The Art of Sexual Grooming

Step 1:
Befriend someone and study her
like scientists examine microscopic organisms
beneath the ocean’s surface.
Learn her likes, dislikes, if she hates her parents and why.

Step 2:
After learning that she’s a loner looking for simple companionship,
start eroding her carefully constructed walls,
break down bricks with warm hugs, a soft hand on her back,
and promises of forever friendship.

Step 3:
Teach her about her body.
Educate her on what it can really do,
the things her mother and school never taught her
because they were “dirty.”
She’ll thank you later.

Step 4:
The first time you put your tongue in her mouth,
she will recoil, but don’t worry.
Persistence is key.

Step 5:
The first, and only, time she is drunk around you,
she will be suicidal and threaten to go to her room downstairs
to cut and bleed to death.
Do not get her help.
Instead, carry her to your room,
and when she starts to thrash about, seeking reprieve in death,
hold her down, grab her wrist (but not too hard),
and introduce her to your manhood.
When she is startled and traumatized enough to be calm,
to stop seeking hope in permanent silence,
remove her hand, sit her upright, and make her orgasm.
Even though she cannot consent,
you’ll think yourself a hero
for preventing her from prematurely dying.

Step 6:
When you force her into the shower
and arouse her against her will,
she will tell you “No.”
Do not stop until she says it two more times.
She’ll see the monster you truly are
but, of course, by then, it’ll be too late.
You’ve got her wrapped around your entire hand.
Congratulations.

~

An Additional Step:
Make her miss you.
She’ll be free of you one day, but not today.
Today, you still affect her.
She will message you on Facebook on an unsuspecting night,
and find you the same way she left you.
There’s no explanation for what she did,
except you groomed her too damn well.

Four years later, and she still feels its effects.
She blocked you afterwards but she still knows by heart
your boa constrictor ways.
She still sees your face in the shadows of her bedroom,
still feel your hands wrongfully claiming her,
but is comforted by the memory of cocoon hugs and tickle fights,
of meals shared and belly-aching laughter
when the world became too much,
which is bat-shit crazy,
but you did your job well.
What else is there to say?