The Novel I Don't Dare Write

By Lisabet Sarai

Why do I bother? Another new BDSM club – they're sprouting like mushrooms these days – but it's always the same. The egos. The poseurs. The clueless wannabees drawn by imagined glamor or the trendiness of black leather with a set of cuffs dangling from your belt. The would-be serial killers gloating over the chance to draw blood. The doormats and the pain sluts, ready for anything that will pierce the bubble of numbness encasing them.

My costume broadcasts what I'm seeking, but it's obvious I won't find it here. As I sit at the bar, sipping plain tonic and wishing it were something stronger, I eye the burly guy flogging a girl on the cross. Sweat beads on his hairy chest, which is crisscrossed by an expensive studded harness. Framed by matching chaps, his bare buttocks flex with each ferocious stroke. His boots glitter with steel chain. He looks like the perfect top, but look again. Drunk on his own power, he's hitting her much too hard. She's way beyond what she can take, but she's too dazed or too embarrassed to safeword. He doesn't know, can't read the signs. Of course, how could you expect him to know? They just met half an hour ago.

They come to play, when the reality is deadly serious. They don't understand that it's not about force but about acceptance. Closed in their private fantasies, they miss the point. Nothing works if you're not open – the dom and the sub both.

Chris knew. Ah, Christopher. My dark poet. My master. The bitter tonic fizzes on my tongue. Will the empty ache under my sternum ever go away?

Chris knew how to coax me open, from the very first time he hung me from the ceiling in his dingy basement apartment. He was born to master me, or so we both liked to pretend, though we both knew that was romantic hogwash. My beloved, cruel, deviant Chris.

I would have done anything for him. I ate his shit once, because he asked me to, to prove my total devotion. It was disgusting – I still gag, recalling the stench, the slimy texture – and yet thrilling at the same time, to realize how completely I belonged to him. A flogging? That's nothing. I wear Chris' brand on the inside of my right thigh.

It took us three years to get to that point, though, three years of building trust and pushing limits. Every morning during those years I woke in a fever, trembling in anticipation of the tests he might set me that day. Never did he disappoint me. Although he was a true sadist – my suffering brought him the most profound pleasure – he still cherished and nurtured me, recognizing and honoring the depths of my surrender.

I suppose he was a bit crazy, extreme in his wild quest for more profound experience, more intense sensation. I loved that insanity, though, that uncertainty, the sense of threat that edged even his most affectionate caress. I wanted to be everything for him – his acolyte, his slave, his muse, his nurse, his whore. Because he was open, I sensed his emptiness. I yearned to fill it.

Someone else would see black humor in the manner of his death. Chris perished with a rope around his neck, splattered with his own cum. Auto-erotic asphyxiation - such a BDSM cliché! How embarrassing, especially considering his expertise in the art of bondage.

Don't go there. Don't think about Chris now, here. But how can I not, when that's what I so desperately need, a master who is willing to take everything from me, and give me everything in return?

His passing ripped a jagged hole in my existence. Nearly a decade later, after the pills, the therapy, the electroshock, after two years in a vanilla marriage where I tried to pretend I was normal, the chasm still yawns. I haven't recovered. I've just gotten more skilled at hiding my wounds.

Meanwhile, I can't deny the twisted need at my core. I've tried all the avenues. Clubs. Chat rooms. Munches. Personal ads. I've been beaten and buggered and pissed on, but really, since Chris, no one has touched me.

“Miss?” The pierced and tattooed bartender places a tumbler full of golden liquid in front of me. “This is for you.”

“What?” The honey-and-smoke scent of premium single malt tickles my nose. “I-I'm not indulging in any alcohol tonight.” I've learned the hard way that when I drink in a kink club, I tend to make bad decisions.

“He insists.”

“He? Who?” I scan the crowded room. Nobody seemed to be paying attention to me.

“The man who ordered the Scotch for you.”

“Who's that?”

“He's not here right now. But he expects to be obeyed.”

The barkeep hands me a folded sheet of cream-colored linen paper then backs away. I run a fingertip over the slightly nubby surface, curious about this unexpected missive despite my jaded attitude. The dim, red-tinged light in the club made it a bit difficult to see, but I think I detect traces of a monogram embossed in the paper. I flip the note open and try to read its contents. The graceful script is regular and fairly easy to decipher; despite its flowing lines, I suspect it's a printer font, not hand written.

I know what you need, Zoë.

A chill crawls up my spine. How can he know my name? I always use a pseudonym when I sign in at a club.

I've been watching you.

Oh great. A stalker. My heart beats faster, with fear, but something else, too. Excitement. Chris would play games like this sometimes.

You need a real master, not one of these counterfeits around you.

Everything about you cries out to be taken. Used. Known. Owned.

Yearning surges through me. Tears prick the corner of my eyes. I dash them away and read on.

Drink the scotch. Savor it. It is my gift to you.

Then, if you want what I have to offer, go home. Remove your clothing and lie down on your bed, completely still. Don't move a muscle until you get my message on your mobile phone. That's very important. If you move at all, you'll disappoint me.

And I will know. I'm watching you, my lovely Zoë. Remember that as you hold yourself immobile, fighting the urge to twitch, to scratch, to reach between your legs and rub that juicy clit that begs for your attention.

Give me your stillness. And in return, I will give you everything you crave.

M.

I shake my head. I can't believe this, I just can't. It's another trick, a lie, someone having a laugh at my expense.

But what if I'm wrong?

The single malt is ambrosial, liquid heat coursing down my throat and lighting up my body. I sip it deliberately, knowing somehow that M would want me to take my time.

Then I visit my locker, grab my things, and leave, my heart slamming against my ribs and my pussy soaked.

****

This is the first chapter of a novel I've been contemplating for some time. I don't have a title. I don't even really have a plot, just a concept, a theme – really, a message.

The message: the essence of dominance and submission is psychological, spiritual, emotional - not physical.

I've toyed with this theme before. In my short story “Just a Spanking”, the psychological effects of a spanking bring a sub to orgasm even though the dom never touches her in any sexual way. In “Stroke”, a partially paralyzed Dom nevertheless manages to dominate his secretly submissive nurse. In “Higher Power”, a magician proves that that the power of mental connection between dominant and submissive can counteract the effects of swords and a guillotine. When the sub momentarily loses faith in her master, though, when she doubts his power, her spine is severed.

Not the most light-hearted tale, I admit, though I suggest that with her renewed dedication and trust, her master may heal her. Needless to say, Cleis didn't want that story!

This novel, though, will go far further. M does indeed turn out to be the master Zoë so desperately craves. Chapter by chapter, he sets her new tests and draws her closer to him. His intuition is unfailing. He metes out both pleasures and punishments, fulfilling Zoë's kinkiest fantasies. The pain of her loss begins to ebb. Her devotion to her mysterious Dom grows.

However, he dominates her by proxy. They do not meet until well past the middle of the book. And then Zoë learns that M is a quadriplegic, paralyzed from the neck down in an auto accident.

Yes, you read that right. I'm contemplating an erotic novel in which the hero is an almost completely disabled cripple.

He's physically attractive, intelligent, wealthy, with the power to control others, but he can't control his own body. He can't whip her or bind her. He can't come on her tits or force his way into her ass. He can't feel her touch on his cock.

Could this possibly work? Could I make this erotic?

Maybe.

Could I every sell it to a publisher?

Highly unlikely. And if I did, I'd undoubtedly be beset by angry hordes who'd castigate me for fetishizing disability (which is not at all my intention) or inaccurately portraying the life and capabilities of a quadriplegic (which might be a relevant criticism). I'm sure I'd also get plenty of criticism for writing a book that was a “downer” in a world and a genre where happy endings are prized.

And yet, when I imagine this novel, I do see the ending as happy. M could very well be the exactly the master to heal and nurture my damaged heroine. Zoë could serve him in concrete as well as symbolic ways, with the satisfaction that she's truly meeting his needs, needs that would make most subs run away screaming.

Still – I'm sure I'd be accused of deep political incorrectness if I ever brought this into the world, possibly even by practitioners of BDSM.

So I'll probably never write this novel. But I'm so, so tempted.

I've been thinking about this book for a long time, without writing a word. Then, I sat down to consider the Grip topic for this cycle and wrote the chapter above in about an hour. Clearly the book is waiting there, growing inside me.

Maybe it's time to let it out.

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.