Ekphrassis 6 (Saffi)

What do you hope to find in those books?  Will they explain these desires? You already know what they say, you heady, scholastic fool.  They see fetish as a perversion of fear and speculate on past abuse.  They tell you that you're just building a shell of arousal in which to recoil and hide from demons.  They tell you that you want to be over my lap only because your father never showed you love, that you want to give up control only out of fear of making poor decisions.

But they know little of you.  They haven't seen the smile that you struggle to suppress when you learn that you're going to be spanked.  They can't see your lips tighten--that pucker of resistance--as you fruitlessly try to act remorseful when I inform you of my grievance.  They don't catch a glimpse of that smile breaking through as you turn away from me and head to your place in the corner.  And they don't see the glow in your skin when, northern cheeks damp and southern ablaze, you nestle your head along my neck as I cradle you in my arms.  I care not what the books say about it.  To me, there is nothing deeper than desire.

And why this insatiable curiosity about it all?  If knowledge is power, then why strive to learn about your submission?  You already know your place.  You can go earn a doctorate, yet you will still be standing before me at night in your pajamas, the bottoms at your knees.  You can give lectures, but you will still get them.  You can amaze audiences with your logic and rhetoric, but you will still blubber unintelligibly over my knee.  They might even call you a genius, but you will still call me "Sir."  At the end of the day, no matter how much you learn, you'll still be standing in the corner like a naughty dunce for as long as my unscientific judgment dictates.  So why this irrational drive to rationalize?

Alas, I know you.  You'll take orders from me, but not counsel.  You're at your most stubborn, Saffi, in pursuit of wisdom.  Well come then, my love, and let me teach you another lesson.

Photo by Phillip Greenspun, via The Fury of Beautiful Bones.