The Glitter Jungle:
Fiction:
Piggy Bank
"Break me. Whatever you find within, it's yours."
"Break me. Whatever you find within, it's yours."
And he stood before you, his eyes empty and at the same time full of not so much a promise as a dare, fierce and desperate and trusting, willing to give you everything. And you want this everything, you want to know what's inside. Behind the blank eyes that tell you so much.
So you agreed. You took this man you had once known so well and did things to him you never thought you'd do to anyone, things you only ever heard about, whispered in dark rooms and behind hands of giggling boys, far too hard-core for you when it came to men. But it's different, with him.
With time you found out things about him and about yourself that you weren't ready to know. You learned that you loved to hurt him for that reason alone - to know what's within. You found that he's not as weak as you'd thought, he's much stronger than you. You found he'd let you do all the things you've done to him, because he'd hoped that some day you will see it too; that you need to break him; that he needs it too.
Water out of a rock. In order to get water out of a rock you need to know the exact spot, and when you hit it, the entire thing crumbles. But if you don't know the spot, you can spend years beating granite futilely. And this man that you'd thought to be so pliant is made of solid rock, and apparently you don't know him as well as you thought you did.
You keep him at home. "Keep", like you'd do with a pet or a possession. To all appearances, everything's normal. You both have jobs and friends and seemingly, you're just a normal couple, if somewhat tense in social events. But when you're home, he's living in the cellar and you're in your bedroom on the second floor. When you let him upstairs, he sleeps at your feet. You own him, but it's like owning a very large animal with rather sharp talons. You're never quite sure why he lets you treat him the way you do. You're never sure why you treat him that way in the first place. He just looks at you sometimes, and you can read that same pledge in his dark eyes. Whatever you find within, it's yours.
And one day, after a time that seems like forever but was surprisingly short, you find the key, you find the right spot to draw water out of the rock. You break him. You didn’t expect it to happen this way. He's open now, bleeding tears and sobs and years of grief and regrets. It's pain like you never knew existed, and when it's all drained away, you finally see what's within.
You see yourself.
And for the first time in your life, it's yours.