A Guest Post by Xan West
Part of the "Show Yourself To Me" Blog Tour
The first play party I went to was at Castlebar, a dungeon space in San Francisco that has been closed for over a decade. It was originally a warehouse, had high ceilings and a big central room where most of the play happened. There were also smaller rooms you could rent for private play, and social areas with comfortable chairs and couches. I was a novice, and I’m sure my eyes were wide and my gaze hungry and fascinated and frightened all at once, as I took everything in.
I had braved my way into a dyke leather social. I went alone, heart in my throat, hands that couldn’t stop fidgeting, fascinated by things that barely made sense to me. Why was there a bowl of clothespins on each table that seemed to delight people so much? They were colorful, different sizes, but what did they mean?
I managed to connect with a few folks at the social, despite being completely distracted by the fact that all these queer women were actually kinky. Our small group, that included a couple other novices and one experienced player, decided to go out to dinner and then go to the women’s play party that very evening. I was barely able to pay attention to anything during dinner, barely able to eat. Excited, scared, trembling a bit with nerves, I walked in the door.
Castlebar had this disclaimer form that you signed before they let you in, acknowledging that you understood what you were getting yourself into, along with a set of rules to read. They also had a list of what you might see in huge letters right at the door. I had read a lot about BDSM, of course. But I didn’t know enough terminology to understand some of what was on that list. The words I did know made me feel even more nervous. But also…free. Like the point was to accept that I might see anything, or everything, that I had fantasized about, and a hell of a lot more possibilities I hadn’t even dreamed of.
I wandered around the party, losing my group almost immediately. I must have spent a good three hours in the big dungeon space, watching. Just watching. It was enormously liberating, the idea that it was totally ok to watch. I’d been to fag public sex spaces before, and there was often this air of secretiveness, of avoiding the gaze, hiding in the shadows of the back room at the bar. This was very well lit, and the edges of the room had chairs where you could just sit, and look, welcomed that. It was a revelation, this ability to just look, and listen, as people did kink. To let myself sink into fantasy as I did so. It changed me.
After I’d had my (temporary) fill of watching for the night, I was a bit giddy. I went into one of the social rooms and sat on a comfortable chair, began to chat with some dykes close by. One of them was this butch who was preparing to top someone in one of the private rooms, and was revving herself up for that. She pulled out some needles and explained, in a casual cheerful tone, that piercing was one of the ways she got herself ready to top, that it put her in the right headspace. She stripped off her vest, and began piercing her own chest. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, so close, no voyeuristic distance between us.
Her gaze lifted and she looked right at me, and said, in this husky voice all changed from the firm cheerful one of a moment ago, “This works better if someone does it for me.”
I explained that I didn’t know how. She said she’d teach me.
Oh, she did, giving a quick and dirty explanation about safety precautions, then holding my gaze as she explained that she thought of it as fucking. That you were fucking someone’s skin this way, and that’s what made it so hot. That made a lot of sense to me, especially once I had a needle in my hand, and it was inside her skin, blood running down her chest. Oh yes, this was a glorious way to fuck someone.
She gave me a few needles to take with me. I kept them for years.
That was my first lesson. The next time I learned blood sports was in a class I had organized a few years later, because no one else was asking people to teach the damn subject. A leather dyke stood in front of the room and had us practice on mangos with scalpels. She talked about the need to be especially careful and responsible when doing blood sports in public because they were so taboo (a huge contrast to my first lesson in blood sports). What I remember most about that class was learning that I didn’t have to draw the blood for blood sports to get me high as a kite. Just watching her cut into her submissive, and I experienced this intense beautiful rush that had me loopy for hours.
I don’t just get that experience from doing blood sports, or watching. I get it from writing blood sports, too, especially when characters drink blood. If I write a blood sports scene well enough, I can see it so clearly in my mind, feel the deep sadism and burst of desire and satisfaction all wrapped together. I’m a sadist who loves making tears fall and loves drawing blood. When the writing is good, it can get me off just to write about licking either fluid from a bottom’s skin, or watching the glory of them slowly dripping.
I write blood sports into my stories more than most folks, and it’s not just because I love them and get off writing them. It’s also because blood means so much, is such a nuanced and varied path for play, for intimacy, and for communicating culture. Blood play is a lovely element that can add so much to a story.
Most of the vampire erotica I’ve read seems to think of feeding on blood as a metaphor for sex, an aphrodisiac, an expression of power, or a path to intimacy. And certainly blood sports can feel like all of those things, but they are also a pleasure unto themselves, complete and beautiful and scorchingly hot. My vampire story, “Willing”, is written from the perspective of a sadist and a blood sports enthusiast, and I think it brings something different because of that. Here is a taste for you, a short ride inside this vampire’s desire for blood. As a heads up, this excerpt includes descriptions of pain play, D/s and blood sports.
“Please use me, Sir,” is all he says.
Mine. Possessiveness washes over me. I double the belt and start slamming him with it, the welts rising rapidly. Vision begins to blur. This is all about sound and movement. My body senses where to strike. My blows hammer him into the table. I can feel a growl building in my throat as his scent shifts. My cock swells as I hurl the belt into his back in rapid crashing surges.
“Mine,” I growl. “Mine to hurt. Mine to use. Mine to feed on. Mine.”
The possessiveness rises in me, a tsunami cresting and breaking over him as I blast the belt into his back, rending his skin. Welts form on top of welts and break the surface. He is moaning as I howl, the beast fully in my skin and oh so hungry. I lay the belt across the back of his neck and crouch on the table above him, eyes focused on the gashes opening his back to me. I drop on top of him, rubbing my chest into the blood on his back.
I breathe the scent of him in and growl happily, “Mine.”
I free my cock, swollen to bursting, and shed my pants. I will savor the first real taste. Right now, it’s enough to smell it and feel it against my skin, and I know there is more for the taking. I rub it onto my cock, stroking it in as I close my eyes. I want inside, now. Want to rend him open. Thrust myself into him, bloody and hard. I want to tear his back open with claws and teeth, and feast.
I describe this to him, and he moans his consent. “Please, Sir,” he says softly. “Please.”
He is all want and need and crave, and where his hunger meets mine, we will crest.
Having a taste of blood sports as a novice helped me know something very important about myself as a top, was one of the first times I touched my sadism. I came to kink as an edge player, and this experience was a vital moment of recognition that I was an edge player from both sides of the kneel. I treasure that, and want to offer opportunities for similar moments of recognition in my erotica.
About Show Yourself To Me
Book Description:
In Show Yourself to Me: Queer Kink Erotica, Xan West introduces us to pretty boys and nervous boys, vulnerable tops and dominant sadists, good girls and fierce girls and scared little girls, mean Daddies and loving Daddies and Daddies that are terrifying in delicious ways.
Submissive queers go to alleys to suck cock, get bent over the bathroom sink by a handsome stranger, choose to face their fears, have their Daddy orchestrate a gang bang in the park, and get their dream gender-play scene—tied to a sling in an accessible dungeon.
Dominants find hope and take risks, fall hard and push edges, get fucked and devour the fear and tears that their sadist hearts desire.
Within these 24 stories, you will meet queers who build community together, who are careful about how they play with power, who care deeply about consent. You will meet trans and genderqueer folks who are hot for each other, who mentor each other, who do the kind of gender play that is only possible with other trans and genderqueer folks.
This is Show Yourself to Me. Get ready for a very wild ride.
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