the hole left behind

an anonymous reader left a very perceptive comment on the story Holes for Rent:

“the story telling was very good indeed...but for some reason it had me in tears…”

ever since i posted that story, i’ve been mulling over a follow-up post. at the same time, i’ve been filled with some odd and sad feelings that i haven’t quite been able to pin down.

at first i thought it was the let-down after the intensity of the writing and of the fantasy itself. i am subject to mood swings, and am quite familiar with the lows that can hit after periods of very strong feelings or accelerated activity. so initially, this essay was going to be about my gratitude to this community for giving me a place where my darkest fantasies will be accepted, even admired. certainly, they are not the darkest that can be found in the BDSM universe.

i was also going to express my love for and gratitude to the philosopher. he not only accepts my dark side; he finds there inspiration and acceptance for his sadistic fantasies. it is, as he says, the way we play, and the unflinching erotic revelations we make to each other are both part and cause of a level of intimacy which i, for one, have never experienced before.

but my mood has grown sadder since i hit PUBLISH POST on the story, and i’ve been disturbed at the image that has been growing in my mind. i’ve seen the exhaustion as being akin to what follows an extreme bout of constipation. the story itself appears to me as a preternaturally gigantic turd which i had been carrying around for days. after a long bout on the toilet, and much sitting and pushing (just think how much reading i would have gotten done!), i was finally able to expel it. slowly. painfully. all in one piece. and then i emerged, grateful at being emptied, but drained of energy and a little shaken.

obviously, there is some ambivalence there about the true acceptability of my fantasy.

this morning i suddenly remembered a similar reaction a few weeks ago, after giving birth to a very dark story about being branded, which the philosopher commanded me to write for him. (he has not permitted me to publish it, wanting to keep it for himself. probably just as well…) the mood hung on for days, and i eventually put it down to hormones, which is always a possibility. but there does seem to be something else at work.

part of it, i think, is a need for aftercare. hands-on aftercare. cuddling care. it’s been about 4 months since the philosopher and i have seen each other and it’s becoming very hard. and while with a word, or the most subtle inflection, he can still instantly start me twitching and sliding down into subspace, i find myself yearning to curl up on the couch, to be held, to walk in the park hand-in-hand.

as inadequate as the word sounds, i want to be his girlfriend.

and given how my eyes and throat got all teary when i wrote that first sentence about aftercare, i do think that is part of it. not all, certainly, but a part. maybe it’s that i need that sweet reminder that i haven’t been banished for the darkness inside me. and that what we have between us is not, after all, but another fantasy.

i miss you.