Beauty in Violence

'Never bring a knife to a fistfight', they say. I'm so glad that my dominant plays by his own rules, so to speak. It wasn't much of a fight anyway. More, the terrifying, brutal, mother of all rape scenes...

It was late May when this happened. I always need a while to process play which is very hard or close to the edge. Like opalescent bubbles coming to the surface, my thoughts and feelings rise out of the water in their own time. The more profound the events, the longer that process takes. Writing helps. I wrote about it privately at first, feeling that to write publicly of such intensely personal matters would be an exercise in over-sharing. But now I want to - I want to share it, and re-affirm it for myself as something that was good and right to happen; something which brought me healing, not harm. And perhaps, too, I write for the others who experience and take pleasure in such things, in the hope that they might also take pleasure from my joy.

The nature of the things I am writing about, requires some warning and attention to detail in the explanation. These things were done to me because I wanted them. My life is enhanced because of them. I am fulfilled, I am made more, because of them. They were beautiful. I speak of them as others might describe their wedding night, their first kiss, the birth of their child. I am speaking of fists, striking my face and stomach. I speak of the glint of moonlight on knifeblade; the terror of oral rape, the humiliation and pain of torture. And I speak of it with love. If you cannot read this without it stirring painful thoughts and feelings in you, then please, I urge you not to read it.



The story begins before that night itself. Imagine a club in a dirty, sweat-filled basement. Striking women - owning their style, regardless of whether it shocks - in black and red and chains. Pretty boys, gauche and innocent, with their long hair combed and conditioned, their ears stretched out with piercings, hands soft and pliant. I love this music, and I've been waiting all month to dance. I am in my element, I feel perfectly and completely at home here. I dance freely, joyfully, uninhibitedly. I drink, I dance, I sweat, I talk.

My lover comes. I don't see him arrive, blissful as I am in the movement of my body, the vibration of the music travelling my skin. Suddenly he is in front of me. He holds me, kisses me. The heat and the dark: we are sharing it together. It turns me on so badly; I want to go to the beach to fuck. I had asked him to hit me, we had been talking about fists, about punching, about violence. We began playing - I felt wrong, I safeworded, we stopped. It scared us, both. We had opened up to the deepest level of trust; and it had gone wrong - how could we open up that deeply to each other again? Should we?

I wanted to. I needed to. Did he? And more importantly - would he?

That night in late May, it was not just the cool breeze that made me shiver through the slutty dress I wore to meet him. He had spent the day bringing me to the edge in anticipation. Texts to each other, mine full of uncertainty and questions, arousal and excitement. His, firmly showing me his control, then easing off just before I panicked and fought back. Playing with my emotions just like he plays with my cunt - skilfully and exactly as he chooses to.

I was dressed in see-through black fabric, ruffles, lace, fishnet, very high heels - underwear and body on display for everyone to see. I dressed that way for him. We were at a burlesque circus cabaret show, the majority of the audience middle aged and middle class. I was unaware of anything my friends said to me that night, I can barely remember the show itself.

He came to me late in the evening, he had rushed to be there. He was sweaty, dirty, wore blue jeans and a white football top, and stank of a vile aftershave; that is not his normal flavour. Had he not had time to change or bathe? I would not comment, it might be hurtful.

Then he told me all these things were deliberate choices; which gave me permission to enjoy my repugnance at them. I have shared my fantasies with him of being raped by dirty, vile, ugly chavs, shared the fantasy of being used by people who revolt me - used for their pleasure, not mine.

He didn't touch me or look at me more than absolutely necessary, during the show. Again, this was a deliberate choice. He told me afterwards what a struggle it had been. His actions, or lack of them, created a confusing storm of emotions. I wanted to be held and stroked, yet I felt a distance between us, a separation. He had peeled us apart, we who are usually so fused together in body and soul.

On the journey home, we were silent. I struggled to make light of the atmosphere, with jokes, anecdotes, which petered out into silence at his lack of response. We walked to our friend's house and dungeon, lent to us for the night, as my nervousness and anticipation grew. I turned the light on in the hallway. He switched it off. I was alone in the dark with him. For the first time, I didn't feel safe with him. I was scared.

I opened the door. He pushed past me and went into the bedroom. I hovered uncertainly in the lounge, not sure what to do. I put my bag down. I followed him into the bedroom. He ignored me, re-arranging furniture, opening up the space, setting out the room as he wanted it to be. I sat down on the bed, huddled over myself, cuddled my knees to my chest. I felt awkward, unsure, small. I felt like a victim.

He turned the light in the bedroom off. I could see one side of his face lit from the hallway. The rest was in shadow. We've stayed at this friend's house before, several times. I've always felt very comfortable there. I didn't feel comfortable anymore. He had made it into his own space, his territory. And I was suddenly, uncomfortably aware that he was not himself. I didn't know this man, this stranger, in his clothes so unlike the ones that me and mine chose to wear. He was not of my group, my tribe - he was 'Other'. His smell even, was foreign to me. His stance, thuggish. Even his hair was shaved, unusually. And his eyes, his eyes looked different. There was someone there I did not know. Someone I feared. I'm afraid of him.

I didn't know what would happen - but I knew that something would. I was not in control - he was. Whatever happened next, it would be his choice, his actions, his decisions, ruling events.

He strutted towards me, exuding a dirty kind of sexuality, a broad, thick, arrogant kind. Swollen pride. Then I saw the knife in his hand. My stomach turned, roiled with the shock of it. He played with the long, solid, sharp hunting knife. Showed it to me. The light shone, reflected, sparked. Ripples in reality as part of me said - he won't harm me. And yet, this man is not my lover. This man is a thug. A rapist. What else might he be?

He tells me to stand up. His legs are spread apart, centre of gravity in his stomach where the hair coils thick. Dense muscles in his arms. He seems more meaty than normal, stocky. He has a knife. I stand - slowly and carefully.

He punches me in the stomach.

Shock. I fall on the bed, the fear like a pinwheel on my skin; the joy like warm clay; the fury and outrage burning, burning bright. No-one has EVER hit me before. I've never been hit in the stomach. How fucking DARE HE???!!! Satisfaction. Yes, yes, it's happening at last. This is what I've been waiting for. Pain, pain, pain, dull cramping, my whole stomach aching.

Before it stops hurting, he punches me again.

But it hasn't stopped hurting yet! And now it really, really hurts, my god, what if he's damaged something inside me? How could he?

He hits me again, in the face, on my cheekbone.

He doesn't just threaten me with the knife. He uses it on me. Drags it over my skin, lightly. Then cuts me. On my arm, on my thigh. I bleed. I will be marked, from this.

He shakes me, like a rag doll. I am limp and flinching. He throws me down.

I lie on the floor in a puddle, fabric spilling around me like black water. My hands cling to the edge of the bed, clutching, drowning. He shouts at me. I am supposed to reply, my mind is not working, I can't speak. 'Are you a fucking idiot!?', he shouts at me. His anger channels not just through his fists, but through his voice. It's the only time I ever hear his voice like that. It flips switches in my brain, terrifies me, turns me on beyond anything. I am incoherent, stunned.

I have never felt so feminine. He is so powerful, so strong.

He hits me again, in the mouth. Over and over. My lip splits. There is blood on his hands.

He throws me down onto the bed, forcing me beneath him. Oh god, he's going to rape me.

He tells me to get my mouth open. It is not enough. He wants me open wider. He rages at me, pulling at my face with his hands. He sticks his fingers in my mouth, opening it up to his satisfaction. He drools a fat ball of spit and slowly lets it drop, from his open mouth into mine.

I am appalled, humiliated beyond anything I've ever known before. But too afraid to be angry. Just too scared. My emotions are no longer under my control, they have been taken from me, by him. He decides that I will be terrorised, and so I feel terror. I hate him for it. I love him for it. I will treasure this memory.

He hits me in the face again. And again.

I'm scared my teeth will break. I can feel my lips, puffed up and swollen, splitting. Bleeding. He forces me onto the whipping bench, cuffs me to it - not with our cuffs, that we bought together - the ones that belong with the dungeon, anonymous and strange to me.

Eagerly, I hold out my wrists to him. I hope that by pleasing him, being quick and anticipating his demands, I might avoid some of the violence which will pour over me. I am close to right. He rapes my mouth, instead of beating me.

He forces his cock down my throat. Not my mouth - my throat. I am very near vomiting. I retch so much it hurts. I can't breathe, he's replaced my air with his meat. I am suffocating on his swollen prick. He uses my mouth like a hole. I hear him whispering, viciously. 'Don't you fucking dare suck my cock, just open your fucking mouth so I can use it'. He holds my head still with his hands. He thrusts violently, using his hips to slam himself into my gaping mouth, over and over again. He hasn't even undone his flies, he's just pulled his dick out of his jeans. The buttons hit me every time he crushes his hips against my face. They grate and knock against the bridge of my nose, between my eyes, on my sore and swollen lips. It hurts, and I'm scared. Will it tear the skin on my nose, or even break the bone? But I'm too scared to even offer a whimper of complaint. My wrists are agony, numb, pulling on the cuffs, they take the weight of my body and his. As he pushes forward, each thrust of his is pleasure for him, pain for me. He shows me the blood from my split lip, on his cock. I don't remember - the memory is blocked, I only know because he tells me, afterwards, that he did.

There is only fear. There is only pain. There is only him. Nothing else in the world exists any more. He tells me, 'Don't you fucking dare look at me with disgust. Don't you fucking dare look at me with anything but love in your eyes'.

I hide my eyes as much as I can - not because there is disgust in them, but because there is no room for anything except terror.

He speaks to me. 'Don't you like it? You fucking whore. Sound like you're enjoying it, you little bitch'. I am completely bewildered - I cannot even think of what sounds I normally make, and fake them. Normally I am very noisy, but I make sounds because I can't NOT make them, and I have no idea how to sound like I'm enjoying myself, when I'm not. But he demands these sounds of pleasure from me, he doesn't stop demanding them, while he hurts me, and so out of desperation I search for a noise which will please him, and settle for making a noise, any noise, even this muffled groan, around his dick. Now he tells me I'm a good girl, and I respond. Despite everything, despite the rape and the violence and the hurt - warmth is spreading out from my chest as he says over and over again, that I'm a good girl, HIS good girl.

Then he spanks me, even though I was good. I am in agony already, just from his hand. I cannot bear the pain without screaming, and so he moves on to something worse. I am in hell. I panic then, and want to get out out OUT OUT of the cuffs, I writhe and nearly tear muscles, frantic.

He kneels down in front of me. He is speaking, he is asking me something. I should respond but I don't, can't, hear, understand. He keeps talking, slowing down, repeating, his voice getting softer, gentler, more like his own, filled with his love for me.

I here him then. He asks me, 'have you had enough?' He is asking me if I want to safeword. 'Tell me. Tell me, baby. Have you had enough?'

Part of me screams, YES, YES I FUCKING HAVE! Please just stop hurting me?

But then... I know I can do this. For him. I don't just WANT to. I NEED to. I need him to continue, until HE decides to stop.

I. Need. This.

And suddenly I know that I can make my love for him tangible, and pour it over his heart like honey, by continuing. I want him to know, how very much I love and trust him. I need him to see - I need to be able to show him. My choice is not a choice at all. I am held fast not by the cuffs, or his hands pinning me down; but by our love for each other.

Then, he rapes me. While he fucks my broken body, he tells me, 'this is your fault, what did you expect to happen when you wore a dress like that? This is your fault. It's not my fault, it's yours, because you're so fucking beautiful'. He illustrates his words with fists and more, forces his desire into me with his dick.

When he cums, he forces me to cum, too. What is seen, is not always what is. With this gift, all meaning was inverted. It is no longer something done to me. I was no longer the innocent victim, with unasked for acts of sexual violence forced upon her. I'd asked for it by dressing like a whore. Which made it my choice. Which meant I could have said no, and it wouldn't have happened. And I could have stopped it. At any moment, I could have told him to stop. And he would have stopped, instantly, like he did on the beach. I never doubt that. Such a thing is hugely, transcendently empowering. For someone like me - who so many times has been done to, without choice - this is a profoundly healing experience.

My memories of afterwards are blurry. I was cold - and then there was warmth. I was scared of being alone - and then he was with me, holding me. I was tired, exhausted - and then he was stroking me to sleep.

We woke in a tangle of limbs together. He was my lover again, my boyfriend, my dominant. And I was his. Completely. Truly. Madly. Deeply. His.

He always treats me as if I am the most precious and cherished woman in the world. That day he showed a depth of care which exceeded even his normal standards. We fucked again, and again and again. I always cum hard, and often, when I'm with him. But this day I came so very hard, so very much - I needed to show my love for him with my body - I needed my pussy to replicate the huge, enveloping and powerful pressure of my love.

The things he did that night - they changed something inside of me. I looked at myself in the mirror the next day, shocked. Along with the purpling bruise spreading along my cheek, and the bloodied mess of my lips, I saw something I had never seen, ever. Something so surprising, I almost couldn't believe in it. A truly beautiful woman, staring back at me, from the mirror. I met my own eyes in confusion and touched my hand to my cheek. This beauty, this stranger in the mirror, followed my movements - yes, it really was my own reflection.

Shocked, I turned to him, and asked him why I felt like this. 'Is it because of what you did to me, have you given me more confidence?', I asked him. 'No, the reason you look like a beautiful woman, is because you ARE a beautiful woman', he replies.

In the days afterwards, without a shadow of a doubt, I knew that he would keep me safe. He extended his care like a soft blanket, wrapping me in his love as he always does, catching me each time I fall, picking me up, soothing my small troubles.

I am ashamed only by the things people might think of me, not by the truth. The bruise on my face eventually fades. I hide it from work colleagues, but look at it whenever I can in the mirror, secretive, smiling shyly to myself.

He honoured me, with the trust he showed in me. The depth of my submission to him, my joy and pleasure in him, my gratitude and amazement that he loves me, my respect for who he is, and how he is, his bravery, courage and strength, how powerful and strong, how protectively nurturing he is, have reached a new level. Which I honestly didn't think was possible. I adore him. I simply adore him.

I am so very lucky.

Integrity

I have been thinking about choice.

My husband had another convulsion last night. He has a history of fits due to low blood sugar (he is diabetic). The doctor has told him that lack of sleep affects his blood sugar, and so does exercise, and the heat in the summer. He has all the information to make an informed choice.

He chose to go out to a party on friday night, come home at 4am after drinking (only 4 beers it must be said), get only a tiny bit of sleep before getting up at 7am to go to work, in a job where he walks approximately 8 miles a day, in the sunshine, on a day which was fairly likely to be very hot. In the past, he has had fits under very similar circumstances.

I chose to spend friday night at a party with my boyfriend, and then stayed away overnight, only coming back late sunday evening. I came in and found him covered in sick and blood, realised he had fitted, and called an ambulance, as his eye was hurting him and I was worried he had hurt it when he fitted. They checked it, and said it was fine, gave him a bag of fluid, and we decided it was best if he stay home rather than be admitted, as he needed to rest and recover and he did not need any immediate treatment.

Normally I would set my alarm to wake throughout the night, and do regular blood tests, quietly on him, so as not to disturb his sleep any more than necessary. I couldn't do that this time, as I came home to find he had broken one blood test kit and lost the other (he is a very careless person). In the past, I would have gone out as soon as the shops opened, and bought him another one. I did not do that today. His eye is hurting him this morning, he thinks it got scratched quite badly when he fitted. The ambulance people checked it out, but pronounced it fine. In the past, I would have taken him to the hospital in a taxi and got them to check it out, or taken him to the dr, or rung nhs direct for him. I have left him to sort it out himself, this morning. There is no working landline in our house, as I came back to find he had broken the phone. I have gone to work this morning, and his mobile is going straight to answerphone - he often breaks it or runs it out of charge. In the past I would have gone home to see if he was okay. I have chosen not to today.

We have been together for 15 years. The fits started 15 years ago, and he has had them regularly for 11 of those years. He sees his diabetic specialist regularly, and we have just had the results back from referral to neurological specialists, which pronounced him clear on that front. The medical conclusion is - not epilepsy, nothing to do with his brain, just full blown convulsions resulting from low blood sugar. To manage the convulsions, he needs to manage his diabetes. The convulsions leave him physically and emotionally drained, with a severe headache, light sensitivity, dehydrated, pain in limbs, vomiting, and reduced consciousness for up to 36 hours afterwards.

He has always chosen to manage his diabetes badly. With constant supervision and encouragement from me, he has improved over the 15 years we have been together. It has been an exhausting, dispiriting task. I have felt trapped and without choices. I have become his carer, as well as his wife. I have mopped up the sick, fed him headache tablets, spooned soup into him, sat in endless a&e and hospital ward chairs by his bedside, soothed him as he is carried kicking and screaming into the ambulance, or had blood taken, or catheterised, whilst in the agitated and aggressive post fit state.

In the past, he has made bad choices, and I have always cleared up the resultant mess. Last year he had a fit after a gap of about 4 years. I was devastated, and because I was staying away with other partners at the time (with of course, his full knowledge and consent), I carried a burden of guilt for a long time afterwards - sickening guilt.

This time I was with my other partner, while he made himself ill. I do not feel guilty this time. He can choose not to manage his diabetes correctly. And I can choose not to be his carer. It does not mean I love, care, and have compassion and sympathy for how ill he feels today, any less. I am making a choice not to those feelings dictate my behaviour.

He went to cuddle me this morning, and I told him I didn't want him to, because I was angry with him. I am allowed to do that. I do not have to endure cuddles from him, just because it will make him sad if I do not, when I don't feel like cuddling.

Over the years I have enabled him to abdicate responsibility for his illness. He quite often engages in risky behaviour, particularly when I am away. This is partly a passive aggressive 'well, see what happens when you're not here to look after me', thing. And partly a 'ha! no-one is making me behave myself! I can go crazy, brilliant!' thing. He has done things like cooked and eaten a fish which the cats have dragged home, through the catflap, which they presumably caught out of someone's pond. Drink until he falls unconscious on the way home. Go to parties and behave crazily, coming home covered in bruises and scratches. Walk around in the street, in the snow, barefoot (diabetics have to be particularly careful of their feet). He is a very careless, childlike person. He has chosen to be that way. And I can choose not to clean up his messes.

An enduring complaint of his is, 'I feel so old, so boring, I have nothing exciting in my own life, I hate my job, I don't have a girlfriend, no-one wants me, I am dull and grey'. I have chosen to try and fix all his woes, in various ways. They have had partial success, but then failed, as he has returned time after time to the complaint of feeling old and boring. He was particularly complaining about this, last week. At such times it is common for him to attempt to recapture his youth by going out partying and having a wild night out. However, he takes no action (none, zero, zilch, literally does nothing at all despite me putting lots of opportunities in his way), to make his life better, bring excitement into his life, do things he enjoys, get a different job.

I have tried to hard to bring him fulfilment. I have tried so hard to make him happy. I always thought of myself as a pure person, someone with absolute integrity. When we began to explore poly, I struggled for a long time with this. My sense of 'self', my identity as a good person, was threatened. I have come to terms with that now. I am still a good person, even if I choose to have more than one partner. I have integrity, my moral and ethical values are sound and I abide by them. I do not need to apologise to, explain to, or even get understanding of how I am, from other people. I can choose to love more than one person, and have sex with them. And my husband can choose whether he is okay with that or not, and what to do about it if he isn't.

He can choose to take no positive action to improve his life. And I can choose to stop pouring my energy into trying to improve his life, and save a little bit for myself. I can choose to stop behaving like his mother, and his carer, rather than his wife.

He can choose to abdicate responsibility for his health, and I can choose not to step in to carry that responsibility.