F DOT LEONORA

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, I don’t dress up–but I get lots of candy! Oleander Plume has been having a ball with Halloween! She did a favorite horror book round-up of the Prompted authors, including me, and talked horror flicks with Roger Jackson. When she asked me to do a scary story swap, I did not hesitate! Ever the most prolific person I know, she got her story to me right away–and now I get to share with you!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Demon’s Kiss

By Oleander Plume

I told her no, that temptress, that she-devil. But that gal don’t listen – she takes – until all that’s left is a pile of smoldering ash.

I met her in a dive bar. Whiskey on the rocks she ordered. What kind of woman drinks whiskey? The kind you should stay away from, that’s who. You see a dame sipping Jack, you turn tail and run, boy. Fast as you can into the night, eyes down, watching for shadows and the sound of leathery wings.

She’s a demon! I speak the truth. Her perfume smelled of sulfur and hair was the color of hell fire. Those crimson nails left rake marks on my back that never fade – scars on my heart – blood gurgling in my lungs. She destroyed me, I know this. Ruined me and left a shell of a man behind.

That wicked succubus, drew me in with her creamy thighs and tight pussy. Rode me hard until she got hers, sometimes all night long. Once finished, out the window she’d fly, before sun up, always before sun up. Afraid of that ball of orange rising in the east and maybe the blue sky, too.

She drank the night. Yeah, I said whiskey but she drank the night, too. Tall glasses of inky black, stars floating at the top like tears. I took a sip once and it damn near froze my tongue. I know if I tasted her blood it would do the same.

That witch tried to force it down my throat. Be like me, she said. Dance in the ebony gloom, naked, skin bone white, for all the ever after. No thanks, I told her. I’ll keep my ever-loving soul intact, and one day I’ll soar to heaven on a golden beam. She laughed like the caw of a raven. There’s no heaven, she said, only the pyre and screams of the damned.

Her kiss was like a burning ember. Singed me to the quick. If you stripped away my skin you’d find soot, I swear this is true, I swear on all that’s good and holy. Yeah, I’ll have another, but not whiskey. No, sir.

That’s the devil’s drink.

Loved that? Go read my story on her blog!

I am very pleased to have Emmanuelle de Maupassant as my guest today. She is a true connoisseur of the erotic genre, and is not afraid to explore its dark side. It seemed only appropriate on the eve of Halloween, to explore the raw and forbidden aspects of erotica with her!

‘I am a forest, and a night of dark trees.’ 

― Friedrich Nietzsche 

I am a different person by night.

Velvet-wrapped in my shadow-self, I have license to breathe more deeply.

Whatever your heart and soul craves may be subdued but it can never be put aside. Vital appetites do not abate.

Perhaps, what you thirst for is not the reflection in the mirror but something beyond and behind, only visible when there is no light: a realisation of your darker self.

Taking pleasure in thoughts of revenge, debasement, danger, fear, pain and violence, is this my ‘real’ self?

It is, although other selves exist too. They have the daylight.

All are mine: dark and light.

As Jung said: ‘How can I be substantial if I do not cast a shadow? I must have a dark side also if I am to be whole.’

My self beyond the mirror desires what cannot be spoken, and what cannot be attained. This ache may be soothed but it cannot be satisfied. Whatever I imagine, it will never be enough, for my desire is always to want more: to grasp at what is out of reach.

‘I am terrified by this dark thing

That sleeps in me;

All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.’

― Sylvia Plath

I walk a balancing act between light and shade, between my ‘civilised’ self and that which flickers and dissolves at the edges.

In Joseph Kessel’s Belle de Jour (1928), Séverine knows well that her indulgence of her ‘dark’ self – which wishes to lose its conventional, public identity and surrender only to desire and sensation, without thought of consequences – endangers her ‘social’ self.

The story is best known through Catherine Deneuve’s portrayal of the icily beautiful housewife, in Luis Bunuel’s film (1967). Compelled by desires she cannot articulate, let alone share with her husband, Pierre, she is drawn into an alternate sexual world, choosing to spend each afternoon working at a brothel.

The greater her revulsion with her clients, the greater her satisfaction, yet she seeks continually, without finding true fulfillment. She experiences little ‘conscious’ choice, driven almost mad by her need to act out fantasies of masochism and debasement: to be forcefully subdued, to ‘lose’ her usual sense of self.

Her desires make no sense to her; she only knows that she must serve them.

The story’s complexity lies not especially in her compulsions but in her knowledge that they are incompatible with her ‘other life’ and her love for Pierre. For him to discover the truth is inconceivable. She sends one of her lovers, Marcel, to murder the man she thinks will betray her and it is upon this moment that Fate twists the course of the story, turning the blade towards Pierre.

The shock of almost losing him drives Séverine to renounce her sexual yearnings and devote herself to the long-term care of her terribly injured husband.

The final tragedy is that her desire, and her shame, live on sufficiently to drive her to confess all and, in so doing, bring to pass the very reaction she most feared: Pierre’s revulsion and his repudiation of her. In the closing lines of the story, we are told that he refuses ever after to speak to her.

Stanley Kubrick’s film Eyes Wide Shut, based on Arthur Schnitzler’s Dream Story, also examines ‘unbridled’ desires, including concealment of the truth and feelings of guilt. A woman tormented by relentless dark fantasies involving a man she encounters briefly, reveals the details to her husband: a scene intimately constructed in the film, whereby Nicole Kidman whispers her confession of her ‘raw self’ to Tom Cruise.

Aroused and resentful, he allows himself his own act of transgression by entering a twilight world: attending a secret, orgiastic gathering, at which he is an intruder. It is for this segment that the film is best known: its glitteringly dark, dream-like depiction of a sinister, masquerade sex party. Much is left unexplained, elevating the sense of danger.

What these books (and the resulting films) share is their portrayal of the lure of the forbidden. However much we experience and possess and taste, it is never quite enough, because our imagination always craves more.

We feel, almost instinctively, the seduction of what lies on the darker side of the mirror, where the norms of social behaviour no longer apply.

George Bataille (in Guilty) wrote: ‘Eroticism is the brink of the abyss. We’re brought to the edge by uncontrolled ecstasy. This is the stage of rupture, of letting go of things.’

Similarly, he said: ‘The need to go astray, to be destroyed, is an extremely private, distant, passionate, turbulent truth.’

And here it is. In fiction, we seek both to ‘escape’ and to ‘find’ ourselves.  We seek an echo of our nature within the pages, while hoping also to set aside the constraints of ‘reality’: to ‘lose’ ourselves, as we do in ultimate moments of sexual arousal.

We want danger.

We want extremes.

We want the duality of pleasure and pain.

We want the forbidden.

In Japan, diners delight at the tingle of poison on their lips from the carefully prepared puffer fish, knowing how close they are to danger, to death.

So it can be with our erotic nature.

What greater triumph is there than to feel your mortality and to conquer it?

In reaching a heightened sexual state, we are of the flesh and beyond the flesh: we are corporeal and spiritual. We feel our mortality and we transcend it. At that moment of sublime ecstasy, we ‘defy’ death, becoming more than bone and blood.

We see beyond the mirror.

We see the hidden self.

Emmanuelle de Maupassant wrote The Gentlemen’s Club to explore the darker elements of desire. She believes erotic literature allows us to enter realms we might otherwise dare not.

Authors that inspire her writing include Sarah Waters, Michel Faber, Fay Weldon, Angela Carter, and Donna Tartt.

It was a chance meeting.
Sandrine went to the movies with her children. Her daughter was fluent in French, and her son was proficient. Emilie spoke to her in French the entire time, while Michel only spoke occasionally.
The woman next to her started speaking to her in French.
“We live here,” Sandrine continued in her native language. “But I wanted my kids to speak fluent French. I spoke fluent English when I was their age.”
“Me too,” the other woman replied.
It was so rare that she met other women that she connected with, and Sandrine was desperate for connections these days. It was all a blur to her now, the steamy affair that she had with Rafe. She had felt so alive being with him again. She realized she had demonized him, because it was easier for her to do that than to deal with the fact she had never gotten over him.
And she might never…
Seeing him in the newspapers now with Eliza made her sad. She did not hate Eliza, and she wanted Rafe to be happy because she did love him. But whatever was in him that made him want her, was not something she believed he could have extinguished that quickly.
It was not put out for her.
Marcus was okay with it, she was honest with him now. They had that kind of relationship that she could tell him about another man, and he would be okay. He was upset if she was not okay, so she pretended to be.
But sitting with her new acquaintance, in a tres French cafe that she loved, Sandrine caressed her large cafe au lait in both hands. Being with a stranger who did not know her, who did not know any of the players in her life made her feel like she could tell her new friend anything.
Severine, she discovered was also going through a heartbreak of her own. There was an American man who she had loved very much, and met as a flight attendant.
“But he was engaged to this other woman. And it is even harder because they are always in the papers.”
Sandrine swallowed. Hard. She took a huge gulp of cafe au lait, feeling exposed because she had just revealed so much about Rafe to Severine. And she had a sinking feeling. Severine was French like her, and she knew that Rafe had had another lover that was French. Eliza had mentioned it as well.
“The thing that drives me is that he and I, what happened between he and I was passionate and amazing and he acts like it was expendable. But the woman is lovely, maybe she puts up with things I would not. She let him come to me, and when she was in Paris…” Severine’s accent intensified as she talked about her relationship.
Sandrine was no longer listening.
She looked at her cafe au lait, and remembered having even hot long distance sex with Rafe. Going to the bathroom in a cafe in Paris sexting him. The way that they had had sex long distance, was as hot as the sex had been in person.
“Are you okay?” Severine touched her hand.
“Just thinking about my kids,” Sandrine said, hating to use her children to explain her spaciness. “I am sorry.”
“No problem…I was only talking about Rafe…”
Both women looked at each other: Severine for her slip, and Sandrine because it was confirmed. It was Rafe.
Everything unfolded like a dream after that: they paid the check, Severine said that she would linger a bit longer because she was meeting someone and Sandrine left.
Outside, Sandrine took in the air like a smoker. It was hard to breathe.
And then she saw him. Rafe was hurtling toward her, and she wanted to get out of his way.
But she couldn’t, even though she did not know what she would say…

More chance meetings here:

sky via wikipedia

Cora could feel the perspiration at the crack of her ass, as she balanced on it. She was right on the edge, her finger almost rubbed that spot of her clit raw in order to reach her peak.
She needed to come.
This was her second attempt. The first time she had rubbed herself so hard, she missed her orgasm with the wrong flick of her finger. She had pulled up her panties, and closed her legs which still vibrated with lost eros.
It had not been her intention to masturbate herself late to work, but after her shower…even before her shower, she had been horny as all get out. After, she could not keep her hands off of herself: exploring the divide between her breasts, fingering the curve of her neck…She let her finger hover just above her slit, seeing that she was already running late…
Now she was on her bed, trying to get back the orgasm that she had lost.
She came like a crash, so suddenly she gasped. Cora gripped her hand between her legs with the top of her thighs, letting the vibration roll underneath it.
Her whole body was damp, and between her legs was so wet with her come that she could barely keep her grip on her clit. But she came this time, so she was good. She pulled up her panties, and resumed getting ready for work.
Well she was physically there when she arrived to her job. Remembering her morning detour of masturbating, made her dissolve at her desk. Cora could smell her wet desire between her legs. The crotch of her panties were damp as hell. She wanted to touch herself at her desk, but decided that would be insane. Instead she pulled her panties up at her waist, so she could indirectly caress her clit and stepped away from her desk.
In the bathroom, she rubbed the crotch of her panty over her clit until she felt excited enough to slip her finger inside her damp crotch. Her back pressed to the door of the stall, she let her head roll against it as she rubbed her finger and the edge of her panty over her clit until she came.
Again.
It was then that she was satisfied. She pulled her lace panties over her hips, and stepped out of them. She pulled a plastic bag out of her pocket, and inhaled the lace that was redolent with her come before she slipped it into the bag. Her bare ass caressed the door of the stall which made her need to make herself come again.
Cora’s heart raced, and she felt like she might pass out from all the pleasure that she felt twitching between her legs. She pulled the plastic bag out of her pocket, and pulled out her panties to wipe her come with the crotch of them before placing them back in the plastic bag.
She looked like she had run a marathon, when she saw herself in the mirror above the bathroom sink. Cora panted as she washed her hands, before returning to the office.
Of course she had to stay late, she came in late.
But that was not the only reason that Cora stayed late. After everyone had left, she went to the mailroom. She picked up an express mailer, and pulled her panties out of her pocket. A smear of her own come in the plastic bag was visible, as she placed it in the mailer.
She recently started selling her dirty panties for money. It was a nice supplement to her income. This was a return buyer, who said he loved her scent and bought her this pair of lace panties. It made her excited to send them out to him. She wondered what he looked like? Wondered how her panties fit into his ritual exactly?
Cora licked the mailer, an extra bit of her for nothing.
He was a lucky bastard…
She turned around, and saw that she was not alone in the mailroom.
Her boss stood there, his tie loosened and his head pressed to the wall. He had been at an all-day conference nearby, and she had not expected him. Uncertain what he had seen, Cora picked up her package and looked at him.
“Just coming back from your meeting?” she asked casually.
“Why are you still here?”
Cora shrugged,
“I was late this morning.”
“I would not even have known…” he smiled. “You are such a hard worker bee Cora.”
Cora smiled.
She had worked damn hard for the money today…

More dirty panties here:

panties via http://kinkoftheweek.mollysdailykiss.com