She’s on her period. She doesn’t like to fuck when she’s on her period. We go for a walk instead. It’s a warm day and the sun is just beginning to sink below the crags in the distance. The sky is a weird, ethereal, brilliant blue.
Because she’s on her period, and because I know she is more sensitive when she’s on her period, I want to hurt her. I look for ways to hurt her. There’s holly growing beside the path and I break off a stick of it: a green bundle of curved, glossy leaves, each crowned with a dozen spikes. She eyes it. Wary.
We have a long history of me hurting her, of her being hurt by me.
“Where’s that going?” she asks.
It goes down the back of her top, to rest in a spiky ball in the small of her back. She winces and clutches her fingers as I thrust it into place, and thereafter she walks very upright, stiff and awkward. Expressions cross her face like glitches. She inhales sharply at odd moments.
“It’s worse when I have to bend,” she says through gritted teeth.
The next time we’re alone on the path, out of sight of dog walkers and cyclists, I put my hand on the back of her neck and make her bend until she squeals.
