Is This a Dagger That I See Before Me?

by Jean Roberta

So far, no one here has interpreted “edgy” writing as involving blades of various kinds. Swords, switchblades, ritual knives (athames), skewers, and various other tools or weapons are great props to use in melodrama, and I find them more versatile than guns. The appearance of an object with an edge and/or a point always raises the tension and introduces several possibilities. The famous literary theory that if a gun is introduced in the first scene, it must be fired later in the narrative applies equally well to a blade, but in that case, it could be used for Shakespearean swordplay, a dastardly secret stabbing, or for cutting the cake at a surprise birthday party.

The following piece was written early in this century, and it was inspired by my discussions with two fellow-members of the Erotic Readers and Writers Association. The male one, “Cervo” (an academic, playwright, poet and novelist, unfortunately now deceased) claimed to have “faith in metaphor” as a means of understanding the world.

In an exchange with the female one (Shiloh) about Freudian theory (in which she seemed well-versed), I asked her if it was true that Freud thought all women were masochistic. She claimed that Freud wondered (didn’t assert) whether there had to be some vaguely masochistic tendency at work “in order for the mind to accept the idea that pleasure comes from being penetrated.”

I answered: “I’ve often thought the answer to this question depends on the metaphor one uses (if any) to conceive of fucking. If it is thought of as a knife in the guts, then obviously it is likely to be considered unappealing. If it is thought of as a sausage in the hungry mouth, then it makes more sense.”

She responded: “And then the question would be... which analogy is sexier?”

I didn’t accept her implication, and I wrote the following story as a response. It was first published in 2002 in a marvelous magazine of dark fantasy with beautiful artwork, Cthulhu Sex from New York, which went defunct (as great publishing venues so often do), and then in Problem Child (2003), an experimental zine produced by Lori Selke of Oakland, Calif, which lasted for two issues (as far as I know).

This story, which I originally thought of as an unpublishable private joke, might even be published a third time. A group of very young and eager-looking writers/editors/artists in Toronto (judging from their photos) plan to launch a new fantasy mag, Augur, with a Canadian focus, and they are asking for reprint stories for a teaser issue. I sent them three, including this one. I await their decision.

Awakening

I am a teenager, and the Spirit of the Sixties (actually, the recorded sound of “Glad All Over” by the Dave Clark Five) is blasting all around me. The whole room rocks to the beat as I breathe in the combined smells of sweat, hairspray and Jade East men’s cologne; all the guys think it gets us like Spanish Fly or something. My stretch pants grip my whole lower half like a pushy date. I want to dance, and this makes me angry. My partner has to be male, and I have to wait for him to ask me: stupid rules. Stupid world. I want something cold to drink, I want someone to see me for who I am (even if everyone can see the teasing in my hair and the pimples under my makeup), and I want to Do It soon.

Christie digs me in the ribs. She thinks it’s her sacred duty to find me a boyfriend, and she thinks that’s all we can ever be for each other: boyfriend-finders. “J,” she tells me, “he’s looking at you. He’s got a neat name, Blade Steele. His parents must be rich.”

“Blade?” I ask. “That’s his name?”

“Oh, yeah. It’s so masculine and classy. Rich people give their kids names like that.” Or crazy people, I think. Maybe cartoonists. “He’s got his own car,” Christie tells me. “He’s looking at you.” I try not to notice, but it’s hard. Hard-up, that’s what I must be to care what some boy from the South End thinks of me. Guys like that usually assume I’m easy. I can’t afford to let my reputation get any worse. “R-E-S-P-E-C-T,” sings Aretha from the speakers, “find out what it means to me.” Maybe it’s already too late for me to get any respect from anybody, ever. I could scream, or cry.

“Hey,” he insinuates, looking at me as if he has known me for years. “Come and dance.” (Or dance and then come? Come while dancing?) He just assumes I’m willing, and he’s right. All my friends and his friends are watching, and I can’t turn him down. Then someone worse would ask me, and everybody would say things behind my back no matter what.

I can get into the beat, no matter who I’m with. He’s a better dancer than the other guys I know. He smiles as if he likes me. I guess I can’t hate a boy I don’t know very well yet. He’s not bad-looking, even handsome in a way. He has a nice nose - “chiseled” is what that’s called, I think - and laughing eyes. The smell of Jade East comes at me in gusts. Having a boyfriend with his own car would really help my reputation.

Slow dance, oh my god. He’s holding me tight, letting me know what he wants. I’m supposed to believe this feeling is a sign of Love. I’m supposed to be a Nice Girl, that’s why. My breasts are mashed against his hot chest and his sweaty hands seem to be burning through my back like brands. He’s breathing into my neck, breathing hard. I can feel the hardness through his pants, so I pull away. I’m sure everyone is watching. I can’t stand it. We have to get out of here.

“Come on,” he murmurs. I don’t even bother to tell anybody where I’m going. Fuck them. That’s probably what they’ll all do later anyway, but then they talk about me.

It’s cool outside, and I can breathe again. His arm is around my shoulders as if he wants to take care of me. I know better, but I want to believe in this. My prince, my shield against the stupid world. The one guy who sees things the way I do, and who loves me beyond my wildest dreams. Yeah, sure.

His car is a Chevy. It looks like a family car to me, but I don’t care if it belongs to his dad. For now, we’re the only ones in it. I know he’s taking me to a place where I shouldn’t be, where my parents don’t want me to go. They don’t want to admit that I’m a woman (not legally, but as a certain famous writer once said, the law is an ass) and I have rights.

The neighborhood is quiet, with big lawns. Not exactly rich, but respectable. Unlike me. He pulls into the garage. “My parents aren’t home,” he grins. Of course; I should have known. This is my cue to - what? Scream? Run down a dark street to find some guy in a car who will drive me home without wanting anything in return? I already know what’s going to happen. I agreed when I got into his car. I guess it’s true that I’m a born slut. I just hope he won’t get me pregnant.

He leads me into a basement room and turns on the light. It’s a red lightbulb in the ceiling. “I bet you’ve never seen a real man before, baby,” he tells me. “Look at this.” He sits on a day-bed and rips his shirt off over his head, proud to show me his sweaty chest with a trickle of hair down the middle. He unbuckles his belt, watching me watching him. Too bad for him that guys can’t get paid to do strip-tease. He pulls his tight jeans down over his thighs. His jockey shorts are sticking up at a strange angle. When he pulls them off, I see why.

It’s actually growing out of his crotch, with a nest of brown curly hair at its base. The red light bounces off it as he moves. It looks about a foot long, and both sides of it are sharp. The point looks as if it could pierce through the thinnest or thickest of objections. I can’t believe this! I don’t believe it. I know it’s not real. But he made it real. I know that too.

“Let me go!” I shriek, even before he grabs me.

“Hey, baby,” he soothes me. “Come on, just sit down here with me a minute. Don’t be like that.”

“You did it,” I tell him, as if he didn’t know. “You made it that way. It was all right before, it was flesh and blood.” I know I’m wasting precious breath, but I want him to know that I know he has brought a stupid symbol into the physical world. “You creep!” I shriek, wasting more breath. “Why?”

I can’t get free from his grip. “Hey baby, I didn’t force you,” he tells me. “You’ve been begging for it. I know you like them big and hard.”

“I didn’t know!” I scream into his face. I could scream my lungs out, and he wouldn’t hear me. I don’t want to cry. “I thought you were like all the other guys!”

He laughs aloud. “How do you know what the other guys are like, honey? You’re a bad girl, aren’t you? That’s what they told me. Now you think you can make a fool of me, but I don’t take that. You can’t back out now.”

In years to come, this line of argument will be called Patriarchal Morality. At the moment, however, I am stuck. As I am deathly afraid I will be.

Either I will be alive tomorrow, or I won’t be. It’s that simple. It’s not theoretical to me. My pussy feels hot and swollen, hungry and slightly sore, like - like something else I can barely remember. So mote it be.

“I guess you’re right, Blade,” I tell him, carefully moving closer. Of course he thinks I’ve accepted his view of things, no matter what it’s going to cost me. He pulls me onto the day-bed beside him and slides a hand inside my pants, wanting to explore me with his fingers first.

I bet he has no idea where my new teeth are located.

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Food is Love

By Lisabet Sarai

Let me start by admitting that I stole my title from Garce's amazing story “Miss Julia's Cake Club”. As I pondered how to address Kathleen's topic, “Soul Food”, this is what came to mind. I believe that Kathleen hoped we'd consider “food” from a metaphorical perspective, but I found myself stuck on the idea of real food and how it acquires meaning beyond its role as nourishment or sensual pleasure.

I've been living overseas for nearly nine years now, with annual visits to see friends and family. Six years ago, my planned trip happened to coincide with my step-mom's mastectomy. Needless to say, it was not exactly a happy time for her to welcome guests. She was exhausted from the surgery and the subsequent medications, not to mention nervous about the chemotherapy that she knew faced her as soon as she'd healed from the operation. My dad, not in the best of health himself, was practically paralyzed with anxiety. As for me, I felt helpless. My words of cheer sounded false even to my own ears.

So what did I do? I cooked. Nothing fancy, just the sort of things I'd make at home, if I were still living in a temperate climate. Pot roast. Meat loaf. Grilled fish. Scrambled eggs. Lentil soup. I spent most of the two weeks I was there either shopping for groceries, or in my step-mom's well-appointed kitchen, assembling meals for anyone who happened to be around.

I couldn't really express my fear. I didn't want to add to the general atmosphere of gloom. Instead, I contributed in a practical way, since, as my Jewish grandmother used to say, “No matter what, you've got to eat.” Preparing and serving food was my way of telling my dad and step-mom how much I loved them.

I do enjoy cooking – and eating. I'd much rather have people over for dinner than take them out to a restaurant, even though it's a lot more work. Food is a sort of gift that I offer our closest friends, tailoring my menus to what I know about their culinary tastes. Food is also a mode of creative expression for me. I'm not the sort to follow recipes. A recipe may provide a framework, but what actually goes into the pot will depend on what I have in the refrigerator, what I'm missing, and my own preferences. (For instance, there are very few dishes, in my opinion, that will not be enhanced by the addition of garlic!)

If food is love, though, how can I explain my years of anorexia? From my senior year in high school until I graduated from college, food ruled my life – through fear. In starving myself, was I actually indicating that I felt unworthy of love? I don't think that was it, exactly.

I craved food. I remember dreams where I'd be walking through lofty halls, past banquet tables heaped high with sumptuous delicacies – all my favorites. I knew it would be fatal to reach out and take what I wanted, yet it seemed so very easy... What I truly feared, I think, was my appetite – and perhaps this could be extended to an appetite for love, or sex. Certainly, during those years, I felt insulated and immune from sexual desire. I did have one or two lovers, but there was a kind of wall between me and them. That wall only began to crumble near the end of my period at university, when I'd recovered from the worst of my odd and dangerous psychosis.

And what about food in my fiction? I've never written a Tom Jones scene, where food becomes a stand-in for a lover's flesh (though I recently read a great example of this, in K.D. Grace's story “Eddie's All Night Diner”). Still, my characters tend to connect over food – frequently my favorite dishes – and I have a special fondness for a hero who cooks. And I have written at least one infamous food scene, in which chillis are employed for their sexually stimulating effect.

Somtow opened another bottle of wine and refilled their glasses. They continued to nibble on the exotic delicacies he had provided, sitting half-naked on the cushions in the balmy night.

Katherine found her gaze drawn again and again to his smooth, muscular chest. The folds of the sarong around his waist hid his penis from her eyes. She wondered what he would do if she reached down to touch him, as she longed to do.

Somtow was talking about Thai cuisine, the two thousand royal dishes and the hundreds of other, ’country-style’ recipes. Suddenly, it seemed, he noticed her looking at his body. She blushed a little. He said nothing, but reached across the table to pick up a bowl of raw chillis.

“Did you know, Katherine, that Thai chillis are considered to be among the hottest in the world?” He picked up a bright green pod between his thumb and forefinger, and raised it to his mouth. Instead of eating it, however, he ran the pepper across his lips, almost as if applying lipstick. Then he leaned forward, and kissed Katherine lightly.

The chilli oil made her own lips tingle and burn. “Mmm,” she murmured, as she returned the kiss with enthusiasm. She felt him untying her sarong, and then, his lips were on her nipples again, first the left, then the right.

She was not prepared for the sensations that assaulted her as the pungent oil touched her skin. Her nipples were still hard, sensitised from her recent arousal. They burned and throbbed, almost painful, as Somtow deliberately anointed them with the remnants of the pepper. The near-pain was overwhelmed by the pleasure, though, as a delicious warmth radiated out across her breasts.

“Oh...,” she sighed, closing her eyes and savouring the heat. “That is incredible.”

A light touch between her legs caused her to open her eyes. Somtow had another chilli in his fingers, brilliant red this time. With one hand, he parted her lower lips gently. Then, holding her open, he began to stroke the rigid little pepper against her equally rigid clitoris.

The effects were explosive. Sensitive though her nipples might be, the delicate tissues of her sex were much more so. Her labia swelled and ached; she rubbed herself against the fingers that held her open. The little knob of flesh directly in contact with the pepper pulsed and flamed. Part of her thought she could not bear it—and she knew he would stop immediately if she asked. Still, another part of her craved even more of this pleasure/pain, hotter, fiercer, consuming her flesh. She groaned.

Somtow made some soft sound in answer. Looking at him, she saw that he had crushed the pepper between his fingertips. Now he was rubbing the red pulp over his penis, up and down its stiff length, over the bulbous top. Katherine understood, suddenly, that his cock must be burning with the same almost unbearable intensity as her labia and clit. He looked into her eyes, without a word, and she knew he understood her wordless consent, as he plunged his fire-laden member into her vagina.

Katherine gasped and dug her nails into his shoulders. Intense sensation nearly overwhelmed her. She was still wet from their previous coupling. He moved easily within her secret cavities, spreading the incendiary chilli oil inside and out.

From Raw Silk by Lisabet Sarai

****

Re-reading this, I see the connection between food and lust, as well as food and love. That's probably what I was trying to escape, by depriving my body of nourishment, until I was as skinny and sexless as a twelve year old (though actually, when I was twelve I was well-enough developed, as they say, to pass for fifteen or sixteen).

I'm fascinated by the way the human imagination associates new meaning with something as fundamental as eating. Abstaining from certain foods becomes holy. Gluttony becomes a mortal sin. A meal can be an apology, a celebration, or a seduction.

No wonder we talk about “soul food”.