I will hunt you. But I will never chase.

When you run, glance over your shoulder: I will be at your heels, teeth nipping.

But if you run expecting me to follow…it’s not your heels I will be at.

I live in a townhouse and share a wall with my neighbors; my neighbors and I are friendly, if not particularly social.

Most of the time I am a good neighbor. I’m relatively quiet. I mind my own business. I don’t leave messes. I play the pirate for neighborhood kids before heading out to Renn Faire. I move mis-delivered mail to the right mailbox.

Most of the time I am a good neighbor.

But sometimes…

Sometimes the sound of my hand on bare flesh is loud enough to carry through the walls. And if that wasn’t loud enough – the yelps, the moans, the ‘oh fucks’ definitely are.

Sometimes a friend of mine will leave in a disheveled state. Half-dressed, dazed, sleepily satiated or on edge from the tease.

Sometimes I don’t wait for the front door to close before I have them pinned to the wall just inside, my hand buried under their skirts and between their thighs.

Sometimes I have them bent over the wooden railing of my deck outside, spanked and beaten. Or I slide to one knee and slip their leg over my shoulder as I devour them amongst the leaves falling from the trees overhead.

It’s not easy to see onto my deck from the upper floors of my neighbor’s windows.

Not easy. But possible.

Most of the time I am a good neighbor.

But sometimes.

Sometimes I’m really not.

Too late. My hands are already around your neck. I can feel your breath catch under my fingers, your heartbeat against my palms.

For you, my hand is steady and my literal and metaphorical knives are sharp.

For you, I will cut quickly, so that the nerve endings remain intact. I want you to feel what is under your skin, under the protective lining of your beliefs.

You are not sublimated or subsumed. You are measured, manipulated, and made.

You are a sin to indulge in, a moment to be experienced, an implement of intent. You are a skill underused, but often practiced. You are my craft in form, my faith derived, my art form, my belief, my self.

You are my mastery.

I don’t want to cut you
but I do want to see
what is inside of you
and cutting may be the only way.

—

It is the difference between asking a wolf to play.

And inviting the devil to.

A wolf wants to see you whimper.

The devil wants to see you cry.

A wolf will devour you. Sink teeth into your neck and claim you.

The devil will take you apart so thoroughly you will have nothing to hide behind but the weight of his hands.

A wolf wants to taste the heat between your thighs.

The devil wants to taste the tears on your cheeks.

When I say the devil wants to play.

This is what I mean.

I want to use without consideration.

Inflict pain without compassion.

I want abasement without reservation.

I want you so low to the ground that when my fingers tangle in your hair to lift your head, it is so you can breath.

I will nurse your injuries.

I will let you curl at my feet with my hand at the nape of your neck.

And then I will start again.

I knew the girl, but lost her name.
where her heart was kept
was not the same

I knew the shape, her silvered need
but not how deep the cut
to see her bleed

I lined each blade within a row
gave each a word (a word she’d know).
and I waited by the tower built
touched each edge, each blade and hilt.

A predator wants most that which must be hunted.

Patient until the very last moment and then not patient not waiting not just or kind or thinking just hungry, just hunger itself, just close enough for the scent of rising heat to drive out all thoughts but that of bared flesh and the feast at hand.

There is a certain dark beauty in using skill and instinct when bringing to ground that which you chase; it is a prayer, an act of deadly seduction and the space between predator and prey is sacred because when it is gone there is nothing but the blood and viscera of desire.

It is the predator’s curse to feel most alive in the hunt; it is the prey’s fate to feel most alive when caught.

What I do know is that when you admit your own hunger, I feel an unfurling of low, dark, energy, a current that makes me want to grab you by the throat.

It puts me in a place where my control over the wolf is barbwire thin.

Do you believe in the beauty of rain?

Do you read books not to distract you from the world, but because it makes the world even more wondrous?

Do unexpected kisses make you shiver in delight?

Do you want to spend an evening naming your favorite villains while eating chocolate ice cream?

Do you like leather and lace?

Do you like to laugh while being naughty, and does being naughty make you laugh?

(does the word naughty make you laugh?)

Do thorns make you turn away, or will you pluck the rose despite the sting?

there is a beauty to a curve that
doesn’t quite end, it just
becomes another curve
like a smile
or silk
like a kimono showing
a bared shoulder
is a curve
you
are a curve

I crack nails on stone to find rich soil
mold clay into flesh
and flesh into place
heat my hands between your thighs
so I can temper skin
into marble

a smooth
perfect
cage

I set chisel to bone
and wait for

“Please.”
lean into it
shell cracked, lines split
topology and braille

I never loved you so much as when your imperfections were mine to trace.