Trussed

Trussed

Went to my first fetish party she says matter-of-factly
Charming, I murmur, too low for her to hear
On the offensive, she’s intent on shocking
(Teasing, she’s told me, is her way of showing affection)

I know I don’t want to know
I don’t want to hear her bearing witness
to bondage scenes, floggings, leatherworks, chrome, latex

This woman is chained, spread-eagled
her white ass is burning red from…
I do not want to hear or know
my ears wax tight, my thoughts grow taught
my eyelids portcullis down

…she’s got a sawhorse between her legs and this vibrator is…
my poise snaps, curdles: a fart in the aorta

I think of my clients

Your Honour, here are the facts:
she was 16 when arrested at a demonstration
taken to the local commissariat, shackled to a chair
interrogated for three hours, then gang-raped
by five men in uniform: the medical report
mentions vaginal lacerations

…there’s this white man on all fours
this mechanical battering ram is pumping
an ebony dildo into his ass…

My next client, your Honour: age 31, father of four, devoted husband
political activist, detained and tortured, his right shoulder blade
splintered, batons shoved into his rectum until he passes out
coming to by the side of a road, thirteen days in hospital
six weeks in traction, splinters surgically removed from his bowels
refugee nightmares in his Toronto rooming house

…then there was this young woman, stainless steel clamps
stretching apart her labia back across her pale white thighs
and she’s gagged with what looks like a fearsome billiard ball…

My next client: age 14, forced to become the third wife
of a 51 year-old man whom she doesn’t even know
she runs away, is caught, held down
and the marriage is consummated
he, discovering she is impure, has her excised
the medical report states that she has no labia, nor clitoris
she is beaten, whipped, abused for the next twelve years
until he dies and she, at last, flees

I gaze at my friend, chattering, cool
What treasures we human beings are