Mechanist

Throughout the night I watched, as he carefully disassembled me. Unscrewing my confidently held insecurities, teasing out dreams, memories, dusting them off and placing them all side by side on red silk, leaving me naked.

And then he took hold of me- this tiny ticking fragment, my core, and he turned me upside down, over and over, examining, admiring the craftsmanship, as he took that apart too, all the pieces he laid out, in order, on red silk.

Nothing left.

Nothing left of me.

It felt glorious, as if I didn't even exist. Annihilated.

And then, with a smile, a wry grin, he took the silk, gave it a hard yank, scattering the pieces across the floor.

Raw panic. Terror.

I scrambled to recollect these things, these pieces of myself, thrown carelessly on hardwood floors, and yet he pinned me down, held me forcibly as I squirmed and struggled, searching for those pieces of myself, even as he fucked at me, even as I lost myself more and more. Drowning.

I shuddered, felt the fight go out of me, animal moans escaping from my mouth. I felt broken, glorious, filthy.

And then he put me back together.

Gently.

For days I functioned. Ticking along like a freshly wound clock, feeling renewed again, feeling clean.

My friends could tell- commented how happy I looked, how beautiful, and I glowed.

Till on the third day, I went home, and thought to touch myself, thought to remember that night, and even as my fingers slipped between delicate folds, I felt nothing.

I searched, and touched, and read, and tried all of the usual means. I sought to destroy myself, the hard reset, that cleansing fire, as I had with him, as I-

Nothing happened.

I felt nothing.

Nothing at all.

He hadn't put back all the pieces.

I went back to my mechanist, my clockmaker, my darling, and demanded that he fix me again- that he put back whatever piece he had stolen, and so, with a laugh, he set about disassembling me, casually this time, no red silk, instead all the pieces piled on top of one another in a jar, and every step of the way I knew what was coming next, but couldn't stop it, couldn't step away, needed to feel whole again.

He rolled me over, forced me down, I could hear myself gasping, begging, words spilling from my lips while my mind just went completely blank, and when he was done, he left me, lying still, unable to stand up, unable to find the will.

An empty vessel.

He left me disassembled for hours, wandered away, came back, and started work again, barely noticing me, turning each piece over and over between tweezers, as it was put back in place, with no thought given to the whole.

I left. Exhausted. Uncertain, got home and tested all my faculties, made sure he had put me back together right.

Within days I realized there was another piece missing, a different piece, realized he was doing this on purpose.

Back again- this time with cold words and veiled threats, wasted on his smiling calm.

Each time, every afternoon for a week, the pieces taken out in a different order, the shaking, rawness, feeling my core lying open to the world, fear that he might misstep, eventually break something crucial, that I would be-

"You have to stop this... please."

He took me back to his house, a beautiful place, tidy hardwood floors, and this time made love to me in the garden, tearing me apart in the dappled light of apple trees.

Halfway through another woman arrived- tanned skin and dark hair. She watched for a while, watched me climax, and then stripped herself naked and gave herself to him as I watched.

He fucked her.

Calmly. Savagely, taking her apart in exactly the same way, right there in front of me.

And as they fucked, I touched myself, and met her eyes, understood.

She looked exhausted. Broken. Not just in this moment, but on a larger level. Broken for months, years even.

They've been doing this for years.

She wasn't his wife. Just another woman, just like me, who he had, had taken, got his claws into, and now he was showing me what would happen, what would become of me if I kept chasing after him.

She stared at me, as he fucked her, utterly disinterested, utterly curious. Perhaps wondering what decision I would make. Perhaps wondering if I would replace her.

All I could wonder was what I needed to do to be this woman.