They put me back in the newbie circle and made me finish what I had interrupted yesterday.

I believe you have yet to properly introduce yourself to everyone, Linda said, as if we hadn’t spoken since yesterday and she hadn’t be observing my brutal punishing earlier this morning.

I’m Ally, I said, the fight gone from me for now.

Why are you with us, Ally?

I’m a sex addict, I said, so I’ve been told.

That’s very forthcoming of you, Linda said, seemingly pleased with herself. You’ve certainly changed your tune since yesterday.

Do you have a partner, on the outside? Asked Lauren who loved fucking black guys.

Yes, I said, he brought me here. He said it was this or we go our separate ways.

The group nodded at me. They seemed like robots.

Was there… did you… what broke the camel’s back?

It was Katie the cheater, who had piped up.

He found out that I was sleeping with our drug dealer, I said.

The group seemed shocked.

It was just for weed, I said to the silent crowd.

You slept with men for drugs? Lauren asked.

Well, not like that, I said, the drugs were for both me and Garth. It wasn’t like I was tricking to support a habit. Garth and I like to smoke, is all. When we ran out I went and got some more. Five minutes on my back was all it took each time. It was no big deal.

And that’s normal to you? Katie asked. It’s interesting how you justify that and reconcile it.

And how do you justify your cheating, Katie? I asked back a little too harshly. Did your boyfriends ever get anything out of your putting out for other guys?

Well, one, but that was—

We do not judge, Leather Linda said in her cold, robotic voice. We inquire and we share and we support, but we do not judge.

I was not out there fucking around on Garth, I said, at least not after we got serious.

There was a snicker, and it was pleasant to see Linda’s wrath shine on someone else for a moment.

Except for fucking the drug dealer for… how long? Katie asked.

Eighteen months, give or take. It worked well for everyone involved.

Until Garth found out?

Right.

It was clear that I wasn’t on the same page as these other people, even the clowns who were here for cheating on their spouses or partners. Fucking hypocrites.

I was who I was and I am who I am. Garth knew I’d been around - a lot - when we hooked up. He knew I was hooking up with other guys and girls. When we got serious he asked me to cool down on all of that, and I did, eventually.

It’s so much easier to suck a tiny cock for five minutes than it is to hand over hundreds of dollars. Who cares if I let my dope dealer hit it? He’s had me every way; his fat slob of a girlfriend certainly wasn’t doing her part. I don’t care. Nobody cares. Who gives a shit? I opened my mouth or legs and everyone got what they wanted.

Garth. He came into my mind. I was angry with him now. He was the one with the problem; he’d tried to change me - he’d fucking put me here. It was wrong to be angry at him. Yet I was.

That’s quite enough for now, said Leather Linda. Warden Mills will be taking over this session. I have to escort our friend Ally here to an appointment with the Overseer.

There were gasps, followed by a stunned silence.

Mills - another huge guy in a white overall - kept his mouth shut until Linda had led me away from the circle.

Now then, where did we leave off? I could hear him over my shoulder.

We went back into the corridor leading to the dorms. From here, Linda took me through a fire door and up a flight of stairs; the kind of lonely sterile space like you’d find at a parking complex.

After two short sets of steps, we came to an elevator that was operated by keycard only. Linda leaned over and pressed her card to the reader. I watched her fat behind wobble as she did. I could hear the elevator whirring to life inside the shaft.

We stood in awkward silence as the elevator made its way down to us.

You are recovering, from this morning?

I did not satisfy her with a response. Was it bait?

You seemed to have little issue sitting down after all, she went on.

Again I did not respond. I did not want to humor this ghoul.

I must be frank, she said, turning to me as the elevator dinged on arrival, the Overseer is likely to want to expend his own order of punishment.

Is he going to hit me too? I asked, my voice full of malice.

Probably not, Linda replied.

If her response meant to frighten and confuse me then it had the desired effect.

We said not a word to each other in the elevator. It dinged again and we got out.

A small office lay before us. The floor and wall was cut from marble. It was probably fake. It looked like a foyer to an expensive apartment block.

Linda took a seat behind the single glass desk, on which was a sleek computer monitor.

You can go in, she said.

She clacked on the keyboard with her fingers and paid me no more mind.

It took me a minute to find the door as it was flush with the walls. There was a tiny circle of metal that pulled out and then acted as the handle. It was super inconvenient, but rich people were always going to pull dumb shit like this in the name of art and taste.

Ah, you must be my two o’clock, said the Overseer.

He too had on a white overall. They all did, then. This shit was like a cult.

He was facing the window. It wasn’t a particularly grand window, but it was wide. It look out across the fields and then the plains beyond those. I hadn’t realized how remote this facility actually was. Where the fuck had Garth left me? All this was for love? Surely, he couldn’t have know what went on here?

Do you know why you’re here? The man said, snapping me out of my thoughts.

He turned to face me. He was a stout, stocky man. Old now, but no doubt strong in his prime.

Yes, I believe I do, I said.

Good, he said, we can skip some of the details and get down to brass tacks.

He gestured for me to sit in one of two leather-bound office chairs that were placed before his own enormous glass desk. And so I sat. I expected him to sit behind the monstrous pane but instead he circled me, as if he was studying me.

We get all sorts of people coming to us here at Renew for all sorts of reasons, he explained.

I can imagine, I said.

Please, let me finish, he quipped.

I nodded.

We get all sorts of people coming to us here at Renew for all sorts of reasons, he repeated, and I like to think that we are a very dynamic organization. It is a credit to my staff, really, that our core program can bend to accommodate both those who need the light touch, and those who need perhaps a heavier push out of the weeds and onto the right path.

This felt like a sales pitch. I kept my mouth shut; not only because he had told me to do so, but because I realized that meant it would all be over sooner.

And of course, there are those who do not fit even into that flexible solution of programming, he said. There are those, on one hand, who have perhaps lived all their life in God’s light, yet have turned in their weakness to compulsive masturbation or pornography. There are the dutiful housewives who lusted for their personal trainers or gardeners, or what have you. Those people need a gentle reassurance that they are not monsters. They can be guided onto the path again with a couple of counseling sessions.

I watched him as he paced, at least when he was in front of me.

Then there are those at the other end of the spectrum; the ones who also do not need our programming, but not because they are not truly deviants or not addicted to dangerous sexual behaviors, but because they have lived in so-called sin for so long that they appear to be beyond saving. Do you know why I am telling you all of this, Ally?

No, Overseer, sir, I said in my dumbest, politest voice.

I’m telling you, Ally, because you are a waste of oxygen and skin, he said calmly, as if he hadn’t said anything outrageous at all. You have coasted through your life, slutting yourself out instead of standing up for yourself and making your own way in the world. You made the world instead for others who used you on their own twisted paths. You are, quite honestly, just another worthless slut. Worthless white meat! We see a lot of that here. It’s how we make our money.

But you are different. Not special – just different. You are an insolent little slut. A disobedient little whore. As much as we can bend the intensity of our program to those who seek our help, we cannot do that for those who do not want our help. For that, we have a much more effective and powerful program to administer. If you continue to disrupt sessions, you will drop out of our main program and we will place you in a much more demanding correctional program. Do I ma