poetry

whispers, after

I recorded audio for this piece, download the mp3 if you’d like to hear me read it.

“I really like the way you fuck me.”

“I’m not fishing, really, I don’t mean it like that – I’m genuinely curious – what do you like?”

It’s slow. Soft and slow, a slow steady build which means I am ready for more before you give it to me: a rarity, precious, because I open so rarely.

A desperation in my pelvis, my cunt, to be filled, to be broken down, to be taken apart into molecules and slowly put back together.

Then there’s that feeling of opening. Desperate, again, a desperate opening, something becoming wide and hungry.

And it’s all so slow and steady. So rock-steady, so solid. Makes my heart burst in my chest and I want to cry out, beg, ask for more, please, please, more, deeper, harder, faster, more, make me feel. I try to bite my tongue, here in this space, try not to let the desperation show. It seeps through the cracks of my eyelids and fingertips anyway. I know it is not hidden. I cannot quite access it with my voice, yet.

Instead, this is what my voice does: whimpers. Moaning with every exhale because my body is at such a vibration that the mere passage of air through my lungs and throat and vocal chords and mouth will exert sound. I cannot stay quiet. Oh oh oh at the very least and then there’s low hums of sound like ohhmmm and I remember what my yoga teacher used to say about the sound of the universe spinning and I feel my heart in orbit. I feel my atoms in orbit and I’m distilled down to the very sources of me, pooling on this bed, this floor, leaning against this wall, wherever, and you’re watching my eyes and I can feel the way you look through me, into me, and I think, this is what it feels like to be seen and it’s beautiful.

I like the way you surprise me with dominance, with force, with a sting or slap or bite. I love the rings of teeth marks on my biceps and inner thighs, the marks you’ve left, they’re fading now and I wish they wouldn’t, I wish they would always be there, wish for layers and layers of these bruises in different shades of yellow and blue and purple and the tender pink not yet deepened into black. I wish I could point to each one and remember the many days it took you to put them there. One a day for a week. For a month. A new way to tell time, a calendar on my arm.

It is not a threat to my masculinity that you wear a cock. That you fuck me with it. It has been, it could be, but you make me feel so boyish, despite your palmfulls of my breasts and twists of my nipples and the ways you say “oh I love the curves of your body,” and I know you mean the femininity, my hips, the way my ribcage gently tapers, my round full breasts I hide with binding and jog bras and button-downs.

Despite this – or maybe because of this, maybe precisely because you acknowledge my very female body, maybe precisely because you see me, really see me, really witness my soft underbelly, the vulnerable girl side of me that I have worked so hard to overturn, override, you see me and acknowledge me, too, actually speak about my body – despite this, you play with my masculinity with such respect and reverence, and it lives in such a solid place in me now, that it doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t contradict, it only affirms what I am already knowing in my body: the ways you witness, then acknowledge, then rejoice, in me.

Published by Sinclair Sexsmith

Sinclair Sexsmith (they/them) is "the best-known butch erotica writer whose kinky, groundbreaking stories have turned on countless queers" (AfterEllen), who "is in all the books, wins all the awards, speaks at all the panels and readings, knows all the stuff, and writes for all the places" (Autostraddle). ​Their short story collection, Sweet & Rough: Queer Kink Erotica, was a 2016 finalist for a Lambda Literary Award, and they are the current editor of the Best Lesbian Erotica series. They identify as a white non-binary butch dominant, a survivor, and an introvert, and they live outside Seattle as an uninvited settler on traditional, ancestral, & unceded Snoqualmie land.

33 thoughts on “whispers, after”

  1. terroni says:

    this is beautiful, sinclair.

  2. beautiful is exactly the right word.
    and just like you say, being seen for exactly who you are, even through the layers of who we hide ourselves behind, and being witnessed and validated there, even loved there, is the greatest gift of presence we can give or receive.
    imho.

  3. jen says:

    Your writing, this ongoing story, it makes me weak in the knees.

    "this is what it feels like to be seen"

    and really…what else does any of us really want.

    If it is this beautiful to watch this develop from afar, I cannot imagine how exquisite it must be to live it.

    Keep writing, I am now offically living vicariously through your writing:)

  4. Z says:

    Everyone else got in before me with the beautifuls, but that's what it is. It may be difficult, but you are very fortunate to have someone who glories in all that you are.

  5. Chef says:

    As DD's bff (how silly that we persist in using these little letters) I must add my voice to all the others. I haven't officially met you yet… but oh how happy I am to see how happy you are making her. The care with which you are holding her is even bringing me joy.

  6. Jan says:

    me too….. reading your posts makes me so HOT. I want to be you. I want to be Miss DD. I want to be in the room with you both. I want to be in the middle.

    Yipes! I used to be a "good" girl!

  7. Nic says:

    This is absolutely beautiful. Thank you for sharing it.

  8. Sinclair says:

    chef: deep thanks for that comment. the approval of the friends is oh so important, and I certainly revere her – I'm glad it comes through.

    jan, jen, & everybody – thank you, for the lovely compliments

  9. Viviane says:

    Such a wonderfully written, super hot post.

    And because I can hear your breathy, eager voice reading it, even more so.

    Podcast, anyone?

  10. I don't think I can handle a podcast of this post. What am I saying??? YES PLEASE.

    Maybe if we all ask nicely….

  11. Belle says:

    Love… In a time oh no hope you give me hope. I will be waiting for the pod cast. Maybe in exchange for the unsent package?

  12. blckndblue says:

    Oh– the section about the bruises is so, so nice and perfect. Marking time by fading bruises. Now I have to listen…

  13. p.s., i read this over the phone to my gf, who about passed out in excitement …

  14. Pingback: Sugasm #117

Leave a Reply