[ardentfemme]

Dev pushes me onto the floor. The variegations of teak press into my kneecaps relentlessly. My mouth opens wide to take in whatever is offered to me. Warm wetness engulfs my senses until I’m drowning, gasping, begging for air. Dev holds my head in place, fingers threading through my hair like a tapestry.

Suddenly, I’m back on our bed. Dev gingerly removes my corset, gently caressing my breasts and swollen nipples. So gently, in fact, that I’m afraid for what might come next. I take the opportunity to relish the calm before the storm.

Dev presses me down against the mattress, hys knee prying my legs open. “No, Daddi, please! Not yet!” I’m so tender from the aftershock of my orgasm that hys hand feels like sandpaper. Even so, I need hys roughness inside me. It’s through Dev’s roughness that I understand my own softness. This softness that I carry around like bruised fruit. When hy bites into me, when hy squeezes the juice out of me like an orange, I am reminded of the power of softness. That it takes courage to yield. That it takes strength to surrender.

I start to move with Dev, embracing the pain instead of pushing it away. Hy digs at my insides as if hollowing out a melon, separating seeds from succulent flesh. Hy is searching for the me that I can’t show anyone else. The me that I keep hidden, tucked away in a secret place that no one else can find. I only let her out when I'm alone with Dev. Others have tried to coax her out with sweet nothings and promises. But hy drags her out by the hair.

The other me is ancient as Aphrodite and feral as a jaguar. She is both huntress and prey. When I fall into Dev’s arms, spent, I realize this isn’t an undoing, an untangling of these personas, but a coming together of the two.

And when hys ragged breath cascades into my ears, That’s a good girl. Take it just like that. I wonder, Who are you talking to? Me or her? It must be the jaguar woman hy’s talking to, the one that only hy can capture.

Because we both know I’m not a good girl.