Steve Erickson - Our Ecstatic Days

ever had, and now of course as I rise up up and up to break the surface of the

do anything or say anything until I tell you. Nothing about you is yours anymore, everything about you is Mine. Everything you feel, if you feel anything, everything you think, or think you think. Get on your knees. Lick the stone of the floor. Let Me put around your neck this collar of thorns, around your neck, you remember thorns don’t you. you’re familiar with thorns, you in particular, you of anyone, you most of all. No one’s ever done thorns like you, right? Don’t mind the blood. What’s a little blood. Don’t mind the flow from your neck now. What’s a little flow from the jugular. Here’s a leash for your collar, woven from the flesh of children, stained and soaked in lapsinthe, to remind you who you belong to. Tell Me, because I’ve never been straight on this: which is it that’s always best proved your existence? That you give children? or that you take them away? I think you and I made a bargain once but it’s occurred to Me lately I’ve never seen a bit of evidence you ever kept your end. I think I kept My end. Yes I believe so. I think I did. I think I did and then some. If it was our bargain that I would give up all the happiness of a mother in order to save My son from the chaos of the world, well then I have to say I think I kept My end. First you sent him to make Me so tender. Then you drove Me mad with it. So now lick the drops of your blood that fall on the stone beneath your knees, lick it, lick it. Lick it up. Lick lick lick. Suck it out of the pores of the stone. Did I say look up? Did I say to? There! that’s for looking up without permission. I’m the god here and you’re the woman this time, don’t think you aren’t. Don’t think the god-cock means anything within these walls, you’re the woman and w(W)e’re going to prove it soon enough don’t you worry, turd, sack of divine shit you. Here let’s see what you think of the point of My high-heel in your side, what do you think of that. How do you feel about that. Here’s another good kick for you, and another. Roll

water, I can see, I know that the silver flash above me is the gondola waiting,

over so I might consider grinding your balls to dust under My heel. Get up. Get up! What a stupid slave! There! that’s for being such a stupid slave. There and there and there. Now get up. you’re not even amusing now. you’re not even a diversion. Come here now, w(W)e’re going down to the dungeon. Come on or I’ll yank you down. W(w)e’re going down now. Get up off the floor, you disgust Me, come over here. Put this shackle around your foot and lock it. Now the other. Now one wrist, now the other. There. That’s more like it. It’s so you. Here, your collar’s loose, let’s tighten it, there. Pale is such a nice color on you. Raise your arms now: there. Slip the cuffs that bind your wrists up over this hook above your head. There. Now w(W)e swaddle you in latex, start at your head and leave just enough exposed that you might barely breathe, wrap you tight so you see nothing, wrap you tight so you hear little but the muffled moan of the world coming up behind you, the world you’ve made moan for so long. So that every sense is bound, deprived … wrap you from head to your feet leaving the almighty god-ass exposed bare for the sake of the lash of course, crank up the hook a little and hang you from your cuffs and hoist you until your toes barely touch the floor: there. So that when I flog you, you’ll spin in the air like a black cocoon, twirling above all the dead bluejays covering the dungeon floor around you. Let the god-toy try to imagine, for only a moment, what it might be like to spend eternity suspended in the Uncertain, as the rest of us have … and while you consider that, I think it will entertain Me to whip you for a while — there and there and there — before w(W)e get to the good part I mean, the best part where w(W)e make you a woman. As best you can through the latex, listen to the lake outside the walls, listen while you can before it dies. Hear the lake? or is it the blood pounding in your ears from the blows of My crop and the crown of thorns around your throat. OK then.

but since I’ve gotten confused in my way and can no longer be sure to which

That’s enough. That’s enough of that, you’ve become tedious, as you’ve always been tedious in your fashion. Let’s lower you from the ceiling and feminize you now, make a woman of you now. No I’m not going to cut it off: please. It’s so trite. I was many things in My life but not trite. It’s rather an unimpressive specimen anyway if I may say so, for supposedly being the Ultimate Specimen. No let’s lower you from the ceiling and slip the cuffs off the hook while I dig something out of the old tool chest here … get back down on your knees, you’ll get used to it. The rest of us have. The rest of us got very used to it a long time ago. Tell us, what’s it like from the other angle? How is it gazing up for a change? Don’t look at Me. Did I say you could look at Me? I asked what it was like, I didn’t tell you to do it … what a very stupid slave … I guess it’s all just a little unfamiliar for you though. I guess it takes some getting used to. Well tell Us about it. Yes tell Us all about it. Where’s My evidence? is what I want to know, that you ever kept your end of the bargain. Where’s the evidence except a vision or two. Was that supposed to satisfy Me, a vision or two? where’s the evidence. That he was ever OK. That he was ever safe. That he was even loved, maybe. That he wasn’t so painfully lonely in the night. That’s what I want to know, I who gave him up. I who haven’t gone a day without seeing his small face, hearing his small voice, every little thing he said, polite little dictator with all his whys and answers to the chaos of the world. Oh here’s what I was looking for. A little large but appropriate I would think for a god-toy, suitable I think for the ultimate slave, here it is … then bend over. Bend over now. Bend over and put your face in the ground. Arch your back and open yourself behind. A little large but you know, this is what it is to be a woman in your world. This is what it is. This is what it’s always been. There. What do you think of that. How do you feel about that. What

lake I’ve returned, then swimming up up and up to break the surface I can

ridiculous female could ever have suggested God is a woman. What ludicrous bitch could ever have thought the viciousness of God anything but male. Are you God for the way you give us children, or the way you take them from us? that’s what I still want to know. Here, a little deeper I think. Here, here, here, yes. What’s the matter. Yes. Here, you don’t like it so much? Here, yes. This is for, you know, all of them. Isaac and the carpenter kid and all the eldest sons of an Egyptian night, and, well, for the little wildman too. For him too. Here then. Here! and … I … here, and … oh. Oh I…. No. No I swore to myself I wouldn’t, no. I swore to myself I wouldn’t let you. Swore to myself you would never make me cry like this again … but You have. Swore You never would but You have … oh no. Oh no. Let me die now. What are You waiting for. Let me die now. Let this dream be over now. i’ve only been waiting for it since the moment i lost him. Since that moment i … since that moment i returned to the boat and he was gone; so let me go now, so i can hope on just the merest of chances there is somewhere else Over There where he’s waiting right now, waiting for me, and i’ll hold him to me again, pull him to me, smash his soft hair in my hands and press his small eyelids to my lips. Let me go. There’s nothing here for me anymore, no other delusion to make me believe in my own life anymore, if only for a minute: no Domination or submission to give me purpose: no method for going on. i don’t care about Your subservience or Domination, i don’t care about Your humiliation or Glory. This is the ritual no mother can win, when God gives a mother her child just so she might go mad with love for him. There’s nothing here anymore so i want to go now. You there in the doorway, come and take me then. What are You waiting for. Come on then. Come here. Come on. Please. Please i beg You. i’m begging You. Is that what You want, is that what You’ve been