I'm writing now because I've started at least three posts over the last week, had to stop writing, lost the thread and simply gave up trying to remember what I had forgotten!

But it's been too long, so tired as I am, I must write.

I liked Elisavetta's idea of the horse; as I tried to say, it made me think about the way I ride and why I ride and to ask myself why I and that horse are still together.

The answer isn't in my name.

I am RideFlame, but that name was born in the virtual lands of deathmatch. I don't even like it, I never liked it, but it always fitted me.

Anyway, the whore's horse implies a surrender to process, sex as performance -nothing fake- but a requirement to fit and fulfill certain expectations. I was always proud of myself for being able to ride, I was triumphant at overcoming myself, or being able to bend and mold myself and to go where I needed to go.

As ex-consort...I don't instantly see any other way to do it.

I'm still conditioned not to make my partner cum; to preserve the pleasure for as long as possible, it isn't my right or place to speed things up or to decide when I cum, or even to let go and to be made to cum.

Riding has other connotations too, of being ridden, in Norse paganism to become Sleipeir to be ridden by Odin, or in Vodou, to be possessed by a deity: to be 'horsed' and this is closer to my interpretation of The Whore's Horse.

At the moment sex divides for me into two kinds: the one in which I ride the whore's horse...or am ridden, where I am possessed by the deity and pleasure is an offering.

The other is so difficult because I have to be quiet and it usually involves him doing things to me which make me struggle, and try so hard not to squeal.

We are playing with horror -nothing deep or big, stay with me here this is light and fluffy, honest- it isn't hard for me to leave my horse to graze the sweet grass in the Elysian fields, whilst I play around the unfamiliar territory of outrage and disgust (things I never let myself feel when I ride/am ridden).

As much as I'd love to list the things that I really dislike; I can't!

He reads my blog!

Any kind of list would give him ideas about what pushes my disgust buttons. It is much more fun for me not to know what to expect -and if I write, I will be expecting him to use what I've revealed.

Innocuous things get to me, like cord wrapped between my toes, like being made to sit with my feet together and my knees pushed apart. I feel vulnerable, exposed, it's kind of medical -and I hate that.

When he pulled the cord around my toes (and the rest of me is immobilised, and I can't scream) I beat the bed in frustration...and the more frustrated and panicked I become, the harder he gets...which is where his confrontation with horror resides.

How does it feel for a nice man who doesn't want to bully or push or make a woman squeal or squirm to see the illusion shatter and see that nice isn't the truth of it? Well there sure seems to be a lot of energy in it, and that, gentle reader, is good enough for me!

It is so weird for me to be horrified by his cock, so un-me and so funny and yet I am truly on the verge of freaking out when I let myself react. It allows me to replay moments when I've had to keep my head, and ride when I've wanted to run!

The horror is all in the way he does it, the way he enjoys my disgust...needless to say, I do have a safe word -though I can't for the life of me remember what it is, something to do with tomatoes I think?!

...and the horse.

I was caught by Elizavetta's post: Requiem for a Whore's Horse.

It demanded that I take a walk under a grey sky as the light bled down into the earth where once in a dream I'd let the horse go, my horse go under the grey sky. The horse had come to me under the blue, in a garden as sweet as Eden. A grey horse with broad back and gentle nature and I could no longer see her.

A darkness fell and the horse of stars came to me.

I would like a key to the liminal space.

The Underworld does not feel liminal, it is always connected to this world. The Underworld is a shadow and reflection. Looking up from the Underworld is a different view, looking up never down...

The liminal space is a sandbox, dream-forms are built up, played with and then released.

I don't have a key, but there are ways in, the small, black book that he keeps by his bed picks the lock that holds the door shut; not as efficient as a key, but it will do.

For now.

"You have an appointment at 8:30" he says.
"I want you to wear a kimono".

As I sit before him, arms held out to be bound, I ask myself why I am complying; I select laziness as my main motivation and so slip my hand out of the rope. Complying willingly or being made to comply are fine and dandy; being mindless about things wont do!

Only by sitting on me, his hand twisting my hair to pull my head down, does he manage to bind me sufficiently to be able to drag his fingers across the soles of my feet to make me gasp and struggle.

The hardest part for me is the need to be quiet; if we weren't still knee-deep in family life I'd be screaming in rage at having my feet treated to this incessant ticking, and the frustration of the rope...as it is I hold my breath to prevent any sound.

My other option would be to switch off; I can do this horribly easy, it is something the belongs to a terrible place, I suppose it may be useful to do it somewhere sometime future, but I pray not. Switching off is a death in life, a disconnection, it is something I had to do when I gave up all hope of Gilgamesh leaving retreat for his son and me, it is something that happened when I married the good doctor.

Paradoxically there is great energy in switching off, but it is the energy of the black-sun, and not to be used carelessly.

So, no switching off means I have to feel and react and to keep quiet...and listen, wondering what he is going to do next. I hear him switch on the vibrator and feel him pushing it under my legs until it lies buzzing between them as I lie on my belly.

Now I feel myself starting to go down, when he flexes my legs and begins to tie them, I am mesmerized by invisible-blue ripples radiating from the vibrator, washing me into a slipstream of pleasure...nothing like switching off..

And so it goes on.
Latter I'm explaining why truth should be used carefully and latter on cumming hard as he describes her as tactile.

He is surprised that making an appointment with me works so well; he maintains the belief that love and sex are natural and should not be contrived. I say it is exactly the same as religious practice, in theory religious practice should come from a religious nature...in reality, it is all about practice, of making the neural nets: of changing ones mind by going through the motions until the actions become meaningful. Most of the time there is very little that is natural in religious practice.

I slip into sex easily, I don't see it as special or difficult to access, perhaps that is a female thing as I don't have to worry about erectile dysfunction? Sex is a learned activity, a matter of making connections between nerve endings and what they mean, thinking about sex is almost more important than actually doing it.

But yes, the fat woman of his dreams fattens his cock and gives me great pleasure. It is a black-sun phenomenon, it feeds me pleasure in return for pain -but it no longer draws energy from the wound he made when he proved to me that I was could only be loved so long as I behaved properly.

I've been pushing at that boundary enough to cross over.

I do not behave properly and the sky resolutely does not fall in or go out.

Sometimes I lament the need for action, lament my need to push, my refuse to stay still and accept. When I write the dark-side here, I lament my need to enter the cold-place, the place where gravity slows the heart.

This is the pull of death-in-life.
It glitters with an aura of pain.
That glitter dazzles the eye and makes people fall away...

Lameness ensues, the disablement begins slowly, first the hip and then the soul for those unable to enter, to embrace the pull of death-in-life.

When I fell in love with the good doctor it happened despite me. I was just a body, his refuge, 'shelter from the storm'. I had my own path and it didn't include a return to the world -I was headed out and over the edge into the Dharmakaya, the plenum void, a midnight-blue sea where waves of all, meet become form and then dissolve. But I fell in love. Tasted a glimmer of shadows behind his reflection. I was compelled to enter within and swim the dark-tide.

And I expected him to know his own darkness, to have savoured its taste of warm salt and bitter bile, and to know how to prepare the chalice.

Instead he looked to me for approval, knocking over precious items in his hurry to do the right thing.

So now I open the span of the wild wood; and go to the cathedral of trees. I dress in gray furs and call to the wolves...

I like the idea of picking up the key -the one dropped in horror as the hero enters the 'Bloody chamber'- and pressing it between my breasts to leave a gory imprint.

In the story, the bloody key will not wash clean. By the red stain alone does Bluebeard know that his wife is lying. The idea of imprint reminds me of old films in which wily criminals would press a key into a bar of soap, and by means fair or foul use this impression to forge a key...

But I am not really the kind of person to be Queen of Bluebeard or his castle. The Goth part of me will never dissolve entirely, but it requires such inflexibility.

It was just necessary, imperative even, to enter the castle and to play the part but now I can let it go. Now I must change the scene, undo my neat hair (undo the braids) return to dreadlocks and let my arm-pit and leg hair grow. Instead of the pure white (I was going to go from brown braids to white) I couldn't help myself, I found some henna and had russet braids, now I am back to dreads and happy to see that henna on the strands of grey transforms to tartrazine -sunset yellow.

Talking of contemporary forbidden fruits (for tartrazine and aspartame, white sugar and tobacco are just the beginning!) there is amaranth; once banned by the Christian missionaries as it was sacred to Huitzilopochtli. Amaranth produces a red dye E123 and is less likely to come from the plant, than from coal-tar...hair the colour of amaranth sounds good to me.

This morning he showed me a list, he was up and dressed before me to take his motorbike early to the garage for an MOT. I counted seven things, but didn't have time to read...he flashed the list at me again, laughing because for one I'm short-sighted and two, because it takes time for me to decode hand writing.

A date, a time and something and none of it up to me.
Perfect.

Practicalities: there should be a list of things to do; a list, like a well stocked larder, a list of things we could do.

It proves that he doesn't love me because the list he said he would write doesn't exist.

Spontaneity cannot happen, I've been conditioned out of it. A list is a map. Without a decision to cross over into one of the virtual places there will be no crossing...

It has been one week or perhaps two since I understood what I'd been doing. The underlying logic was constructed on my impression that I'd gone too far, broken some politically correct class of rules and therefore been tried and condemned. My punishment was contrived to show me that I could no longer expect him to stand by my side when I needed him the most...My need was out of order, I'd asked for too much.

Consequently I felt that I was not loved, sure he loved me but only if I stayed within the boundaries that he set. From within his words and from the choice of images that worked for him I concluded that the best I could do was to act as a surrogate.

This was 'the Work' I needed to do to Hallow the bones, and earth the ghosts...I'm acting as a Sacred Whore, but without the recognition from him that this is what I'm doing.

I need my role to be understood and honoured. The uncouth man never honours, he takes and expects me to smile...

The room within the castle once filled with blood and raw bones has been purified, I have opened the way down for the ghost and they are at rest.

What I want is to have my partner back.

The bloody chamber.

I have for a million reasons decided in my own mind that a boundary line, be it a barbed wire fence or someones unwillingness to proceed further, is a kind of portal.

Admittedly it is there in Latin or French for door, or changed somewhat into windows (wind -eye) via port-hole; but for me portal is more than just a door, it is a verb. A boundary line is a portal and I will cross, though that action of crossing takes me from one world and suddenly, sometimes catastrophically, into another.

After all, a border between countries may not be passed through without the right papers or bribes; yet crossing through portals implies daring, a sudden disregard for the rules of any world. It is often a fall or a leap, but never something one accomplishes with certainty. I never expect to land on my feet, I know that I must keep the crossing secret and that the penalty for being seen, could be death.

So having found the silver key and having found the door, having put the key -so shiny and bright- into the rusty lock, I twist and turn the ancient cogs that guard this hidden room. Without thinking I enter, knowing that it is understood that this is one more of my crimes, a consequence of my lack of respect or trust or ability to see that I can be bad; for I have been told about this room and asked to leave it well alone.

All of Bluebeard's wives have entered here before me; curiosity pulled them in, they had promised to be good and to love and to respect and thought that their action would be without consequence so long as they didn't speak of where they had been. But when they, and I, saw the bloody mess and in horror dropped the key into the pool of thickly congealing blood, they ran; I did not run.

I stood still, collecting my thoughts and remembering the lessons learnt from all my other journeys into worlds fair and foul. Instead of turning and slamming the door, I stepped forwards, putting the key now bespattered in mire between my breasts to leave a sticky imprint. I spent the rest of that day and most of the night collecting the remains; wrapping the bones and more recent bodies in crimson cloth, I then set about purifying the room with incense and prayer.

As the sun rose -I imagine for this room was quite without light- my husband returned and found me. Without a word he took my arm and began to drag me into one of his torture machines, telling me that I too should accept the fate he had decreed was fitting for any woman, no matter how bright or beautiful who yet would not respect his right to privacy and to dismember any person who did not abide by his arbitrary rules!

But I kept my nerve and feigned fascination for his machines and their gruesome work; in my past I have used pain before as a portal to places perhaps not worth a visit, but I have friends there within the grey waste-lands, and know how to find beauty in harshness. I asked Bluebeard to let me travel there; a mutual desire to enjoy was I said, necessary, and hastily pointed out that my death of course would bring the enjoyment to a close...perhaps I spoke too hastily, but I had very few options as he dragged me to an area of the room, a rectangle about six foot by three. I stood still as he used a knife to cut off my clothing and stood shivering in the cold room as he fixed leather straps that had large steel loops to my arms and ankles and then clipped them onto rings embedded into the floor, so that I was on my knees. He placed a collar around my neck, and pulled my head down until my forehead was touching the floor, and then suddenly the floor lit up -it was opaque glass, lit from beneath.

Switch to the real world.

I genuinely believed that he didn't love me; that though he had wanted me, and loved me, that over time he'd realised that we would not agree on the nature of love and sex; that he would know that he could not go where I wished to go and that every time he made love to me, he would feel less than if he were with someone innocent. My knowledge of both myself and sex was a confrontation, between the ideal and the true. To avoid this conflict he would 'send me to sleep', to disconnect my conscious mind from my body.

But when I had crossed the line, when I had gone too far; when I needed him to use me; to switch off all those 80's voices and memes and to descend to the core of want/desire/possessiveness...I broke the rules.

When I opened the door to this state of mind and entered I did not expect him to try to kill me. I expected him to look upon the scene through my eyes; to offer prayer and incense, to begin the work of cleaning and loving the bones..

But instead it was as if he'd tried to drag me into some murderous machine, he made it clear that his cock was precious and not a thing I could plead for; I was supposed to be good, sane, upright and true not a grovelling mess. But grovelling mess was the only sane reaction to seeing the bloody chamber of the broken heart: grovelling is the sensation of giving up, the moment when all pride falls away, it is the sensation of descent into that place where the true work may begin...

Metaphorically, from then on, I began to live within that bloody chamber deep within Bluebeard's castle and between times, though he never really asked questions about me -as I set about hallowing the bones within the bloody chamber- he pulled the image of the woman bound and gagged out of the aethyr.

I had opened a door that was locked for good reasons, like Bluebeard he had hidden this space away, maintained it as other; it was disconnected from the real world. I entered it because it is my nature to cross through locked doors with or without permission, indeed my paperwork is rarely in order...

I don't remember too much about it. But within my despair I formulated two choices; either to truly give in -which would lead me to a zombie like existence (I've tried doing that one before...it didn't end well) or to deal with the thing in him that had cast me down; a belief system he nurtured as personal protection, and was causing him to treat me as if I deserved to be held at arms length; never to be trusted again.

It has taken until now for me to understand that he really didn't know what I was doing; for me it was a case of feeling my way through darkness. I tried to understand what I was doing, but there was something missing; one final piece I hadn't understood until yesterday.

I had believed that I was taking him via fantasy into places that held him trapped, that when I unlocked a forbidden place in him, I'd be rewarded with plenty of energy- I understood that and thought it was a process of mutual 'unlocking- but I didn't realise until yesterday that what I was actually doing was proving to him that he had had no right at all to have treated me in the way he did, when I needed him so much.

He had seen himself as so much better than me, had seen me as out of order for needing him to want me. I perceived that it was more than cultural (the 80's being such a 'moral' time!) and set out to free him of the moral prison circumstance and the opinions of others had created for him.

It was also a kind of revenge -not horrible and not unkind- but it was ultimately ruthless; I had not deserved to be treated as he treated me when he made me feel as if I'd gone too far and had stepped over a line in the sand he'd created; a line that fitted a world in which people use the word love without meaning it, and treat the feelings of others as if they are of no consequence.

And then there is still the un-couth man; a much easier phenomenon to deal with than the moral man...

My notes to remind me of things I need to uncover are in a text file on my desktop. The notes says: dread locks inner wild woman blue beards castle but life keeps on intervening. I miss the luxury of writing about sex too, because it is always such fun to replay moments and to look closely into such memories; but alas, it isn't the right time for that, or rather not yet.