FICTION: The Black Room of Pleasure

Christian pulled his lips away from Anastasia’s, and held her at arms’ length.  His dark eyes bored into hers, and he whispered hoarsely.

“Do you like… to play?”

“Oh yes,” Anastasia whispered back.  Christian led her down a corridor, towards a towering door, which he unlocked with a silver key on a long slender chain.

“Welcome,” he hissed, swinging open the door, “to my Black Room of Pleasure”.

Whips mounted on one wall.  Some kind of swinging black harness hanging from the ceiling.  Black plastic on the floor.  Manacles.  A shelf of dildos.  Masks.

“Oh,” Anastasia said, trying to hide her disappointment, “it’s a sex dungeon!”

“Yes, my pretty,” breathed Christian, pressing against her from behind. “Do you like?”

“Ah,” said Anastasia, “it’s lovely.”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s just,” said Anastasia, making an apologetic face, “I’m really… I’m not really into that kind of thing.”

“Which kind of thing?”

“This,” she used one hand to indicate all of the things, “this kind of thing.”

“You said you like to play!”

“I thought you just meant have sex!”

Christian frowned and looked at the plastic black floor.

“So… no chains, no whippings?”

Anastasia shrugged.

“No, not really.  Sorry.”

“Nipple clamps?”

“Not really into the kink thing at all, to be honest.”

“Really?”

“I’m not judgey or whatever, but it’s… just not me.”

“How do you know if you’ve never tried it?”

“How do you know you don’t like, I don’t know, eating poo if you’ve never tried it?”

“I have!  It was exciting, transgressive, the taboo made it all the more-”

“Okay, maybe bad example.  All I’m saying is, you’ve got the wrong girl.  This isn’t me.”

“You’re certain.”

“I am.  I’m so sorry.”

“Dammit.  I was really looking forward to pissing in your mouth.”

Anastasia made an involuntary face.

“Sorry.”

“Maybe just a little trickle?”

“No.  Sorry again about the misunderstanding.”

Christian sat on the body-contoured fuckbench and put his head in his hands.

“I’m such an idiot.”

Anastasia put a hand on his shoulder.

“You’re not an idiot at all.  It’s a lovely room.”

“I just really thought we were, I don’t know, on a wavelength.”

“We all make mistakes, it’s okay.”  She squeezed his shoulder. “I’m actually just very vanilla, as far as sexuality goes.”

“I’ve ruined everything haven’t I.  Why do I always ruin everything?”

“No, no, you haven’t!  You’re a lovely guy-”

“I really thought we had a connection, Ana.”

Anastasia held his face in her hands, leaned down, kissed him tenderly.

“We do,” she said, “we do.  And there’s absolutely no shame in you having your kinks, it’s all okay.  You are who you are, and I am who I am, you can’t expect all our interests to cross over perfectly.”

“I like Frank Sinatra, you like Coldplay.”

“Exactly!”

Anastasia held his hand.  Christian held it back.

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go to bed and snuggle.”

“Snuggle?”

“Yeah.  You might like it.”

Christian smiled up at her.

“Okay,” he said.

FICTION: The Thirteen Thoughts from Clifftop to Rocks

Her first thought after leaving the clifftop was that the sun was coming up, over the ocean’s horizon, and that it seemed appropriate that, when she’d hit the rocks, day would break, and so would she.

Her second was that she hoped she didn’t survive.  There’d be nothing worse than surviving, living on, broken and ruined, a living testament to failure.  That she’d failed as a mother, as a daughter, as a nurturer, and now as an organism.  But failing to properly commit suicide was a whole other level of failure, the very worse kind of disappointment, like a bad joke – “you’re such a failure you can’t even kill yourself properly”.

Her third was the realisation that she would never need to see her baby daughter die again, never have to re-live that moment any more, never need to see her tiny crying body choked by that abusive meth-head fuck-up of a man ever again, never have to re-watch that moment through her semi-conscious drug-fucked eyes even one more time – it was over.  The relief filled her body so fully that she knew, when she’d hit those rocks, she’d burst like a waterbomb, no blood, just relief spilling out of her.  Nothing but relief, golden or glowing or filled with stars.

Her fourth thought was the same as her second.

Her fifth was that this fall was taking forever, and that the brain must really work at incredible speeds to process this much information in such a short amount of time, and that, really, maybe it was super wasteful to throw such a remarkable miracle of nature off a cliff and smash it to pieces on rocks.

Her sixth was that, if it was such an astounding miracle of nature, it wouldn’t have hurled itself off a cliff, would it.  And, it wouldn’t’ve lay there, catatonic, unable to move, while its crying baby daughter was silenced forever, would it.  No, this was no miracle.  This was rubbish, being thrown into the ocean.

Her seventh was that she felt no fear, only peace, and that since Ruby had died – been killed, been murdered – she had not felt this feeling, not for a single breath.  That all she had felt was guilt and rage, every day from waking to sleep, and that this fall was the first moment she’d been glad to be alive for years.

Her eighth thought was that, if she had wings instead of arms, she’d be flying right now, not falling.

Her ninth was that she hoped her mother would understand.

Her tenth was, if there was an afterlife, she was going to kiss Ruby’s chubby little cheeks until the end of time, she was going to hold her to her chest and sob for eternity.

Her eleventh thought was, if there wasn’t an afterlife, then she’d welcome the void.

Her twelfth was she was sorry, so very sorry.  But she was making up for it all, for everything, right now.

And her thirteenth thought was-

FICTION: Time and Gravity

(But in dreams, they sometimes circle each other once again, dancers in the void, nameless and shapeless, just hunger and love.  And regret.)

*

And eventually, the connection is gone, like it was never there, just memories in each other’s vault of locked away secrets and things they can no longer face.  They are forgotten like trauma.  And, like trauma, they are a part of each other forever. 

*

The break seems to have no end.  With no bridge, there’s nothing holding them up, and they fall, thrashing, straight back into their disasters.  One rekindles old flames, the other sinks back into old habits; one finds solace in whatever is around, the other negates the pain with overwork and clenched hours at the gym.

They are in each other’s thoughts almost constantly, then less, then less, then barely at all.  

*

It happens again.  This time, no forgiveness.  Once is a mistake, but twice is a pattern.  Every word is a stabwound, now.  Every excuse hurts more.  One sobs, the other pleads.  There is no sleep.  One suggests a “break”; the other knows that a break could mean forever.  They both want this so much. They both want time to run backwards, give them another chance.  They both know this is impossible: like gravity, time makes no concessions.

*

The “just friends” turns to a fling.  The “I was drunk” helps absolutely no-one.  The “it will never happen again” counts for nothing.  Words, words, words.  But the love, the body-obliterating love, runs deep, and a bridge starts to be built, from both sides, and they meet, tentatively, like the eyes of snails, in the middle.

*

One finds the other has been texting old lovers.  Just as friends, just keeping in contact.  The other sinks into suspicion, and once the trust is broken, it’s hard to see through those eyes again.  Turns out the disasters they had bounced out of were still there beneath them: they were just in mid-bounce, suspended in the air, waiting for gravity.

*

Soon enough, they’re inseparable.  Arm in arm, lip to lip, a whirlwind of drunken sex, fiery, passionate, somehow defining the borders of the body, and simultaneously obliterating the body completely: spiritual, pure energy, a merging of consciousnesses into one writhing bodymind.

They both say “I love you,” and mean it, from head to toe and beyond.

*

They go slow.  Both bouncing out of other disasters, they decide to take it slow, but it feels slow like a building avalanche, or like tectonic plates.  Slow, but unstoppable.

*

They flirt, circling each other like dancers.  The hunger is clear on them both, palpable.  It feels like the sea of other people parts for them, like the party is magnetic and the two of them repel everyone but each other: and, inevitably, they crash into each other, locked in a field of desire.  They talk and kiss and feel each other’s bodies until the dawn.

*

But first of all, they meet.