There’s so much that women have to fear when it comes to sex as it is. STDs, the dude not wearing a condom, the dude not wearing a condom and not pulling out, etc. But one thing that Amelia didn’t think she would ever have to be afraid of was her boyfriend of the moment, Seth, biting her cheek during it. And not just a “love bite” type of bite, but something slightly harder than that. Just hard enough to leave an imprint, but not hard enough to break the skin. A part of her almost wished it had been the latter because at least there was a protocol for treating and healing that type of bite.

With this “light bite,” however, Amelia was trapped with the sight of it—a slightly off-color, whiter skin patch—every time she looked in the mirror. Just at the top of her cheek and beneath her eye, where a brownish patch already resided due to the after-effects of sun exposure over the years. It was a patch she had been working diligently to diminish with a combination of an expensive serum, aloe vera and lemon juice. Alternating the days on which she used these “tools,” Amelia believed she was actually starting to see a difference on the very day that Seth decided to bite her (honestly, who the fuck did he think he was, Patrick Bateman?).

It was also on the very day that Seth decided to bite her that she had just come out of a rather long period of not being in a particularly sexual mood. In fact, she hadn’t been in one for about two months. Which she didn’t interpret as a good sign considering that she and Seth had only been dating for six months and, after the first four, she had sort of lost steam on the “putting out” front. She figured this might end up chasing Seth away but, for whatever reason, he didn’t try to break up with her or offer her some ultimatum. He never even addressed the elephant in the room—that they weren’t fucking enough—at all (though Amelia wasn’t a total “monster,” she did concede to doing other things). And so it was that on this day of noticing her face had improved that perhaps she herself felt improved overall. More confident in her appearance, therefore more confident in general. Which meant she suddenly didn’t mind the idea of being seen totally naked by Seth. Which meant she wasn’t totally offput by the idea of sex. Let alone the practice.  

What she hadn’t banked on was Seth’s overzealous response not only to the sight of her fully uncovered body (of late, she had taken to always keeping her shirt on whenever they did anything of a “hanky-panky” variety), but to the prospect of having “full sex” for the first time in two months. Evidently, this prospect turned him into something akin to a rabid animal. How else could his violently carnal reaction be explained? A “reaction” that resulted in him biting her cheek. What he would later try to bill as a “love bite.” But no, there was no love in it. Only brutality and selfishness. Of a form that was directly related to lust rather than love. What was even worse to Amelia was that, when she screamed out in horror (more than physical pain—though there was the emotional pain of knowing that her “money-maker” might be compromised), Seth had the audacity to be offended. The audacity to look at her as though she was killing “the vibe.” As though she was being “ridiculous.”

The expression on his face that read what’s the big deal was almost as shocking to her as the bite itself. And it was a shock that soon gave way to anger as she jolted backwards, wanting to get as far away from him as fast as possible. But rather than allowing her to do so, Seth kept trying to hold her in his arms and pull her back toward him while still kissing her all over her face. A maneuver that made her feel as much anxiety as it did rage while she squirmed and wriggled around to untangle herself from him, screaming, “Stop! Let me go!”

Finally, he did, laughing as he watched her retreat from him and the bed. As though it was nothing more than a “good-natured” joke to keep her pinned and restrained in that way. She went straight toward the full-length mirror hanging on the back of the bedroom door to assess the damage. What had he done to her precious face? The face she had been working so hard on of late. Trying so diligently to make it appear as it once did. And, for just a second there, it was appearing as before—that is to say, B.S. (Before Sun). And now, thanks to Seth’s “whimsical” “foreplay,” her skin was blemished in an entirely different manner. A manner that seemed somehow to make the brownishness of the skin stand out all the more against the contrast of the whiteness below it created by the bite mark area. Whereas if he had actually broken the skin, it would have “at least” been red. And maybe that would have been a less accentuating color against the brown. Either way, his actions pissed her off to no end. What on Earth was he thinking, doing something like that?

Of course, she knew that his answer (or anyone’s answer, really) would be that he got caught up in the “heat of the moment.” That it was nothing but an “act of passion,” so how could she possibly fault him? But she did fault him. And the entire rest of the day, she couldn’t stop examining her face. Tracking the progress, if any, that was being made vis-à-vis the traces of the bite mark, demarcated by slight teeth indentations that formed a shape akin to a mini heart (how ironic, she thought bitterly). Alas, every time she looked, not only was there no improvement to the mark, but it seemed to get worse with each new “viewing.” She couldn’t understand it. It was almost as though Seth’s bite was a curse. Though some said that love itself was just that. Except Amelia doubted that what she shared with Seth was love in its true and “pure” form. The bite had put none too fine a point on that (sharp teeth pun intended). And whatever Seth’s “intentions” (or lack thereof) were in doing what he did, it was irrelevant to Amelia. All that mattered to her was the result. An offending discoloration that was all she could see whenever she appraised herself now.

The more Seth tried to “soothe” her about it, telling her shit like “there’s nothing even there,” the more irritated she became. Not just with the fact that he had done this to her for the sake of “being fanciful,” but with him “on the whole.” And with this revelation came the understanding that she never wanted him to enter her hole again. His casual write-off of her feelings about being bitten on the face had sealed her commitment to breaking up with him. But before she did, she had a very important retaliative measure to implement. One that required Seth to think that everything between them was just fine. So she pretended to be “over it,” even going so far as to apologize to him and say she had “overreacted.” Men just love hearing that word coming out of a woman’s mouth. Almost as much as they love cumming. Thus, she “gave it to him real good” that night, in terms of laying the apology on thick. This included preparing him a home-cooked meal (penne arrabiata with a side of zucchini). A very important step in her plan because it meant being able to pour him a glass of wine. And being able to pour that glass of wine for him when he wasn’t looking also meant that she could pour in the GHB she had obtained for the occasion. She wanted him to be nice and knocked out for what was coming. A kindness, she felt, that proved the fundamental distinction between men and women: mercy.

Considering the amount of the substance that she had funneled into the wine, Seth had barely touched a few bites of the penne when the effects hit him like a Mack truck. He started to slump over and then, all at once, the heaviness walloped him, sending him face-first into the remainder of the pasta. At least he got a soft landing, she mused. Much better than what he had offered for her face.

Amelia sighed as she gathered the courage to complete what she knew needed to be done. And to give her the extra burst of motivation, she went over to the medium-sized square mirror in the entryway, ensuring just one last time that the white-hued, heart-shaped bite mark was still there. Still painfully noticeable. And it was. That was the final nudge she needed to carry out her revenge.

Dragging Seth to a more central, unencumbered-by-furniture part of the floor (to take him into another room would have been much too herculean an effort), Amelia then went over to the kitchen counter to pick up the pair of pliers she had set down by the knives. She knew this was going to be the hardest part, the part that might convince her to abandon her “diabolical” plan altogether. But she also knew that she had to stay the course. For the sake of women everywhere who had been bitten against their will (especially on parts of the skin that were visible to all) and told it was an “act of love.”

“I’ll show you an act of love,” Amelia sneered as she pulled out the first tooth. It made what some closed captions would call a “chittering sound” before a satisfying crack signaled it had been dislodged. Holding it up into the light to see it in all its bloody glory, Amelia thought to herself that it wasn’t so difficult after all. So “not difficult,” in fact, that before she knew it, she had pulled out every last tooth in that mouth of Seth’s. When he woke up, naturally, he wouldn’t know what hit him. Though he might initially assume that he really had been hit by something to feel such an intense level of agony. Oh how she would love to be there to see his face when he woke up. Better yet, when he looked in the mirror for the first time to see that he was all gums now. That his biting days were officially over. Sure, he could get dentures or some other form of fake teeth, but the principle behind what Amelia had done remained unchanged.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t stay to appreciate the full glory of her handiwork. For to linger in the same town—even the same country—as Seth would have been a big faux pas. And Amelia had decided that her faux pas-making era was finished after incurring this bite. She couldn’t help making just one, though, as she drove off into the night heading for the Canadian border: taking one of Seth’s incisors as a souvenir. Who knew, after enough time passed (to the point where she no longer noticed the mark as soon as she stared into the mirror), she might even wear it as a necklace. A trophy to remind her of how far she had come in terms of not tolerating any “boudoir antics” from men who claimed to be “just messing around.”