Between Pain and Nothing

The sharp stings beat into my flesh like the tattoo of hail.
But this isn't a force of nature that beats at me, no.
This is the pain of love, slammed into my skin cruelly.
Delicious, sensual, pain building my pleasure to an unbearable peak.

All I can see is black, dark nothingness, my world is a void of sensation.
I feel only the pain of the biting hits that tease the ache in my groin.
If I could see, I would see patient Wrath, waiting for the moment.
Lazily only moving one long arm to fling the spiked flog at me.

With every hit I cringe and press myself into the wall against which I am tied.
And with each press of my sex, my craving for more pain grows wilder.
So, I press and grind and then settle and still and wait anxiously for the next hit.
I might die if I am never hurt again, I might die if the pain does not stop.

There is fear that binds me on both sides.
The terror of physical agony pins me to the wall,
But the terror of feeling nothing is what brought me here.
That fear is an old friend, a familiar lover whose touch has become too bland to inspire lust.

My fear has layers, depths which I've only just begun to explore.
There is the scrape and cut and puncture of skin, of course.
That, along with the bruising thuds of each hit give plenty of pain to consider.
But worse is the fear of my own limitations.

How long can I take this, this torture, before I break?
No, not before I cry and weep, I am doing that now, already.
No, I wonder how long until my mind breaks and takes me away from my body.
How long until I can no longer feel the pain? I fear that more, much more.

It is always better to feel agony, than nothing.
And I've learned that those are the only two things I can feel.
Well, except for the blissful peace when the agony ends, before the nothing swallows me.
That is the moment I live for.

The moment between pain and nothing when I can almost taste life.
How do I escape into that eternity?
How can I cling to that taste and devour it and never let it go?
I come here, again and again, and seek that precious edge that teases me.

Wrath pauses, a long, long delay in my delicious pain.
There is time enough for the fear to return, hot and jealous.
I shake my head, desperate that the flogging does not end.
I see nothing. I hear nothing. I feel nothing.

The sting and ache of my flesh fades and dulls rapidly as I wait.
That fading sensation is replaced, quick as a flowing river, by fear.
And by this measure, I know we are not done here yet.
I cannot be done until the fear is gone.

Wrath can see the fear, in the tremble of my lip, in the tense white grip of my hands,
In the thrust of my hips as I present my flesh, begging for the lash.
These are the pieces of me that must still be made to submit.
Not to submit to Wrath, but to submit to my own passions.

A burst of new gouging pricks compels me from the terror.
My hands spasm and clench but lose the white edge of despair.
My lips compress and the tremble fades into a more honest groan of anguish.
And my hips thrust into the restraining wall, and there my sex is met by arousal again.

I know the moment is close when I can not weep any more.
My body has given up all its moisture, my mouth is dry as cotton, saliva is only a memory.
Even as my sex throbs and my thighs are coated with sweat and desire,
I know it is empty too, unable to squeeze out one more iota of fluid.

This time the pause comes long, longer. I am spent with exhaustion.
I have no fear left to make tremble my lip or tighten my hands and my hips are still and calm.
What story does my flesh tell, I wonder?
It is the story of my weakness, or is the story of Wrath's strength?

The two are wound over and around each other,
An untangleable knot of lusts that feed each other into these storms of passion.
Wrath is the artist that makes of my skin a canvas,
A tribute to our coiling desires.

Soothing coolness is rubbed lightly into my damaged skin.
Wrath has become Kindness and Fear has become Love.
We cannot know this joy without suffering and we have paid our dues today.
This is the moment between pain and nothing.