There, in between the crisp white sheets he rested as the sun rose. Sleepily he said “Get up” and reached for his camera.

I tried for graceful as I slipped out of bed.

The rising sun warmed my skin and I moved, slowly, as the shutter snapped several times.

“Now, come back to bed.”

And I did, challenging him not to drop the camera as I climbed back in.

Photo of Molly by W. Merganser.

My needs are deep, like canyons

Carved by soft strong water that etches sharp cuts into the sinuous rock.

Flood my chambers, rip through me,

Leave your marks in the rough ridges that mark my core.

Your passion, rushing hard and fast, takes with it everything it desires,

Leaving behind the detritus of lust

And it only increases my need.

Photo by Molly Montrevoir

Photo of Molly by W. Merganser.

Half a year later I will see him again. “Bring your femme,” he growls into my voicemail. “I may sully you.” This is followed by “Wear a skirt. It’s … easier.” The pause is agony because in it is all the pent up desire that has built for months and yet there are 28 more hours left before his voice will be more than digital signals. There is yet more than a full day before the words will be made flesh.

This is the man who brings lingerie for us to try on. This is the radical faerie who fantasizes about my kisses and has never yet fucked me. This is the one whose cock, wrapped in pearls, graces these pages, and this is the one whose kinship I need and whose clan I knew I belonged to long before the day, a decade ago, when we met at a party where he watched me cause a scene with a crazy beautiful boy in a gold dress and a purple pixie wig.

I imagine meeting him in the hotel bar. He will text me his room number when he checks in but I imagine arriving and texting him from downstairs. I imagine the tug-of-war beginning that way and continuing as we challenge one another for power throughout the evening.

He will win.

I want it that way.

The sting of the butterfly is in the way that its ethereal feet brush your skin when it lands and in the knowledge you gain at exactly that moment that your first movement will chase it away.

The sting of the butterfly is in its freedom and beauty and fragility. It may approach and kiss your face or touch your hair and yet you must not reach for it. 

You stand there mute and frozen in your frustration: Such a beautiful creature, mysterious and compelling, and ultimately untouchable.

The butterfly approaches carelessly, takes what it needs, and then flits away. And all you can do is watch in momentary awe as you try,

very hard,

not to breathe.

Photos by Molly Montrevoir.

“Open for me,” I growl.

She whimpers. She wants this just as much as I do. She needs it even more. My knuckles are pressing hard against her body, thumb of my other hand circling her clit. I lean over her menacingly, but my voice betrays kindness, desire, longing to penetrate her completely. I flex the fingers inside her and when she gasps I growl again: “Look at me.”

She does. And in that moment my knuckles slide through. I’m there. She’s open. We have joined in a way that is impossible to describe.

Except we never get this far. Indeed we never kissed.

She used her crush like a lever to wrench herself out of disengagement and into a conflict, forcing her to face the things she’d been avoiding. She slid it under a pile of desires she had not fully owned up to and then stepped on the other end, balancing the entire thing on a small but strong fulcrum and exposing the truths that had been hidden underneath.

What she will do with those truths I do not know. What I know is that it is not mechanical advantage she really needed but navigational tools instead. She has a magnetism about her that seems to disrupt her confidence in her inner compass.

That compass is within her, and if only she could filter out the noise perhaps she’d have faith that by following it she will be able to navigate the most complex of her desires.

Pacing on the other side of the door, pensive, anxious, needing, he reveals himself in the safety of the distance and she responds, invisible, from three thousand miles away.

The longing that she feels sweeps her up like the leaves being spun by the wind in the courtyard as she tries to sleep. They rattle against the concrete, and wind howls, and she cannot rest.

One day in the not so distant future their safe distance will be closed and they will each have a hand on the edge of a door, opened a crack between them, their own restlessness embodied in the rattling of knob and hinge.

Light spills over the threshold, a shared desire that ignores the boundary they both so carefully guard.

It fills the space between them as they lean toward one another, so careful to keep the door between them.

A long pause in their conversation. Then:

“Molly,” Aryn whispers. “Are you there?”

“Yes,” she answers. 

Another silence follows as she feels his weight against the door.

I.

She emerges from the torrent of your rambling consciousness and leaves you with a desire you cannot contain.

So smooth as to almost be soft, she is yet unyielding. She exists to stand in your way, to be a force with which you struggle.

You cannot drown her with your needs or break her with the fury of your lust.

You may etch the smoothness of her skin with your urgency. You may wet her cheeks with your tears. You may engulf her, surround her, push against her and wash over her.

But when you lie yourself down on top of her you will feel the strength of the earth beating in her chest and the force of the sun radiating from her core and you will know that you will never wear her down.

II.

The spring flood of your love, washing over her, smooths her still-rough edges. She receives you with a need that reaches down into the earth and radiates into the sky and fills the air with a low murmur that echoes through the canyon.

Your excitement foams and froths and infuses her with lightness. Your strength is in your liquid flowing force and you press relentlessly against her as she stands firmly, pushing back, meeting you in the stream of desire.

Your passion builds against hers.

And then suddenly she is beneath you as you flow unfettered over her, around her, through her and she absorbs you, and you are joined in substance and in spirit.

~~

Photo by W. Merganser

Fire, by i_a_n on Flickr

Passion burns our bodies,
this raging need that blinds us both
to any thoughts of caution.

A battle of desires,
feeding flames that spit and hiss,
jumping recklessly, relentlessly,
toward the darkening sky.

Then words, growled, low and deep:
“When I am done with you there will be nothing left
but charred limbs,
the smell of smoke,
and a smoldering pile of ash.”

Prophetic words they are, for in the end
nothing else remains.
Until a sigh, a breath of air
that stirs the embers,
lifts a spark that catches in your chest
and starts to burn again.

~~~

Since there were no objections the first time I am trying for a second time the experiment of illustrating my post with a photo taken by a stranger: Fire by i_a_n on Flickr and used courtesy of a Creative Commons Attribution License.