Raped and conquered

I'm sitting on the edge of my bed,
too tired to remove my clothes.
Too tired to brush my teeth.
I'm sitting on the edge of the bed,
eyeing the corner...

My body remembers. More than
my mind, my body remembers
the position, the pillows, the sense
of you behind me. The sense
of your erection. The sense
of an eye that is also a mouth
focused on the target,
focused on the entrance
that was meant to be an exit.

I shiver. And the portcullis drops. Small
protection against determination and right.
The troops have fled, the oil is cold, and
the castle herself is ambivalent.
Bring on your battering ram.
Splinter the oaken door.
Rape, pillage, despoil, humiliate -
it's all mere ritual. The kingdom was
conquered months before. This
is but the final proof.
You drag your royal captive
naked through the streets.
You drag her bare and weeping to
the crowded village square.
You chain her in position and
you flog her till she bleeds.
And then the final proof, the
final act, cruel and clear.
You fuck her like an animal,
out in the village square.
you pierce her virgin asshole,
you fuck her till she screams,
you use her like your whore
and then you toss her to your troops.

But late that night
battered
sore
soldiers' seed
spilling from each hole
she crawls back to the castle
scratches on the door
begs for admittance
begs for an audience
abdicates her crown
and pleads to serve her Lord.

Giving thanks

Despite all the angst, all the tears, I really do have a lot to be thankful for.

To WHOM I will direct this thanks is an open question. My rabbi calls me a pantheist, and seems quite happy with that characterization. I love the ritual and ethics of Judaism, the commitment to making the world a better place, the awareness of rhythms and contrast, but my concept of God is pretty open and expansive and undefined. I have had odd experiences of... feeling something... it makes me uncomfortable to talk about it, I was brought up a Jewish atheist, not a Jewish pantheist, and these were not experiences I was looking for.

So I come equipped with this commune of deities of a sort.
The sun, for sure.
And Louise, the goddess of parking.

I have this vague sense of a deity of BDSM, who can be credited with (or blamed for) my discovery by the fiend. What happened thereafter all gets credited to my demon muse himself. When he wants something, he gets it. No question.

And then there is my captivating cane-wielding collector himself. I have occasionally referred to him as Apollo, who is, after all, the god of the sun, as well as of music, poetry, and the arts. And I do worship him...

So here, then, is a small list of thank-you's, sent out into the ether, and anyone or any thing is invited to accept responsibility where deemed appropriate.

First, thank you to all of us who made Barack Obama our new President, whether by knocking on doors or making phone calls or making the Great Schlep to Florida or persuading one neighbor or sending $5 or even just voting for him. I have never in my life felt like this, even in other cases where my candidate won. I have never before so truly felt that WE made this change, he is OUR president, and we together will make things better. I see him on television and I smile and say again, Yes We Can, together we can and he will lead us.

I am very grateful for having a job, because if I didn't it's unlikely I would get one for another two years. I'm especially grateful that my office is only a mile and a half from home, so that I can go home for lunch with the cats, and that I do seem to help some people - even if only by getting them to smile for a few minutes.

I am extremely grateful to and for my cats, who love me no matter what and make me feel needed. They are the only children I have.

I am grateful for my friends who are my family, and whom I know I can rely on in a crisis.

I am grateful for my blood relatives. Things could be a lot worse. (I know that sounds awful, but not everyone is comfortable with their family. Still, after years of making me feel as if I were a disappointment, they are a lot more accepting than they might be, and they didn't reject me when I came out as bi. They don't talk about it, but they didn't reject me.)

I am completely incapable of expressing how grateful I am to my demon muse. For everything. To start enumerating what he has done for me would be to trivialize it. Thank you, Sir. I will continually strive to be worthy of your selection of me.

And finally, the philosopher. I am ever so thankful for having had the philosopher in my life, and for whatever role he may continue to play. He opened the world to me. Whatever it all was for him, whatever it is for him now, whatever he can handle - he taught me about love, he brought a light into my life, and awakened my submission. He taught me what it is like to be friends with a lover. And if I have such a hard time giving it up, it's because he showed me how good it could be.

Re-writing reality

I'm very creative. That's why I fell into the clutches of my caning curator. But it's more than a question of talent. It's almost a compulsion. My brain works overtime.

It's not something I do deliberately. It's more as if they forgot to install an on-off switch. If my mind isn't engaged in some other activity that forces it to connect with the solid, present world, it is concocting poems, stories, scenarios...

This post took form as I transferred the laundry from the washer to the dryer. It continued as I prepared dinner, and acquired a title then as well.

This is not always a good thing.

When I arrive at work in the morning, I sit down at my desk and turn on the computer. At this point a responsible employee would settle down to work. And in a way, I AM being a responsible employee. Except not to the people who twice-monthly deposit my salary into my bank account. And I'm not acting as an employee exactly. I'm fulfilling my duties as a literary service slut, a wholly-owned pet poet, a modern-day Anaïs Nin creating on command for the erotic pleasure of my cruel collector. I sit down at my desk and poems rape my brain until I have to free them onto paper - or directly into an e-mail. Then I get in trouble because I rush them out and miss typos in my eagerness to say "Look, Sir! Look what I made for you!" like a child rushing home from pre-school with the day's finger painting, hoping to see it enshrined on the refrigerator.

My poems don't get hung on the refrigerator.

But it is not these creations that get me in trouble. I create scenarios. Fantasies of how I wish things to be. Fantasies that are so real, so plausible, so desirable, that I am disappointed when life has its own ideas.

You can, of course, see where this is going.

I wanted to believe that I could have a "real" relationship with the philosopher. I wanted to believe that he could be John, my boyfriend, as well as the philosopher, my party in playful perversion. He gave me almost no reason to believe that could be the case, he fought it every step of the way, he fled from almost anything that would be a step forward, and I adamantly, needily refused to see what was being shoved in front of my purple glasses. I hung on for dear life to the things that did speak of a real relationship, and took them to mean more than they really were.

He has a very hard time with the distance. If I lived nearby, he says, we could just be together, commune without speaking, get through the hard times on the strength of our uncanny connection on an almost soulful level. And then it might have worked. But there would have been another option as well. He could have come by for a few hours. We could have done our D/s thing, our whole scolding, punishment, redemption thing, gotten out of it what we each needed, and then he would have gone. We wouldn't have seduced ourselves with the perfection of the time we did spend together as... as together. As so close together. As so comfortable together. As so right together. Those rare amazing visits that made me think it was real, that made me write scenarios in my head, that made me expect, assume, WANT him to say he'd come down more often, he'd let me have dinner with his brother and sister-in-law, he'd resume our relationship on Labor Day...

I can't stop. I can't stop the fantasies. I see possibilities that seem reasonable and then I let myself in for disappointment when they don't come about.

I see him coming down for New Year's Eve.

I see him coming down for the Inauguration.

I see his mother, who was half-way to talking to me on the phone during those many long calls on Election Day - I see his mother saying "John, why don't you invite your friend up for Christmas?" And he goes pale, and gulps, and then says "Sure, Mom! I'll call her right now."

I set myself up for getting hurt.
I do it every time.
It's not his fault.
There is no one to blame but myself.

So much to say...

I've been writing a lot these days. But not for here. Sometimes three poems in the space of as many hours, interspersed with intense messages of a poetic flavor.

You've seen a few of the poems. But most of them feel too private. I write them for the man whose role I can't define with a single word, the man whose role is especially indefinable within the usual constructs of BDSM. I write for him, I write about him, I write because of him. He inspires me and pushes me. He prods and punishes and guides and instructs. He tells me what I've done and what he likes and what he wants, and when I look at poems from before he lured me into his dark den I can see ever so clearly how much I've grown.

There is so much I could say here, but it's late and I'm sleepy and I have a long drive on Thursday. There is so much to say but it is very intense, and I think I've been holding back because I've already overdosed on intensity lately.

The man who owns me but isn't my master likes lists, so here is a short list of things I could tell you about:

• a forced viewing of Phantom of the Opera (the musical) - I hated it when it first came out but sobbed through much of it this time. Think of the parallels with my current situation. Picture me bursting into tears when Raul first appears, his flowing reddish hair taking me by surprise.
• my orgasms have changed. I still cry, but...
  
• I disappeared for a few moments when the fiend was torturing my nipples - my first time.

I'm floating away now - not into subspace but into sleep... still I will take the time to mention this... the philosopher seems to be floating away as well. It's probably just because it's November. I was like that from a few days after Election Day until... well, until this weekend, actually. Until Sunday when I finally emerged from subspace (more or less) after my Saturday morning lesson. But he seems to have detached, which is hard after our having spent so many hours talking on Election Day. He reads this blog but he's quiet. He reads about S-- being here and my recent punishment, and the intense things I say about my torturing teacher, and I worry he thinks that I'm floating away and I panic and write him and probably make him want to hide somewhere I can't find him so he can get some peace from my emotional fits.

I write to reassure him but I'm also trying to reassure myself.

I don't know what's real any more. I don't know what I feel any more. Perhaps I'm moving towards truly letting go, which would be the wisest thing all around. I act as if I love him and say I have a broken heart but maybe it's just a habit. Maybe I miss being in love as much as I miss him.

I'm falling asleep.
I'm not sure what I've written.
I'll probably regret it in the morning.

But the holidays are always a time for looking back at holidays past. And last Thanksgiving I was giving joyous secret thanks for the sweet, smart, sadistic man who filled my thoughts and ate up the minutes on my cell phone.

I miss him, damn it.

I'm not very good at letting go.

Beaten

I hate the cane. Why do I yearn to submit to it? I truly hate it – your cane especially, Sir, it’s bigger than the jaunty, bouncy one with the curved handle that lives on a hook in the back of the closet. It’s heavier, and wider, and has that nasty ragged end with which you mark me. There are no pretenses about this one. It was made to do damage.

It’s that moment just before you strike. That moment when I demonstrate my submission, when my body says yes, do this to me, for your pleasure, for your satisfaction, because you need to be cruel, because you need to torture, because you need to send me a message that I will respect you, I will obey, I will treat my art as the treasure it is.

At that moment, when I get into position, when I offer you my defenseless flesh, when I scurry onto the bed, down on my knees and forearms, hands crossed, head raised, back arched, signaling my submission and acceptance and obedience and penitence… at that moment, amidst the haste and fear and panic… at that moment I am content.

And then you strike.
And there is nothing but the pain.
And I squirm and wriggle and try to escape –
not the cane itself, but the pain.

And there is no escaping the pain.

Considered dispassionately – though really, how can someone be dispassionate during such a beating – the pain wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Well, it never is as bad as it could be, he always holds back from what he could do. From what he has done to others. Not to me. He knows I couldn’t take it. And he knows he doesn’t need to. A fairly low level of abuse will get the desired response – which, I suppose, leaves the more extreme forms of evil for the time when my sins truly warrant them.

I sincerely hope my sins never warrant them.

He didn’t even beat me as hard as he has. But he beat me more than he has. He brought that strip of wood down on my bottom again and again and again. There was a long pause after the first strike, which allowed the pain to burrow down through the reddened flesh, through the fat, and into my muscles. Like a sponge soaking up a large spill, my buttock soaked up the pain and drew it down into itself.

What followed I don’t remember too clearly. At one point there were a few blows that came fast one after the other. These seemed somewhat less severe, but the accelerated pace made me feel more under attack. Others were more widely spaced but more brutal. As I said, I’m not sure. Because interspersed with it all were his words of anger and disappointment and correction. The scolding was at least as brutal as the caning.

The punishment was more than just the beating, and it went on for a long time. He reduced me to a quivering, bawling, pleading, snuffling mass, begging begging begging for forgiveness as I struggled to maintain whatever position he ordered me into, as I struggled to survive the pain, as I struggled to look in his eyes, as I struggled to convince him that my penitence was sincere.

Of course he enjoyed it. He’s a sadist after all. But it was real as well. For both of us.

I, however, did not enjoy it. Not at all. Not while it was happening. Afterwards, however… it’s not that I remember it fondly. But the intensity… the intimacy… the depth of submission… feeling that owned, being that owned that he knows he can use me as he wishes, punish me as he wishes…

I take that back. I retract the above. In some way, I DID enjoy it as it was happening. I hated it, that part is true. But there was such a high…. endorphins and adrenalin and even more… the assaults with wood and hand and words… the pulled hair, the twisted nipple, the chain tight around my neck… it was horrible and beautiful and everything I took, everything I was subjected to, everything I accepted as my due said Yes! I am your pet, I am your poet, I have offered you my service – no, I BEGGED to be allowed to serve you – and by submitting to this punishment I say Yes! you have the right to expect certain behavior from me and Yes! I will give you what you require and Yes! I am committed to being what you want me to be so you will want me and keep me and use me and enjoy me and be proud of your property, be proud of your pet, and please please so you won’t send me away.

I can’t bear being sent away.

Marko gives a lesson in submission

I was in the bathroom last night, preparing for bed. Preparing for my last and very special task for the pleasure of the man who guides my submission and owns my thoughts. I was on the toilet when I heard Marko start to cry. It was a painful, lonely, cry of despair and desertion. Totally uncalled for as I was not that many steps away. But he wanted me, and I wasn't there.

Alas, I understand the feeling all too well.

Finally, he joined me in the bathroom. He came into the bathroom and settled by my feet. He needed to be near me. He needed to show his devotion. He needed to demonstrate, by his nearness, his posture, the tension in his body, that I was the center of his life, and that he was ready to pop up at the first word and do whatever it would take to please me, to make me love him.

I looked down at his soft, gray body, poised next to my feet.. He was clearly so incredibly grateful that I was there, holding still, allowing him to be near. And then it washed over me, a feeling so strong I could reach out and touch it. This was the feeling, this was what I meant, what I felt, what I wanted to convey when I said I wanted to be on the floor at my torturing teacher's feet.

Pure devotion.

After a while, Marko left the little room and came back with a pipe cleaner. He laid it at my feet. It was more than an invitation to play. It was an offering at the fliving altar of his god. Being his mother doesn't stop me from being an object of worship.

Joy in a word

I’m sitting at home on a Friday night, feeling the ringing sting of his hand on my ass.

Except he hasn’t been here. He hasn’t been here for weeks and weeks. I don’t even want to look at the calendar to figure out how long it’s been. But we were e-mailing each other tonight and all of a sudden, I felt it.

The memory of the impact of his palm lives on in my buttocks.

He isn’t punishing me by not paying me a visit. At least I don’t think he is. He does owe me a punishment, and I suspect it will be quite a severe one, as the longer we go, the more infractions I manage to accumulate. I don’t mean to be bad. I think that when I displease him it’s more that I’ve gotten carried away. I’m so intense or excited that I miss the typos, or say something inappropriate, or I slip into an odd mood and write things that in my right mind I would never dare say.

He very quickly brings me to my senses. Even in an e-mail, his tone of voice comes through, like a quick, cold slap to the face. All it takes is a very few words and I am very very penitent and very very submissive.

I am devoted to him, and to serving him. But at times I do need to be reminded of my place. I don’t mean to, but I drift. I lose my way. I do better when I hear from him more often, but I mustn’t be demanding. I must focus and remember and produce.

Still, he gave me a great gift. Two gifts, actually. And sometimes a gift can steer me back in the right direction as well as a punishment can.

He has a new name for me. One of many, it is true, and I love them all because he has chosen them. But this one has special charms. Sweet and sexy, demeaning and delicious, it both teases me and puts me in my place. It inspires me and, I think, amuses him. I love it.

But better than that, better than almost everything, he gave me a new name to call him. An appellation I have begged to use. The first time I used it, he sharply wrote back that it was forbidden. I was crushed. Then he allowed me to use it only in the context of fulfilling an assignment. Then in phrases that echoed the key phrase of the assignment. And then finally… such joy.

And no, it is not “Master.”

It is much much better.

And no, I’m not going to tell you. Some things are too precious to share.

NOTE: just as I finished writing the above, he phoned. Another beautiful gift and completely unexpected. He phoned and gave me a very precious assignment and then invited me to address him by the new title. I think it pleased him to hear me say it, and to hear how moved I was at being able to say it aloud. And now I am flooded with such warmth and am floating in a calm sea of grateful submission. True, he has an evil streak, but he is a very wise and experienced sadist, effortlessly exuding dominance from his very pores. I am his harp. He runs his hands over my strings and with the slightest touch elicits exactly the melody he wants to hear.

He may not be my Master, but he is a master at what he does. And I am a very lucky pet.

LATER STILL: as if it were a fine cut jewel, I can't help fondling this beautiful gift that my sadistic stage manager gave me, holding it up to the light, looking for rainbows and meaning. I wonder if I was given permission to use the term as a reward for progress in my training. But more than that, I wonder if the delay, the gradual steps, the enticement that led to my artistic pleading, my downright begging, wasn't exactly what earned me the right to use it - just as at the very beginning I had to beg to be allowed to serve him. Whatever the truth of it, he was right to handle it as he did. He is always right. By the time permission was granted, it was indeed a precious jewel, and I will always flood with joy and a sense of triumphant, blessed submission every time I use it.

Over my head

Kitten had to play therapist today. Two different callers. Clinical depression. I've been through it enough myself to know it when I hear it.

Two separate desperate people. One, a 74-year old woman, so angry and discouraged she rejects all options as not worth trying. The other, a 60-year old man (not that old any more), crying over the phone, but ready to do what I say.

Promise me. For me. What are you going to do for me? You're going to call the hospital. You'll ask about support groups. Ask about a mental health clinic. Tell them you are very, very depressed. Tell them you need help. Promise me.

They need antidepressants. Both of them. Not that I can say that. I'm not a doctor. I'm not a therapist. But I know. I've been there. The man might get some. But the woman? No. She's too far gone. Too hopeless. Wants to be dead. Won't kill herself but wants to be dead.

I know that one, too. Used to happen to me late ever fall back in Michigan. November on top of clinical depression is a nearly lethal combination, except when you are so paralyzed by autumn and/or life that you have no energy to hurt yourself. So you just wish yourself dead.

She won't kill herself. And she won't get real help. But she called me right back after I hung up the first time. I'm not a therapist. I'm not a counselor. I'm not trained. This isn't my job. But by the end of the second, long call she sounded a little calmer, she was saying nice things about me, she was grateful... it was a start.

This isn't my job. I'm not supposed to do this. But they were desperate. I can't turn my back on the clinically depressed.

A lot of people thanked me today, blessed me today, were grateful for me today. That helped.

But when I hung up from the crying man, I put my head in my hands and sobbed.

Not so SAD

Light therapy works.

Well, I know it works, but I never expected that even a massive dose could turn things around this fast. I bathed in umpteen lumens of full-spectrum fluorescent light on Saturday and Sunday and today I finally set up my little light box on my desk at work. I kept it on for about 4 or 5 hours and was able to go to the supermarket after work and even pay some bills after dinner. This may not sound like much to you all but after the last few weeks it was a big deal.

I'm very relieved. My only problem is that I think I overdid it a bit and hope I sleep OK tonight. But the important thing is that I broke the cycle, and I'm no longer in a panic about making it to January.

Next step - get myself back into the health club so I can work off those 5 pounds I put on in the last couple of weeks.

Thanks to all of you for being so supportive.

SADdened

I'm sitting in front of my big light box. It's been on all day... well, ever since I finally managed to haul myself out of bed. The little one on the kitchen counter has been on, too. For all the good they're doing me. All I want to do is sleep, in between stuffing my mouth with bread and cheese and chocolate.

I'm forcing myself to use capital letters. I don't really have the energy but my demon muse wants me to be correct.

I don't have the energy to think up alternative clever names for him, either. I'm having enough trouble remembering the usual words for ordinary items. Ah wait there it is - alliterative! That's the word I was searching for. Alternative alliterative names... sigh... it's hard enough being creative, but extra hard when you have to wander through the fog to get to your internal word warehouse. (There, I pulled that one off, but it was a struggle.)

This is embarrassing. I thought I was doing so well this year. But no, it always gets me sooner or later. And this year there is no trip south - neither to friends in the Southwest for a week of natural light therapy nor a Thanksgiving pilgrimage to my parents in Florida now that they have moved back north. (They are good liberal Jews who happily rejected the lies about Barack Obama being a Muslim, so even if they had still been in Florida I would have been spared participation in the Great Schlep.)

When talk of SAD (see also here) finally started surfacing in the late '80s/early '90s, I read about a woman whose energy was so low that she had to crawl to the bathroom. We're not talking about some obedient submissive being ordered into a humiliating posture any time she needed to pee. She really didn't have enough energy to stand up. Now I'm not quite that bad. Not now, anyway. But I can imagine it being that bad. I've been trying to write this post all day. Even more seriously, I've been trying to work on an assignment for my demon muse and can't quite completely understand what it is he wants. I think I know, I got it up to a point, but then I got stuck. And it is a very important assignment, aside from my always wanting ever so much to please him. I did please him yesterday, mightily, but today I am stymied.

I'm sure that if it were April and sunny I could get it in an instant.

So I bask in front of my light boxes, and try not to glance too often over to the couch where Marko warmly and softly sleeps and snores and sends subliminal messages to join him.

I need the philosopher. My demon muse owns and regulates my creative life, but the philosopher made some attempt at running my day-to-day life. When he'd be here, I'd know great joy from doing homey things (I'm stuck for the right word again - aha! on proofreading I found it - domestic!!) - dishes, laundry, preparing a perfect cup of Ceylon tea... we had a fantasy about his standing over his naked slave kitten as I scrubbed the floor on my hands and knees. He'd have the cane in one hand, and would tap it on the palm of the other while he oversaw my work. He would watch carefully until he noticed a spot that I had missed. Then - WHACK! I loved that fantasy. I loved being told I had to do something. It inspired me to wash my kitchen floor all on my own, which I only normally do in pieces when I spill something.

I need him here to order me to clean up the damn kitchen. I need him here sitting on the couch doing cryptic crosswords, one after the other, while ordering me to clean off the dining room table and then make supper. And just moving the piles to the living room floor isn't good enough - I need to really go through everything and clean it up. And meanwhile, wash the sheets - they're covered with bits of candle wax. And the litter box? A disgrace. And where's that cup of tea he ordered a half hour ago?

Joy. Utter joy. And my house would be clean. Who knew the oriental rug was really red and navy? It looks grey half the time... (this is no exaggeration; I suck as a housekeeper.)

Unfortunately, I doubt the philosopher would be much help at the moment, even if he were inclined to come visit. He, too, has SAD. He now also has a little light box. But you have to remember to use it, and a feature of SAD is that we don't remember things as well as we might. Because eventually I'll run out of left-over Hallowe'en candy and will need to buy some more chocolate... Too bad I'm so submissive. A slave would be very handy at a time like this.

On Your Desire

Your desire is a dark, rich beer,

hungry yeast feeding on sweets.

It bubbles in the belly of the beast

and gorges itself on horror and tears.

A burp could come at any time,

while on the road, or selling your wares.

GERD in its erotic form, a perverted

variant of a common complaint.

It's not the taste of bile that stains

your gorge. It's essence of cunt, and

your testicles jump as you roll the flavor

in your greedy mouth as if it were

that melting flesh itself. You want her.

You want to fall on her, tearing her

to bits, stripping away her flesh,

sucking the poetic marrow from her bones,

and leaving only tears and the echo of

her screams. And her lips. Her moist

yielding lips that you kiss for hours

bathing in the blood of her submission.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Posted by permission.

I did not write the last, dark part. Some poet dybbuk drove my fingers and I watched in horror as his words took shape in blood upon the screen. I had gotten as far as "You want her." It seemed to need two more lines. I was stealing time from my employer to serve my cruel confessor, but my mind had stalled. I stared at my words but inspiration was on a coffee break. And then, I swear on a pile of long heavy chain, my fingers began to move and the poem was done. And then I couldn't free myself of it for the rest of the day. As did my story "The Branding" for days after it was written, this poem continues to haunt me. But it pleased my punishing professor, and in our world that's all that matters.

Droit du Seigneur

She knows his reputation.

He is cruel, they say. Cruel, and arrogant, and one of the last in the kingdom to exercise his droit du seigneur. The new brides are thrown back at their husbands with scars on their bruised skin and tears lingering in their eyes. He is not like other men, they say, and his appetites… they shudder and will say no more.

She has heard he doesn't wait until the wedding night. He likes to take his time. He tries to teach them to please him, these reluctant courtesans, but few, they say, succeed.

The banns have been posted. She awaits the knock on the door.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He doesn't always exercise his traditional rights. Too often, he is disappointed. He has grown bored with the project. The girls bring him nothing but fear and trembling. They come to him because they have to. They don't offer their submission, they merely collapse and endure. They neither accept nor fight. He enjoys the challenge of training a new victim, but these girls aren't trainable. They just want to get through the night and then return to the village to show their scars and spread their lies.

Well, yes, he will admit that not all the stories are lies. And the scars are real enough.

So he no longer commands that every new bride present herself to serve him. He sends his spies throughout his fiefdom, reading the banns posted each week, and researching the character and spirit and talents of the brides-to-be.

This week, they return with a report that bears promise.

She isn't the most beautiful girl in the land, they say. And she isn't all that young. But her thick red hair should appeal to you, Sir.

He remembers fingers running through wavy locks, closing around them, and pulling, sharply. A small smile escapes him.

She is smart, they say. She writes poems, she writes stories, she sings ballads while she plays the lute. She dances, they say. She dances and tosses her red hair and her eyes send out sparks. And yet, there is something…

We know what you like, Sir. We think it is there.

Bring her, he says. Bring her to me now.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

She knew he would send for her. She has been pretending to be afraid. But she knows his reputation. And she thinks he is what she has been waiting for. She trembles when she hears the knock, which is less a knock than a heavy banging that would splinter the oaken door if she didn't open it soon.

There are three men. They say nothing. One of them gives a small sharp motion with his head. She nods back and walks out the door. They parade through the town, one man in front and the other two behind her.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He awaits her impatiently. He suspects this one will be different. He hopes this one will be different. He will put her to the test.

She stands before him.

He looks her over.

She looks right back. And then she drops her eyes.

"Look at me," he says.

"Yes, Sir," she replies.

He looks inside her, he sends his gaze into her soul, and ferrets out her strengths, her weaknesses, her truths, and her submission. He has found what he wants.

"Strip."

She does, without artifice, unlacing her gown and letting it fall around her, revealing her pale skin and small breasts. She returns her eyes to his.

"Do I please you, my Lord? Do I please you, mon seigneur?"

"Very much, ma petite. And now you will please me more. Approach."

And when one more step would bring her body against his, he reaches out, grasps her nipple, and twists hard.

She screams.

He smiles.

Pain shoots though her breast. Tears pool but do not fall.

"Please, my Lord… if it would please you… please hurt me again."

And he does. For days. He hurts her in every way he can imagine. She screams and cries and offers herself for more. He starts alternating torture with kisses, and teaches her how to give him pleasure. She serves him with her mouth, giving him songs and poems and kisses and a chalice for his passion.

He keeps her naked. He locks her in a room although he knows she will not leave. He teaches her and uses her and trains her to please him. He sees her submission grow and flourish as he plays with her vulnerability. She is his creation, she is his toy, she is his pleasure and his plaything and his pet and his whore and as her wedding approaches he knows he doesn't want to send her back.

And yet, he has no choice. The rules that give him the right to enjoy her demand that he allow the marriage to go forward. After all, with no marriage there is no wedding night.

He sends her back to her mother the night before the wedding. She cries with a different kind of pain but he shows no mercy. He reminds her, however, that he will expect her back immediately after the wedding feast.

At the church, the groom eyes her with suspicion. There is something different about her and he can't quite pin it down. She doesn't seem relieved to be back at his side. And she barely waits for the end of the feast before she leaves with undue haste to head back to the Lord's manor.

As when she first came to him, he awaits her arrival impatiently, and greets her at the door himself. He leads her to the room he considers hers, pushes her in, and locks the door.

"Strip!"

She lets the wedding gown pool at her feet.

"Do I please you, mon Seigneur? Do I still please you, my Lord?"

He doesn't answer, but pushes her down over his knee and spanks her long and hard for daring to belong to another.

The night is too short.

In the morning, he sends her back to her new husband. But while the rules didn't allow him to stop the wedding, they do allow him to take in service whomever he chooses. And he chooses her. Every other week she returns to the manor for three days. Every other week, she returns with her poems and her songs and her startling nipples and her screams of pain and her moans of pleasure as she takes him in her mouth and rejoices in serving him and grows in her submission and gives him what he needs.

And he never again exercises his droit du seigneur.
Posted with permission.

Protection and pedagogy

where are the bricks to wall up my heart?
where are the corks to block up my tears?
where is the gauze to cover my wounds?
where are the ropes to tie up my legs
where is the gag to stop up my mouth
where is the armor to flatten my breasts
and where is the one
to teach me the truth
that better than nothing
is nothing at all.

"Don't cry, kitten..."

touch me
stretch your arm past
limits of space
reach beyond time
run your hand gently
through tangles of hair
that I grew for your use
as a leash for my head.
eradicate distance
ignore the limits of
practical and possible
touch my wet cheeks
reach out your hand
stroke my hair
whisper those words
of comfort and –
what?
a feeling I dare not
risk with a name.
touch me.
soothe me.
kiss it and make it better.
and i will make you tea.

Kitten Sucks Cock

I'm a very happy little cocksucker.
And by all accounts a very good one, too.
Certainly, I received very warm and effusive praise this weekend.
But something was missing.

Truly, I've always enjoyed making love to a penis with my mouth. I lose myself in it, I'm transported into an almost dreamlike state. Perhaps all these years that has been my little peek into heaven, my taste of subspace before I even knew such a glorious place existed.

I'm a very oral person, and a very sensual one. I eat too much because I enjoy the ACT of eating, the taste and feel of the food in my mouth, the different textures as well as the flavors, the colors that I experience with my tongue. The different languages I speak I experience the same way. They each feel different in my mouth, they force my mouth into different shapes, they call up different vibrations in my throat.

I of course pay due attention to my overall performance as a cocksucker, and am attuned to the sighs and moans of the man to whom the cock is attached as well as to the little physical manifestations of my success given by the member itself. I love knowing that my services have been appreciated, whether I am overtly praised or rewarded with a simple but precious "good girl" or drawn up from my position of oral worship to be taken in his arms in a simple act of such intimacy [...]

Damn.

I had this post all cleverly planned out. And then ...

The ellipsis in brackets, after the word "intimacy" - that stands for me bursting into tears.

Because it all comes down to this. The man in my bed with was not the man I wanted to be with.

And anything after that would be saying too much or too little.

So please excuse me while I return to crying my heart out.

The Invisible Orgy

I was with three men this weekend.

One was in my bed.
One was in my mind.
And one was in my heart.

If you had climbed up a ladder and peered in my bedroom window, you would have seen me with but one man: tall, grey-haired, somewhat overweight, not really good-looking, sweet, comfortable, attentive, and flaccid.

But two more men were most definitely in residence.

The man in my bed knows my body, and many other female bodies as well, and used his gentle talents to deliver pleasures that many women would have envied. But I couldn’t cum, I couldn’t rise to that muscle-straining state of tension and then let go of the railing and tumble over the edge in the free-fall of release without filling my mind with memories and fantasies of the fiend and his words and plans and threats and tortures.

And when I did cum… over and over again… when I came again and again and cried, as I always do, my breast was torn with heaving sobs and the pain, greater than any caning, of love and loss and longing.

And the learning continues.

Awaiting punishment

Things have been so glorious that I don't really want to write this. And yet, in all fairness, I must. Because life, in fact, is not all happiness and victory and telephonic union. Sometimes, life is painful. And I don't mean that metaphorically.

I am, alas, very prone to typos, and becoming more so as the weeks go by. I put it down to aging, perpetual perimenopause, ADD, and a disintegration of concentration brought on by SAD and the dwindling days.These are explanations. They are not excuses.

There is no excuse.

I have grown lax. I have let my vigilance slip. And the collector has been too tolerant for too long. Finally, today, he snapped.

Work was crazy.
Work was insane.
I was being bombarded by phone calls.
During a short pause I wrote a short poem.
Images of objectification that accorded with the morning.
That accorded with my mood.
That accorded with a scenario
looming in the future.
The poem was short.
Not a lot of words.
I proofread carefully -
or so I thought.
I ran a spell check.
But one error remained,
an error that was a real word
that the computer wouldn't catch.

He was livid.
His glaring eyes
and cold voice
cut
through the words on the screen.

He had allowed me to go on in this way too long. Not that I didn't know I was getting away with orthographical murder - an ironic sin for a Junior High spelling champion. I'm a really good proofreader - as long as I'm proofing someone else's works. I did try to be vigilant. But those typos - I just didn't see them. I really didn't see them. Still, that's an explanation. Not an excuse.

There is no excuse.

He made a very interesting point, did this punishing pervert. One that impressed me more than anything else he has said on the topic. I accept that it is a sign of disrespect to submit messages and pieces without perusing them to insure perfection. I accept that in fact there need be NO reason for his insistence on perfection. My job is to serve him, and whatever he requests - no, commands, orders - I must supply. No excuses, no arguments, no exceptions.

Sounds reasonable, no?

But this time, he made a very powerful point, in very powerful words. He spoke of the typos as polluting his artworks. He does regard my poems and stories as works of art, he takes them quite seriously, he pursued and acquired me to serve him as his poet, his provider of literary delights created for his own personal pleasure. Would a painter deliver a commissioned portrait with a long stray drip of foreign hue? Certainly, the Venus do Milo was not originally missing her arms. Any fault in my offerings, if such there be, should be due only to a failure of talent, and I must work very very hard to become better and better so as to make my collector properly proud of his property. My talent must not fail.

So I am due a punishment and I deserve a punishment and it will be very very painful. He will enjoy delivering it, of course, sadist that he is. But the purpose of the spanking and caning and I think that's all but who knows... the purpose of all this awful pain will be my punishment, not his pleasure, and somehow the very same level of pain feels a whole lot worse under such circumstances.

[Note to the philosopher, who has retained the right and intent to worry about me: nothing will stop you from worrying about me, and in fact I love that you worry about me. But please try to be reassured that I am basically safe, and have TWO bags of frozen peas waiting in the freezer.]

I don't exactly know when my punishment will take place. The fiend's visits usually don't receive much advance notice, and finding a good intersection of our schedules can be a challenge. The final weeks of the election have made things that much harder. And there has been one more complication...

Marks and bruises.

By this weekend, I needed to be sans marks and bruises. The bruises are gone. The mark? You can still see traces if you know what to look for, but barely, and I no longer feel the raised edges under my fingers.

I'm having a visitor. S--, the male member of the tremulous trio, the murky ménage à trois. His other girlfriend (and his great love, I think) broke my heart after becoming my first female lover, but he and I have achieved a comfortable balance and are continuing as friends who some times have sex. And very good sex it is. Vanilla but pure natural vanilla, sweet and rich and creamy and attentive and long lasting and the best way he knows to break through the walls and truly connect.

S-- comes to town around every 6-9 months, to see his mother. Last time, he stayed here for a night or two, but we were chaste. I still belonged to the philosopher and he was all I wanted. (I will refrain from the sentence that you know damn well comes next.)

This time, I can do as I wish. But I do NOT want him to ask uncomfortable questions. And my assaulting art collector does leave obvious reminders of his teachings. So this will be the calm before the storm. Instead of aftercare, there will be the gentleness, the loving fucking - softening me up and increasing my vulnerability, for the punishment to come.

And come it will.

Long distance can sometimes seem not so far

we were together last night.
the philosopher and i were together
or as close together as we could be
with 250 miles between us.
he wasn’t here for the party
of a dozen people and
homemade soup
and somersault salutes
and champagne celebration.
but he was here.
he phoned.
and phoned again.
and again.
every half hour or so
he phoned and we talked
and exulted and rejoiced
and we shared the victory
and we shared the speeches
and we shared the inspiration
and we shared the history
and tears of joy
and we were together
and i feel him here still.

YES WE DID!

I was looking for a really inspiring picture of Barack Obama as, with utmost faith, I prepared this post the night before Election Day. And then I realized that wasn't what belongs here.

Yes, he won the election.
Yes, he inspired people (including me) to an extraordinary extent.

But it was more than that.
Foolishly, the Republicans derided him
for being a community organizer.
Very foolish.
The community was organized
and it was the community
one person at a time
one neighbor at a time
that won this election.

"You and I together
will change this country
will change the world."

I've long thought that one of the most powerful things Barack Obama ever said, from very early one was: "We are the change that we seek." And I do believe that Obama's supporters have been changed by being part of this process. We have seen that we CAN make a difference. We can believe in something and we can work for it, we can work together, and we CAN make a difference.

We DID make a difference.

And together
we are already changing this country
and we are already changing the world.

VOTE!

YOU'VE GOT
THE WHOLE WORLD
IN
YOUR
HANDS.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Later: I did it.
I voted.
And yes, I cried.
Before, during, and after.
I cried,
and I hung out
at the Obama tent
with a friend from the health club.
He said he loved how
emotionally vulnerable I was.
The fiend feeds on my vulnerability.
Would he have laughed
at my tears?
Or swallowed them?
As for my friend, hmmm...
could he be a dom, too?

Who cares?
What we all are is ecstatic.
Triumphant.
Exulting in our power
together
to defeat the devil
and change the world.

Lest we forget...

Never take for granted your right to vote.

Pinned

The week of the Democratic convention, I was convinced that I was going to receive a gift from the philosopher. I didn't know why I felt that way, but the feeling was clear and solid. On the Tuesday I came home at lunch and saw a large-ish padded bag in the mailbox, but it turned out to be yet another Obama t-shirt as a reward for yet another contribution to the campaign.

That Wednesday there was nothing, and I felt let down.

And then, on the Thursday, the day of Obama's acceptance speech, there it was. A small padded bag this time. Inside was a white cardboard jewelry box. And inside that was The Pin.

I cried.

It was so beautiful.
It was Obama's logo.
And it was a gift from him.

I've worn it nearly every day since.

It arrived a few weeks after the final break-up, perhaps a week and a half after we'd started talking again. He had bought it a while before, having fund it on-line.

It really is beautiful. You may not be able to tell from the picture but it is handmade, pieced together from different kinds of wood, in their natural colors, as if it were a jigsaw puzzle. My office mate informed me that the technique is called intarsia. Whatever it is, it's beautiful, alive, glowing...

I wear it almost every day.

And when the election is over...
it will still be beautiful
it will still be a gift
how long do you think can I keep wearing it?

YES WE CAN-VASS!

The fiend kindly gave me permission to "redistribute [my] servitude" in service to the greater good (thank you again, Sir!), allowing me to head down to Virginia with my best friend and steady canvassing partner M, along with a host of other volunteers from Maryland in general and Montgomery County in particular. A glorious day. Each time we go out, we never feel like we've accomplished all that much, but in fact we are winning this election one vote at a time.

And we WILL win this election.