The Big Book of Submission

Kintsukuroi: The Japanese art of repairing broken items, i.e., pottery, with precious metals or lacquers, in the belief that they are then more beautiful for having been broken. See also, Kintsugi.

I know when he finishes with me, I will be a heaving, flailing mess of limbs. A pile of rags. A sack made of skin, filled with flesh and the putty, the Jell-O he has made me. I will be tears and weeping, the dragging edge of being lost in my own mind, pulled down under the depth of giving to him.

I will be carved from the earth, repaired with the gold of his words, of his work.

That is the way of it with him, and why he will only come to me once a month, sometimes not even that frequently. He doesn’t have any interest in explaining himself to me, but I know it’s because he likes to see me mended, threaded through with my strength. We that do this, that love like this, have the same vocabulary with alternative definitions. My beauty is in being broken and repairing. My strength is in my scars.

He traces old scars when he touches me. He traces the stains of his love. He licks the places where he has curetted away what I didn’t need. And shivers run through me. Because his mouth is cold. His words are cold. The floor is cold under my knees.

“Eyes down.” His fingers are warm as he tilts my face. “I think there may be a day when I don’t have to remind you of that. Why do you want to look at me?”

I know I’m not meant to answer so I don’t speak. But there’s an answer on my lips. I look because I can’t look away. You’re a maelstrom I can touch and not die. You are gravity. I’m so glad I don’t get the privilege of a voice because I would have felt so stupid if I had said that out loud. He doesn’t appreciate childish flattery. He doesn’t like me to idolize anyone. I shouldn’t, but I do.

His cock is out, brushing my hair where it has fallen out of the braid, against the back of my neck. I want to look at it, touch it. I want it on my lips. Tears prick my eyes because I can’t stop putting myself first, putting what I want first. The velvet head brushes my cheek.

I know the moment he sees my tears as he rounds my body, a small intake gasp. A murmured hum and his hand gripping his shaft. “Why are you crying? You know how much I like that.”

His thumb collects a tear from the corner of my eye and circles around the head of his cock, mixing the salt of my tears with the salt of his skin and the salt of his precome. Three salts. My tears come harder and I don’t know why. Only that this is all playing out in front of my face and I know it means he’s not done with me yet. And that he is nearly done with me. I’m already aching and sore. I’m already empty. But I can’t breathe for how much I want him. I want to be torn apart. I want to surrender more than I have. I don’t know what I want and that’s why I kneel. It’s what he gives me.

His thumbs slip into my slack mouth, massaging my tongue and running along my teeth. His cock follows and his hand crowns me. I’m golden. Mouth open. Ears open to his murmurs. I want to move on him. I want to swallow and suck and massage, maybe nip at him. I want to get his scrotum in my mouth too. I want to hum and smile and drool all over him. I want to frenzy. All the tension, all the coiled energy of the day fills me.

I close my eyes and feel beloved trickle through me, finding the cracks. Each broken place. Each empty, achy spot. He feels like honeycomb dripping directly on my brain. Like summer sunshine heat on the back of my neck.

The tears leak around my lashes again because he heals me. Healing hurts. Repair is painful. The hot lacquer that will hold me together burns as it finds every defect.

He sets the pace of what he does with my mouth. But we both know it’s because I want it like this. I want to be splintered apart and put back together. I want to hold him in my mouth, literally and metaphorically. I want the seat of my power, my words, my worth, to have been filled with him. I want the vessel that carries me through my life to be marked with him. I want it to last. I want him to king me. To let me worship him, serve him.

And because he knows it, he always makes it a challenge. Today he lashed my back till I bled, the deep scarlet splattering on the strands of his implements. My implements. I own them. I keep them, maintain them. But they’re his. The way my skin is his. The way my mouth is his.

My throat is crowded now, the head of his cock filling me up, unapologetic. It could be so impersonal, but it isn’t. This is art. This is holy. This is something I can’t name.

My wrists are still tied to my ankles and another length of rope connects my elbows. He likes to contort me. My fatigue wrecks my posture. But these are the absent thoughts of a mind wandering from its task.

His cock in my mouth. His skin on my skin. I want it all. I want to give it all to him. I love that he gets naked with me. That he doesn’t need to lead from a place of clothing while I’m nude. I love that I can see the hair on his legs, the twitch of the muscles in his thighs. He turns my head to the side, angling me for his pleasure or just to remind me that he can move me however he wants. I can see his feet, my initial tattooed over the top of his right foot. He told me he’d take pain for me too, that when I kiss his feet I am loving myself too.

I shudder as the familiar emotions run through me. The feeling of emptiness and the molten shock of being filled with love. The spasm of pain at bursting for him, exploding with his heat. The love of him.

I hate that it’s this complicated. I hate that I can’t just love like someone else. Like other people do. I hate that I need it to hurt so much in order to break me open so I can access this. But I’m so goddamn grateful that he understands.