Unblemished

For You ...


I fall for pain and the force that marks me. I thrill in being tugged sharply, harshly to my senses, but I'm no submissive: I relish the fight, the struggle not to be broken, taking each lash or bite or pinch with a sharp intake of breath and a hot rush of blood through my veins. I like those who are certain they can break me; they try so hard, for so long, leaving scratch upon bruise for my pleasure. My purpled souvenir from last Thursday is virtually faded now, sunk into my skin. No one else can likely see it, but I can hear the hushed vespers of its ghost haunting my skin and sinew. For days afterwards, I fingered your impression. I didn't cover it. I watch it fade slowly, hoping that by the time it had gone, you'd be back around to allow me another. You watch me ... I'll make a point of ruffling my hair off my shoulders, inviting you with the blank canvas of my smooth, long neck, my juicy ass or my soft, tanned back.

Nothing is blemished in my blemishes: I find no flaws in a flaw. Bruises, welts, lashes, burns, scars, stains, teeth marks, pinpricks, cuts: I crave and delight in them all.

The other night your eager thumb left a half-moon bruise on my mons, red and tender from holding tight to it while your fingers pumped in and out of my pussy. I stroked my fingers across it during the next day to feel the lingering soreness and remember where I'd been the night before. The marks you left on my neck that time were deepened by your other hand, pressing on my windpipe just enough to make me dizzy, leaving five indents of yourself in my skin. I remember this with the same stuttering breaths you caused then. They are the wardrobe door to my private Narnia. I look at them in the mirror, touch them, caress them. Someone else sees them, gasps, asks if I'm OK and I am straight back inside that fevered place you left me in. My body floats, I feel flushed and heady. My sexual memories are visceral and sensate; I am ever-willing prey to a swift assault of images, sounds and scents. Just one glance in the mirror and the room smells of you, of fresh perspiration on your velvet skin, musk and worn cotton. The slightest touch of this sore spot or that bruise and you're here: your eyes softly shut, full lips flushed, the coarse down of your carefully shorn face tickling my nipples and thighs.

So now you know why, next time I'm talking with friends, I'll pull my hair back on purpose, and make it look incidental. When someone asks who gave it to me, I won't voice your name. I'll smile suave and smug and coy, and shrug my shoulders -- knowing full well they'll know just who from my smirk alone, leaving them to imagine how or where or when I earned my colours.

Flitting About

I was surprised to find, on reading my favourite blogs this lunchtime, that Ex-Courtesan Gillette had written an eloquently insightful post about what monogamy means to her, because in the dark hours of thursday night exacly the same strands of thought were wisping though my sleep clouded mind ...

Whilst lazing in bed and grazing on grapes and shortbread of an evening, as one does(!), I had a call from a good friend of mine, who in fact I haven't actually known for that long. We engage in a lot of indepth conversations and tend to share similar views on many a provocative topic. Especially alike are our ideas about how to conduct relationships with men. Last night was no different, and after a while the talk moved to her current despair at the male population (which is understandable as she recently suffered an unexpected betrayal). To support a particuclar point she was making, my friend asked, with the intention of a rhetorical question as she was sue I would agree, to pretend for a moment that I am married - would I be ok with my imaginary husband sleeping with another woman?

- Yes, I replied, as long as he shared it with me.
She paused.
- But wouldn't you hate that he felt the need to have sex with someone else? Wouldn't that make you feel insecure?
- No. You can't get everything you need emotionally from one person. Thats why we have different friends and colleagues and partners. Besides, you can't have a relationship with double standards, can you.
- What double standard?
- Well I can't conduct relationships with other people and forbid him from doing the same! Thats just rude!
- But why would you be sleeping with other people?!
- Why wouldn't I be?!
- Because you have a husband! Why do you need relationships with other men when you married somebody who you thought was the perfect person for you!
- Because different people fulfil different needs and appeal to different parts of your nature ... you can't get everything from one person. *a little aside*
- But why would you jeapardise your relationship and, most of all, neglect the time and effort you put into your children just for a guy that doesn't even mean anything to you? That is just completely selfish! How can you say it's ok to betray them like that?

By this point, I felt the need to remind her that it was a hypothetical situation which is unlikely to ever arise because, actually, I don't believe in marriage because I am an atheist and I also don't have any children just yet! That calmed her down a bit as she fumed silently, but I too was now shocked because it seemed to me that in my friend's eyes, polyamourousness (what is the correct word for this?!) clambours into bed with neglect and deceipt of those who we love. I can see from my fairly flippant and un-thoughtout responses that yes, what I was implying did seem selfish - that I wanted as much as I could get of what pleases me. But then again, so what? And it was this which sparked Ex-Coutesan Gillette to pen this lovely, more thought-out post here, on the very topic of selfishness.

Now to be honest, I haven't cast my ideas in iron just yet ... which would explain why they are somewhat inarticulate when voiced ... I am not confident that I have an entirely coherent or even backed-up argument ... which brings me to another thought - in matters of the heart, is it necessary to validate our decisions to ourselves? Western philosophy is largely based on a Greek tradition of science and reason which, whether we like it or not, will always inform our thoughts and actions. [a bit like being an atheist with a catholic background - I may not believe in god, but I damn well know I'm going to hell for it!] For the sake of others, perhaps, but for ourselves - that is more complicated.

It is no coincidence that on perusal of a couple of english language dictionaries, the only synonyms I can find for monogamy are chastity and marriage and that adultery, lewdness, nymphomania and promiscuity are the only antonyms provided. No wonder us 'polyamours' are considered by many to be being unfaithful to our partners. And no doubt among those who have subscribed to a life of committed partnership with one sole other, to take part in plurial relationships would not be faithful to the agreement they made. But in a situation where both parties are open about their values and intentions, like in the relationships I have engaged in, to engage with other partners would be in fact remaining true to the mutual agreement, n'est pas?

I did feel I should add something more substantial to the little comment I made in response to Ex-Courtesan Gillette, even if it has become quite tangled in the process of trying to write everything down in clearheaded manner! En effet, I suppose I was simply trying to concur with The Recovering Voice.

It just seems to me that somewhere, at some moment in time, someone altered the common consciousness to accept that it is a virtue to strive for mental and emotional fulfilment in all parts of our lives, with the exception of sexual relationships. The attitudes of both men and women from all walks of life in this, the 21st century, towards sex honestly astound me... but lets not get me started on that for now ... !

Musings

I think that at heart, and of course to varying degrees, there are some people who are naturally 'feminists' and some who aren't. One can alter and amend one's morals and beliefs to adhere to a philosophy that you have decided makes sense to your life, but peoples' instinctual perspectives will always and inescapably veer towards one plane or another.

I guess you explain it like food: I love vegetables. Cabbage, green beans, lettuce, sundried tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, cucumber, leeks ... I’ll eat them all. Except mushrooms - these I despise above anything else. I have no valid reason for this feeling of utmost disgust towards a plant that has never done anything wrong to me and in fact adds a quite delectable flavour to stews and stroganoffs, but I cannot put them in my mouth. It is not a matter of personal choice, but of natural predisposition and no matter what anyone has tried, I am unable to like mushrooms. I can tell people I do and I can eat foods that contain them, but really. I hate mushrooms.

So I believe it is with your own personal 'philosophy'. There are some of us who, without any inclination, or even awareness, of doing so, hold in our individual set of morals and beliefs that are as much a part of our personality as which colours we prefer, values and fundamental principles that would have so called "female liberators" rushing over and hugging us for "taking control of our own minds and bodies". But 'feminists' have always existed, throughout the ages. Many women may have 'seen the light' or 'awakened their sexuality' with the help of modern social movements, and this did help a lot of women truly liberate themselves from oppressive situations. But the fact of the matter is that since the Middle Ages and before, there have always been 'feminist' females who held the same, if not stronger, ideals as their modern counterparts. You cannot change the fact that some don't believe that humans are inherently monogamous, and never have done. Or that whilst many of us consider our bodies to be 'sacred vessels', some will indulge it in activities perfectly acceptable to them which others would find abhorent. Or that some peoples' views on women and sex will never be reconciled with those on the other side of the table.