Yes, I know the darkside. It inhabits my dreams. My fantasies. Rape, nonconsensual acts, pain, the total control of a human being, even darker subjects. All dwell in my mind. At times running these fantasies over and over. Knowing the excitement they bring.  But also knowing that the fulfillment of these desires would be the end of me.

No not the idea that I could not get away with them. That I would be caught brought to justice. Jailed, perhaps killed. Most any Wild rampant “beast” does not fear these things. Beasts hunt with wild abandon.  But knowing that if I did give in to any of my silent fantasies in reality, it would only cause others pain, destroy others lives, that I cannot do, could never do.... I would take my own life first.

Perhaps had I lived in the past, raised in a different world. With different views I suppose I would have sated my dark desires a different way. Lived my dark fantasies. As many men have throughout the centuries have done. All with a perfect bliss that they were either Sainted or Damned but cared not. Even the knights Templar whose ideals, or perceived ideals I like to follow, were in fact not much more that rapists, murderers and mercenaries. But the ideals are sound, if not the men who thought to follow them. 

See I could not live with the pain I would cause, I could never do these things. Honor, morals, a personal belief in love and the right of a human being would never allow me to stoop to that level of the pit.

So I seek I find a way to do this with love, am I a sadist? Well perhaps. I enjoy sadistic acts but to me “sadist” means a person who enjoys giving pain, and doesn’t have to care about the person. I enjoy giving pleasure at times in the form of pain, so I came up with my own description of whom I am, one that speaks of what is most important to me, “consensual sensation artist”.

I did this because above all else there must not only be consent but pleasure.   The person I create a session with must enjoy what I do, if not, if it really feels as if they are not enjoying themselves or are doing something they hate to please me alone I stop. The thrill is gone for me. Unless the “ hating of it” is what they enjoy ::smile:: I enjoy pleasing people.

Does this mean I do not visit the “darkside”? No not at all, I go there, to my darkest fantasies and I control them. Much like an attack dog on a leash or a loaded gun. Harmless, unless you lack the will to control them. Should that day ever come when I feel the control lapse, when I feel my “Domspace” control me instead of my controlling the beast inside me, I will walk away and never look back.

I was luck. In my youth, to find an outlet for the beast. I received a special invitation to a “gathering”.  It was held in one of the big old Victorian style houses in the nicer part of town.  Interesting people, ordinary house.  The basement was huge and had been converted into a dungeon.  A large raw brick hall, containing a two-level staircase, descends into the dimly lit interior. Candles toss light from wrought iron sconces. At the end of the stair, a large oaken door.

Inside the door-like opening the portal to some raw past. The air was very warm, almost humid and containing a charge as if electrified.  Haunting music piped in.  Cold cement and bare brick walls.  Painted sheets of plywood created a dark narrow twisting walkway among the red-lit play-spaces.  It was like a maze with a haunted house atmosphere.  One huge bare-chested man wore a bright red nametag naming him “DM” roamed the dungeon with his flashlight. He was the monitor.  The first space as I walked in was empty except for a few couches and daybeds arranged about a small room. When I left a few hours later, it was a pile of bodies and limbs, impossible to tell how many.

A few steps further, an immense man was completely hooded and tied to a post.  Two women had covered his chest and belly with clamps and were preparing to pull the “zipper” or string that attached them all together. 

Just beyond them, a young woman fastened her girlfriend into a suspension sling and began whipping her. 

To the other side, a man in policeman’s yellow stripe and motorcycle boots was switching between a vampire glove and a violet wand on a woman tied down to a block table.  Later, he would do a quite intense flogging that seemed sensual and evil at the same instant

Emboldened I proceed a little further. My eyes wide and my heart racing.

• a man in stocks being paddled...

• a woman stretched out on a chain rack being whipped...

• a man ordering his kneeling partner into a cage.  Later when he took her out of the cage, he tied her to a cross and was temp-piercing her breasts. 

Scenes changed in the spaces as the evening progressed and more people showed up — that was just on my first tour through that one dungeon.  

I felt at home.  I watched, listened.  A state of mental wildness and clarity, divorced from reality and time. The beast walking beside me, within me, Speaking, observing and mingling with demons and monsters and beasts, with pain and fear and a distortion of lust, and I was at home!!  I wondered who in the hell I was that this could feel natural and comforting.  Heat and screams. The sweat and the bright red welts and the eyes...oh the eyes on these people....

It wasn’t pretty or clean or light-hearted.  It was raw and hot and sometimes ugly and unlike any world I’d ever seen, and I was happy to be there.  I was alive, home. Home in this place of sweat and fear, of pain and pleasure, rapture and orgasm. Here was power; here was the open soul of the human animal basking in the light of its own sexuality. Rejoicing in that which is forbidden. Ohm yes I let the beast prowl, I let it roam and hunt, I allowed it to slaver and dream, but always tethered, always in my control. I Know I can never allow the beast free rein. Never allow it to follow its own instincts. Because the danger is always there, the danger that I would never again be able to tether it to my will, that It would control me.

So I guard the beast and until the day that part of me, that particular sweaty demon becomes too much  ::smile:: I wield my “art”.  I seek to excel, I strive to bring those I chose as my partners to new heights of pleasure, new extremes of sensation. I watch their reactions, the sweat as it rolls down their glistening bodies, listen to their moans, watch them writhe with pleasure and at times fear. Knowing all the while that they enjoy my art, asking them repeatedly, rewarded with a sigh, a smile and a breathy “Yes”.

For at the heart of my true self I seek to create, I seek to become a “master” at what I do, because the beast aside, my pleasure aside, the true meaning of a Master to me is to excel at something. And in this life, this realm what you excel in is the giving of ultimate pleasure.

One day I may feel the control slip. I don’t see that day close, In fact I don’t see it at all. But I am ever watchful of the day when the beast is more than I can control.  We all have a beast. Those that control it are out here, walking free. Those that do not control that side of themselves are well.... mostly locked up. And deserve to be.

Its all perspective I guess. Perhaps some of us just have the ability to see what we truly are, and to cage that which we know must be caged. But is that the difference? Is the “essence” of the difference those who control these desires and those who act with no limits upon these desires?

Is honor at the core? The will to “do no harm”? or is it legality and civilization the influences control?  To me the former seems stronger than the later. But these are issues that are not often discussed. Who wants to look that beast in the eyes? But it must be discussed.  Not only the desire to do these things, But the reasoning behind rationalizing it. Not only to ourselves but others.

Look deep into the whys and wherefores of what you do. Make sure you have a tight reign on your “ beast” and think. Not only about the why, but also about why you feel you have the right to act upon these baser desires. Not rationalize it by stating “they wish me to” or someone enjoys it. I seek to do this out of not only love, but to sate the beast. To toss him a crumb, and therefore control him - lest he overcome me. I ask you. Answer the question well for yourself.  Be sure of the whys, and the why nots and its easier to communicate it to others.