Mark Mann, illustrated man (image: The Void)

The slave that rules a master always finishes by hating himself. And so I keep a picture of him by my cluttered bed to torture myself. In it he stands erect, his cerulean eyes sharp with determination, his red mittens dangling from his sleeves like apples from the sinewy boughs behind him. In the picture it isn’t clear whether he has landed in the orchard to conquer and subdue it, or if he has just emerged from the foliage itself, a sylvan demigod, glistening with dew.

Once he caught me smoking on the sly, and in his uncomprehending eyes I read the reprobation of every mystic that wanders across empty fields, for whom the only remaining mystery is the impurity they cast off long ago.

It may seem strange for a grown man to say these things about a three-year-old boy, especially about his own son, but I have my own purity: the purity of hatred. At night I hear him breathing down the hall, and his breathing suffocates me.

There isn’t life enough in the world to fill his greedy lungs.

–

Mark Mann is a Montreal writer.

–

Mingus Tourette is a writer whose business card reads: “Mingus Tourette
Emphatic Graphomaniac
Chronic Neologist
Thanaphobic Bastard
Purveyor of Fine Apostasy
Effervescent Fuckaroo
&
Notorious Drunkard, Esquire.” He is also the author of the cult poetry book, Nunt.

Naughty nun "Miss Fecioara Imaculată 2008" (photo by Flickr user Hizento)

But there’s always the safe word, the one I sometimes scream in my head but never let past my lips. I would rather endure this, live through this, come out the other side bloodied but unbowed. I would rather know that I am the one with secret strength, the ability to take whatever is thrown at me and simply survive it. There is no greater power – the power of slaves.

We are all a product of the slave morality, these Christian family values. What is good has been upended; good is now evil, bad is now good. We righteous slaves dominate your will to power, bend you, break you though you do not know it. You believe that you must go to woman with a whip, and so you do, pummelling my flesh and raising welts in this dungeon I enter voluntarily. Throw me to the lions; I submit to your violence and accept your anger. I choose to believe this is my punishment, deserved for the sheer fact of my existence. I allow you to humiliate me for the greater good. The entrance fee for heaven is steep, but I’ve heard it’s worth the price.

We only learn our lessons through pain. Pleasure is too fleeting. What do you get out of this? A feeling of superiority? When I cry out beneath you, do you feel a sense of satisfaction? Would you offer me a crown of thorns, gamble for my clothing, taunt me for my egotism though I have never said I wish to be holier than thou?

You hurt me because you care. You want to show me some greater truth about myself – that I am strong at the core. How else can I withstand such abuse? Each day, new hardships. Each day, what doesn’t kill me makes me harder, leaner, faster, better. Suffering moulds me in a way that satisfaction cannot. It is the aesthetic of the ascetic, starving for visions, flagellation in exchange for paradise. I have sewn brambles into my coarse shirts and cut off all my hair. You have crawled beneath my blanket in search of apocalypse, curious about the women your vows have forbidden you. But now you are God’s minister, standing here in your starched white collar, testing me. You want to see how far I will go to please you. I prostrate myself before you and you remain unsatisfied. No matter how low I go, you want me lower. I debase myself for you. Why? Out of love? Fear? Respect? Longing? How will my suffering please you most, master?

If you tell me you love me, this relationship dies. I don’t want your love, and you cannot love a shadow, a sycophant. I need you, yes. I want you, of course. But love has no place in this equation. We share a common desire. We need to know the truth about ourselves, our bodies, our secret longings. You wish to dominate, and I wish to be enslaved. But underneath these black and white distinctions lies a river of uncertainty. Who do you really see when you bring the whip down on my shoulders? Is it me, or the father who beat you? Is this the manipulation of an innocent Mary or the destruction of a whorish Magdalene? What are you really looking for, what are you really doing here in this room? Where is your mind? Where is your faith? Where is your Jesus fucking Christ?

And what am I thinking of when you assert your brand of power? To whom shall I pray when my god is the smiting sort? I am Saint Sebastian, pierced with arrows. I am Joan of Arc, burned at the stake. I am every martyr who reached divinity through tragic suffering. I am your only son, crucified for the sake of ungrateful unbelievers. With each lash of the whip, am I here in the moment of painful truth or am I trying to escape? I feel every blow, but the mind is difficult to control. It seeks solace, it seeks release. Anything but the agony of reality. Pain releases endorphins; eventually I stop feeling that searing sensation. All I really feel is numb. High. My body takes my mind away, like a senile grandparent shuffled off to bed. How will I ever understand myself when my own body shelters me from what is really happening here and now?

I need more pain in order to experience more life. And all of these words fall short when I am there in the moment, struggling to hold on to the one true brush with reality.

Perhaps you do love me, then, in a way that is hard to nail to any cross. This is no faery tale romance, obviously, and neither of us expects to stay together ‘til the bitter end. It is something unspoken, a strange understanding that is read between the lines. You would not help me to find this place of power and truth if you did not care. You would not stay your hand if you did not wish for me to survive, to grow stronger. You would not attempt to walk the fine line between justice and mercy; you would not ask me to play this role if you did not believe I could handle its responsibilities.

I will never speak of these things, but I see that they exist. Knowing is enough. I will not betray you with a kiss.

Your power is not absolute. Your cruelty exists for reasons beyond good and evil. We are both dominant and submissive, tumbling together in search of more. We are not like the others, the ones who accept without question, always on bended knees before dead altars, useless sacraments. Stick out your tongue and receive the only body that counts. Drink the only life that exists, but do not ask for one of your own. The kingdom of heaven is at hand, but you will never pass through its pearly gates with those questions in your eyes. Father, when was your last confession?

We are searching for answers to questions that cannot be framed: Is this erotic? Does this make you happy? Does it turn you on? Have you found Jesus?

We are looking for understanding where none can exist. Power is an aphrodisiac. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Powerful men want what all men want, only more so. Love is manipulation. True love is like ghosts. What are these phrases meant to say? Where lies the truth?

Stop posing the questions. They are nonsense. The body silences the brain for the moment of orgasm and we understand the universe for one second. Do this every night for two months and you will have one minute of understanding. This is more than any Bible can tell you about the nature of God. But time is wasted. We must know more, dig deeper, press harder. Let us try more desperate measures. Let us attempt the more difficult procedures. Let us trust our own ingenuity and methods.

Tie me. Fuck me. Show me how it’s done. Master, slave, father, teacher, lover. Make and unmake me, and I shall do the same for you.

XXX

Laura Roberts is Editor-in-Chief of Black Heart magazine.

I heard it
this way
perhaps
because I needed
to:

Still, be.

–

Corey Mesler has been a book reviewer, fiction editor, university press sales rep, grant committee judge, father and son. With his wife he owns Burke’s Book Store, one of the US’s oldest independent bookstores. He has published prose and poetry in such diverse publications as Re)verb, Mitochondria, Monkeybicycle, Arkansas Review, Potomac Review, Slant, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Mid-American Poetry Review and Red Rock Review. His novel, We Are Billion-Year-Old Carbon, is from Livingston Press.

there’s no you
in this story –
cause everyone knows
it all comes to an end
when the man moves in
time to put away the heels,
the fancy undies,
unlace the corset
though there’s been the odd dalliance
and will it betray you
all to know
that some nights I want
to hang up the tiara
and be the weaker one
I’ve imagined them all
in my bed – J’onn, Steven, Bruce
and if you believe the stories
Kal’s even stayed
once or twice
besides who doesn’t want
to submit some days
it’s always like this
in the second act
tied full length in lingerie
ankles garroted by truth
nothing binds so well
renders me senseless and left
to the whims
then we both can pretend
I don’t want this:
the suburban fantasy
being tied down

–

Tanis Rideout’s first appearance was in a foreign story line (Unclear Origins issue #8) – which took her through Tai Chi Ch’uan poetry training around the globe. Never a master of the secret identity, in her young adulthood she took a meditative refuge from the world to refine her style and master control of language and rhythm (see: The Lost Years issue #4). During that time she learned to wield words with ninja-like precision. She emerged from seclusion to join the Justice League of Poets (JLP – The Northern Stories, issues #63 on). Current plotlines have left our hero seeking to balance her search for poetic justice with regular daily existence (The Continuing Adventures of Po’ It Girl).