SEXIS WRONG

Blood
Jennifer Bennett
I have never let anyone else enter my body like this. Blood
has been a pleasure, a torture that I have reserved for myself.
But now I hand you the blade, tell you that there is one
last task I have for you tonight. You have been wonderfully
submissive, and a certain power and mystery (I am loathe to
call it magic) charges the air. I want to give of myself with the
trusting, need-filled hunger that you show, but I can’t. I don’t
understand submission in the same way, and fear I can’t ever
bridge that gap. Submitting to a man doesn’t feel like a choice
I can make for myself but the fulfillment of an external expectation.
But understand this: I appreciate your gift of yourself
to me. I feel that you do belong to me, preposterous as that
notion is; right now it is the truth.
I hand you the blade and tell you to cut me. I point to the spot
on my left forearm where I want the mark.
I’ve been waiting for the right time to open my flesh to you.
Wanting my own mark to match the small cross I gave you a
month or so ago, now a small, light scar. I’ve been planning
on recutting it to thicken the white keloid lines. It was only
the second or third time I’d cut you and the first time that I
really let myself give in to my excitement. My sudden sense
of arousal surprised me and, I think, frightened you.
I’d slowly cleaned the blade with precut alcohol swabs, savoring
the sharp, stinging smell as it swelled and then evaporated.
I used maybe ten packets between the blade and your
flesh, more than enough to prep your arm physically. Enjoying
the psychological preparation and ritual sense of cleaning
you, the heightened impact on all your senses that the alcohol
effected. Smooth and cool on your arm, the smell hit your
nose, and you closed your eyes, then opened them again.
You wondered if I was ready and raised your head, no fear
in your eyes as they met mine. You held out your arm, aware
that it was a sacrifice, a holy act and not just kinky sex that I
wanted.
I picked up the clean blade, suddenly shaking with excitement.
I cut you, not too deeply. Tension flowed from my
body through the blade with the force to part flesh. Your skin
opened, blood welled up at the apex of the cross. I bent to lick
it delicately but couldn’t bring my mouth away. I sucked wistfully,
body writhing around the slit in your arm. Sucking and
swallowing. My tongue moved into the wound, you pulled
away slightly at the pain. I looked up at your face, aware that
my eyes must look slightly mad, pupils dilated and burning
into yours with my plea for more blood. You worked your arm,
massaged the skin, made a fist to bring it to the surface for
me. It was so dark against your pale arm. I wanted to cry,
drip salty, stinging drops on the wound and lick up the small
river that would course toward the fold in your elbow. I was
done sucking. I opened more foil packets, quickly cleaned the
I hand you the blade and
tell you to cut me.
blade and wiped up the wet streaks from your arm.
But tonight I hand the blade over and ask you to cut me. I’d
told you before that this is off-limits behavior, and you are
confused, unsure if I really want this or if I’m responding to
the energy in the air or some darker force within myself of
which you’re still unaware. Probably both of these are true,
but I know that my feelings won’t shift back now that the
boundary has broken open.
“Tell me how,” you whisper. “You’re the expert.”
BLOOD 23