I never intended to treat him any different from my other experiments. When I first met him I assessed him and decided on my strategy to break him just like I had done with all his predecessors. He was nothing but another subject to my ever-growing need for knowledge and power.
Despite how it started, Experiment Nr 7 is special. He is special to me of course, since I collared him, but… there is more.
I have a very special way of treating the people I claim to care for.
I hurt them. Deliberately.
I observe them, analyse them, and use my knowledge to cause them pain. Little hits, pushing things just a tiny bit past someone’s border, but pain nevertheless, preferably emotional pain. I need to remind them whom they’re dealing with, at all times. I need to maintain a certain distance or they will lose their respect for me. The physical pain I cause is a way of releasing physical pressure in myself, the emotional pain… it just comes forth from my need to see people crumble, to hurt them in their mental insides.
Is this kind of sadism a sign of weakness, like bullying is a sign of uncertainty? I don’t know. Perhaps it is. I don’t really care.
There was a time when I pretended to be sorry for the hurt I caused, a time when I actually wanted to feel bad about it. That time came and went. Just like I am not ashamed of who and how I am, I am not ashamed of the implications. I’m not in denial about how absolutely obnoxious and hard-to-handle they make me either, though. I am an interesting person to have as a friend, but a true hell to live with or be in any more personal relationship with. “Commitment Issues” has my name written all over it.
Experiment Nr 7 is a sensitive young man with a heavy past and a history of mental illness. Society would classify him a “damaged article”. Yet despite his problems and hypersensitivity to insults, humiliation and being ignored, he still wants to be with me. He doesn’t like the things I do to him; he’s not really a masochist… He takes them because he respects me.
He respects me even when I break down and he has to scoop me up from the floor and convince me no one’s going to hurt me.
He respects me even when I say things that break his heart just because I can.
He respects me not only when he is tied up and at my mercy, but also when he has the upper hand over me.
He respects me even when I act so childish that I actually don’t deserve his respect.
In a way I think he understands me in a way I don’t/can’t/won’t understand myself. I have told him that… well, that all books say that people with my disorder are “toxic” in relationships. I know that every time he looks at me with those hurt eyes, asking me without words why the hell I did that to him, he thinks of that.
It is true, what the books say. It is not the whole truth though.
Despite everything I believe I can have a relationship that isn’t toxic. I believe that our BDSM dynamic balances out my controlling behaviour, narcissistic tendencies and lack of empathy.
Our relationship is based on mutual respect.
I may hurt Nr 7, both physically and emotionally, but I do respect him. I respect him because every time I hurt him I feel, I see how he grows stronger. More hardened. Our dynamic makes him stronger, and I respect him because he doesn’t break under me. I don’t consciously want him to break, but I have to test him. I have to experiment. He trusts me, which is naive… and very insightful too. I will not allow anyone else to hurt him. I will defend him through anything if necessary. He must fear me, but in his fear for me I will teach him not to fear anyone else but me…
Half a year. No psychiatrist would have given us this long…
We're All Mad Inhere 
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