Many things I know about myself are in terms of what I do not want or am not attracted to. I can­not imag­ine, for instance, want­ing to hurt some­one I do not care about.

If I do not care about some­body, I can­not see car­ing about their pain either. I speak of course of pain that I inten­tion­ally induce; I will do any­thing I can to aid any­one in pain and if I hurt some­one unin­ten­tion­ally I will be the first one to apol­o­gize and make amends.

So, for all intents and pur­poses, I am a reg­u­lar guy. I am nice to ani­mals and chil­dren and old ladies and if you infringe on my bound­aries I will be polite when let­ting you know about it. I drive care­fully and I do not litter.

It is just that when my heart reaches out to touch a woman, when I smell her and some­thing in me tells me that I want her all around me, my claws come out. I can­not help it.

No, that is not true; yes, I can. I can indeed help it but I will not any more. I used to con­trol my urges to such an extent that I shut myself down emo­tion­ally. There was a time I thought it was bet­ter that I felt noth­ing while mak­ing love rather than risk betray­ing her trust by hurt­ing her.

I feel so cold inside. It is freez­ing inside, and I need to warm myself. And I know that it is warm inside her. It is warm and yield­ing and my body is warm­ing after sink­ing into her but my heart is still so cold. So cold.

But when I smell the sweet­ness of the breath car­ry­ing her scream, when I drink the salti­ness of her tears, she brings my heart inside as well. She opens up and with her shiv­er­ing pain she invites me in. And for those moments, when I con­trol her world, her per­cep­tion, her exis­tence, she is com­pletely wrapped around me, body and soul. And I feel warm. Finally warm.

In essence, I need some­one to feed from, emo­tion­ally and spir­i­tu­ally. And I have so much to give some­one who needs to feed from me. I have met women who have the same but com­ple­men­tary yearn­ing I have. This is not play. This is not a game on either side. This is not about fancy cos­tumes and shiny toys. This is about estab­lish­ing sym­bio­sis. There may not be love, but there will most cer­tainly be mutual respect and car­ing and, most of all, pro­found under­stand­ing and intimacy.

I do not know how to clas­sify myself, really. I will hurt you so there­fore I am a sadist. But I will also use you and expect your obe­di­ence, so there­fore I am a dom­i­nant of sorts. In the end, though, I am just me. I do not think I am a pure sadist because I will not hurt any­one just for fun. It is not fun for me. I will only hunt to sat­isfy hunger, and I am lucky that there are that are women with the same hunger I have. Females of my own species, if you will.

In my mind, inti­macy can only be obtained when mutu­ally striv­ing for it. It is beyond con­sen­su­al­ity; you can­not sim­ply con­sent to some­one else being inti­mate with you, you will actu­ally have to be seek­ing that inti­macy just as much. That is why I am not a dan­ger to any­one, because only those that seek the same thing I am are my prey. I need her to be my eager accom­plice in her own debauch­ery, and I would not even ask a sub­mis­sive to “take it because it pleases me.” No, she has to wrap her own legs, her own arms, her own very body, and her own heart around me.

And that is how the dark­ness in me sur­vives with­out being quashed by my morals or goals to be a good and hon­or­able man. I seek my equal, noth­ing less. She will seek pain from me, she may choose to sub­mit to me, but every sin­gle heart­beat spent with me will be her own choice. If she does not thrive and grow and find con­tent­ment under­neath me, she will never be able to carry my weight.

I assure you, any­one I choose is going to be for­mi­da­ble and mag­nif­i­cent in her own right, not lost or need­ing to be fixed. Any­body less will sim­ply not hold my inter­est. It is not some­thing that is vis­i­ble on the out­side; there is an inter­nal strength that is obvi­ous in her scent, though.

I do not care any longer if I frighten peo­ple around me. I am tired of down-​playing this… this… this emo­tional dis­fig­ure­ment, if you will. I am open about the dark­ness inside me and what I need. Any per­cep­tive woman with a pulse will smell it in me any­way. And the ones inter­ested in the likes of me will most cer­tainly not be in the least fright­ened. That much I know.