“My love, I sing to you, this lonely road runs straight to Hell…”

A♣

 

 

 

 

I remember her shaking like glasses in the bar car of a rumbling 19th century train.

 

The cancer had rotted her brain.

 

She’d no idea who or where she was.

 

All she could do was sit, filling a bag with piss and blood.

 

I imagine her world was naught but confusion and pain.

 

 

 

 

I leaned over her seated shell as it trembled, kissed the top of her head, whispering:

 

I’ll miss you, mom.

 

I don’t think my father, brother or anyone else in the hospice room heard me say it.

 

I don’t care if they did.

 

 

 

Hours later, they put her in a bed and doped her up completely.

 

Even then, she slept fitfully.

 

I imagine my brother and I fighting, standing on opposite side of her as she lay dying between us, didn’t help.

 

Ironic, since I suspect she played us all against one another for most of our lives.

 

I hope I’m wrong.

 

 

 

Hours afterwards, the hospice nurse came to us in the waiting room; my mother had reached her final minutes, we were told.

 

My father and I went back into her room.

 

My brother stayed out.

 

He couldn’t bear to watch.

 

To this day, I don’t blame him.

 

(Not that I could if I wanted to; he hasn’t spoken to me in eight years.)

 

As she held the stethoscope to my mother’s slowing heart, the nurse left one of the earpieces hanging loose.

 

I can still hear my mother’s last three heartbeats echo off the hospice room walls.

 

She’d played rhythm for her own dirge.

 

 

 

I recall my father and brother crying.

 

I did, too.

 

Somewhat.

 

I also felt elation.

 

She was dead; she was free.

 

Free, at last.

 

Thank God almighty, free at last.

 

After suffering more agony than I’d wish on my worst enemy.

 

I’d shoot you in the fucking gut to empty your bowels and circulatory system, then roll the doomed, reeking mess in a g0ddamn ditch to fill it before I’d want that fate for you.

 

 

 

Now, I’ve seen plenty of Perdition.

 

But that’s the best view I’ve ever gotten of it.

 

Trust me; that’s saying something.

 

But, as my father once told me – well prior to that extended nightmare – and I put in my first book:

 

Life goes on. Sometimes that’s the horror of it.

 

 

 

If that experience taught me one other thing, it taught me this:

 

A woman, a job, a friend, your fondest memories…

 

It doesn’t matter.

 

You’ll lose ’em all.

 

One way or another.

 

And I know – in some fashion – she wasn’t the only one that died in that room.

 

 

A♣

“And you break your crown… you point your finger, but there’s no one around”

K♣

 

 

“I can’t believe I did that!”, she says, shocked by her own actions.

 

I smirk.

 

She continues.

 

“You snapped your fingers and, with the same hand, thumbed toward the door and I just… just jumped up and started heading that way.

 

I’ve never done that with any man.”

 

I chuckle as we leave the Goth club, and keep walking toward the car.

 

 

 

A year or so later, another woman puts on a leash, hands it to me, and has me lead her out of the same place.

 

As we exit, I hear some young guy behind me say:

 

“Damn, I wish I were him!”

 

I shake my head and echo the chuckle from 365+ days prior.

 

 

 

Having spent 11 years in and out of the BDSM scene and spending even more studying human behavior, I’m unsurprised.

 

So many men think it’s about money and looks.

 

Plenty of other men think it’s about barking orders, bullying, or intimidation.

 

And a few – the worst of them – think it’s about isolation, condescension and abuse.

 

“Treat women like shit and they’ll beg for more.”

 

To which I say to all of them:

 

Not really.

 

 

 

Sure, one can play to the old tapes running in a particular woman’s head.

 

As I wrote in my first book:

 

A familiar bed of nails will always be chosen over a strange feather mattress.

 

But that’ll be a Pyrrhic victory, at best.

 

Since that power comes with all the negativity that produced it.

 

Yes, she’ll submit.

 

But she’ll be miserable, conflicted and antsy.

 

Exactly as she was when that particular tape was recorded.

 

 

 

I’ve heard of countless men that want to be dominant, in and out of the BDSM scene, pushing women around.

 

Thinking that’s what one or both want.

 

But it’s not.

 

Not quite.

 

See, I learned the best way to get service is to demonstrate the authority to warrant such.

 

To compel submission.

 

Not to force it.

 

Simply put:

 

To raise oneself; not to stomp down another.

 

To provide an ideal to be reached or fostered; not a draconian code.

 

To be a fire that gives light and warmth; not a razing conflagration.

 

 

 

What I’ve said before (that damn few will publicly support) is:

 

Everyone yearns to serve.

 

Women, most of all, but even the most “alpha” man does, too.

 

He serves his mission, whatever it may be.

 

But serve, he does.

 

Thus, I provide folks something to serve.

 

A common goal, in the case of fellow men.

 

A stable and secure emotional foundation, in the case of women.

 

Rarely am I without company.

 

And by rarely, I mean:

 

Never.

 

 

 

The flip side to all of this is:

 

Tyrants get exactly what they enslave.

 

Which becomes bitter fruit; a feast of ashes.

 

Service by unenthusiastic servants.

 

Dissatisfied minions always seeking either an exit to plunge through toward freedom or a dagger to plunge into their master, themselves or both.

 

So these despots keep pressing boots upon necks.

 

Flogging until morale improves.

 

And wonder why the cycle becomes nothing but a downward spiral.

 

A prisoner in the palace as much as those placed in the dungeons below it.

 

 

 

The key out of such was mentioned in the beginning of this post:

 

Live in such a way that she puts on the leash herself and hands it to you.

 

Any other method leaves you both miserably fettered.

 

As the Kemetic proverb states:

 

“The tyrant is only the slave turned inside out.”

 

 

K♣

“…I guess that she thought that someone was me”

Q♣

 

 

 

 

A recent email I received reads:

My husband led me to your blog… your writing is exquisite and extremely insightful.

I can totally relate to your understanding that men are medicine for women! And it drives me to ask you this question: what’s a female to do when the first medicine she needed was not given to her correctly (lack of fatherly direction and approval), and now she struggles mightily trying to figure out how to get, and take, her medicine properly? How does one repair that damage? Does time ever heal it, like it sometimes does when we’ve been incorrectly dosed by a doctor and we stop that prescription, or is extra intervention always needed? Or maybe… there is no cure?

With sincere appreciation for your insight,
Gwendolyn

 
[To which I reply herein].

 

Gwendolyn,

 

Years ago, a flirtatious, young lady asked me:

 

“What do you look for in a woman?”

 

To which I quickly responded:

 

Daddy issues, if my track record is any indication.

 

I share that piece of my past, not to be flippant but to confess that – while have no daughter, nor sister, nor any actual psychological training – I’ve plenty of experience dealing with women that you tacitly describe.

 

So I ask you to take my words seriously yet with more than a few grains of salt.

 

 

 

First, a female is in a tough position to find a substitute as biology makes such a thing extremely difficult.

 

The preponderance of men will want something quite unfamilial, thus muddying the waters that were intended to wash away the trauma.

 

This is no-one’s fault (which worsens matters), it is simply fact.

 

Still, attempts should be cautiously and carefully made with much older men and, ideally, of some relation (a grandparent, great uncle, et al).

 

Even then, there’s no guarantee of success but it’s at least possible.

 

 

 

Second, time won’t heal it.

 

Not really.

 

This is a cut too deep to mend without stitches.

 

Worse still, seeking male approval in all the wrong places (sexual encounters) only aggravates the wound and draws ever more blood.

 

If a substitute can’t be found, at least watch other females in healthy, non-sexual/romantic relationships with men with a studying eye.

 

Take copious mental notes of the interactions and learn vicariously.

 

Fortunately, women can live and learn vicariously quite well due to biological factors (mostly due to child-bearing but we can discuss this another time, perhaps).

 

 

 

Third, a woman such as that should read-up on the importance of birth order on a person’s (a man’s, in this context) development.

 

It’s extremely likely the healthiest relationships she’ll find will be with men born first amongst siblings.

 

As those men will be far more paternal in their behavior than the others, generally speaking.

 

Thus fulfilling – in a way – two needed roles.

 

 

 

Lastly, I’ll try to cover an important point without devolving into crassness.

 

A woman such as the one you describe should beware.

 

Abusive relationships, faulty D/s dynamics [BDSM kink] and such will all have an almost hypnotic allure to her, as they’ll provide the discipline and structure she’s craved her whole life.

 

This is not to say she should avoid D/s dynamics or strong men necessarily, but she should definitely follow the points I delineated above to tread the path safely.

 

 

 

That’s the best I can offer; I sincerely hope it’s sufficient.

 

And thanks for the compliment.

 

It means more than you’d guess.

 

Warmest regards,

 

Charles Spadille

 

Q♣

“…’til the sun and the whiskey went down.”

J♣

 

 

It’s funny watching the changes that have swept through the ‘sphere over the past decade.

 

It’s almost unrecognizable when seen side by side with its origins.

 

Then, it was men trying to score notches on their bedposts, get a long-term girlfriend or just get more women to show more interest in them.

 

Now it seems to be comprised of an increasing number of crusaders of various cuts for myriad causes.

 

 

 

Truth be told, I’ve no grievance with that significant alteration.

 

Lord knows the world needs men to fight the rot.

 

However, something about it all has irritated me like a burr in the saddle-blanket.

 

Sure, causes need soldiers to champion them.

 

 

 

But I wonder how many of these guys fight the day to day battles that come with no glory but heaps of heartache.

 

How many of these militant would-be-world-changers forgo tipping the waitress who gave awful service?

 

Or silence people that are causing a disturbance in the library or movie theater?

 

Or chastise a contractor that failed to do the job for which he was payed or did it to sub-standard quality?

 

 

 

Realize, letting those things slide isn’t “being nice”.

 

It’s setting the next person up for trouble.

 

(Since those scoundrels got away with it, why would they change?)

 

It’s punishing the folks that perform the tasks mentioned well.

 

(They behaved or worked hard yet got no reward for doing so.)

 

It’s hiding cowardice behind kindness.

 

 

 

Understand, “turn the other cheek” and “judge not lest ye be judged” aren’t about being nice.

 

They’re about forgoing pettiness and avoiding hypocrisy, respectively.

 

Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

 

 

 

Maybe that’s why I’ll take a good, old Western any day over the modern “save the universe” film fare that the masses gobble up by the bushel.

 

Gluttonously devoured since it’s easy to ignore the daily evil that surrounds us if we focus on the largest, most unachievable good we can see.

 

Yet, I’m of the mind that, if every town ran the sons of bitches causing trouble out:

 

The world wouldn’t need saving.

J♣

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I cast my spell of love on you – a woman from a child…”

10♣

 

 

 

Over the years (especially at the end of my personal blog elsewhere and the beginning of this one), I’ve mentioned in the comment sections that – in the folly of my youth – I dabbled in Satanism and the practice of magick.

 

I quickly abandoned the former and, with much difficulty, ceased the the latter.

 

(Although, being the honest man I am, the temptation to return to the latter is a constant siren-song.)

 

While both were foolish, I have no regrets doing them as I learned a tremendous amount about many forces of the universe that push and pull us off, on and along the path towards our destinies – both collective and personal.

 

Truths which are as threads through the tapestry of existence.

 

Small, in their own right, yet crucial to the whole of the pattern.

 

 

 

One such Truth is the power of “a year and a day”.

 

It appears in stories and legends regarding the world of the Fae, questing knights, certain Pagan and occult practices and a number of early European traditions.

 

Two examples of those traditions:

 

If a serf had fled – and remained absent – from his lord’s holdings for a year and a day, he was considered a free man.

 

A couple who lived together as husband and wife in Scotland for a year and a day were accorded all the privileges of marriage, whether or not they were wed formally.

 

 

 

But what has any of this to do with us here, at this digital, back-alley tavern?

 

Well, very simply, I’d tell my daughter two things:

 

1} Keep your legs closed. Give a man you love everything but sex. Show your value in 1,000 other ways. If he fails to appreciate those (the greater, more lasting gifts, frankly), then he’s unworthy.

 

2} Grant the relationship a year and day. If he hasn’t proposed by then, politely and gracefully leave him. If he doesn’t know he wants you by then, he’ll only drag you along a very rough road.

 

 

 

Now, in fairness, I’d say something similar to the second point to my son:

 

If you’re not driven by your feelings for her to propose in a year and a day, you will never be.

 

Leave her like a gentleman and seek another.

 

 

 

Some in this smoky, liquor-fueled den may disagree.

 

That’s fine, certainly.

 

But, like the thread of Truth it is:

 

It winds through far more than just my experiences.

 

 

10♣