Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves

When Garce invited me to write on this topic, I jumped on it without thought: write about an erotic fantasy you love but would / could never do. I thought that nothing could be easier because I don't do much of anything these days.

But when I really sat down to consider it, it became much harder. I don't 'do' things out of choice. It's not fear or squick or physical limitations that are in my way. Given the right person and the right circumstance, there is very little I wouldn't do. Well, animals and children - but then neither of those hold any interest for me, so they don't come under the fantasy heading.

To reach into a place I truly wouldn't go is hard. It involves venturing into the part of me that seeks annihilation. Because I do have a penchant for courting my own erasure, and my most compelling and forbidden fantasies lie in that realm. I don't act on them because I'm a responsible adult. Because there are people who love me and depend on me. But it's not just that.

This isn't a game one person plays. To ask another human being to take on the task of destroying you is to ask too much. Of course, there are lots of people who might off you for money, but that won't do; an essential part of my fantasies in this direction require that the person who erases me knows me in my totality.

'Each man kills the thing he loves'. It's a line from Oscar Wilde's 'The Ballad of Reading Goal'. but I'll always associate it with the inane ditty sung by Jeanne Moreau in the Fassbinder film 'Querelle'. And somewhere in that movie, for all its many flaws, is the attempt at an explanation as to why the lure of destruction is an erotic one. It would be easy to say that it implies an abiding self-hatred in a certain portion of the homosexual population, but I find that a pallid and superficial answer. It isn't self-hatred – it's the acknowledgement of our essential ephemerality and the desire to, once and for all, stop clutching to it so doggedly.

But the lure of oblivion is a strong one and, for me, very sexual. Not surface sex. Not genitalism. The kind of sex that connects you to the act of being / not being. The kind of sex that sets you free ultimately and for always.

I suppose I have these fantasies because we are all going to go sometime and I'd rather not do it coughing up my lungs in a sterile ward in a single bed. And yet that is where I will probably end up, because the alternative is so unforgivably selfish.

Now that I have done such a good job legitimizing these types of fantasies, you are wondering if I'm going to actually put one to screen, aren't you? Well, I have to admit to being hesitant. Not because I can't write them, but because one part of me – the socially responsible one– worries unaccountably that they might be somehow infectious. The other part of me feels this is highly patronizing. So I will write one. But only with the advisory that you should be engaging your critical decision-making processes right about now.

I can feel his skin through mine as if we had none. As if we were peeled creatures of visceral mass. Muscle and bone and throbbing arterial pathways. The ravenous mouth that covers mine is a nameless sea creature curling in upon itself to pull me in.

And always, his cock is inside me, displacing the inconsequential details of me. Reminding me of how very permeable I am.

Sometimes it is the heat of his wide-palmed hand around my throat. Sometimes the chill of metal. The muzzle of a gun tucked into the hollow beneath my jaw. Today it is the silky steel of a razor just under my right ear.

I want to choose when and I want it to be now. Now, as my neurons go supernova. As my muscles constrict around him hard enough to force a groan.

Now he draws the blade deep and fast towards my chin. The blood that has been pumped into my brain will be the last because the rest of it fountains onto his chest in a cherry bright spray that marks the final moments of my consciousness and, subsequently, my existence.

Luckily, and conveniently, I am dead and don't worry about the bloody mess that now requires cleaning up or the body that will need to be quietly disposed of. Nor do I have to consider that I have also probably voided my bladder and my bowels. Is it any wonder the man in my fantasies is always faceless? Well, that's what forbidden fantasies are for, isn't it?


http://www.remittancegirl.com

The Sexual Fantasies of a Postpartum Woman (Yes, They Do Exist)

Shall we talk about fantasies?

Hot, kinky, nasty, sexy, taboo, wild, forbidden fantasies?

Do you want to read about my deepest, darkest, dirtiest desires in unrelenting black type?

Do you want me to make you blush, catch your breath, squirm in your chair (or on your couch or in your bed), get you hard, get you wet, get you off?

Do you?

As I write this, I am one week postpartum. My days are a bit of a blur right now, my nights are a little lonely between feedings, my emotions are an unpredictable rollercoaster, my body is a stranger to me with a road map of stretch marks across my stomach, perpetually swollen feet and ankles, puffy eyes, skin discolorations and an ugly red incision that looks like someone stapled me together. Oh wait, someone did.

Do you still want to know my fantasies?

I write fiction. Sexy, sensual, romantic fiction. I write stories about people in love, people in lust, people in need of a quick fix, people scratching an itch, people who don't know what the hell they want until they find it. My fiction currently collides with my reality. Or does it? Can a woman who just had a baby think about sex, much less write about it, fantasize about it or want it?

Can she?

There is a novelty book called Porn for New Moms. It has pictures of generic looking hunks doing baby-related tasks while holding cherubic babies and quotes like, "Damn! You look hot in those sweatpants!" and "Who knew I'd like changing diapers so much?" On the back cover Redbook magazine gushes, "Finally, there's erotica guaranteed to fulfill every woman's fantasy. With hot talk like this, who needs foreplay?"

Gag.

Let me assure you of two things: 1) I do have sexual fantasies even now, one week after having a baby and 2) this book is not representative of my fantasies.

The surgeon's scalpel removed a 10 pound 15 ounce baby from my body-- he did not remove my sexual self. I realize I am at my least desirable right now. While pregnant women glow with fertile beauty and their rounded, feminine bodies may be the object of taboo fantasies, no one is lusting after the postpartum woman. But one does not need to be lusted after in order to feel lust. My body may be an unfamiliar and frightening wreck, but my mind is still very much my own. And while it is now preoccupied with things like scheduling pediatric appointments and remembering to buy diapers and plotting how to steal an afternoon nap, the secret heart of me still longs for sexual release.

I am straying wildly off topic this week, but I hope you will forgive me. I laughed when I read the description while I was still pregnant. Never mind that I generally keep my private life separate from my writing life-- how in the world was I going to write about any sexual fantasy one week after having a baby?

I had intended to take at least a couple of weeks off from this column and had already made my apologies to the others, but I find myself unable to completely bag an assignment, even for as good a cause as giving birth. And the topic... it is intriguing. I am supposed to write about a fantasy I would jump at the chance to fulfill, or one that I would only fulfill under certain circumstances, or one that fuels my imagination but I would never fulfill in real life. Ah... where to start? Do I even dare?

The fantasies that flit through my overtired brain when I re-read this week's topic: I would jump at the chance to sleep with my girl crush, I would fulfill a particular threesome fantasy if I could be guaranteed there would be no jealousy or fallout afterwards, I fantasize about anonymous sex with two or three very hot, insatiable men but I would never pursue it in real life not only because it's potentially dangerous, but also because it goes against my nature where my heart and my libido are inextricably linked. Three fantasies in a nutshell. Anticlimactic, isn't it?

The thing is, I have written fictional stories about all of my fantasies-- stories that explore the accessible and the unattainable, the acceptable and the forbidden. I write my fantasies because they're what I know, because they get me hot, because I know others fantasize about the same things I do, because I cannot/will not/should not fulfill certain fantasies in real life and writing fiction gives me a (usually) satisfying outlet for those desires.

Being one week postpartum, nothing is accessible-- everything is forbidden. Six weeks is a long time to wait for anything. The mind rebels, drifting to fantasies that cannot be fulfilled. Suddenly, even the most vanilla of sexual experiences are off limits. The missionary position with the lights off is now as hot as the videotaped gangbang with strangers. It is frustrating and it is exciting. Being told I can't do something makes me want it all the more.

The body heals slowly from a repeat Cesarean at the age of 44, but the libido is young, healthy and cannot be contained. My current fantasies trend toward the voyeuristic-- those who can, do; those who can't, watch. My body is off limits, but my imagination is running wild. The later the hour, the more heated the fantasies. Middle of the night desires-- when the rest of the world is asleep or having the sex I can't have-- are the wildest of all. There is nothing to do at 3 AM but fantasize about what I'm not allowed to do.

My fantasies will go unfulfilled for the time being, but there are stories to be written during this period of dormancy. I can't be certain, but I think I'm going to write the hottest stories of my life over the next couple of months. Maybe someday I will even live out some of them.

This column brought to you by Starbucks coffee and Percocet

The Placement of Modifiers

What sexual adventure would I like to have that I haven't had before? Actually, there are several.

The possiblility of being Domme-for-a-Day (or a few hours)intrigues me. This doesn't mean I am the stuff of which scary Mistresses in 7-inch heels, leather corsets and an arsenal of accoutrements are made. Sorry, that's not me. At least not in real life.

However, my fantasy alter ego, Dr. Athena Chalkdust, gets to do outrageous things to consenting students and other interested bystanders who secretly need discipline. The consent is what makes it all so juicy. In real life, the actual power that university profs/instructors have over their students makes fully consensual sexual relations (or physical contact of any kind) between them very dubious, and that's why there are rules against that sort of abuse. I fully support the rules in real life. Fantasy, however, is a whole other world.

My first Dr. Athena story, "Splitting the Infinitive," appeared in Best Lesbian Erotica 2001 and Best of the Best Lesbian Erotica (if you follow this), Volume 2, both from Cleis Press.

My second Dr. Athena story (a memoir of her introduction to BDSM as a submissive), "My Debut as a Slut," appeared in Best Lesbian Erotica 2005.

My third Dr. Athena story, "The Placement of Modifiers," appeared in Best Lesbian Erotica 2009. In this story, Dr. Athena is trying to have a quiet drink in the one gay/lesbian/bi/trans bar in town (she is a major shareholder) when a dyke with no manners or understanding of sentence construction tries to get a reaction out of her by being confrontational. Here Dr. Athena describes her response, for which the dyke is ultimately grateful.

---------------------

“You feel good,” she snickers into my hair. “I know your type, honey. You like to go slumming with dykes because we’re the only ones who can get you off. Then you go back to your safe middle-class neighborhood and pretend you don’t know us if you see us on the street.”

She doesn’t miss a beat, and neither do I. “Bernie,” I coo back. “You still don’t even know my first name. And you won’t unless you learn a few other things first.” The song ends, and I pull her by the hand to a relatively private corner.

“Were you planning to invite me to go somewhere with you?” I am still grinning.

“My truck’s in the parking lot, babe,” she grins back. “It’s really comfortable. Some of the whores who work the truck stops don’t mind going with women like me, and they like what I do for them. I bet you wouldn’t give them the time of day, but a bitch in heat is a bitch in heat.” She pinches one of my nipples, running her other hand down my back.

I laugh and step out her reach. “Ah. No one could dispute it. But there’s a question of trust here, Bernie. I’m sure your paid companions never exaggerate your value to them because they need your money. And I do enjoy your company, although you really don’t seem to know why. Unfortunately, I’m not tempted by your hospitality. Your rudeness is neither sexy nor admirable, and it makes you seem untrustworthy, not a quality you want to flaunt if you’re trying to pick up a bitch like me.”

I sigh. “I’m not going to leave this building with you. But there is a room upstairs where we can be alone. After we take our leave of your friends and mine, of course. Would you like me to give you a tour of the place?”

Bernie tries so hard to affect boredom that she is amusing to watch. “Sure, why not? It’s a bar, babe, not the fuckin museum, but if you want me to go upstairs with you, let’s go.”

***************************

The whole bar feels as drenched in lust as the worn carpet is drenched in beer and the ashes of cigarettes which are now excitingly illegal if smoked indoors. For the sake of her self-image as a gift for bitches in heat, Bernie seems determined to regain some control of the situation. She probably imagines my cunt as a lonely pit of yearning for her psychic dick or something more tangible. I am almost moved to compassion when I think about the surprises in store for her.

We are at the foot of the creaky wooden stairs that lead to the dimly-lit second floor, the setting of many titillating rumors. “Go ahead, honey,” Bernie tells me, seizing both my lower cheeks and giving them a slight push.

“Of course,” I tell her over my shoulder. “I have surer footing on these stairs.” I exaggerate the sway of my hips as I climb the steps ahead of her, giving her the show she obviously wants.

I unlock the door of a large room with soundproofed walls. I have abandoned the pretense that I am going to show her every corner of this venerable building, which is allegedly haunted by an older generation of deceased gay men and a few legendary dykes who were the founding parents of the organized queer community in this town. I’m sure that Bernie’s vibes would offend some of the spirits here.

Peace, I tell the ancestors in my mind, suspecting that they can hear my thoughts. Respect can be learned.

The room is only lit by the lights from outside. Bernie grabs me in a crude bear-hug, reaching for my mouth with hers, while I struggle to squirm out of her grip so that I can turn on the lights. “Light,” I tell her, hoping that a one-word command will penetrate the mental static of her rising hunger.

“We don’t need it, honey.” She holds me to her armored chest. She tries to grab one of my ass-cheeks with one hand while holding me with the other, and this weakens her hold on me enough to enable me to raise one foot, clad in a narrow-heeled shoe, and stomp her toes through her threadbare running shoe.

“Aw, shit!” she gasps. “That hurt, bitch. You really wanta play rough?”

I turn on the wall-lights, a stately set of Victorian sconces holding yellow light bulbs. “Bernie, would you like me to fetch the bouncer up here? If I do, our little tryst will be over.”

“Well, don’t step on me with your stupid heels any more.”

I decide to grant her that; after all, my heels have a steel core which can punch holes in hardwood when I’m not minding my step. And there are so many other simple but effective devices that I can use to make an impression on her.

“I’ll show you something, Bernie. Before we do anything else, I want you to see the view from the window. There’s something out there that you can only see from close up.”

In front of the window is a large oak desk. The chair that matches it has been pushed to the side. She walks uncertainly up to the desk, apparently not noticing the padded cuffs that are permanently attached to the back of it. Or else she assumes they are not meant for her.

“You can lean right over the desk,” I encourage her, “then look down.” I am cheered by her obedience as I enjoy the sight of her fleshy butt in tight denim, projecting toward me as she almost lies on the desk, peering into the darkness. I quickly grab her right wrist and fasten a cuff around it before she can pull it away.

“Oh, ha-ha,” she sneers. “You want to tie me down and make me yours?”

“Yes.” I am pleased by her understanding. “I’ll release you if you want, but in that case, we’ll be returning downstairs and you won’t get any relief. Unless you get it from someone else.”

Bernie tugs at the cuff, and seems shaken when it doesn’t budge. In her current position, she can’t get a firm foothold on the floor. I can see her awareness of her vulnerability gradually spreading through her mind like the light of dawn chasing away the darkness. To be safe, I stand well away from her feet.

“Uh, you’re not really into this bondage stuff are you, professor?” She racks her brain for a way to persuade me to let her go. “This is kinda stupid when you think about it. What do you think I can do for ya if I’m stuck here?”

“Quite a bit, my dear. I’m waiting for your answer. Are you willing to take what I’m more than willing to give you, or would you like to call it off?”

(To find out what happens next, you have to read the rest of the story. Hint: it involves a 3-inch length of fresh, peeled ginger. And that's just the beginning.)

Gazing Into The Abyss

“To encounter erotica designed for the other is to gaze into the psychological abyss that separates the sexes.”
.Tracie Egan Morrisey


Let’s do a quick recap of the theme. Here’s how it goes:

Suzie Bright is an iconic feminist and an early pioneer of "Herotica", erotic story collections written by and for women. She's best well known as the editor of the "Best American Erotica" anthology series which ran for over a decade, and is the author of the semi-autobiographical "How to Write a Dirty Story", which is the best craft book on this genre that I know of. Whatever your taste its an excellent writing course in itself. There is a famous writing exercise in this book, designed to help faint hearted wanna-bes to free up their fantasies and put them into words. You get three wishes. The first is a fantasy that could be performed in the real world and you'd truly jump on if you got the offer. The second is a fantasy that could come true, maybe, but you would only accept under certain strict conditions. The third is a fantasy that could never happen, because its impossible or too squicky to endure, but lots of fun to imagine.

So the challenge this week is to pick one or more of these exercises and share with the world. My answers to the first two aren’t that interesting. But the third one, that has a beat and you can dance to it. Here’s a piece of what I did with this exercise the first time around:

“ . . . When Gregor Samsa woke one morning from unsettling dreams he found himself changed from a monstrous vermin into a woman.

A long time ago he had once gone to sleep as a man and awakened in his bed as a large cockroach. Now after dozing as a lonely cockroach under the toilet, Gregor had awakened as a woman. Though certainly a step in the right direction this constant change of species was becoming a disturbing habit.

It wasn’t that bad being a cockroach, more like getting used to living in a new and hostile neighborhood. But the sex was just awful.

Although he knew instantly that he was no longer a roach, his discovery that he was now a woman progressed in stages. He knew he was human. He sensed his familiar place in the bed, dressed in a soft silky nightgown of some kind. His arms were here; his single pair of legs down there, and his skeleton was inside now where it belonged. As he moved, those arms and legs felt different somehow. And his chest – that felt pretty strange. His hips felt bigger. More roomy. But it was the place between his legs that felt different and vaguely disturbing in a way nothing else did.

There was barely a moment to wonder whether he had once been a man dreaming he was a roach or a roach who had been dreaming he was a man, when he felt the thick tops of his thighs rub against each other. That was a shock and he felt the first twinges of panic.

Where was it?

Where the fuck was it?

He had always enjoyed waking up in the morning with a terrific boner and then deciding if there was enough time available to do anything with it. He felt a little dampness down there, but no hard and friendly cream horn.

His right hand ventured below to see what the deal was, and his forearm brushed something soft and full laying spread out on his chest under the silk as though a kitten were sleeping there. He caressed it and rolled it gently in his palm. In the center there was an unfamiliar nipple soft and large with a long tip.

Tits? I got tits?

He caressed them and it felt nice. A little friendly squeeze and it felt even better. These are pretty righteous tits, he thought. Somebody here has some real jugs. Why? And then the fear began.

He threw back the comforter violently, looked down at himself and howled. . . .”


That later became “Loves Tender Gender Fender Bender” which appears in the Coming Together collection of my stories. It’s a continuation of Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis”, except that in this tale, Gregor Samsa who had previously awoken to find himself changed into a giant insect, has now awoken from being an insect to being a woman. His sister Greta as it turns out.

My answer to the third exercise is that I would like to be incarnated as a woman for one day to see what that experience is like. We’re not talking about being a transsexual. This is about, like my Samsa, waking up one morning in the natural body of a woman and experiencing sensation and pleasure and even emotions as a woman experiences them, but from a man’s point of view. If that could happen the first thing I think I would do is go off somewhere and pleasure myself to find out how that feels and how a woman experiences orgasm. I’d want to know how that would be different from the way a man experiences it, or even how a man imagines a woman experiences it. I might even – this is squicky – seduce a man to find out what penetration feels like.

There are fundamental differences I would expect. Male sexual desire is typically experienced as assertive, a desire to possess, dominate, bring out the woman’s pleasure and finally thrust and penetrate when she expresses her submission. Men often talk among themselves about sex in this way as a form of conquest. “Did you pork her?” “Did you nail her?” “Did you score with her?” Now before the ladies reading this get mad, I offer my caveat that this is a kind of minimal stereotype at best. This is the instinctive default setting of the male mind and fantasy. In that I am accurate. Having said that, men do dream of sexually aggressive women, and variety makes the world go round.

For a woman, or a gay man, I suppose it would be often the opposite. To allow yourself to be taken and penetrated requires a certain acquiescence and submission, to allow yourself to be pierced and briefly inhabited within by a man sensualizing your body with his requires some trust. Not to mention what will happen to your body if pregnancy takes hold and your life changes forever. It’s one of the great mysteries of the feminine that women spend a great deal of time being inhabited by other people. A man’s tumescence inserted within during sex, and later a child growing inside her womb. What being does a woman have to have for that kind of letting go, to allow another person to dwell inside of your flesh however briefly? To let down her defenses that much? A man feels an aggressive desire to thrust, enter and fill. Does a woman feel an empty space hungry to be filled?

These states of mind are not trivial. From an evolutionary viewpoint what men and women want are profoundly different. For the male it’s a moment of conquest and release and he can move on without consequence. Therefore on some primitive level any woman who will lay down for a few minutes will do as well as any other. Men are capable of focusing a great deal on shallow physical attributes rather than character. Women are often more forgiving on physical attributes but will instinctively want a steady man of a certain character and social qualities who can protect and provide for her and the infant they make, as well as offering emotional intimacy.

And what would an orgasm feel like for a woman? Not exactly the same as for a man. I consulted a few ladies about that scene which appears later in the story. I went to the ERWA Erotic Mind website and fished around to get an idea of how women described it. For men orgasm is a rising rush of pleasure released in a burst of urgent mind blanking expulsion and relief not that far away from a good piss. It is a great feeling of emptying, physically and emotionally. The relief is profound. Until that moment there is nothing in the universe, nothing you are thinking of except the object of your passion. Women romance writers definitely have that part right. When the moment passes it’s a sense of letting go and even distraction. Other things come immediately to mind. Bills to pay. What time you’re getting up in the morning. Men often feel depressed and lonely immediately after orgasm and want to withdraw into their heads which can drive a woman crazy. For a lot of us guys the ideal woman would be a wildcat in bed and after you come, she’d turn into a pizza.

For women, orgasm seems to be more of a gathering storm of intense intimacy and vulnerability, a gathering of tension, like a big emotional sneeze building up out of your reach until the anticipation is driving you crazy. Then ephemeral release, without the finality of discharge and ejaculation, sometimes but not always relief. Something like that. That was the feeling I’ve tried to capture in this story, which for the male character was a very alien experience, as alien as reaching down that first moment and finding nothing hanging between your legs.

I can’t tell you how much fun I had writing that story, and it was the expression of the fantasy spread out in that third exercise. In a way it was a privately written erotica made public. I believe in writing exercises, because for me writing is an exquisite art. There are things you have time to explore in words and plot and dialogue that painters and musicians only get to touch on. All other forms of art are vignettes, but with writing you can explore a notion at full length. Why wouldn’t you want to develop some mastery of language and the ability to express complex ideas and explore them?

But there is another aspect to this exercise also, the thing Tracie Morrisey is talking about. Romance and erotica are uniquely placed genres for an author not just to imagine the other gender but to look into the abyss that separates the sexes, to try to put yourself on the other side and feel what the other feels physically and emotionally. To try to BE that other and bring that across to a reader.

That, I think, is a very fine challenge.


C. Sanchez-Garcia

Sexual Pioneer

Okay, so, I'm going to go with this one:

"3. Explain a fantasy you'd love to do in your imagination, something that excites you but you'd never in a million years do it in the real world, because its (sic)impossible to perform or too squicky to endure. But something that excites you to imagine."

Because although I play at being a sexual adventurer in my books, in real life my idea of kinky heaven is to accidentally pull my knickers up a bit fast. A slightly too hot bath is outrageous, to me. I get all flustered over that bit in Young Adam when he licks her ear with his curly tongue.

I am not a pioneer of all things horny.

But like most, I do have some pretty wild fantasies. I mean, I write about a lot of them for a living. But there's one in particular, one that I love above all others and always go back to. I've no idea why I like it - perhaps because of the dichotomy between naivete and out and out filthiness - but anyhoo, here it is:

Basically, right, I'm in the future. Only in the future everyone's forgotten what sex is. And then one day, through some hokey device like I dunno - a ghost from the past or a magical secret library or some ~feelins~ that start emerging or summat - I alone discover this thing where people actually put their parts in other people's parts! Hooray!

Of course I immediatly become the sexual pioneer I'm nowhere near in reality, bringing the good news to the uneducated and entirely innocent and pure masses. I see these future people as somewhere between Spock and the clones from the movie The Island, all dressed in white and very "Good Morrow, citizen!" - only you know, big and hairy and sort of looking like Armie Hammer and Brandon Routh.

And then I corrupt them both terribly. Or sometimes, they're the ones who find the secret library/magical teleporter/other stupid device, and they corrupt me terribly. It's all very equal opportunities and free love and oooohhhh, look what this thing did!

And of course, it's all absolutely impossible in reality. Mainly because:

a) I could never partake in anything other than a twosome. Two legs and two arms are enough. I have no idea what I'd do with twelve of the things.

b) I can barely teach people how to write a coherent sentence. God knows how I'd go about teaching a guy who looks like Armie Hammer that his willy goes up and down.

c) Time travel has not, as yet, been invented. I know. It's a real bummer.

And that's my fantasy that I can't do. Of course there are many, many more I can't or won't do in reality, for reasons as varied as chafing, mess, lack of Yoga classes, sad level of attractiveness, weak jaw muscles, etc. But I'll save those for another time...

P.S. I have two books out this week, both featuring many, many things I'm probably physically incapable of doing with lots of big, strapping men. Guarded is my fantasy world Princess and her two bodyguards story, and Telling Tales is my second full length erotic novel, featuring such acronymical delights as MFM, MM, MMF, MMMM, MFMF...the list goes on. And if you'd like the chance to win these two sexy tales, all you have to do is go here and comment:

http://themightycharlottestein.blogspot.com/2011/09/new-releases-competitions.html


Would love it if you could stop by!

Cherry Pie

by Kathleen Bradean

So this is the assignment:

1. Explain a sexual fantasy about an experience in the real world you would jump on in an instant if it were offered to you, no questions asked. Something you would have no reservations about actually doing.

2. Explain an experience you would like to have but only under certain conditions, otherwise not. Under those conditions you'd definitely give yourself to it, otherwise not.

3. Explain a fantasy you'd love to do in your imagination, something that excites you but you'd never in a million years do it in the real world, because its (sic)impossible to perform or too squicky to endure. But something that excites you to imagine.

I don't like cherry pie. The goo around the cherries is slick and flavorless. But the worst part is when a forkful gets near my nose and I smell the Play-Doh. Oh, it isn't real Play-Doh, but the almond flavoring most cooks add to their cherry pie reminds me of the scent of Play-Doh, and it churns my stomach.

See, that I can explain. Explaining why certain things turn me on is much more difficult. Every symbol from rope to leather has an association in my mind, like the smell of Play-Doh, and it's the associations in the infinite web of my memory that make some things arouse me while others don't. Some of those associations I'm aware of, but others have roots so deep in my subconscious that I don't think I'd ever be able to trace their invisible threads through my libido.

Explore would have been a better word. 'Explore your sexual fantasies' is a decent writer's prompt. 'Explain' is like being dragged into the principal's office and being told to explain yourself. And at a moment of harsh, unwanted exposure like that, the mind tends to go blank.

So the best answers I can give are
1) If I had no reservations, I've done it.
2) Everything is conditional.
3) Your blood would run cold if I told you. Then I'd offer you a slice of cherry pie. Just try to eat it without thinking of Play-Doh.

You see - some things are best left unexplained.

An Obsession with Self Disclosure

By Lisabet Sarai

I remember when I first heard about blogs (or "web logs", as they were initially titled). That was back in the dark ages - maybe 2001 or 2002. (The word "blog" actually dates from 1997, according to Wikipedia, but I wasn't on the bleeding edge of popular Internet phenomena despite working in the computer industry.) Of course, people had been putting up personal web pages long prior to that time. I'd always found it surprising that they were so eager to share their private selves - their thoughts, their words, their photos - with billions of strangers.

When I learned about the existence of blogs, essentially on-line journals where people chronicled their daily thoughts and activities, I shook my head. What an absurd obsession with self-disclosure! Why would anyone believe that their posts would be of interest to someone else? And how could they expose such personal information to essentially everyone? I shook my head. I'd never become such an "escribitionist" (as some bloggers styled themselves).

Never say never. Fast forward a decade or so and here I am, offering the world my most private thoughts, experiences and fantasies on a weekly basis - sharing things that my own family doesn't know about.

Of course, I hide behind my literary identity here at the Grip. Still, the intensity and dubious social acceptability of what I share here occasionally gives me the shivers.

So for this week, Garce has thrown out tri-partite challenge, as a stimulus to writing. I'll quote it here because otherwise the posts this week might not make sense.

In her craft book "How to Write a Dirty Story" by Susie Bright (the best craft book on this subject i have yet found), Bright has an exercise which yielded a story for me and I invite you here to try one or all three.

1. Explain a sexual fantasy about an experience in the real world you would jump on in an instant if it were offered to you, no questions asked. Something you would have no reservations about actually doing.

2. Explain an experience you would like to have but only under certain conditions, otherwise not. Under those conditions you'd definitely give yourself to it, otherwise not.

3. Explain a fantasy you'd love to do in your imagination, something that excites you but you'd never in a million years do it in the real world, because its impossible to perform or too squicky to endure. But something that excites you to imagine.

The first two items on this list struck me as too easy. I mine my plausible fantasies for narrative material every time I sit down to write.

The third one, though, gave me pause. I have a couple of candidates. The most extreme I'd never share, not even with you, my dedicated readers. One fantasy does definitely fit the bill, though, while at the same time being sufficiently common that (I hope) it won't outrage our average visitor.

I often fantasize about participating in a gang-bang. Not just any gang-bang, though, but one with a strong BDSM component. My dom acts as the organizer and ring master, offering me to all comers (no pun intended) and inviting them to use and abuse me as they will. Usually I'm bent at the waist and shackled in a manner that displays my rear to the crowd. Sometimes I'm even on a stage. In ones and twos, the men take what they wish from me. They penetrate their orifice of choice. They spank or whip my conveniently presented ass. They spray me with their ejaculate, or force me to swallow it. I take a half dozen of them - a dozen. I'm battered and sore, but still they come. Meanwhile, my master stands by to keep me safe, whispering in my ear what a filthy slut I am. He tells me how much he enjoys watching me service the lust of so many men, knowing as he does that I belong to him alone.

He takes me last of all, when I'm stretched, soaked and spent. I'm teetering on the edge of unconsciousness, totally exhausted, yet his entrance revives me and wrings one last orgasm (or maybe the first) from my broken body. Then he gathers me in his arms and takes me away, to clean me, tend to my wounds, put me to bed.

I thought about casting this fantasy into narrative. I'm sure that's what Garce had in mind. But I just regaled you with an extreme BDSM scene a few weeks ago, and although the details of this scenario are different, the emotions are much the same. In any case, while I can imagine that I just might go through with the cutting and scarification I described in my post "Blood Bond", I'd never play this scene.

There are many reasons why I'll never realize this fantasy:

1. Although I might enjoy the notion of being fucked raw, the reality is far less pleasant. My vaginal tissues have always been tender, and they've become more fragile as I've aged.

2. Experience has taught me that I don't generally enjoy fucking strangers. The emotional connection in sex is far more important to me than the physical sensations, and that's missing when I don't know the guy from Adam. Of course, a gang bang should have nothing to do with my pleasure, but if I didn't find it exciting, why would I ever want to go through with it?

3. In reality, my master wouldn't enjoy this scene at all. He's actually very shy and also somewhat homophobic. There's a slight possibility that he might like to offer me to a close friend, but strangers? It would never happen, even if I were certain that it was what I wanted. (I should say that the fantasy of a gang bang that doesn't include his participation and orchestration doesn't interest me at all. Go figure.)

He sometimes reads this blog, although he's a private enough person that he'd never comment. He probably feels something similar to what I did when I first encountered blogs: perplexity at my motives, amazement at the depth and breadth of what I'm willing to share, maybe some sense of smug superiority that he'd never sink to this level of obsessive self-disclosure.

I wonder at it myself. I doubt that it helps sell my books. There's something cathartic about baring your soul to a (hopefully) sympathetic audience. I'm always embarrassed, though, when I write a post like this -- as well as a bit worried that I've finally gone too far.

But I keep doing it.