7

I can’t say no. I want to, but I can’t. Not anymore. 

My boss came up to me, demanded that I work triple overtime without extra pay. His face was expressionless, his voice monotone.

And I said yes.

The words just tumbled out of my mouth.

I tried to say no, but my throat locked up on me.

St. Clair was stunned. 

He nodded, then walked away.

So I worked until 9, then stayed until 10. Because he asked me to. Because he told me to give the office a once-over, to make sure everything was clean.

I only stopped the data entry at 9 because he told me to stop. It felt like being in the subway car again when they held me down, able to twitch, but still held in place.

My wrists hurt. My hands hurt. My back hurts.

The eyes are still watching me. I feel them every time other people are near me. I can feel them staring, like they can see the words on my chest. I feel them every time I turn on a light.

But in the dark, I’m reminded that It still knows where I am. In the dark, I still hear growling outside my window.

6

Something is very wrong with me.

Something is very truly and deeply wrong with me.

I’m losing my mind.

I think I’ve already lost it.

That’s why people hallucinate, right?

I saw...things....things I don’t even know how to reconcile.

And it all came true, even though it wasn’t real.

I was on the subway again, headed to my parent’s house, trying to rest my eyes.

And that’s when I heard the growling. 

And that’s when I saw the dog. 

The massive, black, ragged, angry dog, blood weeping from burning eyes. 

I tried to scream, but nobody heard me screaming.

They all kept looking away.

They kept looking away as it padded down the subway car towards me, twisted claws leaving holes where it stepped.

I tried to run away, stumbling back a few seats. I reached the doors, pulling at them. But I saw the dark behind the glass. We were still in the tunnel.

No way out.

I could smell the dog’s breathe now.

The stench of a thousand rotten corpses, of a thousand broken bones, of a thousand limbs ripped off and cast aside.

Of a thousand tears. Of a thousand secret stories. Of a thousand little secrets people would rather have left buried in the dirt. 

I could hear them whispering softly, those secrets. I could hear them screaming.

The people couldn’t see the dog, couldn’t see me, but they were still watching. Always watching. I felt their eyes all looking, then saw the stares riveted to my every move.

The dog moved closer.

I tripped over someone, falling to the ground. I looked up to meet that empty-eyed stare.

But they weren’t empty.

Someone’s head split open, jaw crunching as it split outwards.

Wet tearing noises echoed in the car as Someone’s face burst at the center seam. 

I could see the muscles and the skull and the cartilage being twisted, pushed, moved aside and forced away as a massive, soft white bulge pushed its’ way to the front of the mess where Someone’s face had been.

That bulge rolled towards me, and a black circle pierced by little bright dots became stained with blood and fluids and bits of flesh and bits of bone as it looked at me.

Someone wasn’t really Someone after all.

ACCUSED IS NOW PRESENT. PROCEEDINGS MAY BEGIN.

The pink, pulsing tube that led to its’ throat quivered as a voice that sounded like a hundred shards of metal grinding on a hundred other shards of metal filled the silence. I should have covered my ears but I couldn’t. I couldn’t scream, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t do anything. 

I could just look into that Eye. 

I could just look into that Eye and feel all those other sets of eyes boring into me.

THE PROSECUTOR WILL PRESENT EVIDENCE.

The dog was growling again. I shivered when it brushed my arm on its’ way forward. That fur was full of dirt, full of hushes and no-one-need-ever-knows. I could feel the secrets it had ripped from people.

I could feel my secrets being ripped away as it suddenly turned and sank those rotten fangs into my chest. They felt cold. I felt little barbs tearing deeper into my chest, twisting and squirming. I tried to scream, but I still couldn’t scream. I still wasn’t allowed.

I also wasn’t allowed to make any sound when the dog opened its’ mouth and dropped something in front of the Eye.

Somethings.

My things.

My private things.

A collar. A gag. A crop. A set of handcuffs. A memory card that I’d locked away after recording only three videos.

They lay there before the Eye, and for a fraction of a second it looked down. 

And then it looked back up.

ACCUSED HAS BEEN CHARGED WITH SEXUAL DEVIANCY AND PERVERSION. JURORS WILL NOW GIVE THEIR HONEST OPINION AS TO WHETHER THESE CHARGES ARE CORRECT WHEN APPLIED TO THIS ACCUSED.

I was allowed to look at the people.

I know I don’t know what people are thinking.

I know I can’t read minds. 

But I know faces.

I know what disgust looks like.

I know the face of a mother trying to beat the wrong out of her child.

There were now dozens of those faces.

And every single one of them opened their mouths to say

“Pervert.”

“Freak.”

“Sick fuck.”

“Mentally disturbed.”

“Pathetic.”

“Weak.”

“Disgrace.”

“Slave.”

The dog’s teeth were bared, cracked and blistered gums withering into what I will swear to anyone who will listen was something approximating a bloody smile. 

JURY HAS FOUND ACCUSED GUILTY OF ALL CHARGES.

The Eye drew me back into its’ depths; it placed its’ hands on me, fingers pressing into my head. The little points of light began to light up, swirling and changing colour. 

ACCUSED IS NOW GUILTY.

THE JUDGE WILL NOW PASS SENTENCE.

GUILTY WILL BE ADORNED AS HIS CRIME BEFITS.

People stood up, still empty and staring. They loomed over me. I tried to struggle, but only managed little shaking spasms as they moved over me, taking off and removing, looking at every inch of me. Then came the fastening and securing.

I couldn’t see. 

I was still looking into the Eye. 

It was starting to hurt.

The edges of my vision blurred. My head started to ache. Those fingertips became hot.

GUILTY’S PERVERSE AND IMMORAL DESIRE IS TO BE MADE A SLAVE.

GUILTY WILL CONSEQUENTLY BE CONSIGNED TO THIS STATE ETERNALLY.

THE JUDGE WILL NOW STRIP GUILTY OF ALL INHIBITIONS AND RESERVATIONS.

THE JUDGE CONDEMNS GUILTY TO BE UNABLE TO DISOBEY ANYONE ANYTHING.

My head swam, that Eye filling me up and pushing fire into my brain, molding and changing and scorching the parts of my head that everyone had just called bad.

I was allowed to scream then.

So I screamed.

I screamed until I ran out of air.

Until my throat was bloody and raw, until it felt like someone had poured battery acid into my lungs.

Until I passed out.

And when I did wake up, the train had stopped. The doors hissed open, and the name of the station where I was going to meet my parents greeted me, big and black and bold.

I ran out of there, head still smoldering, eyes still hurting.

I think I’d lost bladder control. There was something warm running down my leg. People were giving me strange faces that I couldn’t focus on clearly. I kept moving, kept running through the station until I spotted them.

My parents were waiting further down the platform, all prim and proper in their Sunday best, stern looks fixed on their faces. My father’s hair was greying gracefully at the temples. My mother still wore hers in an old-fashioned bun that might’ve been fashionable fifteen years ago.

I raced up to them, panicked. My mother gasped, my father held his arms out, keeping me back. Their mouths were moving, but everything sounded so distant, so far away. 

I forced myself to take a moment. I stepped back, rubbing my eyes to clear them.

When I looked up, someone was walked by me. He was laughing. 

He was laughing at me.

Everyone was laughing at me.

Or trying not to laugh.

Or pointedly looking away.

Or walking away.

Or sneering.

My mother was horrified, unable to finish a sentence.

My father was demanding that I tell him what’d happened, what was going on.

I still didn’t understand. I looked down.

I was naked.

I was naked except for the collar.

And the gag.

The handcuffs dangled from my left wrist.

There was writing on my chest.

Pervert

Bitch

Movement caught my attention, I turned to see another eye; the live feed camera.

I could see myself on the screen, on every screen throughout the platform.

And so could everyone else.

I started sobbing. My vision was clouded again, this time by tears.

My father took a tentative step towards me, half-frozen by shock and disgust.

I ran out of the station, trying to cover myself with my hands. Later, I stumbled into a store whose name I don’t remember. I grabbed a coat and some other clothes. I took a cab home.

I don’t know how any of that happened.

I just know that it did.

My parents called me twice. I let the machine get it. They didn’t leave any messages.

Nobody from work has called me.

I keep checking YouTube obsessively, wondering when I’m going to end up as a viral hit.

Wondering exactly how many people saw me.

I still feel watched.

I can still feel all those eyes on me.

I need to go lie down

5

I’ve not been doing well lately. I...I can’t sleep. I can’t sleep, and I feel like I’ve got eyes staring at the back of my head at all times. It’s difficult to focus on anything, let alone work. My boss has become increasingly demanding, and I’ve become increasingly short in my dealings with him. St. Clair is amused, but I know that my previous politeness will only provide me so much leeway before the boss snaps.

I need this job. I need this job to pay for the house. If I can’t pay for the house, I’m going to end up moving back with my parents, and...and I really don’t think that’ll be healthy for anyone involved in that situation. 

My parents aren’t bad people, really. They’re just really set in their ways, always have been and always will be. They don’t take kindly to people who reject or step outside their definition of respectable. I  kept my toes on the line, always obeyed, always being the good kid, but it was strangling. Once I finished school, the opportunity presented itself to leave my parents’ home, and I leapt for it. For those first few weeks on my own, I felt like I was finally free; I could finally breathe. I had a place all to myself, where it was perfectly acceptable to be me. 

But I’m still dealing with the fallout from spending so much time with my parents. That’s why I started this blog, after all. 

That’s my fifth confession, I guess. I’d almost rather be homeless than go back home with my parents.

Which is what makes their little weekend visits like the one rapidly approaching so arduous. 

We’ll see if I can weather the storm on little to no sleep. 

4

This is my fourth confession.

I think I have some sort of psychological issue; I sometimes feel as if someone’s looking at me, staring. I feel this acutely after sex or any sexual activities (especially when I’m subbing)...

But I’ve been feeling it pretty intensely these past few days. I feel like people are watching me in the office, in the subway. It’s bad in the subway, since there’s an entire crowd of people looking in every direction, and you’re never quite able to tell if the person sitting across from you is looking at you, beyond you, or through you. 

This feeling peaked when I was sorting through the mail. I found a plain brown envelope, slightly battered, torn in places, and damp. It had no name on it, no address, no postage. There was a small square of paper inside:

you have been summoned to TRIAL

<o>

Some joker decided to put this in my mail, no doubt. Though, I can’t understand why, it probably wasn’t even left for me. But that stupid little symbol set on edge. The hairs on the back of my neck are prickling even now. I can’t stop looking around, and I’ve even gone over to the front window a few times. I don’t know what I’m supposed to see...

Maybe I’m still shaken up from the dog incident. I should try taking a nap, my boss is not going to be merciful if I come to work tired and listless. Heh, St. Clair says that pity’s not something he’s able to feel.

Call Animal Control

Of course. Of course, it had to decide to stop at my door at one in the morning. 

And of course it had to rip at the wood with those hideous front claws. 

I stumbled to the front door in my underwear, rubbing my eyes and trying to focus...until I heard the growling. That’s about when the fear kicked in, the adrenaline rush following in its footsteps. I crept over to the light switch on the balls of my feet, placing a hand over the panel in the dark. My fingers fumbled around for a few seconds before I finally found the correct plastic nub. I leaned over to look outside the window, trying to get a good look at the dog; I was able to only make out the outline of a shape black as pitch. When I flicked the switch, the lightbulb above my porch sputtered a few times before finally setting on. I...this is going to sound really stupid, but I swear that the damn thing’s eyes were glowing. 

As soon as I turned the light on, the dog turned its’ head. It looked at me. I yanked the blinds down, practically sprinting back to my bedroom. I leaned on the door for a while, trying to breath as quietly as I possibly could. I heard more scratching and shuffling and growling, until finally the thing plodded off. 

Now there are claw marks on my door. The entire porch has this foul, stinging smell about it. And I don’t know how it accomplished this, but the dog also knocked over the mail box, apparently for very un-canine reasons since the mail itself was left unmolested. 

I asked my neighbor if he’d encountered anything similar, showing him the marks on my door. I don’t know what war the man living next to me fought in, but it must’ve been bloody, because he was decidedly unimpressed. He just shrugged, said he hadn’t seen anything.

Now I’ve got to put in more hours at the office to pay for repairs, which means more quality time with my psychotic boss. I’ve got to be careful, he’s been eyeing my laptop. I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if he demanded it sometime soon.

It...it followed me.


It followed me to my work. It was waiting there, right in front of my office building as I was just about to step outside for lunch.

I saw how dirty it was, how greasy and grimy that coat of fur really is. It saw me through the glass. It must have seen me, because it started growling when I took a step forward.

This...this sounds crazy, but the corners of its' mouth were twitching. Like...

Like a smile.


Agh, I'm freaking out over some stupid dog meandering around the city. It's late. I should sleep.

3

My third confession is somewhat prompted; I’m afraid of dogs.

When I was younger, a dog chased me up a tree. That memory really stuck

with me, the smell of the pine, and my sweat, and the stench of wet fur...I’d

wrapped my arms around the trunk, clinging for dear life in the rain. My

brother came and chased the dog away about an hour later.

I get nervous around dogs to this day, even when they’re leashed. I absolutely

loathe having to sit in the same subway car with a dog. I feel like there’s less

room for me to escape.

So, you can imagine that I wasn’t very pleased to notice a black dog roaming

my street a few hours after getting home from work. It’s a beast of a thing too;

ragged black fur, practically a wolf, these starved leering eyes...

Why nobody walking by has already chased it away is anyone’s guess. Maybe

they think that it’s normal for a massive dog to stalk suburbs (spoiler alert; it

isn’t)? Maybe they just don’t want to get involved.

It’s going around the neighborhood sniffing at doors, pawing at them.

Hopefully, it’ll soon realize that nobody’s interested in feeding it and wander

off.

2

This is my second confession (heh, haven’t kept a count since elementary

school).

I kind of hate my boss.

Now, I’m nice to everyone. I give people the benefit of the doubt, and try to

remain civil even if or when they prove to be disingenuous. And I am nice to

my boss when he interacts with me. This ensures that I have no problems with

him. Frankly, I think that it’s the only reason he doesn’t have a fit when I turn

down his crazy requests.

I’ve seen him ask people to work double overtime, unpaid. I’ve seen him ask a

coworker to come in after the office has closed for the weekend. I’ve seen him

try to coerce the custodial staff into cleaning his house for free.

I’ve seen him issue reprimands and warnings when an employee turns him

down with the slightest hint of sarcasm or any tone filled with less than

complete apology.

My coworker and I (let’s call them St. Clair) will swap stories over break about

the crazy shit we’ve seen him do. Today, he almost made a new employee have a

heart attack when he decided that she’d broken office policy by failing to

organize the paperclips on her desk by colour. He actually worked up a sweat;

St. Clair said his brain was about to boil over, since his facial expression hardly

ever varies. It’s almost mask-like.

St. Clair jokes frequently, and a bit too loudly for my taste. Our boss is

constantly on a witch-hunt for anyone who’s speaking ill of him, and I’m afraid

that one day someone’s going to rat St. Clair out...

But I’ll admit, the long subway ride home becomes funnier when I think about

some of her insults.

1

So, uh, this is the first thing I want to “confess”, or talk about, or whatever.

I’ll...I’ll just go right out and say it.

I’m submissive.

Yes, as in sexually. Please don’t laugh, it’s really not funny, I’m so afraid of being

laughed at because of it. I was raised to understand that this sort of thing isn’t

right, that it’s immoral. But I can’t help what I like. And what I like happens to

involve being ordered around in the bedroom and-

Okay, so, I’d feel a lot better if I just laid out exactly what that means to me:

1) I’m not a slave; I wouldn’t want my partner to control every aspect of my

life. I am still independent, and I don’t enjoy being commanded outside of

the bedroom.

2) I enjoy being gagged. I enjoy being hit to a certain extent, but I’m not really

into being beaten to the point of bruising or welts. I don’t get off on just

someone laying into me either, it has to be someone I love, and it has to be

in a sexual context. So, if my partner started punching me for no reason, I’d

be extremely hurt and upset, not aroused.

3) I’m definitely not into being humiliated or insulted. Look, being different

while raised by very strict parents was difficult enough; being bullied didn’t

really help my self-esteem.

That feels...actually kind of better. As mentioned previously, I was raised to

believe that what I like is wrong, so I’ve kept it to myself for about as long as I

can remember. I know I shouldn’t feel so badly about it, but I’m still ashamed

to a certain extent.

Hopefully I’ll get better.

Preface

Everyone has secrets.

Secrets are heavy; they weigh us down every day, getting heavier and heavier

the longer they’re kept bottled up inside.

That’s why most people ease their burden by letting their secrets out. Some

people tell those they trust. Others go to a priest, seeking forgiveness for their

sins. Still more write in a journal, or diary.

I don’t really have anyone I’d readily trust with my secrets. I’m not particularly

comfortable filling my notebook with personal information, and I haven’t felt

particularly religious for quite a long time.

So, I think I’ll unburden myself here. Anonymously, of course; the Internet

isn’t the most private of places, after all. On the off chance that someone

stumbles across my blog, they’ll have no idea who’s actually posting these

“confessions”.

Who am I?

I’m just another Sinner, disclosing all my misdeeds to an audience who’ll never

know who I am.

Until next time.