High Tea -- #Victorian #Dominance #FlashFiction

 Image by gate74 from Pixabay

By Lisabet Sarai

“Will you have more tea, Lady Wallingford?”

My elegant guest nods, a bit distracted. “Thank you, Beatrice, that would be lovely.” Her attention is focused on my master, seated across from her, next to me. “Lord Randall, pray continue. You were recounting your latest adventures in the Far East?”

My master chuckles. “I’m not certain my tales of the Hong Kong fleshpots are appropriate for someone of Beatrice’s years.”

I rise to fill her delicate porcelain cup, grateful for the chance to stand. Last night my dear master used me hard. My scratchy petticoats are agony against the lacerated flesh of my bum, and my quim is tender and raw. Sitting still is torture, as he knows very well. In fact, I suspect he insisted I host this tea in order to test my discipline.

Every instant — every movement — is a thrilling reminder of how completely he possesses me. My cunny moistens despite the discomfort —maybe even because of it. I know that my endurance pleases him.

Maribel Wallingford arches her perfect brows while her lush mouth curves into a smile. “Well, then, Geoffrey, perhaps I can prevail upon you to share the colorful details some other time.” The heat in her gaze and the flush on her cheeks make me suspect she has some intimate history with my virile master. She nibbles at her cake. Her tongue flicks a crumb from her lips, a surprisingly unladylike gesture.

“Perhaps.” He shifts in his chair and holds out his tea cup to me. “If you wouldn’t mind, my dear, I’d like more as well.”

The uninitiated might mistake his tone for avuncular indulgence. Indeed, my master is nearly my father’s age. He was Papa’s close associate before the carriage accident that made me a wealthy orphan. His close supervision and public concern for my welfare is one reason why I’m allowed to live on my own, though I’m barely twenty. Aunt Ellen, ensconced on her estate in Dover, is more than willing to relinquish responsibility for me to the respected and well-to-do Lord Randall.

No one suspects the true nature of our relationship — intensely carnal and shamefully perverse. I have given myself to him completely, and reaped the rewards, love and joy so acute that I’m breathless merely thinking about him. About us.

I step closer to his lean, powerful body, certain I can feel the heat of him even through his fashionable clothing. My skirts swish around my ankles. I tilt the teapot and pour with extreme care, trying for the grace and control he expects. A stream of tawny liquid arcs from the spout.

His cup is half full when he makes his move, snaking out his hand to surreptitiously squeeze my buttocks through my dress. Four layers of cloth separate me from his touch, but the force is enough to wake powerful echoes from last night’s whipping. The flash of pain startles me.

“Oh my!” I don’t drop the heirloom teapot, but my grip wavers. Tea splashes out of my master’s cup, spattering his woolen trousers and brocade waistcoat.

“Beatrice! How can you be so clumsy? Look at what you’ve done!” The sparkle in his dark eyes belies the stern tone of his voice, but tears gather in mine all the same. Hastily, I set the pot on a side table, before I do further damage.

“I’m so sorry, Mast—I mean, Lord Randall.”

“Your regret does not alter the fact that I may need to discard this expensive suit. Indeed, had the tea been hotter, you might have scalded me.” His eyebrows knot and his lips press together in a convincing facsimile of anger.

He’s playing with me, I know, but that doesn’t matter. His criticism cuts me to the soul. I sink to my knees before him, totally forgetting our guest. “Please, Sir. I’ll pay for the replacement. And it shan’t happen again, I swear. I was momentarily off balance....”

“Excuses won’t help you, girl.” He snags me by the elbow. “On your feet and over my knee.”

“What? Sir!” I suddenly recollect the presence of Lady Wallingford. A fierce blush turns my cheeks to flame. “You can’t be serious.”

“You’ll soon discover how serious I am, wench. Assume the position. Every instant you delay will make your punishment more severe.”

There’s no help for it. I’ve sworn to obey him in every particular. If I’m honest, I must admit that the thought of this public chastisement kindles a guilty thrill.

My voluminous skirts rustle as I drape my body over his tea-damp lap. A few blond ringlets escape from my meticulously coiffed hair and fall over my eyes, partly hiding my face. I want to disappear, to vanish into thin air. At the same time, I’m eager for him to begin.

“I’d heard that you were scrupulous and thorough in your guardianship of young Beatrice,” Lady Wallingford comments. “I hadn’t expected that to extend to corporal punishment.

“I do what’s necessary, Madam, to ensure her good behavior.” Without further discussion, he pulls up my apron, overskirt, underskirt and petticoat to bare my buttocks. I know the scarlet traces of last night’s birching crisscross my white flesh. The welts seem to burn anew, simply from being exposed.

Lady Wallingford releases her breath in a sigh full of emotion. “Oh my, Geoffrey! I thought you’d reformed...” I shoot a glance in her direction. Her ample breasts rise and fall as she struggles to contain her excitement.

“I am too old a dog to learn new tricks, Maribel.” He strokes my naked bum, gentle enough that my stripes barely hurt. “Though this exquisite creature inspires me to expand my repertoire.” Without warning he pinches my rear.

“Ow! Sorry, Sir.” I settle myself more comfortably on his firm knees. I know I can’t escape. I don’t want to escape.

“I think two dozen strokes should be sufficient. Do you agree, Beatrice?”

“That’s—ouch!—up to you, Master.”

The honorific slips out, without my thinking. My mind whirls. What will Lady Wallingford think? I wonder, then realize she understands the situation perfectly.

“Will you count for us, Maribel?”

“With pleasure,” she purrs. She has unbuttoned her her tight bodice, exposing the lace-trimmed top of her chemise. Her fingertips skim the pearl-white skin below her collarbone. Her other hand burrows into the fabric in her lap.

She’s as wanton as I am, I think. Then my master’s big hand slams down on my poor bum, driving out every thought except the pain.

“One!”

The sensations are many-layered. There’s the fierce sting where his palm has connected with my rear cheeks. A sharp tingling radiates from the point of contact, prickling across my skin, along the backs of my thighs and down between my legs. Underneath, there’s a hot ache from last night’s marks, pain reawakening lascivious memory.

Wham! The next stroke hurts more, adding to the building pain, multiplying my excitement.

“Two.” Lady Wallingford’s voice has grown husky, almost hoarse. I can hear her panting.

Slam! I wail in distress, unable to keep silent any longer, and squirm on my master’s lap, but his grip is like iron.

“Three.”

“Be still, girl, or I’ll give you a dozen more!”

“Four!”

Oh, God! How can I bear this? How can I want this?

“Five. Six.”

Like an automaton, my master continues to spank me and our guest continues to count. He’s fallen into a rhythm now. I know when to expect each blow. I relax into the pain, revel in the ache, surrender to my master’s will.

A particularly vicious slap lands on my left bum cheek. I automatically listen for Lady Wallingford’s voice. Silence.

“Maribel?”

“Oh—oh—I—oooh!”

At this point, my hairdo has disintegrated. I can’t see anything through the thick, honey-colored locks hanging over my face, but I know only too well what’s going on.

He finishes quickly, without a count, one spank following the next. I scarcely have time to breathe in between. My bottom’s ablaze. Tears swim in my eyes. Still, when he raises me from his lap and cradles me in his arms, that makes it all worthwhile.

“Well done, Beatrice,” he murmurs in my ear. “I believe you deserve a reward.”

His hand roots under my twisted skirts. His fingers find the magic button guarding my quim. A single firm touch is all it takes to trigger a whirlwind of ecstasy.

When I return to my senses, I find myself crumpled on the carpet near my master’s boots. With gentle fingers he combs the tangles away from my face. “Are you well, Beatrice?” he asks. I hear satisfaction in his voice. I see love in his eyes.

“Yes, Sir. Very well.” I glance over at Lady Wallingford. She has refastened her bodice. Still, she exudes a familiar, post-orgasmic glow. Her smile recalls the family tomcat after he’s devoured some poor sparrow.

“In that case,” he continues, helping me to my feet, “would you please ring Betty for another pot of tea?”

 

Night Wind, Breathing -- #Poetry #D/s #Magick

 

Logos

By Lisabet Sarai

 

(for GCS)

the word made flesh.
electric whispers
trace the wires
speed of light
the dream takes shape.

(here I am now,
on my knees,
bound and breathless,
open and still,
awaiting your will.)

violet ink
on ivory parchment;
mystic runes
in flickering phosphor
glow and fade;
tangled tales
come alive:
candle light
and velvet shadow,
ruby wine,
leather and steel.

(seductive, real
as the lust in your eyes;
you seem surprised.)

moon embraced
in naked branches,
nightwind breathing
in my hair,
westbound plane
burns through the dark.
I speak your name
and you are there.
fragile walls
between the worlds
melt to mist:
I step beyond
the looking glass.

(eat me. drink me.
all transformed,
logic crumbles,
powers awaken;
offered for
the ritual--
offered, and taken.)

inscribe the signs,
recite the charms,
weave the web
of words. We practice
ancient art:
veritas
in nomine.

(Domine,
you called me, claimed me,
named me with
my secret name,
clasped me
in this circling flame.)

now we reinvent each other,
mage, apprentice, captive, lover,
fashion masks
from the stuff of Story,
words as lens
to focus longing,
coalesce
vision to flesh.

(hand molds breast,
lips taste thigh,
kisses drenched
in silver fire:
forms of
crystallized desire.)

 

I Turn, U Turn,

Sacchi Green

You were afraid someone would take the low road, weren’t you. Yes, I’m going to be that someone, tossing self-respect to the winds and indulging my adolescent streak with a bad pun.

This is actually the result of a comment on Jean Roberta’s Facebook page, where we were discussing Facebook’s turning down a link to her current OGG post as not conforming with “Community Standards.” Her post here is in no way objectionable, unless now we can’t even use the word “sex” a couple of times, so we were joking about what “U Turns” might be code for, and someone (I asked if I could use her brilliant brainstorm, but failed to ask if I could use her name, so I won’t) replied, “69.”

Of course! I wish I’d thought of it first. I prefer to think of that configuration as yin/yang, but U Turns fits nicely enough. Lesbian erotica, my usual genre, makes so much use of the position as to make it a cliché if a writer doesn’t handle the scene carefully. But the term or concept isn’t limited in erotica to physiology. Power play tends on the whole to maintain the relative top and bottom roles, but switching can be at least as hot, and have even more layers of emotional and psychological complexity. I have to admit that the U Turn from dominance to submission (and vice versa) may work best in fiction, but as an editor of anthologies I find it intriguing, and I have, in fact, known it to occur in real life, for certain values of “real life.”

I’m going to supply an excerpt to make up for not having anything further to say about U Turns in erotica—I could go on quite a bit about total U Turns of gender, but I won’t go there just now. First, though, back to the original question about Facebook’s conversion to Puritan ways. I thought I might write this post without any overtly sexually charged language and see whether FB would allow a link, but I clearly haven’t managed that. I may fool around with temporarily editing all this to leave only the blandest of phrases, and see what happens, but my theory is that FB simply won’t allow links to The Grip itself any more. I used to be able to link, but haven’t tried for a while. I do know of computers in a school library that won’t let you go here.

On to the excerpt, even though I get to feeling that my excerpts are cop-outs to avoid more in-depth writing. “Baubles and Beads” was published in D.L. King’s Unspeakably Erotic, and actually falls between two other stories I’ve written about the same characters, one of which, “Pulling,” I’ve quoted from here before, and both of which are in my collection coming out in a couple of months.
_______________

Baubles and Beads
Sacchi Green

Fingers of light from the midway, garish pinks, purples, greens, groped at us between the buildings all the way to the horse barns. Some of the fair’s rides and hucksters kept on as long as the farm boys still had money smoldering in the pockets of their snug jeans, but Carla shut down her balloon-dart concession at the official closing time. She could’ve handled the lingering customers by herself, most of them on the leering side of friendly and the slurring side of drunk, but my looming six-foot-two of husky farm girl didn’t hurt. We rolled down and secured the canvas, and slipped away into the shadows.
Lights just as garish had seeped through skimpy curtains last night from the neon sign outside her motel room. I’d scarcely noticed, obsessed with Carla herself, the black-haired, blue-eyed bad girl of my dreams.
She’d bound me to the bedposts with strings of flashy mardi gras beads, my prizes from her game, and challenged me NOT to break them no matter what she did. I’d almost managed it. And learned, first, how it felt to give up, give in, abandon my strength and my will, all the armor against vulnerability built up over the years. I’d begun by tensing up in the fierce struggle not to strain against apparently flimsy bonds, resisting physical reflexes with will power, but the more Carla forced pleasure into pain and pain into pleasure, the farther both willpower and reflexes faded away. I floated somewhere beyond thought, drowning in pure sensation. When she tipped me over at last into a thrashing orgasm I must have broken the strands of beads, but it was a long time before I noticed them sprawling limply across the bed, and longer still before I saw that they were strung on strong nylon thread, knotted between each bead, each strand only broken at a single point.
So the second thing I learned, the most important by far, was not to assume that just because something looks flashy and cheap it must be flimsy.
Tonight my wrists and ankles were still raw. My tenderer parts ached when I remembered the keen torments and even keener pleasures she’d put me through. But later, after I’d demonstrated my own grasp of the basics--and of her tender parts--and taken possession of the shiny beads, Carla had offered to meet me again tonight on my own ground, and face any challenge I set, even if it meant getting up close and personal with horses that seemed to her “as big as elephants and twice as mean.”
Whatever I thought I’d known about women, Carla was a whole different story. A story turning out to be more complicated than I’d bargained for, but worth every bit of whatever it took. Last night she’d taught me more about myself than I’d ever faced up to before; tonight it was my turn to challenge Carla. Maybe even teach her a thing or two. And find out more about myself.
The horse barns faced east, away from the chaos of the midway and the crowds. I’d signed up for the overnight security shift, so once the guy on evening duty saw me coming, waved, and took off, there was nobody else around. At least there’d sure better not be.
A full moon was rising. Carla gazed up at it for a minute or two while I reached around from behind and fondled her sweet round breasts. A warm late summer breeze raised tendrils of her soft dark hair to brush against my cheek. “Autumn’s almost here,” I murmured. “There’ll be plenty more fairs coming up. I’ll be bringing my team to half a dozen or so. You’ll be at Fryburg in Maine?”
“Maybe,” she said, bracing herself. “But bring on your challenge now, Ree.”
She knew it would be about the horses. Yesterday, when I’d led my team out of the pulling ring and over to meet her, she couldn’t hide her terror. Molly and Stark, great black Percherons, two thousand pounds each with hooves the size of pie plates. Any city girl would be scared. I’d backed the pair off, told her I’d meet her at ten at her carnival booth, and moved on toward the barns, surprised at how much seeing a lapse in Carla’s femme-top self-possession excited me. A chink in her armor.
Now I leaned against the open barn door. “First, find out where I hid the beads.”
Carla relaxed, back in her own territory. “Let’s see. Maybe here?” She probed the pockets of my shirt, managing even through the flannel to tweak nipples still sore from her clamps last night. Then she reached up under the shirt to squeeze my heavy breasts. I tried hard to control my breathing. “Or here?” She worked her hands into the front pockets of my jeans, finding the same tube of horse lube I’d used with her last night, then the rear pockets, with more squeezing. My hips began to twitch. The look on my face must have given me away. Or maybe the catch in my breath.
“Aha.” Her fingers went between my legs to knead the thick seam of my jeans into my crotch. “Are these beads in your pants, or are you just glad to see me?”
“See for yourself.” I could barely get the words out. She wriggled a hand down inside belt, jeans, and briefs, found what she was looking for, and began sliding the strands through my slippery heat. I nearly lost it. One of those strands had been nestled even deeper the night before last; I’d been supposed to be resting up before the final round of the draft horse competition, but could think only of her. Tonight the beads had been driving me wild for half an hour. Was I really so set on being in charge tonight?
 I gritted my teeth and yanked her hand, clutching its wet ruby and peacock-green prizes, out into the night air. Even in the dim light from inside the barn they glowed like a Rajah’s treasure. Or…what was the proper term? A Ranee’s? I’d re-tied them securely after breaking them last night.  
“Mmm.”  Carla ran them across her tongue before draping them around her neck so that they swayed across her visibly tautened breasts.
I drew a shuddering breath and turned away.  “Now find the other two strands.” I stepped into the barn. Carla hesitated and then, very slowly, followed.
Molly, in a roomy box stall just inside the entrance, leaned her great black head over the gate and whuffled a greeting. Stark, just across the way, merely dozed on.
“Molly, this is Carla. Carla, Molly.” Molly lowered her nose politely to be petted. Carla jerked back briefly, then raised a tentative hand. I knew her fear of the horses wouldn’t last long, but it might at least soften her up a bit.
“Hello, Molly.” Her voice only shook a little. The horse’s nose dipped lower, snuffling at the green and ruby beads on Carla’s chest and then at her hands. Carla jerked back, then suddenly laughed. “You’re smelling Ree on me! I guess that makes us all pals.” She stroked the velvety nose tentatively. “And you’re wearing beads, too!” The gleaming strands twined through the black mane on either side of Molly’s neck, the golden on the right and the purple on the left.
“You’ll have to climb on the gate to reach them,” I pointed out.
She shot me a dirty look, mounted the lower bars, and reached across and upward. Even then, if Molly hadn’t been nuzzling her shoulder, the beads would have been too high for her to reach.
The first strand came loose easily. Carla climbed down, dangled it in front of me, then let it go when I gripped her wrist too hard for comfort. Yes, I definitely did want to be in charge, now that she had to meet my challenge. More was at stake than a tumble in the hay. Carla’s chin went up almost imperceptibly--and then she lowered it, turned, and climbed back up on Molly’s other side. Molly bent her head again cooperatively, but I gave a low whistle and she moved backward so that Carla couldn’t reach no matter how far she tried to stretch.
“That’s how I tell her to back off,” I said conversationally as I pulled Carla’s skirt up and panties down. “You want me to back off any time, just whistle. You do know how to whistle, don’t you?”
She stopped reaching in vain for the beads and thrust out her bare butt. Playing along, letting me get away with something, but taunting me just the same. I let the golden beads drift gently over each round, tempting cheek, drew them along the valley between, then whipped them suddenly across each side. Carla gripped the top of the gate and didn’t look around. I wielded them harder twice, slashing in diagonal strokes that left an intriguing latticework pattern, but I’d tried whipping my own arm with the beads that morning and knew how extra painful they could be, so I switched tactics.
I couldn’t wait any longer to get my hands on her. The feel of her heated skin, the sound of my strikes on her flesh, the tremors of her body, her musky scent strengthening by the second… In moments I was high on power and lust, intoxicated, all the more when she began making guttural sounds interspersed with gasps. “It’s…okay, Molly!” she got out as the horse twitched and shifted nervously.
I forced myself to take it slow again. Beads slid between those lovely moon-pale cheeks with their rosy stripes, rolled lower into the hot, wet heat of her crotch, nudged at her hardening clit, until finally she grated, “More, Ree, damnit! Now!” She clutched at Molly’s mane, pressed her forehead against the mare’s huge chest, and tried to grind herself hard against my hand.
“My territory, my rules. I decide what you get, and how much, and when.” I made a stab at sounding stern. It felt good. More than good.
Her muttered words were barely audible. “Yes Ree, whatever you want…”
My hand came down hard again on her rounded, tantalizing butt. I wanted her to want more of that, and to want all the kneading and squeezing both my hands gave to her reddened flesh before one sank slowly, slowly over those curves down into the heat between her thighs. Did I want her to need those things for herself, or because they pleased me? I just knew I wanted both.
She moved frantically against them at first, needing more, more pressure, more depth, but I teased her with retreat and advance and retreat, over ever more wet and slippery terrain. Once, experimentally, I kept one the fingers of one hand inside her while spanking her hard with my other hand and feeling the blows myself as it vibrated through her flesh, but that brought her—and me--so close to combustion that I had to pause. Not yet…not…yet…
I tried to gentle her again with slow strokes, but she shuddered and squirmed.
“Please…” Carla’s voice was so faint I could barely heard her. “Don’t let me drop…” Her grip on the gate still seemed firm. I wasn’t certain what she meant, but I was dead sure playing along had nothing to do with it any more.
“Trust me,” was all I thought of to say.
_______________

There’s a bit more, and more toward the beginning, but this is as close as it comes to having anything to do with U Turns, and the connection is pretty tenuous at that. In any case, I’ll be hugely surprised if FB will let me link to this post, if they wouldn’t allow Jean Roberta’s deeply moving post about her own life. Go on, scroll down and read that.          

Promises, Promises -- #bdsm #promises #soulmate

By Lisabet Sarai
 
I was sure he was the One. But then I’ve felt the same about so many others—my serial soul mates.

Let me back up. I’ve written many times here about my initiation into BDSM, about how profoundly it changed my view of myself and the world. I may have given you the impression that my relationship with my Master was all about sex. That’s not at all true. What made the experience so thrilling was not the physical pleasure (or the pain), but rather the sense of connection and utter trust. G taught me the exquisite joy of total surrender. He coaxed me to open myself to him, mind and body. When I did, I reaped exquisite rewards.

My love for him was profound, though at the time I believed he saw me only as his plaything. I didn’t know him nearly as well as he seemed to know me. I see now that he loved me, too, in his own way, though he never told explicitly used the words. Now I understand him much better, almost forty years after that first incandescent fuck that demonstrated his power. He’s sentimental, vulnerable, an incurable romantic, despite his sometimes rude or mocking ways. I was just blind.

So I thought it was arrogant possessiveness, not love, when he asked for my promise. He wanted me to guarantee that if I thought I’d found someone else, I’d come to see him first so he could win me back. I willingly gave my word. I didn’t want anyone else anyway. Though he and I lived four hundred miles apart, me in southern California, he in the north, we visited as often as we could. He was my Master. The relationship wasn’t easy, but I couldn’t imagine wanting to sever our ties.

Then I met M. I was susceptible, alone in the city, working at my challenging first job as a professional, trying to adjust to living in a culture radically different from my New England upbringing. M was sitting on the steps of his building a few blocks from my apartment. He gave me a crooked grin, invited me out to dinner, gave me a ride in his sports car, got me high, fucked me with a single-minded intensity in which I should have recognized echoes of my Master, but didn’t. I was dazzled, suddenly in love. M took me over, both physically and emotionally. We fit, physically, and we seemed to share a kind of telepathic communication, especially when we were in bed together.

For more than a month we spent every night and every weekend together. He told me he loved me. I was head over heels, sure he was the One, thinking (bizarre as it sounds now) about marriage.

Still, there was that promise I’d made to G. If I was about to become monogamous with M, I owed it to my Master to tell him personally. I flew up to San Francisco, as I had so many times before, though instead of the usual excitement I felt dread. What would G say? What would he do?

I imagined him grabbing me, throwing me on the bed, screwing me as hard as he could—reminding me that he owned me. Those images reawakened my excitement. He was my Master. He would reclaim me. I was his. Away from M, the influence of my new lover faded. Nervous, conflicted, I hoped that G would help me make up my mind.

Instead, he cried.

Have I told this story before? How helpless I felt in the face of his abdicating his authority over me? How silly I felt for keeping that promise? Not to mention disappointed, even betrayed? He was my Master. He was supposed to be strong.

That was one of the worst weekends in my life. G was sullen, nasty, self-pitying. I can’t remember if we had sex, but if we did, it didn’t fix things.

I returned to my new home, my job, my new lover.

Three weeks later M disappeared for the weekend. Unable to contact him, I was frantic. Remember, we’d been spending almost all our free time together. I worried that he’d been in an accident, that he was ill somewhere, even that he’d been kidnapped. I didn’t know what to do.

Monday morning I found out he’d been in Las Vegas, marrying his former girlfriend. I grieved. At the same time, I cursed myself for being such a fool.

That wasn’t the end of my relationship with my Master, of course. Even now, we still call one another “lover”. We communicate by email, talk by phone occasionally, meet every half decade or so if we can. Still, I think my reckless decision to tell him I’d found someone else damaged us in some fundamental way. Or perhaps the sight of him in tears at the thought of losing me undermined his authority as my Master.

I sometimes wonder—fantasize, actually—what would have happened if he’d been more forceful. If he’d claimed me as he’d hinted he would, when I showed up at his door. Would we still be together? Would I have been able to give him the devotion he needed, over the long term? Would we still be playing kinky games, even though we’re both senior citizens?

I’ll never know. I kept my promise. What would have happened if he’d kept his?

Negotiation, Anticipation, and Writing Erotica

Sacchi Green

They say “Getting there is half the fun.” I haven’t been able to track down who first said that, but I did discover that Henry J. Tillman claimed that the saying “became obsolete with the advent of commercial airlines.” Henry also said, “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the precipitate,” so I’m inclined to go along with whatever Henry says.

I very much doubt that Henry was taking into account “mile high club” action when he dissed the experience of traveling on commercial airlines, but I do suspect that thinking about and planning how to have sex on a commercial airplane, and anticipating how you think will be, can actually be more than half the fun of the undertaking, considering how hard the airlines work at making customers uncomfortable.

All of which has little or nothing to do with our topic of sexual negotiation, but I do have it on good authority that elaborate negotiation sometimes turns out to be more than half the fun. Not, by any means, often, but once in a while. It’s like when a writer has planned out a story in great detail, even outlining it scene by scene (not that I’d know anything about that,) and when the time comes to actually write the piece it feels like been-there-done-that. The anticipation factor has come and gone. Or so I’ve heard. Really.

I have, in fact, heard about some negotiations that go so far as to become lengthy written contracts, although my sources may be extreme outliers. I’ve read one long, detailed contract between a dom and a would-be submissive that could be a story in and of itself, and though I have no personal knowledge of whether the actual sex was even more fun than the anticipatory negotiations, I was told much later that after a while there wasn’t any more actual sex, for a reason that was too sensitive to have been included in the negotiations. It had to do with the young submissive making a comment about older bodies, without realizing how sensitive the dom was on that subject.

The necessity for negotiations was emphasized in the BDSM club for women that I belonged to on a largely nominal basis some years ago. I know about asking what areas of the body are off-limits, the relative preferences of pain or humiliation or dirty words, the necessity of safe words, the sharing of special fantasies. This was in the context of “play parties” rather than extended relationships, although I was close to some people who were trying to make long-term relationships work. The club had regular meetings with demos and lessons, and negotiation was one of the major themes. I got the impression that some folks there really got off on the negotiation part, especially as it represented a form of control of both self and partner. Looking back, I can see why the club eventually ceased to be when the non-sexual and never-ending “negotiations” over bylaws and mission statements made it impossible to get enough members to serve on the steering committee. Too bad, since the lessons on safe sex, required for all members, were quite valuable, and there were some great parties. But time moves along, and online groups like FetLife come along, and things change.

I know there’s much more to sexual negotiation than I can imagine. The closest I ever came was as a novice spanker, with a young spankee who knew exactly what she wanted, and what she didn’t. The main thing I remember was that she wanted me to be mean, so she could feel righteously angry at being unfairly mistreated. Okay. I don’t know what I would have done if she hadn’t already told me that her backpack contained, not sex toys, but library books, and YA books at that. I could play the mean librarian punishing her for bringing books for children to this den of iniquity (my hotel room connected to the play party suite.) I could also wield hand and belt and hairbrush harder, she said, that she’d thought possible. Ha. Don’t jump to conclusions about aging bodies. Although, several years later, I doubt that my joints could handle that much.

Getting back to my half-boiled theory about negotiation being somewhat like story-writing, I get quite a few submissions for my anthologies in which the negotiations makeup a major part of the story. In fact I was reading one today in which the negotiations and anticipations were the whole story, which, because of how intriguing the characters were, sort of worked, but may not end up being what I need for Best Lesbian Erotica of the Year. We’ll see. I have miles of text still to go, or at least it seems like it. Just eighty more submissions…

                 

 

Dark Magic

By Lisabet Sarai

[This is a repeat of a post I wrote the last time the Grip topic was "the dark side", back in 2012. When I re-read it, though, I knew it was worth sharing again.]

She's so gullible. Over Thanksgiving dinner (an unexpectedly wonderful feast at an atmospheric inn they'd stumbled upon, tucked away in the hills), he'd dropped hints about magical powers inherited from his Celtic ancestors. She'd swallowed his tale as eagerly as the turkey and the red wine, hanging on his words, focused on his face, wet (he knew) as she anticipated what might occur when they returned to his apartment. Her plump, perennially erect nipples teased him through her turtleneck jersey. His nipples, now, to play with, to torture, though perhaps she didn't think of them that way – not yet.

How had he managed to lure her here? He'd surprised himself with the success of his epistolary seduction. Before, in graduate school, they'd been only slightly more than friends. When he vanquished her at chess (despite the distraction of her bra-less state), there had been flickers of something less innocent in their interactions. Then he'd left, moved west, and one day, on a whim, written her a clever, flirtatious letter, fantasizing all the while about her lush breasts, parted lips and the nicely-rounded ass he'd never seen. He hadn't really expected her enthusiastic response, especially not when he broached topics like spanking, bondage, and melted wax. Clearly he'd been right to trust his intuition more than his intellect.

His bedroom is shadowed, lit by a single candle that spikes the air with patchouli. He hovers over her, weight balanced on his arms, the contrast between his big frame and her petite body making him worry. He wants to hurt her, but not in any way that causes damage. A half year's worth of fantasies – both the ones they've shared and the darker ones he doesn't dare expose – have him achingly hard. He jerks a bit, so his cockhead brushes her tangled pubic curls. They both shiver.

Her cunt draws him, but he resists that magnetic pull a while longer, making her wait for what she obviously wants. Control is difficult but necessary. He hasn't bound her (though there are holes drilled in the bed frame and a coil of rope ready in the bed table drawer). He hasn't marked her yet. Candlelight dapples her fair skin, previews of the stripes he hopes to leave there. Tonight though, there's just her voluptuous, eager body and his, primed by hours of self-abuse (the term seems apt, given the images that obsess him). They could be any pair of new lovers. But of course that's not true. What binds them together is more urgent than mere passion, darker than love.

She does not speak, though he has not enjoined her to silence. Her eyes are wide, riveted to his. When he finally allows himself to enter her juicy depths, she gasps, though he's on the down side of average in size. Still, the fit is tight and sweet – it stokes his fever. Pulling back, he rams into her, letting loose all the frustrations built up in month after month of solitary imaginings. He reads her face as he does, ready to stop if she seems to object. They are, after all, practically strangers, despite the explicit letters and breathless phone calls.

There's no resistance in her, though. She keeps her wrists crossed, arms above her head, exactly where he placed them. The position highlights those outrageous nipples she flaunts with such apparent unconcern. Leaning towards her, he catches one in his teeth. Her body ripples and her back arches, driving him deeper.

Fuck me, her eyes say. Use me. So he does, pounding her with his cock again and again, rough and raw, reveling in the slick grip of her cunt around his impossibly hard dick. His thrusts are brutal, but he hears no complaints. Amazed, almost disbelieving, he understands. She wants this as much as he does.

You're mine, he thinks, exulting in his power. He wills his cock to grow and swell. He wants to fill her completely, stretch her to her limits and beyond, tear her apart. It may be suggestion, but he feels huge inside her. Her eyes are pools of wonder.

It's all that he had imagined - no, better, because she's soaked and hungry and more open than he could have dreamed. Then unexpectedly, reality shifts. Some sort of psychic conduit opens between them. Her emotions flood his senses, her desperate need and her profound surrender. All at once, he really can hear her thoughts, and he knows, with complete certainty, that she can read his.

Mine. Mine!

Yes, yes – please...

Be still.

Her writhing ceases. Her tiny moans quiet. He ravages her with his gigantic cock and she takes it - willing, trusting, grateful.

She is truly his slave, bound by his command, and he is her born master, caring or cruel as it suits him. She has died for love of him, and he's taking his last pleasure from her still-warm corpse. He is the devil and she's the soul he has ensnared and lured into darkness.

Yes.

He comes with shout of triumph, pouring his seed into her welcoming heat. Her climax shimmers through her, and he feels that, too, the inevitable welling up of sensation so different from his own sharp release. For an instant he really can't tell which feelings and thoughts are his own and which belong to her.

A spark of fear – a flutter of rebellion – she pulls away from him the tiniest bit, reclaiming her will. The crystalline energy between them clouds. He does not fight the change. No one could bear the intensity of that connection for long. They lie in each other's arms, exhausted and groggy with joy.

The candle gutters and winks out. They sleep. He wakes a bit after dawn to find his bed empty. Did he imagine it all? Was this just another fantasy?

Rubbing his eyes, he wanders out of the bedroom. She is seated at the dining room table, naked in the pearly light of a foggy morning, writing in her journal. Her bowed neck speaks both of submission and strength. He sees that despite her tiny frame, she's anything but delicate.

Barefoot, he steals up behind her, cupping her luscious breasts, twirling her nipples. She leans back with a sigh, her curly locks soft against his bare chest. He nips her earlobe, runs a wet tongue along the line of her jaw.

“What are you writing about, Sarah?” he asks, a bit afraid of the answer.

Her face is luminous as she turns to him.

“Magic.”

Stash

By Lisabet Sarai

She should throw them away. After all, she’s married now, and a mother twice over. It’s crazy —unhealthy, even—to hold on to those tattered remnants of her past. If Ben ever found them, she knows he’d be deeply hurt.

Not that there are secrets between them, not really. She’s told Ben about her all-too-brief exploration of her submissive nature, at least in general terms. He doesn’t want to know more. The notion that she ever enjoyed being beaten or bound or “forced” into lewd actions makes him terribly uncomfortable. To be faced with evidence of her joyful depravity would not only disgust him, but also make him feel inadequate. Even after a dozen years together, her husband worries that he’s too vanilla to satisfy her. The nugget of truth in that worry is her private shame.

So she hides the letters between the pages of the New Testament her born-again mother gave her as a gift so many years before. Atheist that he is, Ben won’t touch that volume. She tells herself she’s protecting him from pain. The irony of this strategy isn’t lost on her. She remembers her mother’s shrill voice, naming her as “spawn of the Devil” because of her sexual adventures—the ones Mom somehow found out about, that didn’t include any kink.

Those well-worn epistles wait for her, stashed among St. Paul’s letters to the Corinthians and the Romans. She might not take them out for weeks, but she’s always aware of their existence, a sweet temptation calling to her from the bookshelf. Just a quick look. What harm could it do?

She works from home, transcribing medical records for an insurance company. It’s deadly dull, but pays pretty well. She can make her own schedule, and be there when the boys return from school. Mornings, though, after the kids are on the bus and Ben has left for the office—those are the hardest times. She strikes bargains with her conscience. Three more cases, then she’ll take ten minutes. Reread one letter, or at most two.

An hour later she finds herself on the floor, surrounded by dog-eared envelopes and sheets of paper dense with his firm script, her eyes and her sex both moist.

At this point, she doesn’t really read the letters so much as caress them. She knows every word by heart. Still, some of them leap from the page, echoing in that rich, dark voice he employed with such skill.

Flog.

Fuck.

Open.

Mine.

He’d used these letters to seduce her, months before they’d even touched. Somehow he knew—he always knew—what she craved. After he’d dropped out of grad school and moved across the country, she’d been the first to write, a chatty, chummy letter with only the barest hint of flirtation. How had they progressed to discussing spanking, hot wax and nipple clamps? Had she been seeking that all along?

After their first incandescent encounters, the correspondence had continued, bridging the miles between them, more thrilling and raw than ever.

It never occurred to me that you’d refuse anything I asked.

The letters rekindle that wondrous, terrifying yearning. Once again she’s the innocent, eager creature he’d somehow recognized, pliant and brave, hungry to taste his power. He’d shaped her sexual self like some sculptor of the flesh. Malleable, he’d called her. Back then, his mocking superiority annoyed her slightly. Now it makes her proud. She misses that woman, wonders if any trace of her still exists.

After all these years, she doesn’t really remember the physical pleasure, but she can summon the breathless excitement of surrender simply by opening an envelope, without reading a single line. She’s never been more alive than when she lay beneath him or knelt before him, ready to accept whatever he felt inclined to bestow. That was reality, sparking into existence once again as she scans the pages. It’s her current existence, full of mundane domestic joys and ordinary comforts, that feels like a dream.

He’s married as well at this point, to a kinky girl a dozen years younger whom he met at a munch. They exchange vanilla birthday and Christmas cards, two old friends with a secret history. She’s glad he’s not her husband. He’s critical and difficult, a perfectionist. She’s not sure she could give him what he needs now. But she did, back then. She never doubts that.

With a sigh, she slips the brittle pages back into their envelopes. A few are torn already. How many years will it be before they finally crumble to dust? Will she still be re-reading his words, re-living their past connection, when she’s a grandmother? It’s possible. She’s not ready to relinquish the letters yet, though her lack of total honesty gnaws at her. They are all that remains of the gloriously liberated, utterly devoted slave she once was.

Illumination

By Lisabet Sarai

I've always believed that flesh is holy.

Having met others who were not so fortunate, I understand how lucky I was to grow up in a family and religion where sex was not considered a sin. My mom, in particular, was a lusty woman who would sometimes dress provocatively and flirt outrageously. I was never taught to be ashamed of my sexuality.

At the same time, from my earliest years I was fascinated by things of the Spirit. I've written before about my Catholic girlfriend who intended to be a missionary nun. I was her first “convert”, when she baptized me at the tender age of seven, after having been well-schooled about the saints and the sacraments. Later, I was exposed to Hindu mysticism through an aunt who was the disciple of an Indian guru. My few experiences with psychedelics convinced me that, as many Eastern traditions teach, the material world is a thin skin spread over a limitless ocean of spiritual energy. I saw for myself how passionate imagination could shape “reality”, crystallizing new truths out of the formless potentiality of Infinite Mind. Many times in my personal experience, the so-called real world has twisted and reformed itself in response to my heartfelt desires.

For me, sex seemed to confirm the existence of the soul. In many sexual encounters, I felt a sense of connection with my partners that extended far beyond the physical. Perhaps I conflated sex and love, shallow pleasure and deep joy, but regardless, those experiences changed me. During what I like to call my “sex goddess” period (others might simply label me promiscuous), I was simultaneously fucking people right and left and experiencing daily spiritual revelations. As I wrote in my journal during that period:

Where will this all end? Can there be such a thing as living too much in the moment? Have I no “will power”?

How ridiculous! It suddenly occurs to me that tonight's events with E were in fact a straightforward manifestation of my own will, an expression of numerous daydreams, night-dreams and fantasies....

Or am I just an addict? God is giving me what I need. This I must believe. Lord knows I needed G (in the sense: needed for my growth). E too has something to teach me. (And I him.)

I am willing, open to it.. but it is just too much!

Nothing taught me as much about Spirit as my initiation into BDSM. In my early scenes with my Master, I came to a new understanding of faith and trust. When I completely let go of myself, allowing him to take total control, the rewards were limitless. Not just pleasure but true bliss, a sense of deep communion, an acute awareness of the power we wielded together when our bodies, minds and spirits were attuned. It was just a step from here to the notion of submitting to a non-physical Higher Power, because in some sense we are all manifestations of underlying Spirit.

A poem jotted in my journal, from the same era:

Take me, lord.

My hands outstretched,

eager for your chains.

Head bowed,

Long hair hiding my breasts

(only so long as you will it)

Take me.

Let me be

consumed in your flames

of mercy and desire.

Soul of the priestess within me

Naked upon the altar.

Faith incarnate.

Surrender.

Power.

Peace.

It's hard to explain this if you've never experienced it yourself, but these feelings are not unique to me. In 2006, S.F. Mayfair and I edited an incredible collection entitled Sacred Exchange: Stories of Transcendence and Spirituality in Dominance and Submission. The book is out of print now, but if you can find a used copy, you'll get fresh insight into why I feel that submission can be a sacrament. My contribution to that volume (“Communion”) was explicitly religious, the tale of a fourteenth century nun restored to her lost faith through being scourged and sodomized by a renegade priest. She pays dearly, but gladly, for her illumination. Here's the first paragraph:

When the first flames taste my flesh, I feel no pain. Eyes closed, I attend to the summer dawn: blossoms mingling with the wood smoke, birdsong greeting the sun. Ecstasy wells up inside me even as my robe ignites. Grace, gratitude, glory. I open myself to the agony, let the pain wash over me as the Master taught me.

These themes of surrender and redemption run through much of my erotica. (They're too serious for romance readers.) Here's a bit from another of my short stories, “Higher Power”, about the true nature of magic.

He turned away for a moment, then returned with a leather blindfold. "This will help you to concentrate," he said. I nodded, not daring to speak. I blushed again at my reaction to his brief touch as he slipped the blind over my head. Everything turned velvety black, black as his curtains and his eyes. Now there was nothing but darkness, darkness and his luminous voice.

"Myra, I want you to relax and trust me. Listen to me. Focus on me. Let me fill your consciousness, until you know nothing but me." As he spoke, I thought I felt his fingers, dancing lightly over my body. Yet I could tell from the sound that he was standing several feet away. He began to chant in some language that I did not recognize. His musical voice rose and fell in a soothing rhythm. I felt a stirring of air around me. Little by little, the tension leached from my body. Warmth flowed in like honey to take its place, thick and sweet, coalescing into a dampness between my thighs. I could not understand what he was saying, but his intonations gradually took shape in my mind, whorls and eddies of vibrant color that held me spellbound. I hardly realized it when his incantation ended. Then I smelled sulfur and heard the snap of a match bursting into flame. My fear flared in response.

"Myra," he said softly. I could tell that he was closer now, right beside the chair. "Trust me. There will be no pain." I felt intense heat against the skin of my forearm, smelled paraffin and singed hair. Yet he spoke truly. I felt no pain, only exquisite warmth that began in my extremities and raced toward that swelling center below my belly, which seemed to have become the center of the universe.

"I choose you," he intoned. "I anoint you. I consecrate you to my service." With each phrase, he sprinkled burning wax onto my skin as if it was holy water. I smelled the incense of my childhood, and felt the ancient awe. Yet at the same time my whole self hummed with lust. I was aware that the evidence of my desire leaked from me, staining my business clothing and scenting the air. I did not care. Shame had left me. I hung on to his voice, rising and falling, eagerly awaiting the next blissful, fiery benediction.

Complete bliss. That was what I felt. Then suddenly, there was a giddiness, a disorientation. My body was moving, floating upward. A shard of terror threatened to rend my joy, but his voice knit up the fabric of my concentration. "I choose you, I anoint you. Trust me. Yield to me. I am the One, the One you seek, the One you crave."

I was suspended in his net of words. I understood with new wonder that my body hung unsupported in the air, mysteriously buoyant. I was literally flying. I could still feel the embrace of leather on my wrists and ankles, yet somehow, irrationally, I knew that I hovered several feet above the seat.

Suddenly I comprehended the reality of his power. This was no illusion, no hypnotic suggestion. I knew, with total conviction, that magic truly lived in this man's voice. "Yield to me," he said softly, and touched me between the eyes with one delicate finger. A fireball of an orgasm seized and consumed me. I swear that I smelled burned flesh as I convulsed blindly in the air.

The next thing I knew, I was crying. He was brushing my hair back from my face and speaking some soothing nonsense. I looked into his eyes, excitement flooding through me. "It's real, isn't it? The tricks, the magic? The power?"

He smiled enigmatically. "As real as your submission. As powerful as your concentration." He handed me a glass of water, and my skin tingled at his brief touch. "In any case, Myra, you've got the job." There was mischief in his eyes. "That is, if you want it."

I should mention that I had trouble getting both these stories published. Mixing religion and sex tends to make people nervous, even before you throw BDSM into the mix.

I have to speak and write my own truth, though. For me, sex has been a path to spiritual knowledge. And surrendering to my Master has bestowed on me the paradoxical power to accept and embrace whatever comes, as expressed in this one last excerpt.

Ritual

To GCS

They meet, infrequently, to perform the ritual. She waits for him to arrive, heart slamming against her ribs, stomach twisted with nervousness. When he enters, they embrace, awkwardly. It has been so long. She attempts lightness, a joke, a jibe, pretending that she does not know why she is here. Then he gives the sign - a mere eyebrow, arched in a question - and her protective humor slips from her along with her clothing.

The ritual demands much of them, the steps choreographed, but always with room for improvisation. First he binds her, with rope, or silk, or leather, ceiling-hung with thighs spread, or splayed across the bed, or bent double over a hassock. Sometimes he will position her limbs and bind her to stillness with his command alone.

Then he teases her, dabbles his fingers in her wetness, lovingly mocks her sluttishness. She melts at his slightest touch, sinks liquid and helpless into the ritual spirit, moaning just as he intends. She could drown in his rich voice, nuanced and full of power. He pinches her nipples into aching peaks, captures them in clothespins, or cinches them with rubber bands. All the while he strokes her pussy, calls her his pet, muddles the pains and the pleasures besieging her.

Next, he beats her. Here the ritual has many variants, but all with a single purpose: to invoke the purity of her surrender. She writhes under the lash, twists away from the hairbrush, whimpers as his bare palm reddens her buttocks. She does not wish to resist him; her only thought now is to please. But the pain is difficult to endure. Breathe, he says, soothing, encouraging, even as he scourges her. Open yourself. Yield yourself to me once again.

His voice is the key that unlocks her. Some barrier shatters and she floats free, each stroke of the whip an ecstatic kiss. His mind moves with hers now, sharing her agony and her joy. His breath comes in gasps like hers. His organ is granite. Now, come to me, my love, he whispers, entering her front or rear or spraying her marked thighs with his burning seed. She obeys, sliding into climax as he slides inside her, white hot fringed with red streaks of the pain.

Transcendence. Communion. Completion. They do not speak of it as they dress. There is no need for speech when the ritual is complete.

They meet infrequently. Sitting alone, on the plane or the bus taking her homeward, she savors the gaping, twitching sensations in her rear hole, the sharp echo of her stripes as she shifts in her seat, the slickness, still, in her sex. His voice echos in her mind.

Theirs is an old love. She thinks of him daily, imagines his life, her chest swollen with bittersweet aching. He thinks of her less frequently, but when he does, he gnashes his teeth, driven almost to madness because he cannot possess her. Then he recalls her sweet pliancy, her willing debasement, and his lips curve in a smile as he strums on his cock.

The ritual renews them. When she lies in a dentist's chair, or on the surgeon's table, when she wakes in fear in the night, she remembers him. Breathe. Open. Surrender. She relaxes into the fear, trusting as she trusts him.

She is sure that she will think of him, that way, when she surrenders herself into the arms of death. And then, perhaps, their meetings will be more frequent, and the ritual will be perfected.