• In the morning, The Honourable
• Minister For The Territorial Integrity of the Interior
• lifted himself from my bed
• using the same precision he’d
• deployed getting into it.
•  
• Legs arched at the knees,
• he swiveled, Honourably
• as if controlled
• by an invisible mechanical cord, 
•  
• He placed his Honourable size ten feet
• evenly on the fluffy rectangular rug
• that held his hand made slip-on shoes
• selected as much for comfort as for their obscene opulence
•  
• An Honourable man of exacting character,
• he considered a shoe
• of extremely comfortable fit
• a premium.
•  
• My shoe, he said to me,
• in an Honourable baritone,
• Well-made as it is,
• sends a signal to the rest of the world.
•  
• Tailored by the unforgettable hands
• of women and once virgin girls
• mothers and daughters sold into slavery
• by the disappointments of their homelands.
•  
• He gave an Honourable snort of the
• Calf’s nose leather, the Made from label read,
• Designed to give you a barely there feeling.
• Their colour: A bitter cinnamon stained in honey red.
•  
• They make me look sharper too, he explained, especially with
• my matching belt, motioning Honourably, at his mid riff.
• You know, he paused, left wrist catching the nothingness of air
• A man like me must have his regalia.
•  
• $ 1550.00 he’d paid, cash.
• I’d kept the box they came in for other things.
• It stood on a simple chest at the foot of the bed.
• Custom made, it read, ~Durability ~ Quality ~ Originality.
•  
• That evening he would lead
• This Honourable Minister,
• Who for 15 years had believed
• He’d had exclusive rent of me,
•  
• A first class military operation
• To clean up the streets of filth,
• Unaccompanied women
• And other dangerous undesirables.
•  
• A shoe, I thought
• Mmmm in mock pleasure
• Holding my box
• The dustbin of his leisure.
•  
• The independent papers would report
• That a sole had left its birthmark
• ~Durability ~ Quality ~ Originality
• On the faces of my sister hookers
•  
• While the solid silver buckle of its matching belt
• Struck Hure! Hure! Hure*!
• Causing a rise in welts
• Buttocks, thighs, breasts
•  
• He earned substantial praise from his superiors
• And an Honourable mention.
• That was until the same independent papers
• Carried a full colour spread
•  
• Of his explicit exploits and adult preferences
• With a woman who was identified only as The recently elected
• President Of the Society of Sex Worker Rights
•  and the Integrity of the real Interior.

* Whore, whore, whore.

Read other articles in the series, 16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence 2012.