The Four Riders

Conquest invaded and usurped me. He was an irresistible force that I was unable to ignore, unable to stop, unable to turn away. He bent me to his will, he reframed my body and twisted my mind, he pushed and pulled and wrestled me into place, and moved me to his desires. No care was given; there was no gentleness in his touch. There was only brutal demand. It was entirely about him: his need, his pleasure, his to take and break.

War punished my body. Every infraction I committed, she repaid me in full and then again, and once more. For all my sins, I was punished, severely, threefold. She beat me until I was tender, and she raked at me until I was raw. No part was safe from flail or claw, no portion off limits for the shock of the wand, no place sacred against pain. My flesh burned and flushed and throbbed and ached.

Famine was pure, unadulterated torture. After I was ravage and flayed, naked before them, mewling and pathetic, panting with exhaustion, they soothed me with soft words, with light touches and gentle kisses. Soon they were pulling me up to the edge of the cliff, feeding my need with a flick of a finger or touch of their tongue, and then they pulled back, and left me to shiver and writhe, starved for death. Over and over they took me just to the teetering edge of a magnificent precipice, and then withdrew. I sobbed with hunger, begged for mercy, pleaded for death, my muscles tensed and aching, my belly hollow, and my mind far, far away…

And at last, there was Death. He is my Master. I knelt at his feet, suppliant. He rewarded me with himself, and pushed me, pulled me, dragged me to that liminal cliff, and then, finally, together with my Master, I plunged headlong over the edge and fell through endless space. He shattered me over and over with the most exquisite precision, until there was nothing but a pulsing wave of pleasure humming through my bones, an endless, little death.

…and my prayers and pleas are answered -- my mind fades away, and I melt into him, and my self becomes nothing but a vehicle for his pleasure, safe because I know he will always lead me back…