BDSM – The Text Adventure Game

I’m a geek. I played (and loved) Adventure, Zork, Enchanter, and Leather Goddesses of Phobos. As should be clear, I worship the written form, particularly when it is interactive. Last week I came across some old games and I began to wonder how a BDSM text adventure game would play out.

Anyone who has played a text adventure game has attempted, at least once, to do one or all of the following commands to the first character of the opposite sex they find: kiss, fuck, lick, beat, hump, and bite. More often then not, the game returns either a humorous response (”Who do you think you are, Romeo?”) or a virtual slap on the hand (”This is a family game!”).

Well, what if it didn’t?

***

Bedroom
A large bedroom, your first impression is that it is quite…austere; the walls of the room are completely blank except for a finely-crafted knife adorning the northern wall. Against this wall, but centered in the room, is a wrought-iron Victorian bed; the bed itself rests on a deep crimson black oval rug. At the base of the bed is a large cedar toychest.

Portia is standing in the middle of the room.

> LOOK AT PORTIA

Portia
The first thing you notice about her is her long raven hair that stops just above the small of her back. It has been brushed back from her face, giving you a nice view of her eyes which are green and contrast sharply with her hair and pale skin (yet do not seem out of place). If she were standing directly in front of you, the top of her head would come up to your chin and while she isn’t a large woman, she has curves in all the right places.

She is currently dressed in a long black dress, because, well, black goes with everything.

> TELL PORTIA TO GET TO HER KNEES

Feeling quite the man, huh? You order her, in your deepest and most convincing voice, to get to her knees.

She doesn’t appear convinced. She gives you a look as if to say, ‘make me.’

> MAKE HER

Make her what? Lasagna?

> PLEAD WITH PORTIA

Uh-uh.

>ASK PORTIA NICELY

I don’t think you get it. Are you sure you’re playing the right game?

> BEG PORTIA

Ok, see, I’m going to do both of us a favor and ignore that one.

> PRESS PORTIA AGAINST THE WALL

She looks a little startled, but doesn’t resist. She feels warm and malleable against your chest. Portia is now pinned to the wall.

> KISS PORTIA

Kiss her how?

>KISS PORTIA SOFTLY

You lean in to kiss her, but she turns her head aside and you end up kissing her cheek.

> OPEN TOYCHEST

You can’t. You are holding Portia against the wall.

> LET PORTIA GO

You step back, giving Portia some room. She looks just slightly dazed but still manages to stare defiantly back at you.

> OPEN TOYCHEST

You open the cedar toychest and peer inside. The chest is vast and roomy and contains: a leather flogger, a paddle, a a blindfold, and a length of rope.

> GET FLOGGER FROM TOYCHEST

You reach into the toychest and take out the leather flogger. Hand-made, the handle is checkered black and crimson; there is a loop at the end that would fit very comfortably around your wrist. The flogger’s tails are deceptively soft to the touch but you have no doubt that they will leave quite a sting.

Portia is looking a bit nervous.

(To be continued…here)

Devilerance, for the Devil is Coming

What would you do if the devil came calling?

Would you let the cracked door be invitation enough – or would you be brave enough ask him in?

Would you greet him on your knees?

Knowing he holds the promise of both, would you offer him your salvation or your damnation? Would you confess the sins you plan to commit in his name? Would you admit you’d already offered yourself to him in increasingly prophetic and addictive dreams?

Would you bargain with him? A kiss for immortality. Would you ask him to brand you in bites and bruises?

Would you test yourself against his will?

What instrument would you be, what song you play for him? Would you tune yourself to his expert fingers?

How would you beg? With brazon desire or respectful silence and pleading eyes?

Would you make a prayer of yourself? Would you promise yourself in pieces, or beg to be consumed all at once?

Would you consider the cost?

Would you?

In my dreams…

In my dreams…

…I am the quiet darkness that steals over your skin, secret and swift. I am the cool touch of your pillow when you slip into bed…I am the cold water you can’t quite escape when turning on the shower – never quite expected, but an awakening in clarity. I am the danger of things you can’t quite admit…I am the comforting presence of someone who will listen before stilling you with a touch…

…and when I stir, my dreams bleed all over my waking moments, washing crimson and seeping into the hard-to-reach corners of my participatory life. Disentangling myself from them is like unraveling the very threads of experience. Do I exist outside the context of my illusions? I do not need an answer; my contentment survives existentialistic cravings…but does not survive the hungers of my demonic children of choice and their wolfbred howls announcing the next hunt, the next dream…

Chapter and Verse, Part II

(Chapter and Verse, Part I is here.)

The second highlight – learning about D/s – really began with BG. I learned a lot from her and she was my first in many ways: my first phone sex experience, my first meet-in-real-life, and my first exposure to what a submissive really is.

But let me back up a step. My handle on Argus, unbeknownst to me, had certain connotations. The handle? Darklord.

I know – sophisticated, right? Pretentious, definitely (coming from the devil himself). But I was seventeen and it sounded cool. And it did end up paying dividends – it set up certain expectations with several of the women I would end up conversing with – expectations that helped along my D/s education. BG was one who saw Darklord as something I would have to grow into. She placed on him certain expectations that she wanted – needed – to be true. In coaxing these expectations out of her, I began to learn.

Now is a good place to note that my education in this area took two paths. The first path was driven by a simple need: my desire to taste, experience, and enjoy people. I wanted something from the people I was meeting and the most effective way to get it was to convince them that they wanted it too. Most of the time, this wasn’t terribly hard – because they did want it, they just didn’t always know it yet.

I craved that tension. That line between what people should do and what they want to do. Should you give your phone number to me, a stranger? Should you admit you have your hands buried between your thighs while reading my words? Should you tell me how badly you want more? Maybe you shouldn’t – but you want to. It was up to me to make these wants into needs – and these needs into reality. This is a skill that defines me. It is not enough to have the confidence to tell someone to do something (although, with the right woman, this will work sometimes). It is not enough to understand their needs (alone, this won’t actually get you anywhere).

You have to do both. You have to be able to make someone obey you because it is what they need.

You create a need for them and then hold it just out of reach until they come to you on their knees. You create a need for you.

The second was learning the traditional precepts of a D/s relationship. Over the next few years, as I spoke to submissives, a professional dominatrix, and others who shared an interest in the lifestyle, I began to put together a more formal vision of what a Dominant was. I learned the language and the acronyms (like any field of study, it has quite a few); I learned enough of the rules others played by that I could decide which ones suited me; and I began to understand that although there is a lot of common ground in this community, there is also a great deal of variance.

During this time I tried, in a virtually-spiritual-textbased mindfucking-real-imaginary kind of way, just about any kink I could think of. Role-play based text games provided a window into which I could slip between time and place, spending 1800s in a vampire-dominated Paris, present-day in Dublin, and some future fantastical world based entirely on a slave caste system. I tried the other side (however briefly) as a submissive (but was I really? Subterfuge was in my blood, and there was little I wouldn’t do to get what I wanted); I played a Priest who worked in a brothel and on one interesting occasion, a nameless, sexless Guest: I shared a body with two other genderless voices, inhabiting the space in a voyeuristic intellectual masturbation that confused gender and self in a one-way ticket through Alice’s mirror.

And what did I learn from this orgy of indulgence? I learned what really interested me. I may enjoy the occasional fetish, but my true love, my true path comes down to this.

Nothing beats the feel of a warm neck nestled in the firm grip of my hand; and this hold, this place where my hand rests like a living collar so close to the skin I can feel the beating of her heart and each drawn breath like life itself – in this place exists everything I need know about who I am.

Finely Tuned Instrument

Lines are where it all begins and where all good (bad) things end. They delineate. They divide. They border, they bind, they define. Lines are blurred, stirred, concurred and perturbed by the right questions and wrong answers. Words paint lines in broad bold strokes that encircle, entice, intrude. Words resurrect you. Words nudge aside, limbo underneath, and soar over the lines in our lives.

I love a good word whore. The syntax of their needs is a language I speak in many tongues.

***

futile finger length concepts
Slip, supple, sap, spilling across the page
dripping sarcasm like lovers
feels like frosted torture against black veins
that spider across the white parchment
we call skin

mediocre maybe –
     but I take my lessons from the pen

lap the edge like honey,
     and take this line, from behind my innuendo

you can play it like a violin.
   or wrap it around your finger, lest you forget
you can wear it like jewelry,
   or weave it into a web for unsuspecting honesty
you can hang yourself from it,
   or you can wind it about your body like a cocoon

just don’t trip over it on your way out.

because this line

can hold you together

Slippery When Wet

Wet sex.

Wet, hot, slippery sex.

Licking water from curves, slick limbs trying to find purchase, water jets in the right place, sex.

I’ve run into trouble with this; during one scene with NE, I ran a bubble bath with the intention of pampering her: making her clean before making her dirty. Turns out some bubble bath lotions don’t react so well with her (…mentioned as I added lotion to the water).

I am undeterred.

I love watching her shower. It’s not so much a voyeuristic tendency as it is a singular window into an intensely honest and yet alluring sensual routine we all go through daily. Watching her shower, naked, vulnerable, is a promise to be made.

Have you ever had eyes watch you in such a quiet, accepting, demmanding, appreciative and yet quietly contemplative way, that you knew, just knew they desired to own every inch of your silvery wet skin and smouldering warmth? Every move – the way you shift your weight as you wash your arms, the way your wet hair falls across the back of your neck, the way your eyes close as you tilt your head back to wash your face – every move under an intensely intimate gaze?

***

04-01

Mandy pages: Oh man…trapped in this office til 8. Allll by my lonesome.
Mandy pages: Bummer. Sometimes I think of just chucking it and licking you all over. But still..I have this promise I made. I’m curious to see how well I do.

D’jaevle pages: ‘I’m curious to how well you do.’.

Mandy pages: well baby…I can do pretty damned well. I think you got a TASTE of that. I take pleasing a man very seriously. And to a degree…The reason why I don’t go casual…Is because sex involves for me…Giving a certain amount of ownership to a man of my body. Even temporarily.

From afar, Mandy licks her lips, runs her fingers through the soft scented kiwi strands of her auburn hair…and means it. I have a couch in my office. So just think of me lazily stretched out on it. Dangling one leg over the back of it…and drawing figures in the carpet below with one fingertip. Hair flowing over the side and painting itself onto the fabric.

D’jaevle pages: ‘Hrmmm. Pants, or skirt?’

Mandy pages: Today…It’s pants. Yesterday…wrap around skirt; the kind that if you tie it wrong…It just falls open to the side, exposing leg up to the thigh. Ya know…And this is no lie…I’ve never been this explicit with anyone in writing before.

Long distance to Mandy: D’jaevle grins. I tend to encourage that in people. I’m horrible.

Mandy pages: These talks took time, courage, and a certain flashback sensation of more physical memories.
Mandy pages: I do great wet hot naked showering too.

Long distance to Mandy: D’jaevle arches a brow. “Really?”

Mandy pages: Oh yeah.

D’jaevle pages: ‘The feel of wet skin rubbing, sliding against wet skin is exquisite. So is licking the water from someone’s thighs, shoulder, neck…

Mandy pages: And there is something verrrrry sensual about slowly running warm soapy fingers across every inch of your own body, enjoying the sensation; having a man contain the incredible rush of hormones as he washes your hair, breathes in deeply, knowing that soon…She will be nice and clean, ready to get hot sweaty…Dirty.

D’jaevle pages: ‘Bending someone over, hands on the wall in front, fingers slipping over a wet ass; or on the knee, her foot on the edge of the tub, thighs spread.’.

Mandy pages: Oh yeah…
Mandy pages: nails digging into moist flesh…

D’jaevle pages: ‘Fingers curling around each cheek, face buried against wet hair, tongue tasting.’

From afar, Mandy wickedly chuckles. I know you’re being prompted outside for a smoke…

Mandy pages: As I leave…I’m going to wonder what the sweet scent of close smoke will taste like on those soft lips. But alas time and circumstances prevail. It will be a taste not realized. Good night my handsome friend.

Writing the Werd

One of the three books I read over my vacation was “The Dog of Marriage” by Amy Hempel; she was so strongly praised by another of my favorite writers, Chuck Palahniuk, that I had to find out why he exulted her so.

I did.

Writing is art. In this respect, it is no different from painting, singing, or playing a musical instrument. If there is a difference, it is in that most other forms of art require at least some physical aptitude to be proficient at. Writing requires only basic communication skills. The rest is pure inspiration, imagination, and motivation.

Like all art, great writing takes many forms. Some master the rules of grammar and structure only to turn them on their heads. Some follow the rules concisely, crafting their stories with precision. Some draw together the threads of a story with a seemingly effortless force of will. Some are generous with their words, writing effusively and with granduer; some whittle away at their words until all that is left are the bare bones. Some rely on style, some on the story, some on character.

No one can tell you how to write. They can provide you with the tools of your trade (spelling, grammar, structure). They can provide guidance. They can offer support. But they can’t tell you how to write something. Doing this has a term already – its called collaboration. This is fine if that is your intent. But never let your voice be drowned out in the chorus of others.

[audio:WonderBoys_NobodyTeachesAWriterAnything.mp3]
Michael Douglas, Wonder Boys

Terrible Storms and Recollections

It is the details that stay with you. The way I caught her lower lip between my teeth, how it felt plump and elastic, springing up to brush my upper lip upon its release. The way the head kept sliding just inside as she tried to impale herself against me; only my hand, wrapped tightly around the base, kept her from getting what she – and I – wanted; teasing myself, torturing her. The way I would play her, making her wet and wet and wet. She could never stay dry. My fingers couched just barely inside, and I would whisper, “mine” in her ear only to feel the blood rush downward, opening her and leaving her slick in a groan of frustrated need because no matter how many times I did it, it was never quite enough for her.

***

Mention my name.
swept in swift lettering, steed to a deft tempest
terrible storms.
drenched.
and left.

slick with the tide,
awash in silk-like sand
drowsy with release, unaware
that you are buried to your neck
and facing the waves alone.

secrets alone keep company, rules beg interference
and the sight of you
wet and hungry
stirs me to part the ocean.

I am the moment you break free, head above water
the first breath like mint.
the piercing cry to the heavens
the fountain
you have become.

our kisses taste like
your tears like
the ocean like
I think I remember the last time
I wept against your skin
and tasted myself
between your sighs

Something Like Decency

The second half of NE’s letter detailing her thoughts on our (now not-so) recent scene. You read the first part here.

NE is the best kind of submissive; while I drive her roughly or delicately over each edge, testing her limits, she is forcing me to constantly press my own boundaries and lines.

Last night I left welts on her ass for only the second or third time in our long relationship. Despite the fact that we had not had a chance to play in months, she handled herself…very well.

***

I was on my knees. My legs were spread slightly. He was talking to me, and rubbing my nipples. I usually pull away when someone starts touching my breasts. I knew that I couldn’t so I didn’t. He was rubbing one nipple and pinching it, but not for my enjoyment; he was getting it ready to put on my next piece of jewelry. He clipped it on one nipple and it hurt. Not hurt like pain but hurt like pleasure. Then he started on the next one. It was like a ritual. I like rituals. I was descending. I was cascading down the staircase. He was done. He had me stand and put on the collar, all the while gently tugging on the chain in between the clips on my nipples. He instructed me to kneel again, legs slightly wider this time. He opened up the fruit salad. My descent stopped. I didn’t retreat but it stopped. Why? Food? What the fuck were we going to do with fruit? He instructs me to feed him some; he’s still got the chain gently in his hand. So I feed him a piece. He stops me. Quickly. But not by pulling on the chain. There was no pleasure here. Also there was no punishment. It was instruction. He grabbed my arm extremely firmly. He says, you need to do it slowly, bring it to me slowly. Really concentrate on it, NE. My descent became a tumble…I was at the bottom. His level of intense concentration on my actions was so high: the position of my hand, the speed, my focus on watching it travel from the bowl to my hand to his mouth; he was watching and evaluating every move. He was making sure that every fiber of my body and mind was concentrating on it. I could feel the intense heat rise in me instanteously. His impression of me, I read later, is that my whole body was shaking. I don’t really remember that. I remember the feeling inside of me; the idea that anyone can concentrate on anything that hard. There was nothing left but him, and his desire for me; things that I need to do, how I need to feel. At that moment, when ever that moment happens in a scene, and it always does, I realize how he is a true dominant, in the most elegant yet basest sense of the role. He is incredibly intelligent and he holds nothing back of that nature. He understands the desperate needs of his submissive. He makes it perfectly clear and he always uses a different vehicle. The force of these feelings coming down on me stripped me bare and I was high.

I have a lot to learn.

I fight certain feelings in every scene that we have…and I walk away from each with a better understanding of myself.

In this scene I fought my own desires and the difference between them and his. It was certainly the strangest battle I have ever fought.

I have given a part of myself away. For a long time I held something back, something like ‘decency’. Another way to describe it would be that I would do anything that he wanted, but would I really?

That is a hard question for a submissive to ask. It’s hard because you have to be straight with yourself. We battled this for years with each other, and I with myself. I am past that now. I would do it, whatever it is. I crossed that line a few years ago.

So now I fight a new battle. I have to restrict my desires to his desires. I am free-willed by nature and I like what I like.

I had fantasized about being dressed up in this way so many times that, without my control, my mind wandered to these fantasies. Would he…Ok, I am not ready to write that stuff down, but would he?

He did not. I am glad.

But I was left dealing with what was happening to me and putting myself in line with that rather than what my head was thinking of.

Did it make it hard to stay down? No. I was gone.

Did it interfere? No. I was tied to a bed, my arms to the posts with leather hand cuffs. If I started to feel that way, I pulled on them. I did this for two reasons: to keep myself in the moment and to fucking feel the restraints. I love having my wrists restrained. It goes back to the whole jewelry thing I think, I love this erotic battle of fantasy in my head and fantasy of what was actually happening to me. It was delicious. I died a few times on that bed and was resurrected each time.

What do I want in the future?

I want to have more demanded of me. I want my concentration level that high for a longer period of time. I want to be held accountable. I want him to test me.

This is a strange desire for a submissive, I think. You run the risk of disappointing him. You also run the risk of being punished; but isn’t that what you really want once and a while. So I leave it to him, as it always is. He knows what I need and how far I can go. He is very careful not to drown me, not to break me. I go so far down now that he could with very little effort, I think. So I don’t question and I won’t. Never.

He is the dominant and I am the submissive.

NE