kotw Archives - F DOT LEONORA

She had not wanted to give him her number, she had said that she did not have any paper.

“Write it on my forearm,” he had said, and Emerson frowned softly.

She leaned in to give him a fake number, but when she did, she smelled the sage on his skin. The scent aroused her so much that she wrote her right number–slowly–on his arm. His eyes and breath were responsive to every stroke of her pen. Emerson added an additional flourish at the end of her number eight, that was barely warranted.

When she finished that last flourish, she realized she had been so unconcerned with knowing more about him that she did not remember what his name was. He had told her. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed his initials in gold on his briefcase.

And that was how she and H. started seeing each other. Writing on their skin was a theme. The first time that he told her that he loved her, he wrote it on her hip. She looked in the mirror and saw in red, LOVE and she straddled him standing beside her. He entered her and she could see his love on her hip—literally—as she pressed her nose to his musky sage scent that had been her undoing.

Emerson loved him at the time, but she could not say the words. She had no desire to say the words to him. H. woke up one morning and through the hair on his chest, he could see red, bright like the sun I LOVE YOU.

When he sat up and stared at the words in the mirror, and said nothing, the red words glowed like traffic lights melting in her vision.

Stop, she thought.

“Stop overthinking!” H. said, and pulled her close to him. He kissed her, and she felt her heart stop crumpling because she felt their love. It had not been too long for her to finally tell him she loved him.

And when he proposed, H. pressed a fountain pen to the inside of her wrist. He played with the tip about her hand, until it started to tickle. He held her hand, kissed it and then wrote inside. Emerson could not make out the words.

“Close your eyes…” he commanded softly, kissing her hand.

She did not know what the words were, but she knew when he put her engagement ring box on her palm what it was.

“Yes,” she breathed, without opening her eyes.

They wrote less when they got married, but when they did write it was often secret and hidden. Just for them.

With chocolate, honey, ink and more, they occasionally stained the sheets. Their sheets looked like a Jackson Pollock, and their bodies were smeared with dirty words.

I am dedicated to using all the verbs from the verb list created by Richard Serra—you can find the list here. Last time I used “dapple,” today I am using “crumple.”

More Kink of the Week here:

My mother said I could not get my ears pierced until I was sixteen. Like any prohibition, I was obsessed with the idea. I had clip-on earrings, though clip-ons were never as pretty as their pierced counterparts, but I looked hard to find the really pretty ones. But they always fall off, and I was probably the only girl who did not have pierced ears in school. I was always was prepared to launch into explaining why my ears were not pierced for inquiring classmates.
Sixteen arrived, and surprise, surprise–I did not elect to have my ears pierced. I decided that I did not want to have any holes I was not born with. As an adult it is less of an issue that I am not pierced, except when my boss gave me extremely beautiful green earrings for Christmas only to discover my ears were not pierced. I exchanged them and got a gorgeous black sweater in their place, so all was well. It was amusing.
Having pierced ears as a woman is a norm, at least one being expected and more piercings personal preference. Men with piercings was an aberration when I was growing up, but which ear he had pierced was indicative of his sexuality which I find not to be the case any more. Nose piercing is not as much of an aberration as it used to be, but it is not necessarily expected. I used to wear a nose ring when I was sixteen–a clip-on one–so people actually thought my nose was pierced.
I do think about other body piercings sometimes, like what does it feel like to have your nipple pierced? Your labia, your penis? Do you ever just want to idly pull at the jewelry like you would twist a ring for comfort, or because you are nervous? What does it feel like? Do you forget that it is there? Do you fear snagging it like I did my nose ring which was always very painful? Are they necessary jewels that you feel naked if you are not wearing, the same way I feel naked if I leave the house without perfume?
Piercing is a choice, I think it is lovely if you choose it and lovely if you do not. I choose not, and it is not something I really think about. I feel if I wanted to do it I would have, like anything else I have a burning desire to do. I get it done.