Quoted By:
I want Officer Brisko to not just break my body, but also my mind and spirit. I want him to keep my wrists and ankles tied in the early days, but in my desperation to escape I still manage to bite him when he leans in to move some hair out of my face, sinking my teeth deep into his hand. He hisses, swearing, and chokes me with his other hand until I let go, coughing and spluttering. He stares at the injury on his hand once he's free, tutting, and a dark thought forms in his mind;
"Oh? If you're going to bite like a dog, then I guess you're a dog."
His already cruel treatment towards me escalates quickly. I spend weeks chained to a radiator by a pronged collar, muzzled, drinking water out of a dog bowl. The metal box muzzle makes it difficult for me to drink; I have to press my face deep into the bowl to submerge myself enough to have any success, which causes the prong collar to dig into my neck. At first this pain makes me jerk backwards instinctively, but over time I learn to ignore the pain and dampen my own responses to it.
When Sonny realizes this treatment no longer has the effect on me it once had, he escalates again. He starts bringing in K9 units from work, calling them my playmates, and watches in amusement as I cower into the wall away from them. They snarl at me, ready to tear me apart if I move so much as an inch, and I have to learn not to flinch at their barking lest I get snapped at. Once I start learning how to still my movements, slow my breathing and make myself as small and nonthreatening as possible so they get bored and return their attention to Sonny, he starts praising me mockingly each time he brings them home for being such a good unit in training. Often he threatens to use me as a breeding partner for them. He doesn't go through with it, at least not yet, but the thought of those dangerous dogs drooling over me makes me feel lower than dirt. Just the possibility of it is what finally does me in.
My humanity slips away. I become despondent, my memories now alien to me. Sonny removes my muzzle for the first time in months and presses his finger into my mouth. I don't bite. He smiles.