Beyond My Control: Forbidden Fantasies in an Uncensored Age Read Free

dismissively: “I don’t need fantasy. My sex life is just fine without it.” But fantasies don’t have to make up for something that is “missing.” They can add extra helium to a balloon that wants to soar. For some of us, the
    imagery comes unbidden. We close our eyes and let “sex” and “fantasy” join in concert to remove us from the real life that holds us to Earth. Now, here, alone with our lover, the sight, smell, and touch of his body begins to work on us.
    The forbidden pleasures, the stolen watermelons in our youth, and the kisses in the parked cars of adolescence—in fantasy, we spread our legs for the stranger who has just blown into town or we imagine the last man who undressed us with his eyes, not our husband, our “legal” mate, no, we may love him, but for orgasm, we need the bad guy, the dark, illicit situation, because that’s how we were raised, conditioned, taught to think of the sex we stole.
    Over the years, the voices of the men and women in this book have been filed away in my subconscious. Even when printed on the pages of my books, your voices whisper in my ear. I like to keep it that way, our bond, like the tight allegiances of childhood where we told our best friend “everything.”
    I am ready to dive back into your “confessions”—perhaps not the correct word. But I do get the feeling that while you may begin with a “public” story of your life, I am aware of that special moment when you close the door of whatever room you are in and begin to confide in me what you have never revealed before. You have been my teachers, my familiars, letting me into your erotic thoughts, private tales many of you say “you’ve never told anyone before.” The first women who came into my secret gar- den over thirty years ago were breaking the law, saying out loud the thoughts and feelings never before admitted. I often had a sense of looking over their shoulders as they wrote, emboldened
    to name their thoughts by other women’s voices.
    Slowly, the chorus of your voices has grown bolder. That so
    many of the themes of fantasies in this particular book deal with domination— being dominated—has certain logic. The dance between men and women in the modern world has changed. I am speaking of the erotic dance where men once led absolutely. As I’ve said, women are formidable. We always were. In the past, we simply denied it.

    DOmiNaTiON

    d o m i N a T i o N
    Nothing has made me more a traveler in the state of forbidden eros, a lover of danger, than the mystery of my father, whom I never knew, never saw, not even a photo of him, and of whom not a word was ever spoken. Silence and secrecy surrounded him to the degree that “forbidden” became who he was and, by extension, other men too. When people asked in a friendly fashion, “Where is your father, darling?” I’d answer politely, “My daddy’s dead.”
    He wasn’t. I found this out at the age of twenty, directly after his death in the mental institute where he had been commit- ted not long after my birth. Given the secrets in my home, I’d become an incurable sleuth, opening every door, especially those marked “Do Not Enter.” I’d find a way into neighbors’ houses up and down the street, often by way of a cellar door, a screen door left ajar. I was five or six, and ours was a small town populated by kind and gentle people. In such a place, everyone had time for a little girl on a quest, and I never thought twice about following a friendly elderly couple home for a Coca-Cola and a piece of cake nor did they scold me for opening doors and drawers.
    I looked everywhere for him, for a trace, a photo, some clue, though I was never aware of my goal. Had someone asked, “What are you looking for?” I’d have answered, “Oh, nothing, just looking.” It helped that my town belonged to another era. In retrospect, it seems covered with a sheer layer of magic dust. When I was unable to find even a trace of him, I turned my