I’m in a really solidly good mood this morning, and I’ve got no great explanation for it. Something must have gone right in the dream world last night. Or maybe I’ve just got euphoric hangover from Karate last night. My forearms are a bit sore, which is always frustrating. Any exertion or lifting with my hands twinges something fierce.

I’m listening to Jason Mraz, who I probably enjoy far too much. Perhaps after “Waiting for my Rocket to Come” I’ll listen to Mika “Life in Cartoon Motion.” That would be good. I just found out yesterday that the Killers have a new album out. I can’t wait to get it. Hopefully in the next couple weeks.

Tonight I’m meeting with @si_storm to prep for the workshop and ritual this Saturday. I’m looking forward to it. This will be my first big Brotherhood event since my initiation into the inner order. Things don’t feel quite the same.

I’ve said for a long time that the universe conspires to help us. If we give of ourselves and work in the current we are given the support and strength to accomplish what we task ourselves with. I’ve had the feeling recently that I’m waiting to step back into the currents. I feel like I’ve been on a little bit of a break. As though I’m anchored and letting the current move me about, but not carry me very far.

Today I feel like I’ve set my rudder and tacked my sails and pointed myself in the direction I’ll be going for a while. If you didn’t already see, last night I started a new writing project Messages from Somewhere Else. This is my journal of divination and spirit communication. I’m going to do a lot of Tarot, and once I find or create some images I’ll do Runes and Ogham depending on the mood of the space. After some success and time I’ll begin trying to work more directly with inspired communication and listening to the spirits.

Last night I asked how I could better learn to commune with the spirits. The reading indicated that I need to get out of my own way. I need to counsel myself to silence and patience, and work towards the ability to empty myself so there is space for the spirits and gods to come through.

Almost to work now. It’s funny how listening intently to the world around you can make such a big difference sometimes. The universe conspires to aid us, but it can do a better job if we’re listening.

As a result I’ve set up a new blog: Message from Somewhere Else at http://spiritspeak.theogeer.net/. I hope that you find it interesting. If there is a topic you think I should turn my attention to please let me know in the comments. I’m starting out with some personal questions, but I’d like to do some work on more general things as well.

P.S. I know the theme isn’t very pretty. It’s a stock theme that I didn’t hate. I’ll eventually make a nicer one. If you have suggestions for a better stock theme for the time being please somment to let me know!

Good news: More fiction below
Bad news: as @si_storm tends to complain about “you never finish them.” I’m slightly sorry about that, but not really. To clarify, fiction that gets posted here is either a) a one off that just happened to be in my head, or b) small pieces of larger works that are taking my attention at the moment. What shows up here is rough draft at best. What is below is worse than a rough draft. Lets just say that tense is not my friend, particularly a first time through.

Anyway, here is the introduction to Gregory. Jared rescues him. This next little piece happens months, possibly years later.

And now he could not contain his jealousy. Gregory’s gift made all his
study practically obsolete. He was beginning to understand why they’d
been destroyed, and why even before the extermination of the gifted
lines they’d never been allowed to be rulers. They held too much
power. There was a part of jared that wished he’d never helped gregory
escape taleisin. Lover or not, if he’d left gregory there they
wouldn’t be hiding again, and they wouldn’t have to rework their
entire training program everytime gregory came up with another of his
damned comprehensions.

More and more it was all jared could do to be civil to gregory. Every
time he accomplished some new feat with the power that was now coming
so much more easily to him jared wanted to spit. Things which took
jared an hour of preparation gregory did as an afterthought.

Perhaps todays demonstration had been the worst of it.gregory had
transmuted metal on a whim. He was working on control with jessica,
and had constructed a small ring out of a penny. Slowly he lifted the
penny into the air and ever so slowly excited the molecules in it
until it was a hovering nodule of molten copper and nickle. Then he
spun it slowly, forming it into a thin circle and cooling it with the
same patience.

Watching all that had amazed jared, but it was what happened next that
nealy sent him into a jealous rage. He’d held the ring in his fingers
and looked at it. Then said to jared, “gold suits you better than
copper” and then his eyes got that glowy distance they do when he
focuses particularly intensely. The ring in his hand shifted. I could
feel the change, it echoed through the room. It was gold. He placed
the ring in my hand and said “for you.”

The full moon is very soon. Possibly tomorrow night, I’m not sure. I can feel it. My room i sreally dark right now. I’ve got all the blinds down and closed so the only light is the faint glow from the laptop, the clock and a bit of ambient light filtering through the blinds and from the hallway. I’m not really tired at all, but at the same time I’m fucking exhausted. I feel creatively drained and I’m not sure why.

I’ve been getting the feeling that I’m not writing enough lately, but I’m writing more than I ever have before. I think it might be that I’m not writing enough Fiction or Poetry. I might need to take some time to work on some less serious stuff. But of course finding that time is not as easy as I would like it to be. There is this story on my mind. It’s part of a novel, possibly a novel in it’s own right. I wrote a couple short pieces of it on this blog last summer. It’s a story about Gregory and Jared and lots of other people.

Gregory is special. He’s born special. Magical. At a young age he is taken from his parents and put in a hospital facility where he is studied. The government, or possibly some shadowy organization that is *not* the government, wants to figure out what makes him tick. Jared is also special, but unlike Gregory he wasn’t born that way. He studied for years and in time began to be able to perform real magic, which he has passed off as stage magic for years.

Jared is special in another way though. He has vision. He sees a world that is transformed by magic. Magic that is controlled and guided in a way that magic has never been before. He creates an organization where he teaches people Magic. He also breaks Gregory (who becomes his lover and sometimes servant in a sometimes very unhealthy relationship) out of the facility where he is kept, along with other magical children and adults.

Of course there are witches and mages out there who don’t want magic to go public. And there are plenty of people in the established authority and shadow authority who want control of people who’ve managed to access and use magic.

Jared is a little (to put it lightly) obsessed with the idea of legacy. Part of him wants to live forever. Part of him wants to build a legacy that will change the world forever and live on in that way. Sometimes his drive for legacy leads him into making very bad choices, such as his early, and stupid, attempt to expose the real witches he comes into contact with on his quest for magic.

The trouble with it is that it’s hard to do something consistently, particularly when the only drive is internal. If you’re writing for a class, or because you need something done for work there is a dual purpose. When I’m writing, it’s usually for my own gratification, to purge my emotional sludge, a sort of high-powered heart-rending colonic. Writing is purgative for me, and whenever I’m feeling a strong emotion, I’m often able to move through it by writing about it.

I find that lately my writing has been more external. Less about me and what’s going on in my head, and more about the world. I’m not judging that good or bad, just noticing it. As I believe I mentioned recently, I think it’s likely do in great part to the changing of the seasons. We’re moving from a place of great internal focus, to a new season of growth and outward momentum.

While its not bad, I can’t help but feel that its not entirely good either. I want to move forward with a balance, not an overabundance of depressing internal monologues or an excess of trite informative paragraphs expounding upon the theory of the art. The most important thing is, as always, to keep writing. But I don’t want to come to a place where I’m no longer being genuine or true to myself and my voice.

I like writing more practical and content-filled things, and I know they’re important if I want to attract more readers. At the same time, they’re only a portion of the language that I want to offer to the world. There is a part of me that feels as though I’m trying to sell a product (myself) that probably won’t sell without hype. I don’t want people to buy me, to read me, if they aren’t getting the real deal. When it comes down to it, I write because I want to, and traffic is secondary, perhaps even tertiary to that purpose.

I believe that I have a great deal to offer the world, but I think that offering is vital. It has a life of its own, and I’m struggling to bring its promise to fruition without making it feel cheap or trite. I hope that if my words turn stale, or if I lose my voice for more than a short period of time someone will have the nerve to slap some sense into me. Maybe that’s just the way the dice roll. Eventually they may come up snake eyes. Until then, I’ll keep trying to write, to share what I have, even if nobody wants to read it.

One of the pieces of advice that every teacher I’ve ever met has given about writing can be summed up in one word. “Write.” There is nothing more vital or more important to the art of language. Write. Write with every breath and thought. Compose sentences, paragraphs, conversations, arguments, and solutions with every thought you have. Write them down or let them go free, but never stop writing. Not for an instant.

In a class I took once, I read from one of my journals, and the entry was foul-mouthed and filled with lust and anger. It took some guts on my part to read that in front of a room full of practical strangers. I omitted a few of the juicier lines and thoughts because they were too private. The instructor looked up at me after I was done and said, “Where’s that guy in class? Why don’t we hear more from him?”

That is how you find your voice. You write down the most important, vital thoughts in your head. You write them down quickly and without thinking about them. Then you read them aloud. Your voice has a resonance to it, a sound that is unlike anyone elses. When you read it, whether you be smooth and silky, or a shy stuttering shambles, it comes out of your mouth exactly as it should, and nobody can deny it.

Nobody can do it all the time. I try to be as genuine and true to my voice and myself as possible. Sometimes I succeed, and sometimes I fail. A couple of things I’ve written in the last week fail miserably. Listening in my head to the words that I’m typing now, I can hear them, and I know that they’re real. They’re genuine. And my body purrs with them, hums in time to the keyboard and the sound of the furnace pushing through the ventilation.

Sometimes all it takes is sitting down and starting to type, and then it just comes. I find that a lot of life is like that. Sometimes you can start over and over again, and life just doesn’t happen. It doesn’t work. But those false starts are just practice runs. The other times, you start moving and you go. You’re in it. Life happens, just like green words on a screen. You decide to dance, and then you’re dancing. There is no separation or cessation, or beginning. The thought is the action and your life is going on around you.

I can tell that I’m beginning to get a bit philosophical and more than a bit artsy with my language. That means that I’m running out of steam, or that it’s time to change topics.

Go figure. Seventeen minutes, just over a thousand words. Not too bad for not having much to say tonight. Something else that I just thought of, that I need to pay attention to. Writing is art. It is always creative and always creation. I find that I get most constipated when I try to get myself to write about a specific topic, or when I try to exert some control over where my words are going.

I believe very deeply that art of all kinds comes from a place inside us. Greg Bear called it Preeda (100 points if you can name the book). Preeda is the first and most primal of all emotions. It is the emotion that God felt before he began to make creation. It is fiery and watery at the same time. It can not be controlled, but it can be cultivated. When Preeda takes you, all that is left is the art, the creation.

The most pure, most powerful art is driven by Preeda. Preeda can come from any place. From Ecstasy, or Asceticism. It can come from careful thought and planning, or it can come from the random joy of erisian life. I know, when I bother to think about it, that for me Preeda is a thing of movement. It is a life of its own and trying to guide it almost always ends in a stillborn creation. I work best when I follow the words, instead of trying to force them into what I want to say.

I think of this now, because I started to try and influence what I was writing a few minutes ago. I had this idea that it would be cool to write about how the practice of magic requires the same sort of approach as the practice of writing. It has one core principle. Practice. Practice your Art with every breath and thought. The attempt to turn the language in that direction failed. I could have forced it, but it would have sounded stunted and unnatural. I closed my eyes and found my way back to Preeda. And now I’ve conveyed the point I wanted without belaboring it. I’ve reached it effortlessly and with some degree of elegance. And in so doing, I have moved through an even more important lesson. Your technique knows the way. Whatever your technique is, it can and will guide you. Trying to force your art (linguistic, drawn, danced, magical, or otherwise) through a technique or pattern that is not your own rarely brings good results. It most often results in a flawed creation and a great sense of pain and dismay on the part of the artist. Listen to your technique, whether it be one of the head or the heart or the soul. It will take you where you need to go.

Fire. A shooting heat burns through my shoulder as I twist away from him. Fucker is strong. I yell and lose my breath as my body is shoved against the hard wall. Cold metal around my wrist. I push back, fighting away from the wall and he trips me. I hit the concrete floor with a thud and he’s on top of me, twisting my other hand back and the click-click of the handcuff is the only thing I can hear above the throbbing in my head.

“What the fuck!” I yell, trying to twist away as he pulls my head up by my hair. He forces me to my feet and shoves me against the wall again, pinning me there and twisting the handcuffs until my wrists burn. Smell of paint on the wall, then a faint musk as I’m thrown, almost bodily, onto the bed. “You can’t do this!” Fear now, heating behind my eyes, I can feel it trying to boil over, becoming anger. Faggot. How dare he?

I kick at him as he follows me onto the bed and he grabs my ankle. I flop around, landing on my wrists as I try to pull away. Disturbingly, he says nothing. I look at him, seeing a hunger in his face, almost a madness. It consumes the air around him, burning away the atmosphere like a black sun, ripping the pieces of the world from their proper places. I freeze, shocked, and he’s on top of me, weight pushing me down on my wrists as he forces my head to the side and digs his teeth into my throat. The pain is immediate and harsh and I cry out, bucking beneath him but his teeth and hands are vices above me.

Snap-click. Cold on my throat. When did I close my eyes? I open them, he’s staring at me, grinning ferally. The cold at my throat moves and I feel it prick my skin. Knife. I freeze as he moves the blade down and hear it cut through my shirt, the cotton giving way freely. He pulls the cut hard with his hands, exposing me to my waist, and forcing the remnants of the shirt down to my wrists. The place where he bit me feels like it’s bleeding, throbbing with my heartbeat.

He begins to get up, the strong length of his body levering above me. I kick at his nuts, and before waiting to see if I struck home I begin to turn my body, rolling off the bed. I turn and hit the floor with one foot, then the other and run for the stairs. He grunts angrily behind me, I daren’t look back.

I have to get the fuck out of here. All I can do is get up those stairs and out the door and I’ll be fine. He can’t do this to me. My foot strikes the first stair and I start up, then fall against the wall as my wrists are pulled up harshly, then down. I stumble down the stairs and he forces me against the wall. I must have missed the fuckers balls. I try to turn around but his knee is suddenly in the small of my back, pushing in hard. I hear the fabric ripping and being cut as he removes the rest of my shirt.

“What the fuck man! I’m not a fag. You’ll fucking die, I’ll kill you!” He presses all of his body to me against the wall, and bites me again, behind my left shoulder. Again I lose myself for a moment, the strength and fight seeming to drain out of me. My pants are being cut away. He says something about not moving if I don’t want to bleed. I hold still, keeping my eyes closed. Smell of paint, and now sweat. My own. Fear. I clench my fists and feel my nails biting into my palms. my pants fall away. He cuts away my briefs and unbidden, a plea for mercy bubbles up from my stomach, more a whimper then actual words.

He reaches around with one hand, pressing me against the wall again and grabbing my dick. I begin to pull away then freeze. Cold at my throat, I try to open my eyes, and find his face there. I open my mouth to tell him what I think of him, but the words die in my throat. Fucking faggot. Fudge-packing little homo bitch queer. How could he do this? His hand moves lower, and I stiffen as his fingers wrap around my balls. He squeezes, I remain as still as I can, my open mouth toning a sound of pain.

I close my eyes. “Why are you doing this?” I ask as he steps away from me. I feel suddenly cold, and shiver, trying not to think of the stairs to my left, of how close I am, but how far away. He grunts and begins to wrap something around my forearms above my wrists. Rough rope winds and winds and I blink back tears from my eyes, the situation beginning to set in. “Please.” I say.

The rope pulls tighter, roughing up my skin. Click-click, Click-click, then handcuffs come off. I twist my wrists and the rope burns them. “Because I can’t stand self-deluded little haters like you.” he says. His voice is surprisingly gentle. Like steel wrapped in fleece or cotton. Hard and unyielding, but with a softness that lulls. “Because I’m sick of watching you fill yourself with hate and spread it like a disease.” His hand on my ass and I realize I’m holding my breath, as if it really matters to me. “And mostly because I want to fuck you.” He squeezes and I shudder involuntarily, shaking my head violently and trying to pull away, but the strength is mostly gone out of me.

“No. Nonononononono.” I start shaking my head and screwing up my face in horror. He can’t do that. He won’t. I can’t let him. I start shivering all over, shaking my head violently and pulling away from his hand. Getting away isn’t even a thought. I just can’t comprehend what is going on here. I hide against the wall as if it would offer me shelter. There is no shelter though. I huddle down, crouching low against the wall and tucking my head under.

Suddenly I am back in school. I see the faggot in the locker room, turning his head away from his, hiding his face in the lockers, as if that would make a difference. His skin was so pale, I can make out every hint of a pimple on his cheekbone, the black hair wet from the shower hanging half-over his face. I hear him crying as my fist connects with his stomach. I pull on his hair. I can smell his tears. Something in my stomach uncoils, a serpent rising up to strike. Spontaneously I lick the tears from his cheek.

A slap to my cheek brings me back to the present. I look up at him, taller than me, and turn my face away. “No, please don’t.” He only responds by grabbing me by the hair and pushing me down onto the cold floor. More rope as he pulls my ankles together. I whimper quietly, too stunned to do anything, my mind being drawn back several years, but the cold of the floor too severe and present for my mind to escape.

When he’s done with my ankles he slaps my ass with one hand, and the sting pours through my body, racing along lines of energy beaded with sweat. He pulls me up to my knees. His hand tightens in my hair, pulling on it until my eyes roll back in my head. He punches me in the stomach and I begin to cry harder, clenching my eyes against the tears and then he bites me again, and I’m lost in the taste of my tears on my lips. .

My friends have left gone home. He looks up at me, brown eyes full with tears and pain, now curious. I pull his head back with his hair and scratch at his collar bone with my teeth and fingers. He moans and I punch him in the stomach again. The moan increases in volume. He leans, losing his balance. Half against me and half against the lockers. His body falls into me and I feel his cock, rock hard, against my hip.

I come back to myself and begin to struggle again. Pulling away from him and now he smiles. “Get away from me!” I yell, falling to the side as I try to pull away. He grabs my shoulder, his fingers digging into the places he’s bitten me and I cry out as he pulls me back up to my knees forcibly. Both hands on my shoulders he yanks my head back by my hair. He unzips his fly, the blue jeans bulging as he reaches in and pulls out his cock, full of life and ready.

“Don’t even fucking think about it faggot!” I say. “I’ll bite it off.” He lets go of my hair and slaps me suddenly across the cheek, then he is low, his breath against my cheek and my body kneeling up held against him, his other hand grabbing at my balls again, squeezing them.

“If you even think about it again I’ll cut your balls off one by one and feed them to you through a tube.” There is threat in his voice. My body shivers convulsively and he suddenly lets me go. I fall back, my ass hitting my heels and my head falling forward, hiding from him.

I tighten my hand in his hair and pull back, biting his throat and shifting his body to lean against mine. My hand goes around the back of him and my fingernails rake his spine, then dig into his ass. His eyes are closed and I let go of his hair, watching subtle changes in his expression as he presses against me. His hips twitch up further, he’s on the balls of his feet now. One hand on the lockers the other on my hip, clenching the waistband of my briefs. He opens his eyes.I see some sort of reflection there and the tears pour freely down his face. The scent of salt is maddening. Tears on his lips. He kisses me suddenly and I freeze, violently stunned. Faggot.

He puts his thumb on my lips. “Open up.” He says. I turn my head away from him. The head of his penis barely an inch away from my cheek. I lift my chin stubbornly. He chuckles and I feel his fingers gathering along my cheek, beads of my tears, which he rubs into his penis. Salt and precum in the air, a bubbling in my stomach. He turns my head back to him and presses the head of his cock to my lips. “Or else.” he says, low in his throat. So quiet I can not be sure he spoke at all. My lips part and he places the head of his cock on my tongue. “Now suck”

I bring my knee up into his crotch and he goes down with a deep moan. I grab the back of his head and pull, crouching down, wanting to see the tears, the taste of them still on my lips and in my mouth. His eyes are glazed over, and his mouth partway open. When the sense returns to his eyes a smile quirks the corners of his lips. I open the fly of my briefs.

His hand is on the back of my head now and he pulls me in. I choke, trying to pull back, and my gag reflex fires again and again. He pulls out slightly and I try to breath, to catch my breath, and he forces his way all the way back in until I’m sobbing and sweating and unable to struggle from lack of air and energy, and then he slides in and out slowly as I try to breathe, recovering myself. Then again, his penis is filling the back of my throat and the cycle continues. I wonder if this is about getting him off, or breaking me down. My wrists twist in the rough fibers and I moan.

I bit the flesh just inside his hip and he started to moan. “Don’t do this to me!” he said. He always said that. “I’ll do what I want faggot.” I said, hitting his balls with my open hand. I bit until I was happy with the mark. By this time he was crying. His hands were clenched in the bedsheets and his face screwed up with pain. I hit his balls again, hard this time, and slapped his stomach. His body arches up from the bed and I can hear the small noises he begins to make in the back of his throat.

“You like that fag, don’t you?” I say, and he nods jerkily, and again as his body settles to the bed, moaning. I can smell his cock and I climb on top of him, licking his face, nipping his cheek bones with my teeth. He giggles as though I’d tickled him and thrusts up against me. He grabs at my shirt, pulling it up until he can place his hands on my chest. I grab him and force him down, holding his wrists. I kiss his lips teasingly, “Fucking faggot. You’d like to see what’s under my shirt wouldn’t you?”

I can see he’s not in the mood for this. He whimpers but doesn’t lie. “Yes. Please!” He isn’t playing the game. I smile, all the better if he’s not actually in the mood. I bring my knee up and press it down against his groin. He shudders and his eyes close. “God no, I’m sorry! Nooo..”

I blink, delusional. I can breathe again. I’m panting and he’s biting my chest, teeth digging into my nipples and pulling on them. I cry out. “Stop! Owwwww!” And try to pull away, but he punches me in the gut. My new found breath escapes me and I double over onto him. He moves and pulls me to my feet by my hair. Shoving me onto the bed. “You’re going to get fucked now.” he says. I’m too weak even to fight back. But I try to roll over anyway, worming towards the other side of the bed. He grabs the rope at my ankles and pulls me back down until my ass is hanging over the edge of the bed. He slaps my ass hard and unties my ankles. Spreading them out and tying them to the legs of the bed.

I whimper and he says. “Doesn’t this seem familiar?” He chuckles and I moan as he pulls a piece of rope under my arms and ties it to the headboard, preventing me from straightening up at all. He tightens it until it hurts and I begin to whimper steadily. He hits me on the ass with something hard, a paddle maybe. I jerk, surprised. This is new. He chuckles and hits me again and I start to sputter words. “Stupid faggot, what the hell. You need to soften me up before you fuck me? Stop, no, ow! Stop it!” It goes on and on, I can feel myself bruising.

I leaned harder against him until the pain is so great he can’t make any more noise, then I reached up above him and pulled the piece of clothesline out from under his pillow. He’d stolen it from his mothers basement. I eased up on him as I tied his wrists together, tightly, and then abruptly climbed off of him entirely. I pulled on his wrists and dragged him the rest of the way up the bed, his ragged breathing shallow and fast as I tied his wrists to the metal posts of the headboard. I climbed back on top of him then, and bit his nipple as hard as I could without ripping it off. He screamed and I slammed my hand over his mouth. My fingernails scratched down over his ribs and stomach, over the turn of his hips and down his thighs.

I slapped his cock until he stopped moaning from it and then squeezed it as if I were strangling a snake. All the while, “god no, please, why no, it hurts, i hate you, you fucking hetero mother fucking breeder piece of shit. Stop, it hurts, I can’t stand it. god damn it just get me off already. No I’m not in the mood I don’t want this I want to cum you fucker, stop, just let me go!” All the begging just made me meaner. I can never tell if he whines to make me crueler, or if some part of him really wants me to stop. Still, when I turned him over and lengthened the rope tying his wrists to the headboard so his hips were over the edge, his body responded with a parting of his legs and a thrusting of his hips. I turn him over onto his stomach.

I’ve stopped yelling at him. I don’t know if I lost my voice, or if I just forgot to keep protesting, but my ass and thighs were burning and felt as though they must be twelve shades of purple. Smell of my tears on the sheets, damp, and the sound of him behind me. I moan “Why?” “To hurt you.” he says. My shoulders and elbows are on fire and I twist a little, trying to ease the pressure. “Let me go. I won’t tell anyone, I promise.” I start to plead. Whatever he wants he must already have had it. He couldn’t really want to fuck me. “Don’t do this to me, Not anymore.”

Sound of a condom wrapper, the squish of lubricant. Something breaks inside of me. I jerk fiercely against the ropes and cry out in pain and terror. I start to shiver and pull, ignoring the pain, determined to break free of this, to get away from him. Suddenly his hand is in my hair, pulling me back and his knees are to either side of my hips, and he bites me. My body freezes, all the pressure and fear draining out of me, transfixed by the sensation shooting through me. I let out a purgative roar and collapse against the bed as he releases me.

I use a condom. I know it will never be like this time again. His ankles are tied to the legs of the bed frame with more clothesline, spread apart. I put a pillow under his hips and knead his ass with my hands. “Oh god no, I’m not ready for this. Don’t do this!” he starts babbling as I open the condom. He starts to struggle, causing the bed to creak and shake and I soothe his body. His speech degenerates into a bubble of moans and pleasure sounds as my lips and teeth and tongue find the soft parts of his back and shoulders. Finally his breathing settles and I press a lubricated thumb against him. Pushing in until I hear a low moan. “You like that don’t you faggot?”

He nods and whimpers, and I smile. You won’t for long, I think. Something clicks inside me as I place the tip of my dick against the cleft in his ass. A part of me already regrets what I’m about to do, but most of me knows that if it’s not rape, it won’t satisfy either of us. The pain and ordeal is what makes it meaningful. I put just a little more lube on my cock and then nicely softly massage him, letting him think it’s going to be easy. I rub my cock against him until he relaxes enough to think it won’t be so bad. Then, after just the tip of me is in with that slow pressure and easing, I pierce him like the sun through the clouds. His yell is somehow subsonic, and his tears leave my eyes.

He is raping me now, harder than I raped him. I wonder if I’m bleeding. My body is in some sort of mysterious shock that scares me and drives me happily wild. The sex is fierce, and my protests have long since been burned away by the heat of his body against my ass, by the pain and bruising and the sheer feral passion that rolls over us. I bite the sheets, angry that there is nothing else to get my teeth on, and taste my tears. I am blind with sensation, I hear his body, his blood pumping in my veins, smell only my own heat and the mix of my fear and pain. I am beyond my ability to process this experience and so I ride it, surging on the swell of his body, my heart echoing his beats until I don’t know where the lines between us are anymore.

I lick his wrists, deep marks from the rope, from where he struggled so hard when he realized I wasn’t going to stop. He is in my arms on the floor, the pillows and sheets piled up around us. I was afraid that somehow I’d broken him, but there was some sort of glow coming off his skin now, and it was brighter in his eyes. His head was on my chest and I sucked blood back into the skin of his wrist. He pushes his head against me, as if trying to climb inside me, and I stroke him softly, fingers parting his hair in sweaty clumps. I tug on it and he turns his face up to mine as his arm wraps around me.

He finishes and walks away, leaving me there, sobbing silently in pain and anger and fear. I hear the condom hit the garbage. Then the pressure on my arms is gone as he cuts through the rope. He unties my ankles, then my wrists. I don’t move at all. he covers me with a sheet, and suddenly I’m cold, and I pull my body in around myself, wrapping the sheet around me, and then he’s there too, cradling me in his body. He strokes my temple and body until I am no longer cold, and the warmth of his body reminds me of life. I press against him, needing assurance, needing presence, feeling strangely alone in my body. He kisses me, his hands in my hair, and I’m no longer alone. I blink, and smile, and tension that I didn’t know was there vanishes into the ether.

“Thank you.” I whisper, smiling up at him. My hands stroking his arm and shoulder now, caressing him.

“Thank you” he says, and we kiss again. I grin at him. “What is it?” he asks, a twinkle in his eyes.

“That hurt.” I say solemnly, and grin in what feels like a goofy manner.

His smile is small, something fragile, but it carries the weight of his eyes and he wiggles his ass against me. I kiss him, and lose myself in the taste of salty tears, and the kiss that he gives back. When I open my eyes again he says “Thank you.” and I whisper “You’re welcome.” His eyes glimmer with something impish inside. His smile becomes a grin. “What?” I ask.

“ow.” he says in all seriousness, then bursts into a fit of giggles.

Imagine a girl who was never given a name as a child, and who has refused to take one. No, I’m not talking about the Childlike empress. This is difference. She lets people call her by their own personal nicknames for her, but she is looking for a name. She sees this guy who is smart and creative and seems to be extremely observant. She falls for him instantly and says “perhaps upon observing me, you could give me a name.”

Very mysterious, quasi-mythological character there. She’s dark-haired, thick and deep deep rown with honey colored eyes and dark olive skin. She’s tall for a woman, just over six foot, and in shape, but curvaceous for certain.

I’m meeting Coriander tonight for more lessons in ceremonial and goetic workings. It should be exciting and enjoyable. May be a bit of a late night though, we are’t starting until he gets home from work, probably around 9-ish or so. I’m going to try and bring Matthews stuff back to his place tonight too so it won’t be in my apartment anymore. It will be nice to have most of the Floor space in the living room back.

I should get paid this morning. That will make me happy. I like money. Then I can pay some of my bills and maybe spend a little money on me. I also have to find time to get a license plate sticker for my car, and a city sticker.

It promises to be a busy day at work today. There are several issues to explore, and several just flat out simple changes or modifications to interfaces and data-models. When it rains, it pours. I’ve been busier in the last three days than I have in the last month.

As he concentrates, the orb begins rise from the table, steadily levitating until it is above his head, showering it’s light upon his pale scalp. Gregory flexes his mental effort slightly and the light brightens to the warm glow of a setting sun. He focuses for a moment and fixes the orb where it rests, hovering in the air near the ceiling and uncrosses his legs. He rolls up onto the balls of his feet and the pool of fabric slides down his legs, leaving only his toes and heels exposed. He moves the table into the corner and returns to the center of the room, almost missing the presence of a man standing in the dark of the next room, just out of the lights glow.

“Who’s there?” He asks, wondering why anyone would be here at this time of night. Nothing he was doing was anything they hadn’t seen him do and studied for months already. There was no reason for them to be surprised.

“It’s me.” Jared says, his voice soft as he steps into the light. Gregory pauses for a moment when he sees the young orderly. Not wearing his white uniform, but dressed all in black. The fabric was tight to his torso, it’s sleeves ending about four inches above the wrist, where a silver band circles his right wrist. His black hair braided tightly and pulled up behind his head. Gregory has a momentarily chaotic vision of the other mans body pressed against his, skin sliding together, generating heat through friction and exertion.

Jared’s expression quirks for a moment, arching an eyebrow. He blinks and seems to refocus. “If you want to leave we have to go now. I can’t stay after tonight.”

“What? Why? What’s going on?”

“We don’t have time for all your questions Gregory. I don’t know that we have time to be talking here. You need to trust me.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“Because,” he smiles and extends his hand, “you aren’t alone in the world.” His hand opens and above the palm a purple flame springs to life, dancing in the air, shooting sparks up towards the glowing orb that still hovers near the ceiling.

My organs are human, if somewhat oddly functioning. My heart beats about ten times each minute during strenuous activity. While asleep it is far less. I have never been ill. I have never had an infection.

They tell me that my genetic material is unusual, that it is not human. How different they do not say. I only know that I can do things that my parents couldn’t, that nobody human could.

I have felt different for nearly a decade now, ever since my parents brought their holy child to the Doctor to show him what I could do.

I moved my fingers and swirled the coffee in the doctors cup. I used to do it to amuse my baby sister. I’d sprinkle some pepper into the water and swirl it around until a miniature tornado moved inside the glass.

I have not seen my parents or sister since.

They tell me that I am not human. I have always believed them, but now I doubt. What is it that defines a human? Is it our bodies? Our genes? Our soul?

I feel human. My heart hurts for the parents that I will never see again. I am lonely, and I will never have anyone to love, because I will never be allowed to leave this place. I long for the life I might have had, although I can hardly imagine it. If I could, I would leave this place, with it’s pale orange walls and sterile floors. But I will never be able to do so.

I will stay here until I die, unless Jared keeps his promise to me…

–

“I’m fine, Mom. Really, just take me home.” Jaysen pleads. Jacqueline, pale hair glowing sunlight, glances at the EMT behind her son. When he nods she returns the motion and presses her lips tightly together.

“Come on then Jaysen. Lets go.” Jaysen says goodbye to his coach and teammates as his mother picks up his bag and stands impatiently by the door. He looks longingly back at the gymnasium where the competition continues without him. Rubbing his temple he puts his sunglasses on as they walk through the sunlit hallway towards the parking lot, trailing after his mother.

He’d never missed a landing before. He’d never even fallen before, not accidentally. His eyes hurt, even behind the dark glasses the sun seemed to burn through them, piercing his head painfully. He gets in the passenger seat and keeps his eyes closed for most of the drive home.

“I told you I didn’t think Gymnastics was a good idea. I told you you’d get hurt.” His mother said when they were at home. “You had to do it though. Just had to be special.”

“I didn’t fall because of gymnastics Mom, I had some sort of freak headache.”

“Stress is what did it!” She was ramping up into hysterics, Jaysen had seen it a dozen times before. “The paramedic says your blood pressure probably spiked and caused you to black out.”

“They don’t know that Mom, it’s just a guess. I’m fine, I just need to take some Tylenol and I’ll be good as new, you’ll see.”

“I will not see. You’re going to the Doctor tomorrow, and you’re not going back to gymnastics. And that’s final.”

Jaysen, knowing better than to try and argue with her when she was like this, just hurries out of the room. He dumps Three Tylenol into his hand and swallows them with a chug of water from the bathroom sink, then hurries to his bedroom, leaving his mother fuming in the kitchen.

—

After her son has gone upstairs Jacqueline calms down quickly. She takes a deep breath and goes into the bathroom. She rubs her right arm and pulls up the sleeve. A small pink birth-mark is situated right over the vein about halfway up her forearm, shaped like a fat little ‘s’. She frowns and leans in towards the mirror, turning on the higher powered lights. She blinks her eyes a few times and looks at her eyes. The pale gray is shot through with white lines, bursting from the tiny pupil and bisecting a halo of the deepest black that lines the disk. She takes some Tylenol herself, sighing in sadness before getting up to make dinner.

I’m going to try blogging a little more regularly again, even if some of what comes out isn’t life changing or crazy important. I’m going to try for 3 blog posts a week here. I’m also working on a new skin for the site. I will be very very happy when it is done and looks awesome.

Work is crazy busy. I feel like I’m being pulled in multiple directions at once, and need to get clarification from management what my priorities are. But it’s good that I’m keeping busy. I have no money right now, and I hate that with a fiery passion. I get paid early next week, or possibly over the weekend. That will be very very helpful and make me feel like less of a bum.

As of yesterday my weight was 255 lbs. This is 15 lbs lighter than I was 5 months ago. Not great, but it’s getting there. My current goal is to be less than 230, which will make me lighter than I’ve been in 5 or 6 years. After that I’ll start looking at breaking the 200 mark (which will make me lighter than I’ve been in a decade).

I’m also going to try to write more fiction again, but I don’t know how often or how much I will be able to get to. It’s not high on my priorities. I’m going to try for the 3 blog posts a week to start and build up from there. I also want to build a writing program. I may build it as a web application or I may not. The idea is to over time be able to have all of my writing in one location so I can manage it more easily. That’s not to say that I’ll ditch my journals. A lot of writing seems to be more appropriate by hand, but I would like to make an effort to type most of it as well.

The lightning bursts out from my mouth and eye, running along my face and down my throat, tracing the paths of least resistance down my body, wrapping around me until my entire body was burning with it. The whip struck me again, across the shoulders, and the golden glow of the lightning wrapped itself around the falls, drawn off of me. I found air somewhere, and I did scream. The pain of the whip was nothing, it was warm pressure, living heat against my skin. I screamed now as the power was ripped from my skin. The falls of the whip came down again and again, each time they drew back the power went with them, being dragged away from my skin. I could feel my eyes bleed to black, and the light was all too much.

I close my eyes against the light and the whip kept falling. As always happens, I start struggling. I know it’s no use, but the pain is too intense to do anything else. My body fights because it has no choice. The steel around my wrists heats up and cuts against me. I twist and writhe, jerking towards the wall to try and escape the whip.

The gatherer laid on harder and I opened my eyes. The light of my body was still bright and the power kept being pulled from it. I squinted at him and saw the hilt of the whip in his hand glowing with the magic harvested from my body. I pulled away and his dark eyes flickered with anger as he struck me again. I began to cry, as I always cry, and my tears were a stream down my face. I was no longer screaming, I had no power to do so. His forearm was beginning to glow now, soaking up some of the power in the whip. He began to strike me with more force, and I felt the power begin to draw back inside of me. My body jerked as the whip struck harder than ever before. And I felt a stinging pain in my hand.

Time slowed, stretching into one of those long moments where you know you have as much time as you need to do what needs to be done. I didn’t have anything to do, but my body had different ideas. I looked up at my wrist, and I saw it. There was a sharp spot on the manacle, it had nicked me. There, near the bottom of the metal was a spot of blood, moving down my forearm slowly. The power that had begun to draw back inside me burst back out against my body, brighter than it had been before, and my eyes adjusted to it. There was no pain to the fire now, just a welcome sense of peace. The power wrapped around me and there was something different about it.

The gatherer’s eyes widened with hunger. I could see his desire for the power that was pouring off of me now, greater than it had ever been. He swung the whip, but it never struck me. He began to scream. I saw the whip explode into fire, gold and purple, and the fire rushed up his arm and consumed him. His scream was over as quickly as it had begun. I fell to the ground, only peripherally aware that the fire had bled off my skin and that the chains and manacles that held me were gone. The floor beneath me began to burn with that fire, and it poured out from me, engulfing the room. The support beams were devoured and the ceiling began to fall. I had just enough time to rise up onto my hands before losing consciousness to the destruction and pain that engulfed me.

I know why I am here. It is a disctinction not many people have. Were you made for a reason? Do you know your purpose?

I was made to hurt.

I’ve known this for a long time, but I have never had words for it. In truth, I still don’t. These statements are simple truths that can not capture the reality of it.

My purpose, is pain.

Knowing why you exist is freedom at its finest. It gives you sanctity, and peace of mind. For me, there can be nothing else.

I have such a capacity for suffering, that it would be foolish not to exercise it. Is a dancer born who does not need to dance? And if the dance is denied, can a dancer be fulfilled?

Must not an artist create or die?

Who can call himself a man who does not lust after a woman. And being denied, does he consider himself a man? Nay, his shame is great enough to hide his face.

All things, all people, have a nature. It is to that nature they are born, and there is no escape from that. Do you know your purpose? Truly?

Can you say, as I can say, that you are fulfilling your destiny every moment of your day? If you can not, then you are a slave to yourself, and a poor servant of the highest. And has not our highest said that no servant may judge another?

We are alike you and I, in that we are meant to serve the highest. Each of us. But in no other way can I be compared to you. If you would like to know the truth, my suffering is ecstasy even as it is torment. The highest has said that there is nothing beyond this world. There is only escape from it and return to it. I shall return again, always to fulfill my purpose in ecstasy. Can you say the same?

(From the writings of a nameless fetish. Servant of Jean-Toma Richeu. 230th quadre of the third prophet)

((more to come… perhaps))