"You're not keeping it?"
"I don't need to." He tapped his temple. "Every word is carved into my memory. Every beautiful, broken, shameful truth you shared. Part of my collection of you."
"That's creepy."
"Probably." He smiled, unrepentant. "But then, so is getting aroused by your own degradation. We're perfectly matched in our damage."
I laughed despite myself, the sound hoarse but real. "Two broken people playing shameful games."
"Two broken people finding wholeness in the breaking." He corrected. "Finding freedom in the very things that should cage us."
The recording had finally stopped, leaving blessed silence. But I could still hear echoes—my voice describing needs I'd never have admitted before. Things that would have destroyed me with shame in my old life.
But this wasn't my old life.
This was something new, built on the ashes of who I'd been. A life where I could beg to be used and be treasured for the begging. Where degradation was a door to deeper intimacy. Where shame transformed into connection instead of isolation.
"Three days left," I said against his chest.
"Three days." Agreement and promise. "Then the rest of our lives to explore every dark corner we uncovered."
"Will you still make me say shameful things?"
"Sometimes." His arms tightened around me. "When you need to purge poison. When the shame builds up and needs release. When you forget that wanting degrading things doesn't diminish your worth."
"What if I can't in the real world? What if outside these walls, I lose the ability to be honest about what I need?"
"Then we'll practice." Simple, certain. "In our mountain house with no one to judge. In whispers and screams and every volume between. Until shame becomes just another tool for pleasure instead of a weapon against yourself."
"You make it sound easy."
"Nothing about us is easy." He shifted me, meeting my eyes. "But it's worth it. You're worth it. Every shameful word and degrading need. Every dark truth you trust me with. Worth all of it and more."
"Even when I beg to be nothing but holes for you to use?"
"Especially then." No flinch at the crude words. "Because you trust me to treasure you even at your most degraded. To see your worth even when you can't. To hold all your shameful pieces and call them beautiful."
"I love you," I said, meaning it with every atom.
"I know." He smiled, soft and dangerous and mine. "Love you too. All of you. Even the parts that horrify you. Maybe especially those parts, because they're the ones that need love most."
We stayed there as afternoon bled toward evening, two broken people who'd found permission in each other's damage. The USB drive sat untouched—evidence I could face later or never. Proof that I'd survived speaking my worst truths aloud.
Three days left of structured destruction.
A lifetime after that of rebuilding with someone who saw beauty in my degradation.
Who helped me transform shame into something shareable.
Who loved me not despite my need to be ruined but because I trusted him with that need.
The thought should have terrified me. Instead, I just held him tighter, this man who'd taught me that the most shameful words could become prayers if spoken to the right person.
And he was the right person.
The only person who could hear me beg to be degraded and somehow make me feel elevated.
The only one I trusted to break me into nothing and rebuild me as something precious.
