Page 13 of Malliko
Avoiding his analytical gaze, I answered. “You mean am I single?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think that’s relevant for your work, is it?”
Malliko might be physically pleasing to look at, but his manners were lacking, and I didn’t like having to tell him off. Tosmooth out the awkward moment, I pointed to my screen and explained, “So the way we moderators work is that we deal with all the reports from users about inappropriate behavior.
“It takes three reports from three different accounts to place someone on the list that Kenny and I go over. We also look into the profiles that get flagged by our junior moderators. You won’t find our moderators here in the office because they work part time from home. We have about fifty of them. Often the reported profiles are members of Go2Match Kink who overstep boundaries when they talk to regular Go2Match users.”
“What’s Go2Match Kink?”
I opened up the list of reported profiles. “It’s the part of our platform where people are openly admitting that they have different fetishes and kinks. It can be anything from adult babies to hardcore BDSM. In the beginning, I was shocked by some of the people in there, but by now it’s all just another day at work.”
“Tell me about the most extreme cases you’ve seen in your work.”
I gave him a sideways glance. “You sure you wanna know?”
“Of course, this subject is highly interesting to me.”
“Then let me think. Actually, I think we’ve all heard about extreme cases when it comes to the physical part. The ones that are into sadism and masochism. Sometimes, I’ll look into a profile and feel sad about the abuse that’s involved and yet…” I paused for a second. “The ones that have affected me the most are when it comes to the mental games that people play.”
“Like what?”
“Well, one guy had a kink of being taken advantage of by women. His kink was being treated as an ATM. He didn’t want to meet with the women, but he would approach them online and ask for them to suck him dry of money.”
Malliko crossed his arms. “Why?”
I shrugged. “See, that’s the part I’m fascinated by. I used to dream about studying psychology, but in some ways, I’ve gained an insight into sexology through my work that is unique. There are also the people who get off on being used as a slave. It can relate to house chores, sexual favors, or even toilet slaves. I had one recently who was reported for the most obscure reason.”
“Did you say toilet?” Malliko asked with confusion on his handsome face. “As in they clean toilets?”
“Not quite.” I left out the graphic details. “The man had signed a contract to come to a woman’s house every day after work and to be chained to her bathroom where he would serve as her toilet. When he stopped coming, she reported him in anger.”
Malliko’s strong reaction made me smile a little. “Go2Match Kink can be a pretty dark place and working here, you cannot be judgmental. People describe their most inner thoughts and dirty fantasies. Honestly, nothing surprises me anymore.”
His hands fell to his sides. “No, I can imagine. Humans are…”
“Strange?” I said when he trailed off.
“No, I meant that they are more interesting than I expected.”
I raised my eyebrows. “That’s one way of saying it, but what I like about Go2Match Kink is that people in there are brave and honest. They’re exploring their sexuality instead of suppressing it. From a psychology point of view, you could argue that they’re often confronting and integrating their shadows. Although I’m not sure they are aware enough to understand that’s what they’re doing. I find shadow work fascinating.”
I looked at him and could tell he wasn’t following so I elaborated, “Shadows are the parts of you that aren’t pretty. The parts that you like to hide from others.”
“Give me an example.”
“It’s different for everyone, but it could be your anger, your need to hurt others, your need to be hurt by others, yourpromiscuity, or your need to be babied. Everyone has shadows and there are too many different ones to mention them all. All I know is that when people suppress their shadows for too long, they come out in destructive ways that ruin people’s lives.”
My vanity loved how he watched me as if everything I said was highly fascinating. “What are your shadows, Clara?”
I moved in my chair. “Probably anger. I got screwed over by my ex and there’s a lot of resentment in me.”
“Are you integrating that anger?”
I didn’t like his question and made a joke. “Yes, every night when I drink a glass of wine. I sip on my anger and resentment, and it tastes amazing.”
“You can drink anger?” Malliko scratched his chin, which had a stubble. “Maybe I’m not understanding you right.”
