I want him to come to me under the cover of darkness: whether it is night or I’m blindfolded or my eyes are closed, I want it dark. I want to have to rely on my other senses to appreciate our togetherness.

Will I hear his boots on the floor first or will I smell his scent in the air? Will I hear his voice or feel his skin so close to mine that a current flows between us?

I want to rely on my sense of smell: the rich smell of leather, the tingling smell of metal, the salty smell of human skin.

I want to rely on my sense of taste: the taste of his breath, his skin upon my lips, the taste of the thick air in my throat.

I want to rely on my sense of sound: the soft crackle of a candle, the stealthy movements he makes, the whoosh of leather flying through the air before it strikes its target.

I want to rely on my sense of touch: the soft, gentle touch of fingertips following the contours of my body, the blows from paddles and crops, the scraping of fingernails along the welts left behind.

I want my lover to come to me under the cover of darkness. I want to feel and taste and hear and smell him.

—

A DEDICATION.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Dear, near and true–no truer Time himself
Can prove you, tho’ he make you evermore
Dearer and nearer, as the rapid of life
Shoots to the fall–take this, and pray that he,
Who wrote it, honoring your sweet faith in him,
May trust himself; and spite of praise and scorn,
As one who feels the immeasurable world,
Attain the wise indifference of the wise;
And after Autumn past–if left to pass
His autumn into seeming-leafless days–
Draw toward the long frost and longest night,
Wearing his wisdom lightly, like the fruit
Which in our winter woodland looks a flower.*

*The fruit of the Spindle-tree (Euonymus Europaeus).