Into the Dark and Darker Woods

This post is a response to Sir Lostpup Grey Shepherd



The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
-Robert Frost


Into your darkest corner, you are safe in my love, you are protected. 
I am the openess you seek, I am your doorway. 
Come sit in the circular temple of my heart, & let yourself be calm.”
-Agapi Stassinopoulos

There is pleasure in the pathless woods...
-George Byron

“Darkness soothed. It softened the sharp edges of the world, toned down the too-harsh colors. With the coming of twilight, the sky seemed to recede; the universe expanded. The night was bigger than the day, and in its realm, life seemed to have more possibilities.”
-Dean Koontz, Midnight

“I trust only you and the dark always to look at me so honestly.”
-Meredith Duran, Wicked Becomes You

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Who am I?

I am a poet-girl with a raven spirit, who flew headlong into the sky, to find my freedom, and meet myself.  I am a grateful dreamer, a child-of-the-wild-blue-yonder, with a big, roomy heart, and a hunger to know and love.  I am both strong and weak, young and mature, confident and insecure, graceful and awkward, woman and child. I am a girl who at nineteen, found myself in the middle of an unplanned pregnancy, and spent the next two decades serving my family as mother, educator, wife and friend.
I loved that life, and chose it on purpose.  I love my husband, children, grandchildren, and the life we've made.  Yet, when my babies were grown and my life became my own again, I needed to stretch my wings and find the path that had always been mine alone.  I have been trying to mind
my steps and be thoughtful about where they lead me ever since.

I think I have always been a poly girl, though I did not always know it was possible to be so, nor did I have the words to describe or label what it meant.  My heart craves people.  I am fascinated with their stories, their lives, their emotions and their reasonings.  I ache to know and be known. Being invited into someone's heart and their inner world feeds my heart in ways this word-girl can't even begin yet to describe.  This journey to find others who crave what I do, has been rocky thus far.  The path has been rough.  I've been wounded and bruised and have had to learn to heal and be tough.

Enter the Wolf.

One day I decided it was time to go hunting.  I felt alone, and alien, and my experiences with loving more than one had been so very painful.  I knew I needed more, and so I went into the woods to find like minded beings who understood my need to know and be known.  I found Him, and perhaps He was also hunting for me, and my life is forever changed.

He is not what you might expect.  He's a Wolf and a Shepherd, fierce and gentle, dark and light, sadistic and loving, simple and complex.  He works harder than any man I've ever met at loving those who are His pack.  He makes mistakes, and makes amends, and He gets it right.
He fights for me. He is the man I trust with every part of who I am, and He celebrates me fully.  He loves my darkness.


He is my Wolf and my haven.
He lives by the promise to hurt but do no harm.

He includes me in his pack.

He includes me.

        I am welcome. 

               I am wanted.

                          I belong.

I am at home in His woods, they are mine.

When the civilized world -- where darkness is a diversion locked away in boxes -- becomes too loud, too demanding too much to bear, I know I can come home to His woods and find that I have a place.  There is a space in His heart and world only I can fill. I can escape to Him, and find my peace, my center, myself.

And so, I look to the future - into a new year - into a long life in His heart and at His side, and I know I belong to Him.  He owns me, has earned my trust, and I am His ink-smudged poet-girl with the heart of a raven.

At his invitation, I will keep exploring.  I will fly, I will hunt and  play. I will grow and live and inspire words and wonder and the flight of others.

At the same time, I will forever be bound to His heart and life. Soon I will wear his collar, I will be tethered to Him as a bird to her Falconer, trusting Him to train me, care for me, protect me and love me.  I hope to always make Him proud and happy He invited me in.

As he said, you are welcome in our forest.  I know there are other girls out there like me, who long to find themselves in the dark and darker woods.  I hope if you are that sort of girl, and you are reading here, you will be encouraged by my journey.  There is a great big, off-the-beaten-path place for me, and for you.  I hope you won't stop searching until you find it.

To Submit

“I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naive or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.”
- Anais Nin, US (French-born) author & diarist (1903 - 1977)

I am not a submissive.

I used to think I was.  I used to think I needed to be a submissive, but what I really need is to submit to one man "who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me..."

Shepherd says it this way, and it makes sense to me:

"There is a difference between needing to serve somebody and finding someone you wish to serve."
-Sir Lostpup Grey Shepherd

The thing that I love and seek in a power exchange dynamic is the reality that something, someone in my life is immovable, strong, demanding.  I am a strong and intelligent woman, independent, determined.  I don't have an overwhelming need to serve others, I do not have an urgent need to please others.  But in my life, I have always sought a strength that exceeds my own.  I need to submit.  In that submission, I will serve someone by choice and desire, but not out of need.

"I do not want to be the leader. I refuse to be the leader. I want to live darkly and richly in my femaleness. I want a man lying over me, always over me. His will, his pleasure, his desire, his life, his work, his sexuality the touchstone, the command, my pivot. I don't mind working, holding my ground intellectually, artistically; but as a woman, oh, God, as a woman I want to be dominated. I don't mind being told to stand on my own feet, not to cling -- all that I am capable of doing -- but I am going to be pursued, fucked, possessed by the will of a male at his time, his bidding."
- Anais Nin, US (French-born) author & diarist (1903 - 1977)

From the time I was a child, I never knew a man who took the dominant role in a relationship.  I am loved by two fathers.  They are both submissive.  Let me stop here, and say that submissiveness is not a bad trait.  It is neither bad nor good.  It simply is.  My fathers are happy being submissive.  It is how they choose to express their love and devotion to their wives and children.  I admire and love them for it.  Both of my husbands, are/were submissive, much like my fathers.  By choice, they act and did act in ways to please the dominant personality in their relationships -- me.  I am not complaining.  I need and want my husband to be that person, it makes him happy, and it makes me happy.

But I also need a strength under which I can submit.

I want to push against a wall and find it immovable
I want to pound and find it solid
I want to know that I can’t win
I want to fight with all my might, and lose,
I want to kick and scream and stamp my foot
and find that it won’t work. 

I want to know that I will not be pushed away,
will not be rejected, abandoned, screaming silently in the night. 

but who will be the wall
who will stand firm
who will hold me til it’s over
and still be there?
Alice, quoted by Poppy St. Vincent, in her post 'The Fear and Loving in Everwhere'

You see, I am messy.  It is who I am.  I am emotional, and passionate, and impulsive, and creative, and reckless.  I want to explore, to learn, to experience, to live!  I am impatient, and immature and hungry.  I can be an adult.  I can be responsible and reserved, I can lead and control.  But there is in me a girl, a bird, a poet, that wants to fly headlong into tomorrow, hair tangling in the wind and heart pounding in my ears.... driven and undisciplined.  

"Without discipline, there's no life at all."
-Katharine Hepburn

Yet, I require discipline. I am like a falcon needing a falconer to tether me, teach me, protect me and let me fly.  I need the structure, the boundaries, and the reassurance that I am "owned, taken, safe, wanted...someone's so much that even I am second to them." Those too are Shepherd's words.  He is wise.  He is right.

"To be completely woman you need a Master, and in him a compass for your life. You need a man you can look up to and respect. If you dethrone him, it's no wonder that you are discontented, and discontented women are not loved for long."
-Marlene Dietrich, quoted by Master Obsidian's slave, namaste in her post Humbled Females: Reclaiming the Feminine Mystique

I have found that falconer.  He has a strength of character that moves my heart, and makes me want to please him.  He is my immovable wall, firm and resolute.  He is the strength to which I can submit myself, and he loves me.  He sees me, body, heart and soul --- all of me. He knows the woman, the girl, the hunter, the prey, the poet, the explorer, the child. He celebrates me, and wants to take responsibility for my well being, my growth, my submission.

I have found someone I wish to serve.  By his definition, and now by mine... I have a slave-heart.

"If you are a slave, it is what your heart said.  You did not get a vote."
-Sir Lostpup Grey Shepherd

The journey ahead frightens me.  It will not be easy.  I have already shown my ability to panic, to push and  fight and frustrate.  I have suffered consequences that I both hated and deserved.  I have been called to account, and instructed to stretch and grow.  I was not rejected, not abandoned for being too much.  He is still here.  He did not move, did not leave.  I am still here, still wanted and loved.  I have been shown a bar that is higher than what I have yet attained.  He sees my potential, and wants to see me reach it, so the bar can be raised yet again.  He believes in me.

"When [one who submits] enters into a journey with a Dominant, she is never quite sure of the path He will choose and the challenges she will face. The dance is first and foremost a dance of trust. Given this most precious element, she knows there is no limit to the places she will go under His hand. This is true only because He cherishes her and will not take her places she cannot go …"
-Fringe of Darkness tumblr

I trust him. I choose him. I submit to him. 

I belong to Him.

Welcome Morning

Dark haiku:

tension builds with dawn

body twisted in the sheets

swiftly comes uncoiled 

~Ephe 8/28/11

#concupiscence
#darkhaiku

So many sensations I want to write indelibly upon my mind and heart, and never, ever forget.

The flow of silk stocking drawn upwards from my toes to my hip... and then repeated. The cinching of ribbons until I feel every single stay. Garters fastened at the top of each thigh, snapped into place with a playful tug. Breathing made shallow by the corset and by the excitement as he takes me by the hand and leads me to stand before the mirror.

'Look at how beautiful you are.'

His hungry eyes just over my left shoulder and the flush of color on my freckled skin. Leaning forward, at his insistence, until my breasts spill out over the top of the fabric while his hands pull my hips backwards into his.

Later, propped upon pillows in the center of the bed -- my legs wrapped around his shoulders. Ribboned black silk a stark contrast against his sandy hair. The swell of fabric over my hips and my utter amazement at my own curves swaddled in midnight silk and brocade. The trembling excitement I feel in my limbs. The way my nipples harden and my insides clench in anticipation.

I have never felt so deliciously lovely, and the light in his eyes is my mirror.

I can't wait to look again.


Photo borrowed from knownbeauty, the tattoo text is this:

"Now I will believe

that there are unicorns;

that in Arabia

There is one tree, the phoenix' throne,

one phoenix

At this hour reigning there."

- William Shakespeare,

 The Tempest, 3.3

The Switch in My Looking Glass

"Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle!"
- Lewis Carroll (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)
----------

“I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then."
- Lewis Carroll (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)

----------

"How puzzling all these changes are! I'm never sure what I'm going to be, from one minute to another."
- Lewis Carroll (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)
----------

"Be what you would seem to be - or, if you'd like it put more simply - never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise."
- Lewis Carroll (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)
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"Speak in French when you can’t think of the English for a thing-- turn your toes out when you walk--- And remember who you are!"
- Lewis Carroll (Through The Looking Glass)
----------

’The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
’The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all."
- Lewis Carroll (Through The Looking Glass)
----------

I can't go back to yesterday because I was a different person then. "
- Lewis Carroll (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)
----------

I came into D/s drawn by the strength of a male partner... his restrained desire, eventually unleashed because he could no longer hold back; his ability to draw from me responses I didn’t know were in me; his acknowledgement of my darkness. I’ve always loved the feeling of being worth so much attention -- because he had to be very attentive to keep me on the edge, to be the kind of dominant I didn’t even know I wanted or needed until Karhu was.

In my day-to-day life, I am a strong-willed woman, intelligent, creative, and driven. I’m the one who gets things done, who delegates, who takes charge of a situation and bends it. I am responsible for my own life, my own pleasure, my own orgasm. Three years ago I began exploring D/s, and I was intrigued by the idea that there might be someone out there strong enough to accept the control I willingly surrendered -- and to wield it with skill; to take me to places I’d never been. That’s essentially what I’ve looked for in every D/s dynamic I’ve encountered or negotiated since.

Because that exchange of power is what I wanted, I used the labels I had a grasp upon to define myself as submissive -- forgetting that I am also strong-willed, driven, and very much a Mom. When I met others in the community who responded alternately to my labels or my personality, I came away surprised. Some expected me to be very subby, others were surprised when I insisted I was not dominant.

I’ve resisted the label of switch, out of fear. I do not want to lose the submissive in me. I am still learning what labels mean, and how I fit. I think part of me hates the idea I mighy be expected to be strong, when what I’m really looking for is a safe place to not be the strong one.

On the other hand, I’ve been struggling with the realization that I don’t fully fit into what I perceive as the subby role. This weekend over the course of several conversations, Shepherd figuratively held up a mirror and insisted in his gentle, indomitable way, that I take an honest look at my own reflection. I had to admit it.

There’s a dominant in me.

She is the woman who told Husband a year ago I was going to be polyamorous, and he could believe I loved him, or go find his happiness without me. I wouldn’t be angry at him if he made that choice for himself.

She is the woman who successfully negotiated a play-partner relationship based on her own wants, needs and limits.

She is the woman who found herself in a situation she didn’t understand, got defensive with a Domme who made her feel intimidated, and stood up for herself, making a mess of things. Now she is faced with the task of making it all right again.

She is the Mommy, the wife, the Child of the Wild Blue Yonder. She is me, and I am determined to go out and find what I need to be happy, only choosing to surrender and submit what I want, what feeds me, what meets my needs.

I may never own a submissive, though I’m learning never to use never definitively. Shepherd says some day I’ll meet someone and say “Mama want... Mama get. Period.” He’s probably right. When it comes to showing me myself, he usually is.

After all, he sees the darkness in me, and loves me for it. He’s the one person in my life I trust and love completely enough discuss a collar with. So, here I stand before that mirror and I see both dominant and submissive. There are needs in me fed by both of these dynamics. How I choose to explore and let them play out in my life is my choice. I will do so in my time. This is my privilege. I don’t have to surrender one aspect of myself, in order to have the other.

In fact, if I am to be true to me, there is no choice, but to acknowledge and celebrate who that woman really is.

Who is in your mirror?

Thirty Days of Kink - Distance, Technology and Mental Power Exchange

by Moe_ on flickr

Day 26: What’s your opinion on online BDSM play?


My introduction to BDSM began with online play. I've spoken of it this month, in previous posts, so I won't belabor the point here.

There are differences, yes, and if my experiences were limited to online play, I have a feeling I'd be unsatisfied. However, I still maintain a long distance, online and via phone relationship with a Dominant, I call him Poet, here on my blogs. It's the nature of relationships, that technology helps us to stay connected. I cannot connect with him in person, so many interactions I might like to have with him are not possible. But he does offer me protocols, structure, emotional support, and yes, even some physical, self-directed, orgasmic kink. (Read that as "directed-masturbation, and orgasm control.")

It's not perfect, but it does fill a need where it would be impossible to fill it otherwise. Besides, I also have a very powerful D/s dynamic with Shepherd, which we explore not only when we are together in person every eight weeks or so... but online and via the phone in the spaces between visits.

I know that there are those who scoff at online BDSM, who consider it baby's milk compared to the hard liquor of 'real-life' kinky interaction. I agree, to a point, that there's a great difference. But I also know that for me, personally, having both options works. And, I think I've made it clear this month too... I'm the only one who has the right to define my own lifestyle / kink. Everyone else is of course, perfectly free to define their own.

Can't we all just get along while we get off?

Thirty Days of Kink - Interest(ing) Perspectives.

by jontintinjordan on flickr

Day 23: Since you first developed an interest in kink, have your interests/perspectives changed? How so?


The more I explore, the more I want to explore.  I think that's not unusual. I'm learning that I don't have a true subbie heart.  It is not in my makeup to submit and serve.  I'm not a slave.  I do love to submit, and I do so by choice, because of the way it feeds me.  I am probably more a switch by nature than I want to admit.  But I do know I have no desire to switch roles.  I like my kink just the way it is for now, thank you.


I'm still learning, still discovering, still waking the sleeping beast inside of me, and finding out what it is that feeds her darkness.  I love the journey so far.

Thirty Days of Kink - Fantasy Fuel

by horiavarlan on flickr


Day 21: Favorite BDSM related book (fiction or non-fiction)

The Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by Anne Rice

Thirty Days of Kink - Self Improvement

by fragiletender on flickr

Day 19: Any unexpected ways kink has improved your life? If so, what are they?


Oh my, yes.


I feel balanced, for the first time in a very long time.  It's just that simple.  There's been a need in me for so very long that I didn't even know about, that I didn't understand.  There's a darkness that needs feeding, that needs embracing and acknowledging.  I am this girl, this woman, who needs to chase that darkness.  Doing so balances me.


In addition, the natural endorphins and adrenaline that my body produces when I'm in kink induced pain... are better than any synthetic drug I could ever experiment with.  They are tailor made for me, and fit me, perfectly,  When I get to that space, the stress of the world melts away -- physical, emotional, mental.  It's a happy place with few equals.  (Those would be the birth of my children, falling in love, the BIG moments in life.)  Yes, there are benefits to being kinky.


Silly question, perhaps.


Because of course there are benefits to being me.


I rock.

Thirty Days of Kink - I Want to Fight With All My Might, and Lose

by kiwinz on flickr

Day 13: Explain as best you can what the appeal of kink/BDSM is to you? Why are you drawn to what you’re drawn to?


This week I read this passage on Poppy and Devlin's blog, written by Alice.  The entire post was so very much about why I am drawn to kink, but this bit says it succinctly.


I want to push against a wall and find it immovable
I want to pound and find it solid
I want to know that I can’t win
I want to fight with all my might, and lose,
I want to kick and scream and stamp my foot
and find that it won’t work.

I want to know that I will not be pushed away,
will not be rejected, abandoned, screaming silently in the night.

but who will be the wall
who will stand firm
who will hold me til it’s over
and still be there?

I'm sure it's probably cheating to not write more.  Honestly, at this point I don't have other words to add.  I have written so much on this blog, and More Amour about why this journey and what drives me.  I'm sure I will write more.  

For tonight, I'm going to keep thinking about Alice's words, and let them sink into my heart where they belong, because for me, kink isn't just about getting off... it's about passion, about discovering the girl, the woman, the real me, in me.

Thanks, Alice and Poppy.

Thirty Days of Kink - This Thing We Do (That I've Never Done)

(by aubergene on flickr)

Day 6: Describe your weirdest/most interesting sexual fantasy.

I confess, I peeked ahead, and I've been thinking about this post, and the corresponding fantasy all week. I'd planned to write about a scene that exploits my appetite for fear -- a scene about ripped stockings, and a growling voice in the dark, about a glittering blade that flashes in the low light and makes me shiver when it touches my bare skin...

And I might write about that fantasy soon, but not today.

Today, I happened across a couple of blog posts on my Blackberry, via Social Feeds. I found Poppy St. Vincent a few months back, completely by accident and I read her religiously now.  Though I don't consider myself part of the TTWD community of kinksters, there's a certain way that Poppy has of looking at life, and at the relationship between herself and Devlin, her Top, that I am drawn to. I don't think of myself primarily as a little girl, or a brat, though both live inside of me, and I don't know that I could give up THAT much control, and give a man who loved me the right to take me over his knee like a child. 


Yes, I am a masochist... and yet I'm not sure I could deal with the physical AND emotional pain of being scolded THEN spanked... soundly.  Still the more of her I read, the more I wonder what it would be like to be loved by that sort of man. This morning I read another of her insightful posts, and it brought tears to my eyes. On Poppy's blog, or perhaps on Devlin's, I can't remember which now, I came across a link to Erica Scott's blog, and the post I read there today also made me teary-eyed. 

I'm still not convinced that I need the sort of relationship where I'm disciplined by a man, but the more I read and identify with Poppy, and others, the more I'm not convinced I don't want one, too.

And so, for today, the fantasy that's running around in my head involves a slightly older, distinguished looking man, with dark eyes, and a growly voice, who will draw me into his lap for a cuddle. He will also look at me and know that I need to be drawn "strictly into his boundaries where I feel safe and relaxed." He will know that I need to weep away my stress, safe and under his firm hand. He will sort me out... telling me calmly to pull down my panties, and bend over... warming up my backside slowly at first, then with harder and harder lashes of his hand, a hair brush, a spoon, and maybe even a belt.

He will not let me get away with bratty comments, or boundary pushing, but will be strict and firm... not stopping until I am sobbing and warm, and feel as though the world has righted itself. Then he will draw me back into his arms, onto his lap, where I will kiss his neck and dry my tears in the collar of his shirt. He will soothe me, and cuddle me, and I will float.

I don't think this man exists in my life right now. I find myself wondering whether he ever will. I am not complaining, because my life is full of joy and darkness and love and the good sort of pain that feeds me. And though I have a wonderful place to explore things like torn stockings and smeared lipstick and the cold steel of a blade against my skin... I can't seem to stop thinking about a very different sort of path to that adrenaline release and endorphin rush I get when my Sadist feeds my masochistic side.

I suppose that's what fantasies are all about... and this is only one... only today's.


Funny how that works out.

Thirty Days of Kink - Where Does It Hurt?

(by striatic on flickr)

Day 5: What was your first kinky sexual experience? If you haven’t had one yet, talk about what you hope to have happen.


The first introduction I had to sensation play came mentally, verbally, and via video chat, from Karhu. There was some definite kink involved, and even some sexual play, but it was limited to what I could perform on myself at his command.

I think I would qualify my first kinky sexual experience as my first night with Shepherd. I knew before I met him that I was interested in kink. I'd played around with some things, mostly the mental and emotional aspects of the D/s dynamic. What I didn't know that first night, is that I am very much a masochist. I get off on pain. I can orgasm when my nipples are twisted abusively. I love the sting of a hand when it strikes my flesh.

There wasn't much more that we explored that first night besides Shepherd's hands. He pinned me against the wall, and growled at my throat. He ordered me to strip. He touched and explored my body, listening to its cues, fed me with painful sensations one after another. I was shocked at what my body could withstand, and even more surprised at what it asked for.

I never believed I had a high pain threshold, having always been a baby about sprains, migraines, and stress injuries. I learned that night that if I bite my lip and ignore the clamoring of my brain, there's a quiet place --- an escape from the stresses of my life --- a space where I can let the flood of pain bear me away safe and warm, feeling used, wanted and cherished. I will never forget the night I met my sadistic Top. He took me to his dark world and showed me where it hurt.  Now I am hooked.

By the by, the night didn't end with sex. There was a bit of release offered and accepted by both of us, but the actual amazing sex came later. This night was all about the pleasure of giving and receiving pain.

My name is Ephemera.
I'm a Masochist, and I'm hungry.
It's so good to meet you.
;)

Thirty Days of Kink - Clueless?

(by txberiu on Flickr)

Day 4: Any early experiences that, in retrospect, hint at your kinks?

I'm not sure there were any early experiences that pointed to my kinks.  Honestly, my childhood was very sheltered, and I didn't have sex until my senior year in high school.  I went away to college the next fall, and by Christmas I was home, pregnant.  The next twenty years were spent marrying, having babies, getting divorced, getting remarried and being a mom.  I didn't really feel the freedom to explore me until my kids began leaving home and I realized how unhappy I was with my life.


It didn't take me long though to figure out that there WERE early hints that I am polyamorous.  I'm married to someone who knew me in high school.  He confirmed that he's always known I fall in love easily with more than one person at a time.  I guess I was naive, but I learned quickly.  Now I'm hungry to make up for lost time!

Appetite for Darkness

I believe in the impossible, in fairy tales. I believe in the magic that hovers in shadows, perches in tree branches on gnarled claws and whispers dark incantations on the night air. There’s a little girl in me that carries a flashlight aloft and chases fireflies at the edge of the forest, who attempts to reach into mirrors, who peers into the deep, dark depths of wardrobes, ever eager to slip through a portal from the mundane world into the fantastic. And it’s not just the happy endings that bring out that little girl in me. It’s the frightful possibility, the hunger flickering in the eyes of the wolf, or the envious rage of the wicked queen. I confess, I’m enchanted by the frigid hand of fear that fastens itself upon my heart and compresses my breaths into frantic gulps.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/alyssafilmmaker/4386251915/sizes/m/in/photostream/

Fairy tales were not always meant for young ones. "The term fairy tale, now used as a generic label for magical stories for children, comes from the French term conte de fées, which refers to for a group of 17th-century tales written for adults.” Quote borrowed.

Originally, a fairy tale did not sew up all the loose ends of itself with happy-song and passionate-kiss threads. These fantastical myths probed the darkness, and prodded the wild spirit that lives in each of us and thrives outside of us, as well.

Fairy Tales were meant for the likes of me, and I love them. I believe in them. They feed my hunger for wildness, and for the foreboding that burns the back of my throat and reduces me to a trembling little girl, with a feral imagination that races with the pounding of my heart -- this appetite is the creature that taunts me in the darkness, fuels my yearning for that man with a growl living in the back of his throat -- who bares his teeth in an innocuous grin, but is betrayed by the craving in his eyes; it is why I look for ways to escape into the shadows and let the girl inside me get lost in the forest, wandering in wide-eyed trepidation.

Therefore, I was thrilled when Shepherd --- a man with wonderfully frightening growl --- recently invited me to board a plane and fly 251 miles to see him, and to spend an afternoon in a strange dungeon, with a virtually unknown crowd. I’m still fairly inexperienced when it comes to public play and dungeons. Most of my explorations into the darkness have been in my creative fiction writing, and one-to-one with Shepherd. He’s very good at feeding the masochist in me. I wrote about my first dungeon experience back in October, and it was something that awakened my appetite for the intensity, the energy exchange that happens between a submissive and a dominant, a top and a bottom. I am captivated by the quick intake of breath, the flash of hunger, the glint of steel, the scrape of rope, or the sting of leather gripped by trusted fingers, laid against quivering flesh. I was eager to experience it all again in a new space, with new people.

The dungeon warehouse Shepherd took me to was amazing, aptly described as a haven. There were people from all walks of life enjoying the darkness. Every corner was filled with things to make a girl’s flesh tingle.

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There were rooms in the dungeon that had a profound effect on me, but none like the very small chamber bisected by iron bars. The cell itself was dark, and confining. In the corner outside the cell rested simple tools of torture. Stepping into the space, I shivered and felt a rush of adrenaline. My imagination flew in a hundred directions at once. I think if I’d been alone, I would have entered the cell itself, slid down into the corner with my tiny notebook, and scribbled some notes or a poem about how deliciously vulnerable I felt there.

More than just the spirit of the space, what drew me in and made me feel at home was the passion of the individuals at play. When I wrote about my first dungeon experience, I focused on the energy exchange that happens between submissives and their dominants, tops and bottoms; and once again -- in this sanctuary - I saw that same trust and vulnerability painted on faces, written on torsos, recorded in flesh. I confess that I admire anyone who has the courage to bare themselves in public, in pursuit of that endorphin rush, that contact high.

I’m not just speaking about the actual nudity - full or partial - that often accompanies a scene. I admire that sort of abandon, to be sure, but there’s a vulnerability, a nakedness, if you will, that goes deeper than that. A submissive, or a bottom, who will bare themselves, and share their pain, their pleasure, their bliss, with an audience: is brave indeed. Of course, I acknowledge that that baring may well be part of the voyeuristic pleasure derived --- still, as an observer, the gift is not lost on me. I watch, I receive, and for that I’m grateful.

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I found one scene between a beautiful female bottom, and a charming male top particularly moving; and when what would take place was described to me, I never expected to have such a visceral reaction to it, as I did. It sounded like fun - Saran wrap, bare breasts, balloons popping -- doesn’t that sound like a carnival to you? And it was, great fun. But there were moments.

I’m not sure I can describe it, and do it justice, but there was a delicious sting that I very nearly felt every time the top in this scene popped a balloon against the bottom’s bare flesh. There was a shiny, large blade that flashed in the low light, and when I saw her shiver as she sighted it, I felt the chill on my skin. I held my breath along with her at each caress of the blade, silently voiced her yelps and felt my body tingle as she shuddered at each sting of broken rubber that snapped against her ivory flesh. I observed as her eyes flashed and locked with his gaze, seeking his strength, the reassurance of his control, and the subsequent surrender to sensation. I saw in her expression a serenity that I craved, and felt vicariously, because she was so honest and vulnerable.

It lasted only a few minutes, but I felt it... acutely, spiritually, physically.

And I treasured the gift both of them offered to the crowd.

I think I’d like to go back to this haven, Shepherd's shared refuge. I would love to capture on film, on paper, and eventually in my own flesh, the beauty and the power that fed me that day. I can say that later, in the privacy of Shepherd’s home, the hunger in my flesh for that pain was fed, and for me, that is an important part of my journey. I need that pain. But my soul also needs the beauty that shimmers before my eyes when I witness the scenes I did in that dungeon. I am very much a watcher, and a recorder of that exquisite grace that happens in a split second between those of us who understand the pain, and how it feeds us.

Someday, I will be the exhibitionist. I hear the darkness beckon, drawing me farther, deeper, making irresistible promises. I do not doubt that it will have its way with me. For now, I am the voyeur, and to those who allow me the pleasure, I respond with humble, consummate gratitude.

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For firing my imagination and for feeding my appetite,

Thank you.

The Darkness

I am inspired by this post, tonight. You should go and read... and before you come back here, you should bookmark the site. It's worth returning to again and again. Trust me. Poppy, the author of this inspirational piece, speaks in a voice that I recognize. There is, in her, a strength, a knowing, a spirit quite kindred. My soul echoes with her words.

Go. Read. Then come back.

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There is, in me, a restlessness, an appetite for darkness. It's the part of me that thrills at the wind in the trees on a moonlit night. The part that tingles with dread as leaf creatures skitter across the path and chase my footsteps in the inky autumn night. It is the tug that pulls me, as Poppy says, from hearth and home, and out into the twilight, to find myself somewhere out there in the shadows.

I'm a good girl... most of the time. I am happiest knowing that a Top is pleased with me, that they cherish and feel protective of me, and the rewards for being on my best behavior are doubly sweet, when they come with a satisfied smile, perhaps a hint of pride. I like being good.

But there's also that midnight ink that runs in my veins. It's dark, and thick and blackest-black. It can spill over in a moment, and I can be impish. I can taunt and tease. I love to shiver at the hungry growl that lives in the throat of a Top, to tremble at the flames of desire that dance in his eyes. I thrill at the sudden rush that prickles my skin as he pins my arms against the wall, and whispers his commands through teeth laid against my bare neck. I long for him to push me to the edge, to watch me shudder, and dance with fear, knowing I can trust his strength.

I confess, there has always been a sort of delicious dread that fills me when I recall Shakespeare's Macbeth, and the lines "By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes." and "Double, double, toil and trouble. Fire burn and cauldron bubble." I'm not sure why it is, but a part of me loves the music in these words. I think perhaps, it may be the poet who lives in my darkness; she whispers to me with glee when I read Edgar Allan Poe, dancing, floating, swimming in the cadence of his words.

There is a woman in me that is much the way Poppy described...

"Maybe sometimes she has children now but she has a life away from them as well. Maybe she loves but does not obey without question. Maybe she walks her own path, thinks her own thoughts; she has the distinct smell of trouble about her. Maybe she is so restless at night because she has such dreams of desire that they will not let her rest."

There is a woman in me who must go after a life of my own, who must find her freedom, and assert her independence, who acknowledges her own hunger, and seeks to have it fed. She is a woman who needs to look into the eyes of man, and find looking back a recognition of her strength, her intelligence, her dangerous nature--yes, a celebration of these things. She needs a power she can rise to, can match and yet surrender to. She also, needs strong sister friends, who revel in their own strength and beauty, who accept their own darknesses, who can stand in the light of the full moon, and make peace with their demons.

And so, on this autumn evening, I venture out into the darkness... and inward too, to meet night with night. I am grateful for the spirit of Lilith, if that is who she is, and thankful to Poppy for reminding me that I too, like what I find in the dark.

It Was the Pain

I was amazed.

Not shocked -- in the way you might think one should be -- but overwhelmed. Dare I say it? Titillated. I saw unsurpassed beauty in the nudity of average bodies, and did not look away. I was captivated. I heard the sounds of leather, wood, rope and metal against flesh, and did not cover my ears. I heard gasps and groans and cries of pleasure, and I smiled, I shivered, I watched in awe.

I bore witness to the grace of a Top who knelt before his beloved bottom, and bid her breathe, trust, relax as she was lifted from the floor by ropes that intricately bound her body. His gentleness and her surrender brought tears to my eyes, and made my heart trip in my chest. I felt the pleasure I saw painted on her flesh, on her face for the rest of the night.

I observed as two old friends negotiated and agreed to something they'd never done before, and then marveled at the exquisite beauty of her body as he deftly drew the pleasure from her flesh with the sting, and strike, and slap of one tool then the next. He watched her, carefully, read her breath, her trembling muscles, her groans and giggles, until she erupted with a look of surprise etched across her lovely face.

It was my first dungeon experience, and I had no idea what to expect. I found myself among friends. I relaxed, and chatted, and wandered around and watched. I became the fascinated spectator, holding my breath, trembling with the gift of their generosity, aching with epiphany. I realized that what brought each of us to this place was something truly phenomenal. It was, for me, a very spiritual experience.

I found myself, again.