Friday Flasher: Initiation

He lit a candle, removed his collar and set it down with care, like the offering it was, before the sputtering flame.

When he finally found the courage to turn and face her, perhaps speak some words of decency to her first, he could only watch mutely as she leaned back and lifted her skirts, the creamy skin of her thighs smooth as any alabaster saint’s in that flickering light.

At the sight of her shimmering like that, a vision in the candlelight, Father Daniel murmured one last prayer for forgiveness and the God inside his mind sighed and turned away. Whether in disgust or anger, or perhaps shame or modesty, he would never know.  And it would never matter.

As she ran the fingers of a graceful hand through the silk of her chestnut hair, he felt his entire life of words and judgements of words coil back on itself, a ravenous circle made full.

But before he could consider that thought, before he could approach the assumptive evil of it with a weapon of learned philosophy or grim belief, she smiled at him.  Within the mirror of  her smile, he saw not a hissing wanton serpent or a temptress made of wretched flesh, but simply a reflection of his own need:  just a man, fallen, back to himself.

Then with neither modesty nor shame, she spread her naked legs open before his gaze. And when she reached out her hand to him, she said his name, just once, in the voice of a lover. He thrilled to the beautiful music of it, the sound of his own name, rightfully returned.

In the wake of her voice, all temptation disappeared, each prayer for deliverance fell away and he knew it was time to begin the long journey, the single step that would take him to where she waited, where she had always waited, for him.

And when he reached her, when at last he touched his shaking hand to the heaven of her skin, all his despot vows flew raucously to the rafters like so many frantic doves set free, finally, to God.

Image: Hungry For Your Touch, Jan Saudek

Blog Action Day - Oct. 15, 2008

I’ve signed up to do a post on Blog Action Day, which is taking place this year on October 15th, 2008.

What is Blog Action Day, you ask?  From the Blog Action Day website:

Blog Action Day is an annual nonprofit event that aims to unite the world’s bloggers, podcasters and videocasters, to post about the same issue on the same day. Our aim is to raise awareness and trigger a global discussion.

This year’s topic is poverty:

Global issues like poverty are extremely complex. There is no simple, clear answer. By asking thousands of different people to give their viewpoints and opinions, Blog Action Day creates an extraordinary lens through which to view these issues. Each blogger brings their own perspective and ideas. Each blogger posts relating to their own blog topic. And each blogger engages their audience differently.

Ok, so that’s a good idea and poverty is a worthy subject to write about. But maybe you’re thinking, hey, what does "sex, consecrated" have to do with poverty? Well, plenty… which is exactly what I’m going to write about on October 15th.

If you’re interested in participating, visit the Blog Action Day site and sign up!

A very special edition of Flasher Friday

A few days ago, I was very pleased to learn that one of my Friday Flashers, Stealing Soul, was included in Fleshbot’s Sex Blog Round Up.

Now, if I were Sarah Palin, I’d launch into something profound and folksy right about now, something like:

Well, doggone it, now how ’bout that! I’m so proud to be honored myself of the great state of Fleshbot, and I’m just real glad to know we all love Israel, too. But first, let me talk about my energy policy and hopefully this will create jobs and get the economy back on track. Because I’m a maverick, and unlike my opponent, Joe O’Biden, I’m a maverick, like I said. I’m proud of my record and me and Todd and Joe six-pack deserves that, too. And it’s time for Americans to say ‘never again’ to… something. I forget. But I read every newspaper that’s in front of me, so I’ll get back ta ya. *wink*

If I were the Disasta from Alaska, I’d give a shout out to all the perverts over there at Fleshbot and remind them that they’ll all get extra credit for this, you betcha.

But I am NOT, thank whatever powers that be, Sarah Palin. So, like any sane person who is actually operating with an awareness of consensual reality (as fucked as that may be right now), I’ll just say: Hey, AAG, thanks so much for the mention.

Note to anyone who cares: I know that Sarah Palin is not a proper subject for one of my Friday Flashers. And I know this little Palin-bashing post doesn’t qualify as an erotic story by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, talk of politics of any kind veers quite wildly from my "talking points" here at Vespertine Erotica. But hey, if a whole country can lower the bar for her, they can do it for me, doggone it! I’m pretty, tooooo!!! And I wear designer glasses, yes I do. I think I did pretty darn good on this post, don’t you? I think maybe I even won the debate… to nowhere.

Moon’s in Scorpio, threshold of October

…inside the dark of yourself from the sorcery of yourself you will call me with your emerald firevoice it will ring through corridors twisted before our births our secrets burning inside inside it comes and my mouth will let forth the smoke of your charred heart a sooty thick cloud I will make of that fire my breath a sounding blackness to wrap around the root of your voice and when the shroud is woven complete knotted secure around your useless language I will steal it cackling and make of it a shield that will set me free and oh how I will sing to you then and hold your memories and your shame in my fists while you sway inside my sweetest of tunes my many singing spells how your soul will change inside my headful of magic a changeling caught in my cuntful of teeth my cunt come to claim its full feast of skin reshaped you will tear away from yourself and become more than the one I dare call upon a keening man a kenning thing aching to devour a night spun of my making you will be of my breath attached to my scent and mine alone and nothing but my filthy fingers will hang you cockspent tie you like a screaming prayer on the living tree the sprouted cross dug deep into where you can no longer call your home all its pearl eyes plucked out and the blind bones all of them cracking inside the vice of my bite that madness of instinct that drives us to fall prey fall in rapture as prey to the needwitch who will feed us still smoldering back to the root of life burnt inside the dark of yourself from the sorcery of yourself you will call me…

When the moon’s in Scorpio, I often howl at it.

Image: Not able to cite source, found here.

I think we could all use a moment of Zen right about now

Don’t know about you, but I’m mentally exhausted by the recent circus-like American politics. I mean, isn’t it enough that we already have ridiculous amounts of regular tension in our individual modern lives on a day to day basis without all these end of the world as we know it scenarios being politically co-opted and CNN’ed to death and shoved down our throats every minute of every day?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not making light of the U.S. (or world, for that matter) situation or trying to claim that’s it not as bad as it seems. I’ll even go so far to say that, as a species, I think we’re probably totally fucked - even if CNN will never broadcast that particular report.

But, Armageddon or not, I have a blog to run here. So, though it won’t bail out Wall Street or stop global warming, here’s my little contribution toward a break in the madness, my little moment of kinky Zen*… and I swear, it’s all true.

So, the other night, there I am, with all this world angst roiling away in the background of my insulated little reality where I’m sitting at my desk trying to get some very detailed and deadline driven work done. And if that’s not enough pressure, I’m trying to get this work done while also trying to manage wave after wave of hot flashes.

And, of course, I can’t be one of those lucky women who experiences mild or even "typical" hot flashes that come and go somewhat manageably, like a simple natural occurrence of New Age-y aging (re: "just think of it as a power surge, honey, proof that you’re becoming a wise crone, blah, blah, blah."). [insert eye roll here]

No. I get to be one of the women who gets to have these seriously debilitating episodes that include vision disturbances, dangerous dizziness (as in, I’ve fallen down because of it), difficulty with swallowing, breathing, putting more than two syllables together correctly, and generally remaining conscious and sane.

My hot flashes are not even hot, for christ’s sake. They’re scary, ice-cold whole-body tsunamis of just plain awfulness. They piss me off in a big way. But they piss me off most of all when I’m trying to work.

And particularly when I’m working under a deadline and dealing with a potentially devastating world financial crisis, these more-than-just-hot flashes make me dangerously, outrageously ENRAGED. They make want to just annihilate something, anything, everything. And God forbid that anyone should actually speak to me right at that point because that poor person would have just unwittingly identified my nearest and most convenient target.

So, the other night, just as I’m cresting the peak of one of these moments of unbearable flashy-ness, my husband decides to walk in the room and begin a general tirade about the economy, Sarah Palin’s laughable interview with Katie Couric, and John McCain’s grandstanding holier-than-thou announcement that’s he’s "suspending" his campaign.**

Then, barely taking another breath, he careens with righteously geeky anger directly into a rant about how his day has been nothing but crucial mp3 files not loading, computer programs crashing, someone stealing his stapler, just one fucking malfunction after another, etc.

Finally, he notices my eerie silence, my flushed face and wild she-bitch eyes, and he stops ranting. Abruptly. He knows what’s going on with my vascular system right then. He knows I am being remotely-controlled by renegade hormones. And, even more deadly, is the fact that I know he knows.

For what seems like an eternity, we stare at each other like that, like the US and Russia during the cold war, across the ocean of our stubbornness, both of us daring the other to prove who’s situation is more worthy of screaming about, silently placing our bets on which of us is going to spit first, on which of us is goin’ down.

And then, totally, deviously straight faced, he says it: "Niagara Falls."

Niagara Falls!***

The whole situation snaps. And the scene jerks into slow motion, for just one perfectly timed moment, like in a good action movie.

Slowly, I turn… inch by inch… step by step…

And BAM, just like that, we jerk out of slow motion again and I spin in my chair and reach out to deftly hook the fingers of one hand into the waistband of his jeans while I make a vicious grab for his cock with the other. But he’s too fast for me (but only because, remember, I’m at a menopausally-induced disadvantage).

So, before I can fully execute my famous grab-the-man-by-the-pants maneuver, he gets a too secure grasp in my hair and pulls me to the floor where I end up on all fours, at which point he immediately yanks my pants down over my ass and throws one leg over me so he can straddle me and hold me there.

Both of us are laughing stupidly now as I’m bucking up under him to try and get him off of me before he can get in that first ringing-loud smack on the plumpest part of my ass cheek. But alas [insert tone of fake disappointment here], he’s too strong for me.

So, while I’m laughingyellingmoaning and scratching at the hardwood floor under my desk, he begins… slap, smack, THWACK, with his bare hand. One ass cheek then the other… slap, smack, THWACK… and repeat, and repeat, and repeat…

until he hits that perfectly spankalicious rhythm that makes the whole room go languidly warm,

and I begin to give in and arch my back so I’m no longer trying to get my ass away from his hand, but closer toward it,

and his hand begins to sting and his thighs begin to shake from holding my wriggling body captive between them,

and the hot flashes stop,

and the lost stapler no longer matters,

and the failing world economy and out of control media and grandstanding puppet politicians have been put back in their rightful place in the larger scheme of things.

Eventually, there is much falling upon on each other and several and varied forms of pleasurable groping and giggling, groaning and sighing.

And though it will never appear on CNN, the story here is just as important as any other - that two people have found a way to live through one more day without having to resort to killing each other over shit they can’t do anything about.

Also never to be reported on CNN is the truth that no matter how dire the circumstance, comedy and kink will always save the day… and incidentally, that spanking is a highly protected secret cure for "atypical" hot flashes.

Hey, maybe the McCain/Palin and Obama/Biden teams should have an Ultimate Smack Down Spank Match! It wouldn’t solve the financial crisis, but it would certainly be an atypical cure for what ails this presidential race, and definitely more interesting to watch than any debate. However, in all fairness, the question-asking, time-keeping, rule-enforcing, Muthafuckin’ Dungeon Master of this event should be, could only be, the provocatively leather pantsuited HRC2012.

So there it is, kids. Your moment of kinky Zen. Or, the no-cost way to manage menopause, personal stress, and global mayhem right from the safety and privacy of your own home.

Carry on.

*In homage to Your Moment of Zen, from the Daily Show and Jon Stewart, who has my vote for president, by the way.
** And David Letterman, who has my other vote (since I write under a pseudonym, I get two).
***And Larry, Moe, and Curly, who also have three more of my votes for president, posthumously, of course (ok, the truth is that I get to vote as many times as I want because I’m from Chicago).

Friday Flasher: Stealing Soul

The camera sat on the dresser where Jon had left it. Beth carefully moved her arm from under his head and held her breath until he settled back into his dreams.

She rolled away from him, onto her back, to stare at the ceiling and consider the images now locked inside that camera… her most private faces, exposed, the longing inside her eyes that she had never seen.

She wondered at how her body would look as it arched and struggled at his command, how her wetness would glisten in black and white, how the light would play with the flexing muscles of her inner thighs when he demanded that she spread herself open for him.

She wondered if he would hold up his end of the bargain and give her copies of all the prints as he’d promised to. She wondered what it was about him that convinced her to do it.

She glanced at the clock then back at Jon and finally at the shadowy form that was the camera. Even in the dark, she could feel that lens still staring at her.

. . .

The next morning, after Beth had left, Jon mixed himself a gin and tonic and locked himself in his darkroom to develop the film. Memories of the night before made him catch his breath in anticipation.

Soon those scenes would begin to appear in his magic trays, but first, he took a long, slow swallow of his drink, savoring the wait. He loved this part almost more than he loved convincing women to do things like this. But Beth, he never thought he’d ever get her to do it. As soon as he clicked the camera door open, his cock began to harden.

Under his careful attention, one by one, each frame began its grainy reveal. He could see each scene in his memory’s eye, even before it appeared: her beautiful ass spread just for him, the way she looked away from the camera at the last moment, her creamy skin in that perfect light, her graceful fingers opening herself for him…

But instead of all those pieces of her he thought he had captured forever, he saw something else entirely, something even his own expert eye could not have imagined though any lens: twenty-four perfectly framed squares of himself, sleeping, in ghostly clouds of long-exposure blank and white.

Elizavetta 2.0 - eh, not so much

Over the past few months, I’ve been experimenting with web 2.0 social networking (Twitter, MySpace, MyDungeonSpace, Fetlife, and Facebook). And tonight, my experiment is officially concluded.

The result of this experiment? Social networking media, kink-based or otherwise, is not for me. Period.

Here’s why:

• I cannot participate in nor support the sound-bite-y way that social media acts to further dumb down and decimate human communication.
• Most social media platforms are either stupidly laid out or just plain butt-fuck-ugly… or both. They give me an aesthetic  headache. (Fetlife* is an exception).
• Every profile I create is just one more thing I have to maintain. I’m not so much into investing my efforts and time into anything I have to babysit in the way social media requires - and especially for so little pleasurable or meaningful return.
• Since I’m no longer in my previous line of work, I’m no longer interested in fielding deleting such scintillating conversation openers such as: “@elizavetta how r u” or “Do you do ashtray calls?” or, “You’re really Ms [insert any popular Domme name] from [insert any phone sex or online escort site], aren’t you?” or my personal favorite, “Misstrees, may I suck your toos and worhsip U forever.”
• I don’t really care what people are eating, where they’re getting ready to go, what their turd looked like this morning, or what they’re being bored by at the moment - all said in less than 140 characters. Call me callous if you must, but I’ve done more than my share of listening to stream-of-consciousness chatter… during the several years when my children were pre-schoolers.

Basically, this experiment has only served to further confirm something I’ve always known about myself - that I’m actually quite social, but very impatient with the rules of vapid social interaction that are meant to ensure a fanatical clinging to the shiny mirror-like surface of things forever.

So, as of tonight, I’m canceling the profiles I’ve put out there and calling it quits on my experiments with 2.0 social networking.

If you want to truly engage in actual conversation with me, you know how to find me.

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*In my opinion, Fetlife is a 2.0 social networking exception in several ways. If you’re looking for a specifically kink-centric platform where actual conversation has some chance, you might find that it’s at least worth checking out.

Friday Flasher: In five acts

If you are longing, stop.

If you are sorrowing, stop.

If you are regretting, stop.

If you are lost, stop.

Touch yourself.

Image: Unknown

New look + new focus

First, I want to say thank you to everyone who chimed in about the new look. And to those of you who chose this post on which to comment for the first time, welcome!

As I mentioned previously, I recently decided to shift the focus of this site away from so much random navel gazing and back toward more erotic fiction, poetry, and other not so personal writings on sex and spirituality.

Somewhere in the midst of thinking about making that shift, it became clear to me that I was ready to get more disciplined, not only about my life in general, but also about my writing. So, in addition to the new look here, I now have a more clear idea of this site’s purpose.

You may have noticed the new tag line: sex, consecrated. This is actually the very first tag line I began with almost three years ago. And though I’ve played around with others since then, sex, consecrated really does best describe what this site - and my desire to keep it going - has always been about. To consecrate means:

to make or declare sacred;
to devote or dedicate to a purpose;
to set apart or dedicate to the service of a deity [in this case, the Beloved].

So, my purpose is in some ways the same as it’s always been, only with a deeper and more conscious intent on my part: to create an online “place” where the topic of sex is dedicated to engaging with the Beloved.

Along with this more conscious awareness of purpose comes expanded content. Examples of some of the new-ish things coming up:

More stories

I’ve already mentioned Thomas the Rhymer for October. This will be a serialized story, published over several weeks from October through December. And yes, it will be a very spicy version. Next week, I’ll be posting part two of Cinéma Vérité (nope, I didn’t forget about it!), with part three to follow around the beginning of October. And for the remainder of the year, I’m working on several other serialized stories, short stories, and of course, poetry.

More conversational posts

Specifically, I want to write more posts that encourage discussion rather than just presenting accounts of my personal “process.” Not that introspection and the personal story aren’t valuable… or discussion encouraging. Never fear, there will still be plenty of “Elizavetta” here. It’s just that, as I’ve said before, conversation is important to me on many levels, and so I’d like to concentrate more intentionally on writing posts that are about dialog rather than monologue.

Reviews

I always love to share things I find, and I’ve already written a few mini-reviews on this site. So, I decided to expand that a bit and write reviews more regularly. It’s kind of related to my thing about conversation, I guess.

And when I say reviews, I’m talking about my own personal ruminations on other blogs, web sites, books, videos, music, etc. — reviews of media I like enough to want to write about — not paid sex toy reviews. Not that I haven’t been known to wax poetic about a good sturdy vibrator (or ten), but you know what I mean.

Guest posts

Yep, that’s right, guest posts. And you’ll love them. Beyond that, I’ll say no more for now. You’ll just have to wait and see.

An editorial schedule of sorts

In redesigning this site, I also wanted to find a way to structure the content of it to more clearly reflect the devotional offering I originally intended it to be. So, I’m in the process of taking the idea of an editorial posting schedule and combining it with the idea of liturgical hours to get… some sort of fucked up monastically-inspired weekly writing schedule. It’s a monastic mash-up, kind of.

I know, I’m weird that way. But that’s why you read here, and you know it.

Anyway, I haven’t worked it all out yet, but I do know, for instance, that every Friday in my “Vespertine week” will be Flasher Friday. However, I’m not intending this to be some sort of overly-limiting or stifling thing where I just crank out something on a certain day simply because it’s on a “list.”

I’m doing this more as an act of devotion in the same way the liturgical hours are used to organize and schedule the work of devotion. It’s also simply a personal guideline that will give me more everyday structure and discipline in both my life and my writing.

And yes…

… it’s really me. And yes, recently.

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Now, as for navigation…

I’m sure you can figure it out - you’re all big girls and boys. But I’m still in the process of getting this whole shebang up to speed, so I did want to point out a few things that are still a bit wonky:

• Categories are all jumbled right now, but will magically return to some sort of order soon. Until then, it’s a bit hunt and peck… cunt and pecker… punk and heckler… something like that.
• Links - some are gone, some are new, some are still waiting in link limbo to find a place. Again, this will resolve soon.
• The footer is fucked and I haven’t fixed it yet (archive listings, link policy and other such administrivia will live there eventually).
• Search bar? As in, where is it? Another thing that’s a little fucked at the moment. It will appear shortly.
• Several older posts have some glitchy formatting and broken links - I’m fixing these post by post.

Other than these five things, if you find anything else that’s generally messed up, that means I don’t yet know about it. So, do please let me know, yes?

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Ok kids, orientation’s over. Now, go read some woo-woo smut!

Welcome to my new old place

So, here we are.

Still in tweak mode, but it’s coming along. Some things are new, some are missing or screwy, some are rearranged. I’ll write another post in a few days to sum up the changes… because it’s not just the template that’s changed.

For now, enjoy.

Feedback, as always, is mighty appreciated.