Bad Girls by Brooke Stern Page A

sorry for me (e.g., ‘I’m so sorry. I only lied because I didn’t want to disappoint you.’). People have learned not to be hard on me, not to expect too much from me. They keep their distance because I seem fragile. The really sad part is that I began to believe it myself. I’ve stopped expecting much from myself. I’ve become so accustomed to how easy it is to lie that I’ve forgotten how to do anything hard.
    That’s why I need you to spank me, Tom. I’m wasting my life. I’m wasting myself. Stop me from wasting away.
    Facing the wall with Tom’s fingers inside her, Ellen thought about those words and her knees got weak. She was dying for Tom to get on with it. Please, please, see me for what I am. See me even though I do everything I can to hide myself. I’ve tried to be honest with you. I’ve been more honest with you than I’ve been with anyone else, ever. So don’t torture me with condescending pity and false acceptance. Hold me to a higher standard. Do your man thing, Tom. Be my god.
    Tom stood close behind her, letting her wonder what was next, letting the voices in her head go crazy before he would drown them out with intense pain. Her voices were praying to this man, pleading with him to be what she needed. Understand me. See me for what I am. Don’t hate me for who I am, just beat it out of me. Bring me some respite from myself.
    Typically, Tom’s impulse would have been to respond to her brave self-disclosure with praise and love. Typically, he would be tender with her in her moment of profound vulnerability the way he might be with a baby bird fallen from its mother’s nest. The heartfelt care Tom offered the wounded was one of the strengths of his character, but it was one of his demons as well. He had learned the hard way that he was too easily had. He was too readily suckered by those who feigned injury to get the best of him or by those, like Ellen, for whom injury had become a way of being.
    No, there are some things that can’t be redeemed with unconditional acceptance and sincere understanding. There are parts that are just bad and have to be dealt with as such.
    His demons would meet her demons. The bad of her moral masochism would meet the bad of his sadism and neither would be elevated. They had to be dealt with one way or another. Together, in that hotel room, these urges would simply be what they are: the other side of love, the profane parts of the soul.
    To go there required them to establish a distance from each other, the distance enabled by Tom’s objectification of Ellen and by the shame it made burn inside her. Their paths were diverting. They shared certain common elements – nerves, exposure, vulnerability – but they were also separated by the gap that separated the dominant from the submissive, the active from the passive. A chasm would separate their experiences when he was beating her, but they would still be enmeshed in such a way that each was the safety net for the other, each offered to contain the overflow of emotions in the other.
    He would contain her anguish, holding her both physically and emotionally, binding her so she didn’t explode or disintegrate; she, in turn, would call for the man inside Tom who he hid from the world and from lovers in particular, for that was the part of him that Ellen wanted most. She wouldn’t judge him harshly when he let himself go and left her bruised and battered.
    Tom could see her slipping into her private silence, into the small corner of her soul where she went to hide, and he wanted her back. He turned her back around so that she was facing him. He held her firmly and she wasn’t sure whether he was going to pull her towards him in an embrace or to bend her over and begin her beating. She wasn’t even sure which she wanted. He could do anything he wanted to her. This scared her.
    â€˜What are you scared of, Ellen?’
    It was as if he