"Always be a poet, even in prose"

Poetry is a mirror which makes beautiful that which is distorted. ~Percy Shelley, A Defence of Poetry, 1821

Receiving pain can be casual for me, but submission could never be. Whilst I can enjoy pain for its own sake, and I can enjoy sex for its own sake, the best kind of sex involves pain, just like the best kind of pain involves sex. BDSM is poetry of the body – and with the right partner(s), it becomes poetry of the heart, mind and spirit, too.

How can something so distorted be so beautiful? I like to be used – used badly. I crave degradation, and abuse. I need to be hurt, broken, debased – shattered into a thousand pieces, ruined. And then remade. I want to love and be loved. I want to adore. I want to submit. I want to fight back until I scratch weals in your skin. I want to scream your name in rage and panic. I want to sob until make-up runs down my face, my eyes huge and terrified. I want to be safe. I want to be frightened. I want to be torn apart, then reborn. I want to be empowered; I want to become the person I love being - who can say yes as well as no.

And...when I play with you, it is so beautiful to me. It leaves me feeling content and happy and safe, wanted, cared for, shining. Little pieces of my soul made whole again. No matter how you abuse me, no matter how depraved or violent, dark and nasty our play is, no matter how badly you use me, I will be uplifted by it.

When we take pleasure in each other's bodies, out of love - Agápe, Éros, or philia - whether it lasts for a night, or a lifetime, however marvellously twisted and unique and debauched it may be – it cannot be ugly. This is a joyful thing, precious and to be cherished, no matter how abundant and plentiful it becomes in our lives.

I am so very lucky to have so much joy in my life.

But he that dares not grasp the thorn...

..Should never crave the rose.

And he who dares, wins. Mixing my quotations somewhat, but the sentiment is accurate.

I've been a bit quiet recently because I've been taking some time to re-centre myself, and also because everyday life has suddenly got insanely hectic and my time is getting eaten up at an alarming rate.

I'm being careful and cautious. I'm not as innocent and naive as I was, just a few short months ago - although it feels like much longer ago than that. I can't believe that less than a year ago, I didn't even know BDSM existed, really, and certainly didn't have any fet friends or go to any events, and had never played, never explored the side of me which I hadn't even acknowledged existed, and yet was such a huge part, in waiting.

I'm trying to protect my heart, and my body, and I think I'm doing quite well. I'm keeping quiet about what's new with me, at the moment, just in case I go running round screaming about how great it is, and then it all goes tits up. Again.

But I am having a lot of fun - god yes, am I having fun! I'm trying some things that are very different, and I feel very sure that what I'm doing at the moment is right for me. Very intense, very mind-blowing, but very right.

Je rêve de toi. Mon rêve était beau. Que mes baisers soient les mots d'amour que je ne te dis pas.

Born Bad [erotic fiction]

I watch you out of the corner of my eye. You are, as always, beautiful to me. You are more like a dream of a wolf, than a wolf itself. Thick-furred, your haunches are dark with muscle, and the snow settles gently on your brow like jewels. Gently, gently I begin easing myself into the space between us, closer to you - but a subtle flick of your ear tells me to stay where I am. There will be mention of my behaviour later - but for now you want me to wait until you choose to punish me.

I forlornly place my head back on my paws and breathe out, slowly, thinking of my latest transgression. The cold has made prey scarce, and discipline even more important to the pack. There is no energy to waste on running outside of the hunt, and I longed for the heady dash through our territory, whole body suspended in the air between bounds, weightless and free. I wonder whether the excitement of running again, after waiting so long, got too much for me; I shake my head and close my yellow eyes. As you always says, it's a Reason, not an Excuse. I never, ever should have bitten you, no matter how caught up I was in the joy of the chase: as an alpha it is your right to eat first. I was only playing, it was only meant to be a little nip, but the moment I tasted fresh blood in my mouth, I knew there would be consequences.

The snow on my fur melts slowly and drips down my cheekbones onto my paws, little drops of water falling like tears into the dark space between. My whole body feels heavy and sick. As the sun goes down, the others in the pack quietly move away, to sleep close together in warm piles, content to be near each other, cuddled close. Re-breathing each other's warm breath, they remake the group scent, the scent of our pack, thick and filled with musky hints of green, waterfall bitter, but at the same time warm like rich dark soil. Only you and I remain behind, and my stomach roils with anxiety. The weight of your disappointment, sadness, and my hopelessness, press down on me once more. My breathing becomes panting, as I wonder how long you will chose to punish me like this, with your silence, and the thick, heavy scorn of my pack-mates.

I am focused so intently on you that I move almost before you do, alert to the tiny muscles of your body which signal your impending change in posture. As you stand and pad quietly through the trees, I know you mean me to follow you. I trot eagerly on your heels, pleased that the time between now and your forgiveness grows shorter. You stop when we have moved some distance from the remainder of the pack, and turn towards me. You sit, and I stand still at first, unsure as to what you want from me. I crouch awkwardly for a few moments and then sit down on my haunches, in front of you. The low harmonic of your howl starts to sound slowly, slowly, building until my ears fill with it, my head thrums with it, and I add my own whine of protest to the sound for a moment before biting it off with my teeth on catching your eye.

I remain sitting, while you circle me. The fur starts to stand up all over my body, the sense of threat is imminent. I resist the urge to turn and face you, trying to stay in properly submissive posture. But when you lunge, growling, suddenly nightmare huge and all ivory teeth and claws, my resolve flies away and I turn, wheeling away on back feet and lurching off in a run. You're on me in a moment, you're so much faster and stronger than I am, and I feel you before I see you, black jaws clamping down on the back of my neck, sinking through fur into skin. You shake me in your jaws like prey, throwing me into the air and slamming me into a tree, so that I slump to the ground. Your body is on me again in seconds, and you've got me in a neck-hold. I buck frantically underneath you, but I can't shake your hold. You put your front legs over my shoulders and use your own body weight to force me back into position, into the exact place that you want me to be in.

You mount me, suddenly, unexpectedly, and take a new grip on the back of my neck with your jaws. You enter me without preamble, roughly having me, exercising your right to take what you want, when you want, to assert your dominance over me in whichever way you choose. And what you want right now, is to be inside me. You feel so hard, and your thrusts are passionate but not uncontrolled, rhythmic, pounding into me, pushing me into the wet earth, shoving yourself so hard into me that I feel your heavy balls slap against my skin with each thrust. You're very big, and I struggle to take it all, but I want to, for you - anything for you, you can take anything, do anything to me. I want you to. I need you to. Desperate to be yours again, I need this, I need you to do to me whatever it is that you want, whatever it is that it takes, and as you bite down harder on my neck I feel your big thick knot pushing at me, forcing its way in, shoving itself inside me, my moist cunt stretching and widening to accommodate all of you. Once the knot has pushed all the way deeply in, and you slam into my ruined pussy again, hammering all of yourself deep inside, I feel you start to give me your seed. I feel you spurt with each thrust, it seems like forever, but it is still not long enough - each time you ram into me, your tight knot inside my cunt loosens, and the knot in my heart loosens still further. Each time you drive your cock in me I drink down more of your cloudy fluid that flows into me, drink it deep down with my body.

As you pull out of me I collapse on the ground, exhausted and sore, and my ruined body dribbles semen and blood into the snow, melting patterns like an early thaw. You straddle me one last time as I lie on my side, mounting my head, and I clean you with my tongue, big licks tasting us both together on your softening shaft.

And as fast as you had pierced me, you leave me, tongue hanging from your open mouth leaving clouds of breath in the air; you just leave me, running back to the centre of the pack, while I lie there, content to wait a while until I return, covered in your scent, content to know that I am yours again and beloved.

Ravens, ravens everywhere, and me without wings..

There are ravens everywhere in town today, but I don't feel like flying anywhere.

I've worked so hard, and for so long, to drag myself out of the doldrums. Made so much effort, which really seemed to be paying off. Recently I've been all shiny and new, and felt like I was on much firmer ground. And then just one tiny thing, one tiny pathetic insignificant thing, and I've fallen so far down again I'm shocked at the speed and intensity of my emotions. Which tells me that the ground wasn't as firm as I thought it was in the first place.

One by one I find myself cutting off my sources of support. Can't talk to R, I can say I'm feeling down, but not why, if it's got anything to do with kinky. It only confuses and upsets him, and he's asked me not to share stuff with him to do with BDSM. Can't talk to family or non-kinky friends anymore, as I feel they disapprove. Really don't feel like talking to anyone or seeing anyone in person. Feel like I've leant far too heavily on my kinky mates anyway, during my last rather severe episode of crapism. Which leaves wittering away to unknown correspondents on IC and posting maudlin weblogs. How the mighty have fallen!

Just the slightest bit of emotional engagement with someone, and I fall to pieces. I wish, desperately, that I could be emotionally detached and not care so very damn much. I wish I could lock the door again on my needs. I was fine how I was. I liked me, and I liked my life. And now there's just this huge hole, this well of loneliness, this huge aching NEED for fulfilling sex, the satisfaction of emotional intimacy and sheer physical pleasure of BDSM, and it seems to be drawing people to me, but I'm afraid that it's my vulnerability which attracts people, and not my strength, and that's never good. That, and the fact that I'm presenting myself as a total slapper at the moment, and everybody thinks I'm easy, when the truth couldn't be further away, I've snogged half of brighton it would seem, and played with a couple of people, sure, but that's as far as I've taken it, I didn't even shag my ex, the one I was madly in love with, who broke my heart, because I wasn't ready. I'm tired. I'm lonely. I feel so lost.

I need a bloody slap in the face and to stop being so pathetic. I hate this side of me. I think I need to back off from physical contact with people for a bit. I'm so so desperate just to touch and be held, how do I do that and get close to people without taking it any further? Every time I go to the pub recently, I end up snogging someone. I reckon that's got to stop. Even if it means giving up the chance to touch, and be touched. Even if it makes the loneliness even worse. Everything I touch at the moment becomes problematic.

Obligatory New Year's Day Ramblings...

Yes, well it's practically some sort of BYLAW isn't it? A single post summing up my experiences/ learning curve/ highs and lows and feelings and thoughts and and and...

Okay, so that's probably not going to happen. But someone rather nice suggested a period of quiet contemplation might be a good idea for me at the moment, so in the spirit of that, here is my summary of 2009.

1) A Transformational Year

I changed inside myself. External stimulus effected change in me. I effected change in my environment and relationships.

I began the year, not anticipating the metamorphosis to come. With hindsight, it's all so clear. I have *always* been sexually submissive, and I have always had a very high libido. I buried these desires so deep within me because, what is the point in wanting things you can't have? Married, been together for 14 years, and very very happy except for sexual compatibility. I abhor lies and deception and cheating, I would never ever do that, and cannot imagine being without my husband. So what do you do with these feelings except push them behind a door? I closed it and hid it and forgot the door was even there. I denied the existence of the door to myself and others. But this year was the one in which desire blossomed into need.

Step by tiny baby step, my husband and I negotiated and discussed (and occasionally argued) our way to poly (see below). I probably *should* have taken the same approach to BDSM, but I rather threw myself into it (a friend described my experiences as sounding like someone threw a cat into a minefield...) From where I stand now, I can't say I'm sorry. I had some fucking awful downs as well as some liberating and transcendent highs, but I'm still here, I didn't get broken, or if I did, then I remade myself even better than I was before.

2) Who Have I Become?

I've tried a lot of things in the last year. I liked most of them, LOVED a lot of them, and was bored and/or annoyed by a few of them. I had my infatuation with the scene, then fell out of love with it, and am now embracing it again for what it *really* is, rather than a newcomer's rose-tinted view. [caveat: I'm allowed to change my mind again at any moment, and also I reserve the right to say this time next year, how naive I was and how much I've learned since posting this very weblog]

Prior to this year, I'd spent a couple of years quietly just pootling around at home. My social circle was really small, and generally consisted of chums to hang out with at home over dinner or a nice cup of tea. This year I've got that spark back again, that enjoyment of other people, and I've hugely widened my group of friends. Looking through some photos of a holiday at the start of the year, I'm struck by how....static... I look, just tired and frozen and worn and OLD, like someone who's come to the end of their go on life. I don't look like that now. And I don't feel like that now. I've come back to life again. I've never felt so crazily in love with life as I do at the moment. I feel impassioned by people, by music, by how pretty the world looks. I want to dance, I want to kiss in the snow on the beach, I want to paint and write and tell stories and touch people.

People are beautiful. The world is beautiful. And for the first time, I mean REALLY the first time, in ever so ever so long, maybe just the first time that ever was, I feel a little bit beautiful and desirable and fuckable too. Can't be bad, really.

3) What's Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander

Husband (R) would never have sought out 'doing poly' without the impetus of 'well, you're having a go on other people, maybe I ought to try it too'. He's yet to move from being poly in his head to poly in practice, but I'm encouraging and hoping for him.

It's taken time to get to where we needed to be, in terms of him being comfortable with me playing with, having sex with, others. At the moment it all seems to be good, he's happy, I'm happy, we need to work on his self-esteem and my sense of guilt so that every time he feels down, I don't feel that it's because I'm emasculating him. I've also been working on my discretion. Poor boy really doesn't need or want a blow by blow account, but I keep wanting to tell him more than I should do, because that's just my nature. I'm working on it.

What poly means to both of us is the same, but with different emphasis in practice. He wants emotional intimacy, with a tiny bit of sex and no BDSM whatsoever. I want LOADS of sex, and BDSM, with masses of emotional intimacy too. We both see it as about opening up your heart as well as your body, to others. I don't (can't, am unable to) put restrictions on the way I feel about other people because R is my 'primary partner'. It just doesn't work that way for me. I just feel the way I feel about people, and it's completely and utterly separate from the way I feel about R. They have no relation to each other.

4) Are You Okay?

Yes, I'm okay. I'm still kind of in recovery phase after a relationship break-up which left me reeling. But I think I'm sort of 95% over it. And increasingly able to identify it as a learning experience, rather than one in which I fucked up horribly. Areas of self-improvement however, are:

A) I am not (and should not behave as if I am) desperate. There will always be arseholes out there looking for a bit of a go on me. My task is to learn to identify said arseholes and avoid them, and not go 'what? You like me, you say? Oh, how wonderful! I'm so grateful! Do you want to get me drunk and/or take me home and abuse my trust a lot? K thx bai'. I've been very lucky so far, but some of my more alcohol-fuelled adventures have been edging into self-destructive territory, so that's something to keep an eye on and improve.

B) Self-esteem. Yeah yeah yeah, I know. But if you don't feel it inside, you just don't. I am getting increasingly on board with the 'fake it till you make it' philosophy, though.

C) I am a masochist as well as a submissive. And it's okay to enjoy a safe, sane and SOBER play with someone who doesn't push all my buttons but can deliver the pain I need, without then having urgent frantic sex with them followed by making their dinner and cleaning their flat. Emotionally and sexually detached play is a bit like junk food. It'll do until something better comes along, if you're really hungry. But this doesn't mean I have to lower my standards to MacDonalds or something. There ARE limits, after all....!

D) I'm really getting quite good at this writing porn, palaver. It's fun, gets me loads of compliments, and is a legitimate dumping ground for my sexual and play frustration. What's not to like?! I'm going to carry on, and quite possibly get even MORE vulgar and debauched.

E) I quite fancy getting something pierced. A nipple barbell, or a lip ring. What do you think?

F) I also quite fancy learning to dance something new. I already take bellydancing classes which, as it turns out, I'm quite good at. It's the hips, y'see? I'm very drawn to the passionate latin dances, salsa, tango etc. But I think I'd have to learn from a dom. No normal man is going to be able to lead me.