The Devil I Love

"In the end, I was the mean girl
Or somebody's in between girl
Now it's the devil I love
And that's as funny as real love"

- Neko Case, "Hold On, Hold On"

We're taught that love wins. Love trumps evil. What if you're in love with evil? With the wrongness of things? 

Love doesn't always conquer all. There are a ton of people who have lots of love in their lives, and are still living with discomfort, shame, dissatisfaction, disappointment. Loving someone doesn't mean you get what you want, or that your needs are being met. Raven Kaldera talks about falling in love with a dynamic, rather than a person. It can lead to disappointment, being in love with a concept represented by a person, rather than a person themselves. But maybe it's possible to be satisfied with this, but I don't see how - people are not static and have, unfortunately, faults and biases and egos. 

It's a little chicken-and-egg: Did you fall in love with a person, or did you fall in love with your Owner/Master/Mistress/submissive/slave? Are you even "in love"? 

I am attracted to wrong. I am attracted to subversive, gritty tough darkness. I long for emptiness, and restriction, and shadows. These things, these concepts do not make me happy, but they are necessary for my happiness. Halloween is coming. 

*Tarot card "The Devil" by Wren McMurdo

good news

from the financial end of things. while it's not exactly paving the sidewalk outside the house with gold, it gives me something more than a shaky ladder to stand on. so, yay. being a good, truthful person sometimes actually works, even if it takes twice as long.

a family of deer stopped by the brook in the yard for a drink of water. they had their heavy gray winter coats on, and stopped cold while i went outside for more wood. i stopped cold too, and we all paused while a chickadee bravely jolted around the trees for us. i'm not surprised by the animals, but it was my first interaction with something alive all day on the property. i didn't want it to end.

my finger tips are cracking from the dry air and the cold. yes, i'm remedying it, but the soreness actually reminds me of the work i'm doing.

i heard an interview on the radio yesterday, about a guy who lives out in the country somewhere with his wife. they've reduced their circumstances - heating only with wood, growing food in the gardens, no more fancy trips - the only logical conclusion of the constant layoffs and belt-tightening. he said, "someday we may one day make that six-figure income again, but we'll still live this way. we've realized it's a lifestyle choice, not just a necessity."

yeah.

photo credit: Ache Of Trees by Kevis Somo

missionaries

what i can't get over is the fact that this feels like the most normal relationship i've ever been in.

that's not to say that the two of us aren't special, unique and talented individuals (although i suppose that's a matter of personal taste, really), but that the basic workings of any relationship, and it's success, are dependent on mutual goals, and a commitment to seeing them through.

for the sake of hilarity, use a missionary christian couple as a comparison. against all odds, cultural, physical, personal, they work together for a common goal. along the way they may experience incredibly joy and elation, and deep, dark moments of grief and hopelessness. there's no specific end to their "journey", it's just a matter of doing what feels right, and truthful, and that there really is no other path that seems justified.

so switch out the proselytizing for violent sex, and i don't see a lot of difference.

over and over again, i keep seeing the similarities between a hardcore bdsm TPE Owner/property relationship and - religion.

(i have nothing to say about the picture other than i laffed. a lot.)

got boxes?

i've moved a lot. by anyone's standards, perhaps too much. in the past two decades, off the top of my head, i can list 7 different states i've held driver's licenses, and i'm not even counting the different street addresses in all of those states. along the way i've accumulated stuff, lost stuff, found love, lost it, and kept journals throughout.

i don't really have a home.

the house i'm living in now is as much a home as i've had. i've been here now almost two years. at one address. very unusual. but strangely, or not, depending on how you look at it, this is the happiest place i've been at in all those decades. seriously. it's the first place i can remember being genuinely happy. somehow i got it in my head that i could settle here for a while, put up my feet and let things accumulate again.

the decision has been approaching for a while now. we've tried to ignore that it was there, hovering in the background. it was hard for me, because i'm very focused on living in the here-and-now, which competes with my goal-oriented nature, and i was fighting a need to know the future before it's time. but it all bubbled up and here we are.

but this time it's a little different. i'm not in charge of the situation. my owner calls me "the good little soldier". it took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that i don't want to be the chief, i want to be the follower, and that doesn't make me "sheeple". he's telling me what goes, what doesn't. what i can keep, what i should sell, what we'll store. what socks to bring, which teapots. i'm clinging to his direction on this, because i've been so brave in the past, but i'm scared now.

no, not scared. excited. shocked. a little nervous. overwhelmed by the speed of it.

it's his house. but i'm going home.

[pic: Hestia, goddess of house and hearth.]

dance like no one is watching

"...she is a dancer
when she dances she is free
free in the moment
and clouds rise in the east
to Frank Sinatra
which your parents put on repeat
on repeat..."

-emily jane white

this started out as a piece about sacred whores. but instead it's about freedoms lost and gained and found and lost again and reclaimed.

i used to dance, when i was younger. i was one of those wishful ballerinas, white and dark and always looking at the floor to find my place. i didn't find comfort in the discipline of the rehearsal room, but in the blood found in my shoes when i was done. there was a reason for it, the pain and the sweat and the failings. and reasons for things were what i lived for. i still do. later, i would find myself in the middle of the night dancing in clubs high on whatever could be found and a straining violin above the electric noise.

if given freedom, if it is forced upon me, i'll dance.

gunshy

i have not yet learned whether or not my instincts are correct. i've fucked up too many times on too many important things to trust myself. maybe that's why obedience comes more naturally to me than independent action.

head, heart, hand

intellect, emotion, action

i'm glad you're feeling it, too. i know you are no different in this regard. yet again, we're on the same page.

the finer details

in response to my earlier post all the time, i got some lovely dialog going (on my other blog, mostly identical to this one). to clarify one of the responses, which said (and i'm taking out of context, but...) "Essentially you could say, 'I'm sick of this shit' and walk away. "

"when D and i ended our contract, there was a strange nebulous time when we didn't know what was going to happen next. i was no longer his formally contracted submissive, and technically i had the option of not being that, or anything else, again. for me, there is one huge primary difference between being a submissive and being a slave, and that is that as a slave i cannot say "i'm sick of this shit" and leave.

i mean, i could try.

but i have agreed to give him the right to not allow that to happen.

he might allow it to happen, if he was sick of it, too. or if he saw that it simply wasn't healthy for me and he wanted me to be healthy. or he himself might end it if he was sick of it, even if i wasn't. all of those things are possible (and currently undesireable, i believe, by both of us), and i don't think i'd have entered into a M/s relationship with him if i didn't believe he could make intelligent decisions about all that. (yah - the "trust" thing).

but ultimately, it is not up to me. and that's what makes me a slave, and that's what makes this an absolute relationship. which is what allows me to trust him, which is what makes the sex hot, which is what gratifies me on a spiritual level. it's that simple fact."

nothing more than this.

"I'll never be able to thank You in any way other than to be myself."

-bitchwhore4

other voices other lives

in another life, i would have become a farmer. i swear this is true, despite the misgivings of everyone i've ever known, and the fact that i have what is commonly known as a "black thumb".

it's not so much that i'm interested in dawn-to-dusk physical toil, or that i enjoy being outside in all kinds of weather. it's that it's a ritualistic way of life. there are things to do at dawn that must be done, ablutions and salutations and sacrifices. i'm down with that. there are things that must be done at dusk, too - closings, endings, and yet more sacrifices.

it takes bravery to really live your life. i was going to write about how it takes bravery to be a slave, or a dominant, or a mother, or an artist.

but really, whatever form it takes, you need to be brave to get through it. what this life has handed me has made me brave and courageous and proud.

something came up today that i am ashamed of. for no obvious reason - it's an aspect of myself i am still coming to terms with, and my owner has challenged me to determine where the shame comes from, because it is incongruous with the rest of me.

i don't know yet. i'm working on it.

(photo credit to Chris Johnson, "Mirror")

box

"why can't i just be nice?" you said, mocking me as you twisted my skin. my hands hung limply at my sides, because it doesn't occur to me anymore to try and stop you.

whatever became of the expectations i used to have of men? of how they are, what i know of their internal puzzles and foci, whatever assemblages of personality they'd made for themselves, i'd set about unfolding it until i saw their heart and judged it. yes, i did - i made judgments and assessments about who they were, and once i'd done that i was numb to it. it was over.

you are a chinese box, and i feel simple and small next to you. the pain you give me makes me need you and hate you and know that i would do it, whatever it is, that you ask. it's not so much a "gift" of submission as it is a helpless offering to the only higher power i understand.

thingness

i've been involved in some conversations on the 'net lately in which i've clarified my "major" kink (if indeed a person can have just one) as objectification. i thought it was control, but really, i suppose, that's just inherently a part of the basest element.

this isn't about being turned into a piece of furniture. that's not particularly hot in an of itself. i'm talking about losing one's person-hood, one's individuality, their sense of self and separate-ness from the rest of humanity.

i am too much inside my own head - i've always lived hard inside my skull, and i'm often told i think too much and too fast. i have always felt separate and alone and different and not-quite-with-the-pack. in a backwards kind of way, being objectified and turned inside out into something that i cannot achieve on my own brings me closer to the world around me and i am able to feel a part of it, and have a purpose.

we all wear masks, all the time. when you objectify me, mine is stripped off. i am then whole and home in my body and living in truth.

This house is a broken palace

"As a slave, without choices, rights or anything to my name, the only thing I thought I have is my pride. Without it, I'm nothing. But is it his plan to take that away from me as well?

Is a slave nothing without pride or should a slave have nothing including pride?"

- a subtle slavegirl


a tension-filled weekend. not bad, actually, a lot of fun. but so many things and pieces of our lives turned into confetti and co-mingling and i'm not very good at filtering through it all on-the-spot like a grown-up should, so it all gets prioritized and can make one crazy with too many things to think about at once. i'm a grown-up, yes, but your girl, your little girl, too.

i mis-read something over your shoulder and thought i'd read instead a title - This house is a broken palace.

no i never needed to be broken but i break into pieces like confetti at the slightest word from you.

you close me off from air, from orgasm, from pride and from shame simultaneously. somehow you manage this without turning me into an empty husk but instead full to the brim with thoughts and thinking and a tightly closed mouth.

photo credit to AsIFearTomorrow on deviantart.com

suffer, bitch. an analysis.

[from a lovely correspondence i'm having on fetlife regarding emotional masochism.]

"What is it about this suffering that makes you fulfilled? It turns you on, so what's hot about it?"

a friend of mine who has some of the same inclinations asked me the same question just yesterday. the best i could come up with was that we (i) have eroticized victimization, on some level. i could go through my life experiences and psychology to detail why i think that's the case for me personally, but that's what it amounts to. i don't know that there's a reason for it, as much as the fact that i know when i am victimized in some fashion, my body's wiring interprets that as arousal. on a physical level, things like my heartrate increases, i start to sweat, endorphins kick off (probably an instinctive survival mode, even for difficult emotions). my body interprets those physical changes as the same thing as arousal, so i get wet. and there you have it.

my owner calls this a version of modern-day alchemy - turning a "bad" emotion (like anger or jealousy) into "good" one (arousal, or service via submission). i tend to agree. i'm not a very angry person, so i'm impressed with my own ability to transmute the badstuff into goodstuff.

i guess that also answers the "why is it healthy for you," question also. any time i can turn a negative experience into one that is at minimum a learning one, i'm all for it. the fact that it's sexually arousing is kind of icing.

...when D and i started discussing and reviewing my fantasies, especially the ones i'd held since i was a very little girl, it became obvious that suffering was a Huge Deal, a center-piece of most of them. it got to the point where it was the great white elephant in the middle of the room i refused to discuss (figuratively), until i just - acknowledged it. once i was able to say it out loud, it transmuted as well - from something shameful and bizarre to spiritualized and (this is going to sound odd) almost normalized. so yes - it does have a higher purpose - it's deeply, deeply satisfying to suffer. for both of us.

waffle

when i try to rationalize something because i am told to make sense of it, absorb it, become it, and it is not easy, i feel stretched between two polar opposites. physically. until i snap towards the right pole, the one of obedience.

i don't always agree with everything my owner says. whether it's about me, someone else, something i'm told to do, a perspective, whatever. as much as i like to de-humanize and objectify and reduce my sense of self, i can't obliterate it completely, because i am, after all, a human. not a cow, or a table, or a smiling robot. i don't harbor resentment about these things, but it's at these times, in these particularly difficult moments, that i resort to my submission, my obligations, as a reason.

something that might normally cause me unhappiness and displeasure and even occasional wretchedness turns into a success story, because i can overcome it and call it submission. i have a *reason* for doing it, for muddling through things that make me unhappy. there's no rationalization for that, really. other than i've become habitualized to know that obeying, submitting, ultimately has a reward of happiness in and of itself at the end.

maybe that's what it's like to have faith in god.

okay, i'm also running a high fever, so if this is a bit delirious, i apologize. all i'm trying to say is that i gotta do something i'm not thrilled about doing, and if i wasn't obligated to make him happy and keep things smoothed out, i'd object. i haven't even brought it up, because i know it's pointless - and that's ok. which i find surprising, even to a hard core s-type like myself.

compersion - a love story.

totally lifted off the TSR boards, here.

"In the growing American poly demographic, a language and culture is starting to sprout. One of the new terms that has been invented and is going around is "compersion".

Compersion was invented as a term for what could be roughly considered the opposite of jealousy. It has been described as "knowing that your partner is getting it on with their other partner down the hall, and feeling nothing but happiness that your partner is having a wonderful time". So that is, ideally, what one gets out of one's lover's polyamory: the knowledge that they are getting their needs met, are having a great time, and are generally happier for this being in their life. One would assume that one would like to see one's beloved happy in all possible ways, yes? I would assume that would go especially for those whose submissive lives center entirely around one's beloved.

Of course, in order to achieve compersion, you have to first be able to look at your own needs and figure out which aren't getting met. Some you may be able to get your partner to help meet ("I really need for there to be one sexual activity which is special for us") and some you will probably have to work on purging. The big demons in the latter category are usually social programming. We are told, by our culture, that sex is the coin in which we are paid to show how much a lover cares about us and is committed to us. In polyamory, that coin doesn't have that value any more (which means that it tends to become time and attention spent instead), and people often have to go about deconstructing that social/mental construction.

One also has to give up on the Cinderella/nuclear family/people in pairs like shoes and socks romantic myth. As in, give up on it entirely. Kiss it goodbye. Let it go. Mourn it. Have a funeral for it, scream and cry and bury the fucker. Realize it for the social construction that it is, realize its purpose in being constructed, and that you do not need it. Acknowledge also how much of a hold it has over you, from the little girl in the bride gown pretending to get married and live monogamously ever after to the mystique of "going steady". Then, when you're done mourning it and you've uncrossed your fingers behind your back (where you've been pretending that you didn't really need to let it go), start thinking about what Love really is. Look at your relationship and say, "Is there enough love here to make it work even without that dream?" You'll probably be surprised.

Then find yourself a new coin and ask your lover to pay you in that. Time and attention? Special privileges? What says "primary" to you that isn't bound up with monogamy? Stretch your thinking. Then, when all this is done, you can start to work on compersion - see how happy it makes your beloved to have both of you. Not her, not you - both of you. Love it because it makes him so happy.

This is the only road out of that hell that I know of."

-Raven Kaldera

a sorta fairy tale

i just figured out that Yaldah Tovah means "good girl".

be my wolf
be my black knight
i never wanted to be rescued
i'm just a wanderer in the forest
your little girl
is dirty and lost
all ready to be
broken and torn
are you watching?

image courtesy of jerricai on deviantart.com

everyone's an angel

and a demon. you just never know who will see you as which.

She said, What do you want me to be? Do you want me to be her? Blond wig? Some puka shells and cutoffs. It's not my style but whatever.

I said, No, no. Gargoyles and demons. Succubus.

Kinky, she said.

I said, Get on my chest. Crouch on my chest. Like that painting. You know. The dream. That thing is on the woman's chest. Suck the life out of me.

She said, Oh, I get it. So you want me to punish you? You want me to call you a bad boy? Is that it? What did you do that was so bad, boy?

She was the furthest I could get from you. That's what I wanted.

- francesca lia block, "Wasteland"

dance

i'm solid in your arms. i'm not flighty or ghost-like or china doll. you've lately been carving my body into art through your direction and singular strength; i feel it molded now and different than before. but still solid and real. i am not a fantasy.

when i held you in my spinning when i clung to you and naked brought you across the floor by the fire and spun away and back again you caught me and tightened your grip. my hair was the only light thing about me i thought until you raised me up and i suddenly knew i was not a burden.

when i get lost

here's where i go. follow the footprints. come find me and take me home.

_luminol_

Nobody with no one to call
And all this time
Hot metal as her clothes dissolve
Emergency lights
It's genocide
It's sucide

I'm spinning around the room in awe
I'm spinning around the room

I'm floating through a room of halls
Partytime
Stops breathing like a china doll
And broken eyes
It's genocide
Suicide

I'm spinning around the room in awe
All bloody in the luminol
I'm spinning around the room in awe
In awe

Save my life...
Say my name

It's genocide
It's suicide

I'm floating through a room of halls
All bloody in the luminol
I'm spinning around the room in awe
In awe
And on and on and on

-Ryan Adams

where i'm going

For my life rests on the turn of a blade
For my life rests on the touch of a feather
For my life is no longer my own.

-The Descent of Inanna