Valentine’s Day 2015

I love seasonal candy. I love walking the candy aisles, looking at all the new offerings for Christmas, Easter, Halloween, Valentines Day. It’s one of my favorite kinds of shopping, and I often do a bit of perusing and coming back later and perusing some more, before I buy anything. I find it calming, and deeply enjoyable to consider the many options available. I can only eat candy in small amounts (due to the diabetes), which likely makes me savor the experience of buying it as much as I savor the experience of eating just a couple bites.

This year, I wasn’t able to do that for Valentines Day. I got hit by a car (pedestrian hit and run) right around new years, which resulted in a fracture in my leg that meant knee surgery and 8 weeks of non-weight bearing rest. so no walking the candy aisle for me. I was able to get a few things from grocery delivery, but not the kind of selection I usually savor. It’s a small thing, really. One of many things that are different/difficult/impossible to do on my own in my current disabled state (which is different from my disabled state prior to the hit and run). But it meant something to me, was a loss attached to this season that I was sad about.

Today, I received a care package, from the wonderful and talented Jade A Waters, an erotica writer who I met a bit over a year ago when we were doing an erotica reading as part of the launch of The Big Book of Orgasms.

Jade had sent me a whole bunch of Valentine’s candy, with a note that read: “Dear Xan, I figured that since you weren’t able to wander the candy aisles this year, then I’d just send some of the aisle to you. Happy Valentines Day. Get Well Soon. xoxo, Jade” The picture at the top of this post is of the candy she sent me, next to my injured knee, being held by a bear that has kept me company in the wake of hard medical stuff.

I cannot measure how touched I was by this gesture, the thoughtfulness of it, the caring in it. For a long time, I thought that queers were the only ones that built caring connections like this, chosen extended families and networks, where folks stepped up and did kind things for people they were loosely connected to. Because that connection was still meaningful, and important. Because we would likely need it too someday. From what I’ve witnessed in the past couple years especially, as I’ve been more closely connected to other erotica writers on social media, I feel incredibly honored to be part of the erotica community. We have each other’s back, we step up for each other in beautiful ways. We care about each other.

In the spirit of the lovely and heart warming gesture I was lucky enough to receive, I thought I would offer a gesture in return (along with my sincere thanks especially to Jade and also to all the fellow erotica writers who have been sweet to me since the hit and run–your kind words have meant more than you can know).

I’ve been posting some this week about the need to create space to talk about and honor sadistic desire and top’s vulnerabilities. So I thought I would offer a piece of my erotica that centers those things, for free, here. If you enjoy it, you can thank Jade for inspiring the gesture, by going to her site and reading her stuff, and, if you have the funds, buying a book that contains her work.

“A Wolf’s Yearning” is a short piece that centers the sadistic desire of a stone genderqueer diabetic werewolf named Rocky. This post tells you a bit of the origin story, which is rooted in conversations I was having with another dominant sadist. It is part of a series of stories I am writing that centers characters with disabilities and chronic illnesses. As a heads up, this story describes sadistic desire (that has the sort of ravenous quality that is likely to occur with a diabetic werewolf), a strong possessive D/s dynamic, pain play, fear play, and fisting.

(I am thinking of extending this story, to a full length story or maybe even a novella. If you want more of Rocky and Frankie, let me know.)

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A Wolf’s Yearning

by Xan West

for Holly

Rocky was filled with yearning. Ze wouldn’t generally use that kind of word about hirself, even inside hir own head. It was too tender, and Rocky liked to think of hirself as tough. But it was the absolute right word. Ze was undone by this boy. Filled with possessive, protective desire that hit way too close to home.

Usually, hir sadist was in accord with hir wolf—they both wanted to rip bottoms to shreds. The bottoms begged for it. They came looking for exactly that kind of destruction, death-urge plain on their faces. Rocky had spent many years honing the fine edge of hir control over hir deepest sadism. Ze rode the chaos of it, using hir dominance to keep a firm leash on hir beast, holding hirself back from the kill that the prey panted for. Most of the time, it took all ze had to keep from killing hir lovers. They wouldn’t have objected, or helped hir keep the scene under control. Ze had to do it all by hirself. And keeping hir wolf in check was no small job.

It was different with Frankie. When Rocky was around her, ze found hirself wanting something else entirely from this painfully handsome midsized butch with crinkles around her eyes. There was something in her strut, that cocky grin of hers, the proud set of her broad shoulders, the calm surety in her brown face. Frankie wasn’t prey. Perhaps that’s why Rocky’s wolf thirsted for something so different with her.

Ze wanted to claim her.

No, “wanted” wasn’t a strong enough word. Rocky yearned to claim her, with all the fervent vulnerable ferocity that only a wolf could bring to something new and frightening.

Ze wanted to rub hir scent all over Frankie. To take her clean smell away and replace it with the scent of Rocky’s desire and sweat and dominance.  Ze ached to feel Frankie writhe, solid underneath hir fat body, holding on with all her might to Rocky’s huge arms. Ze would nestle her close, wrap her in those arms so tight and safe, and bite down on her bared neck, marking her, dark and raised and intensely sensitive to the touch.

After their fifth date, Rocky dreamed of her. Ze woke sweat-soaked and growling, claws extended, surrounded by the sheets ze’d torn all to fuck in hir sleep. Erotic dreams were hell on a werewolf’s bed linens.

In hir dream, ze luxuriated in Frankie’s nakedness, rubbing hir red-brown fur all over Frankie’s lighter brown skin, until she was covered in hir scent and any wolf within a hundred miles could tell Rocky’d marked hir. Frankie was hirs. Ze wanted everyone to know it, even before they saw them together. Ze wanted them to smell it on her, their scents comingled, interlaced with the acrid scent of blood under hir mark.

Not because ze was interested in exclusivity—ze didn’t want that—but because Rocky wanted to declare their connection to everyone who mattered, whether they saw Frankie on hir arm or not. Ze wanted them to know that Frankie was hirs.

Ze knew Frankie wanted that; hadn’t she said she wanted to be Rocky’s boy? She knew what she was getting into, it wasn’t like she was new on the block or anything. It was Rocky who felt new. At 53! Ze couldn’t even wrap hir mind around that. Just when ze thought there were no more surprises, this wickedly smart butch slipped past hir guard.

Ze yearned to mark her. With teeth and skin and pain. To hold her, claim her, taste the fear on her skin. The marks weren’t only about others knowing who they were to each other. Frankie would have tangible sensory reminders that she was Rocky’s boy. Every time she moved her neck, caught Rocky’s scent on her skin, shifted those gloriously thick thighs and felt the bruises ache, she would be reminded that she belonged to Rocky.

Marking her neck would feel solid, real, a deep claiming in the primal sense. It would satisfy hir dominant and hir wolf all at once. Rocky’s wolf filled with ferocious contentment at the idea of biting Frankie’s throat. Ze growled imagining it, savoring the taste of her, the feel of Frankie writhing under hir bulk, hir teeth grinding into the big muscle in the boy’s neck.

Rocky knew Frankie would smell just like turón when she was scared, and hir cane would leave deliciously dark marks on Frankie’s skin. Yes, that cane would make Frankie’s thighs so sweetly bruised, almost black, striated with purple the shade of ube. When a diabetic werewolf starts dreaming of a lover as the sweetness of foods that taste like home and comfort, ze is in deep.

It had been so long since Rocky had been home. Ze ached for the tastes and smells. That was a whole other yearning, one that filled hir chest with a burning throb that ze could barely swallow around. How could Frankie smell like home? She wasn’t even Filipino. But Rocky knew she would, if ze could get her scared in just the right way.

Rocky lay amidst the ravaged sheets, imagining hir claws against Frankie’s throat, watching her eyes darken with fear twined round desire. Ze could taste how much Frankie loved the sharpness on her flesh. Rocky had the boy exactly where ze wanted her, the edges of hir claws against the sides of Frankie’s throat, controlling her breath, the metallic odor of adrenaline wafting off her skin.

Frankie stayed prey-still for hir, even though she was anything but prey. She was choosing to pour her relentless strength into her submission, and that meant controlled, grounded stillness, even amidst the fear. Everything in her gaze said she trusted Rocky, that this was exactly what she wanted, and she was a powerhouse of support if Rocky needed it. It was steadying, made it possible for them both to savor Frankie’s fear together.

Rocky gripped Frankie’s throat tighter, upping the ante, raising fear in waves for both of them to ride, tasting the meat of it, feeding on its power, thrusting it into hir boy. Ze would claim her just as much with fear as with teeth and pain and sex.

Yes. That’s how Rocky wanted her. Scared and strong and under hir massive body. Covered in hir scent, marks on her skin announcing that this was hir boy. That’s how Rocky would fuck her for the first time, one claw gripping her hair, the other hand burrowed all the way inside so that ze could feel Frankie ripple around hir fist. Ze wanted to bask in the warmth and rightness of hir fist buried in hir boy. To watch Frankie’s eyes as ze began to move that fist, twisting it just right, thrusting it deeper, pulsing the muscles, intent on pushing Frankie to take it for hir.

Those deep brown eyes had captivated hir since they first locked gazes, and Rocky could not wait to find out what they would do when ze started to fuck her rough and sweet, so deep and insistent. Rocky thought ze might be able to make Frankie cry as ze fucked her. That would get all of hir off so damn hard. Hir wolf, hir dominant, and hir sadist agreed that making boys cry and come all at once was the best thing in the world, that magic recipe for the rare kind of orgasm Rocky yearned for: hir own.

There was something about this boy in particular that added Rocky’s own fear to the mix in a way that almost felt delicious. Rocky knew that if ze cracked open and a dam burst inside hir when ze came, that Frankie could help hir hold on, channel the energy, keep hir rooted in the chaos. It wasn’t just that ze wanted to keep Frankie safe, though that urge was bursting inside hir. Rocky knew that the boy was up to keeping hir safe. And that made it worth the risk. Even if ze did crack open.

It was time to call the boy, tell her yes, and get her over here. Now. Rocky needed to see what Frankie would look like sprawled on the deep blue of the shredded sheets on hir bed.