Beauty and Her Beast

I looked at the books. One was an old Anne Rice I've read a hundred times. It was comforting, plot-driven fiction. It occupied the realm of the physical: places, people, and events, that you walk through them with the main character. The other was the new Mathias Enard I started recently and brought with me. It is literary fiction, driven by thoughts and symbols, the type of thing where you view the characters through the author's beautiful, simplified use of language, and you learn new things about yourself, humanity, and the world at large as you read. But everything was viewed as if from a distance, especially the female characters. I was in this scene, in a fairy tale but it's also the real world, and I was living through the most real of experiences. I picked up the Anne Rice.

I flipped open the book about vampires, for comfort. Was there an analogy to be made about how I am consumed by him? My feeling of the first stirrings of longing after reading this brought me to this point. The book took place in this city, we were blocks away from the location of the infamous interview of the title. I got lost in my thoughts, unable to focus on the book.

Time passed, and he returned. He quietly took me intp his arms. "So lovely," he said, kissing the top of my head and smoothing my dried hair. 

"Why did you leave?"

"I wanted to give you time to think, relax, and come back to reality, to not overwhelm you, kitten. And the same for myself. But I craved coming back to you, and holding you again."

"It's too late for me to come back to whatever reality was before this. It feels like the last two or three days, I went from surprise and confusion - to fighting and begging you to stop to - acquiescing to your desires - and now, something even beyond that. Right now, I can't explain it, but I feel desperate to please you. I feel somewhat of a calm frenzy about it, it's weird. Like to please you above myself. But you're the one with control and power, and there's little I can give that you can't take anymore." The last part is true. He's taken and I've given all of the most painful degrading sexual things imaginable, we have reached some level of intimacy that felt impossible before. It was, and would be, a constant exchange. We engaged in power exchange because I, as his masochist-submissive, still have so much power to give. He took it, and returned it to me in the form of love, care, and taking responsibility. He created, and I received, we both gave to each other. And in everything, even in pain and sex, we are equals. "I love you, Sir."

"It's - you are falling into the submissive mindset, and making me your dom in your head, and I have its companion urge to take care of you, protect you, hurt you, and bend you to my will. I love you, kitten. You started calling me sir?"

"It just felt right. It doesn't feel right to call you by your name when we're in the thick of things..James. You started calling me kitten, too."

"I tried a few things, baby girl, little one, etc...but kitten is right for you, I feel like I'm taming a little wild kitten with you, with you begging me to stop and then cumming again and again while I say dirty things to you. Like training a kitten with treats, but orgasms are your treats. But Jess - do you trust me this much? That I can hold you captive, control you, cause you pain, fuck you senseless, and you still look at me and tell me you love me? Do you want more of this?" His voice was soft and gentle. It doesn't frighten me anymore. 

"Yes, I trust you that much. And yes, Sir. It feels like, hmmm, you're giving me a gift when you give me pain with so much control behind it. And had you not held me captive, I wouldn't have allowed so much so soon, nor would I have allowed you to take care of me this way. Please, please, James, please keep me." 

"Of course I want to keep you, my little maso sub. You keep telling me I'm giving you gifts, but Jess, you're giving me some beautiful gifts of your own. You take pain so well, it makes you so happy and so calm. You're so responsive, you orgasm quickly and frequently, sure, but also, your face and body language is so responsive, you show so much enthusiasm about sex and kink. Many subs I've played with, their insecurity drives them to be hypersexual, for attention and to feel desirable. It's different with you, you bask in your sexuality, in your love of pain and degradation and force. You love it and you love that you love it. It, um, the deeper we go into what you call darkness, the more confident and giving you are to me." 

I nodded. "And you aren't controlling me because you're insecure, and your controlling nature doesn't stem from that insecurity. You're not using domination and sadism to constantly prove yourself manly and worthy. You're controlling and sadistic because you love it, it's an expression of care and love for you, genuinely so. It's - really dark and beautiful with you. You're excited and amused. But you know, our fights will be terrible, right? I'm so passionate, so intense, and maybe you like it in bed but won't in life? I feel everything, and you're so...sometimes icy and like control, and we'll infuriate each other. It's like, we both feel things strongly, and express the strength of our emotions in different ways."

"Hmm, well, that's fine, as long as we keep fighting them and coming back to each other after. It's part of life. Maybe I'll just tell you to shut up and take my cock and cane again. Kidding. Alright, more seriously though, presumably neither of us is going to turn toxic or abusive nor will we find out there's some huge unseen incompatibility. As long as that's the case, we can keep each other, to use your words. I don't know, I feel like this is working and will continue working."

"But really, fights might be terrible! And I'm anxious, I get depressed sometimes, I've told you about my traumas -"

"And I have my own traumas, we all do. We'll work on some coping mechanisms for big feelings, Jess. We'll deal with the fights when they happen, kitten, and we'll get better at weathering them. We'll get through it together. I know I love you, and I'll always know that you love me. I've never felt this type of acceptance, trust, and certainty with another human." 

"I love you, always. Even if we aren't together, I'll always care about you. But I want to stay with you." Alright, I was getting pretty sappy. 

"I hope the day when we aren't together never comes, because I love you, too. Jess, let's stop being so mushy and sentimental about this shit, especially with you leashed to my bed and looking like that."