blackouthauntedhouse-girlFingers, tongue, words, needles, teeth, cock, nails, fists, lips, blades, ideas, images. It’s not the way he penetrates her that disturbs her; it’s the way he withdraws.  Because she knows he yearns to leave with the Polaroid of someone ruined and discarded firmly clutched in his fisted hand. That, she will not allow.

When he leaves, she bathes.

She lies back in the warm water. She smokes. She flings one leg over the edge of the bathtub and examines the pattern of his bite, the abrasions on her knees. She contracts the muscles of her cunt and feels the sting, the emptiness, the formless ache of congress that always leaves in its wake the echoes of the fuck.  The rosy marks of his fingers on her upper arms and hips. The angry contraction of her nipples in the water’s heat.

Sweat beads on her face and runs into the rawness of her lips. The places on her skin, like stretches of dried riverbed or barren ground, where his cum has dried and crackled, are reconstituted in the water to viscous again. Cuts unclot. Bruises bloom. She licks her lips to soothe the salt’s sting and tastes his saliva again. She revisits her small, peculiar triumphs.

Back in the presence of his caustic hunger, wound tight on the creaking pin of civility. The awful tension of that string doesn’t make her reconsider; it’s what draws her. To where he is a man always on the edge of being an animal, that bright and tender place of constant calculation of where the line might be drawn or broken.

There, what has made him doesn’t matter. Nor what conspires in her to call her to that place. She has tasted the sour premonitions of all the things he might render her long, long before she arrived at his doorstep.  Past the post of good judgment, like any good traveler, she becomes a fatalist.

In that no man’s land, he casts her in whatever role gets him hard: as deceiver, as whore, as pitiful victim of his dishonorable machinations, weak-willed, soft-hearted, half-witted fuckdoll or  lovelorn dupe. In that place, she is whatever hinges his jaw, sharpens his teeth, draws out his claws.

For her, he is all the abysses she fears to look into, the monsters she cannot face. Every insult, every humiliation, every loss of agency she believed she could not bear. All the pain she thinks she cannot tolerate.

She can and she does. She endures because it is all she needs to know about herself: that she endures, that she can walk through his fire with her eyes on his, and not lose sight of the fact that they are who and what they are, in spite of what they do to each other.

He may not leave savouring the spectre of her regret.  That is the one fantasy she refuses him.


Comments

21 responses to “The Withdrawal”

  1. Genevieve Avatar
    Genevieve

    ‘the formless ache of congress that always leaves in its wake the echoes of the fuck ‘ As always your words create vivid, urgent emotion. You are an amazing writer. Thank you for sharing.

  2. Very creative piece of erotica. It was good to the last sentence …

    1ManView

  3. In awe of your writing..
    True gripping love torture..
    Your words speak to my deepest being..

  4. My introduction to your work….lovely. Gives voice to my unspoken feelings

  5. your use of the written word is unbelievabubble I truly love it. it makes me look at my own experiences with a twist

    1. Alexlx Avatar
      Alexlx

      Unbelievabubble

  6. Love this. Your erotica has soul. I’m glad she didn’t give him everything of herself. Smart girl.

  7. Anastaria Avatar
    Anastaria

    Honestly, the words are woven intricately and skillfully, but im not as much a fan of this one as the others because it feels to me that the story is lacking. Almost like you were testing it out and it was unfinished. Definitely still very very skilled but i cant shake the feeling of incompleteness. I’m sorry I hope this doesnt discourage you in anyway or make you value my opinions less. you amaze me but because you ask for these comments i feel the need to tell you what i actually think, in all of its honesty. and regardless of my criticisms youre still one of the most unbelievably talented writers i have found

  8. I love this. I read Gracie a lot, but I’ve ventured here some, too. This is good, good stuff. The giving and taking… the want and desire and the not complete giving in. You are wise.

    1. I am anything but wise, but some of my characters are.

  9. I love that you write of loss. So much writing is about fulfillment when that is the rarity. Keep listening to the voices.

  10. The words you write envoke me.

  11. Saturnine Avatar
    Saturnine

    I could not love or identify with this more. I have often tried to put into words this very situation but could never get it right. You have done it for me, and I’m thrilled.

  12. Bennet Griffin Avatar
    Bennet Griffin

    Posting to provide some counterbalance to the breathless panegyrics above. This is interesting writing as blank verse, but as erotica it’s badly mis-labelled. It’s far too intricately written, too precise in its language, too verbose, too over-punctuated. It appears to be written to satisfy the precise demands of a particular class of reader, and however successful it is in that, it doesn’t meet my definition of erotic. The nature of free online erotica being what it is, it’s unlikely that I’ll be back to read the criticisms that might be levelled at me. I hope the writer succeeds as a super-short story author.

    1. Hello Bennet, Thanks for commenting. My writing doesn’t satisfy many people’s definition of erotica, so no criticism at all of your comment – it’s entirely valid. Your definition of what constitutes erotica simply differs to mine. And that’s fine. Wouldn’t it be a boring world if we all enjoyed the exact same thing? I didn’t find Fifty Shades of Grey arousing, but millions of people did! And it was not intricately written, verbose, and very underpunctuated. So, you’re in the majority, Bennet! I write purposefully for the small percentage of readers who are looking for something different. Call it a niche thing. And I am sorry you feel you wasted your time dropping by.

      The nature of free online erotica being what it is, it’s unlikely that I’ll be back to read the criticisms that might be levelled at me.”

      So I guess this also means that my response to your comment was a waste of my time? Oh well. C’est la vie.

  13. Philosopher Avatar
    Philosopher

    Soul less pedantic girly chatter. Does anyone get aroused by this?

    1. Not very many people.

  14. Cordyline Avatar
    Cordyline

    I searched for erotica to beat my newly found singleton life, to stop me being valnurable and going back to a life of convenience. Instead I found your writing – it is so much more than I wanted. I love your writing – all of it. Please do more and thank you!

  15. Sometimes I thirst for beer. However occasionally I desire something with more density. More complexity. You don’t drink red wine, you sip it. You slow down to concentrate on the sensations of feel and fragrance as well as just taste. It can be a more satisfying endeavour but not always. The style of this piece allowed me a similar experience by contrast. I am greatful for the experience. Thank you for sharing your gift with me.

    1. I know absolutely nothing about wine, so I’m going to take your word for this.

  16. Binta Jalloh Avatar
    Binta Jalloh

    I love this story. It speaks to the most primal aspect of my soul. The part of me that hungers for what I don’t know, but it speaks and resonates to that part of me. I love it. Those two aspects of him and her. They speak to that part. You truly are a gifted writer.

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