Message-ID: <18138eli$9812200440@qz.little-neck.ny.us> X-Archived-At: From: Angel_wet Subject: ASSM: Flaming Love (FM romance caution) Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d Path: qz!not-for-mail Organization: The Committee To Thwart Spam Approved: X-Moderator-Contact: Eli the Bearded X-Story-Submission: X-Original-Message-ID: <19981219190424.10168.qmail@nym.alias.net> Aaron's glossy black lighter was the size of a deck of playing cards, and had someone else's initials inscribed at its base. He said that he had to refuel it every two days, on average, and I wasn't surprised to hear this: whenever he flipped back the lid and struck the flint, the flame almost barbecued his nose. "Are you a pyromaniac?" I asked him once. "Nope." "Is your livingroom one big fireplace?" "Ha. No." Several times he came close to accidentally immolating people at bars. On one occasion, a cocktail waitress threatened to call the fire department on him. Whenever he was drunk and I saw him reaching for his cigarettes, I instantly whipped out my puny plastic disposable lighter so that he wouldn't need to energize his silly flame-thrower. Some people made assumptions about him based on his pocket inferno. One of my friends asked if he was some sort of satanist. "Satanist? Because of the lighter?" "They baptize babies in fire, don't they?" "Uh...no. I think they use blood." "Oh. So he's, what, a gang member or something?" "Actually, I think he's with the A.T.F." "What? Oh, the Waco blaze. I get it. Funny." Aaron's insistence that he was not a pyromaniac seemed sincere. Several times when we were watching CNN together we saw clips of enormous fires devouring apartment complexes, or charring California hills. His expression did not changed while he watched this stuff; he seemed unaffected. Later, when we had been friends for a while, he divulged that while he was not a pyromaniac, his lighter did in fact signal an idiosyncrasy of his. He said that he was a pyrophiliac. "What's that mean?" "Well, actually it would mean that I love fire, so it's not a perfectly apt term, but it's the closest I could think of to describe...what I do." "What's that?" "I set women's hair on fire while we're making love." He meant it literally: He'd lie udnerneath them on his back; they'd mount his penis, and, when he was approaching climax, he'd put his lighter to their hair. "I sometimes have them spray with Sciflow before we get close; it makes the flame spread more rapidly. One instantaneous, dazzling burst. When I'm right about to climax, the whole room floods with fire-light. I come, and then...darkness." This apparently explained why Aaron always seemed to be drawn to women with long, airy hair styles. I assumed that he must have had some traumatic childhood experience with fire that had created deep, troubled feelings about it, and that he was trying to tame those feelings with his sex-fries. He denied this. "Then why do you have this perversion?" I asked the question amicably enough, I thought; he knew that I was not judgemental about people because of their odd sexual activities; my conviction was, and still is, that everyone has some sexual peculiarity about them and that as long as nothing is done non-consensually there's nothing to be ashamed of. But he spoke angrily. "It's not a goddam perversion. It's a kink. And don't cast aspersions on my kink; that's really hypocritical of you. And it bothers me a lot, you know? It's like mainstream society, or should I say repressed society, fears and detests people who have the usual kinks: sado-masochism, fetishes, et cetera. And even though those people are judged so mindlessly by mainstream society, they go on to judge anyone who doesn't happen to have the usual, common kinks. Their own marginality should make them more sensitive, but it usually doesn't. Instead they're just hypocrites, agonizing about society's brutality towards sexual unusualness, and then scorning people who are -- in their eyes -- really usual. A kink is a goddam kink. If you live yours out, congratulations: you've got some courage, and relief. But if you then try to berate other people for theirs, you're every bit as cowardly and un-free-thinking as mainstream society." For a while after that I saw women in a different light. I noticed that red hair seemed to be all the rage, and that some women seemed to dye their hair to make it look like flame. I realized that fire is symbolic of change; and of knowledge, though usually not carnal knowledge; and I remembered reading somewhere that when things are burned ritually and their smoke rises to the heavens, it's thought that the essence of the thing is received by the gods. In a way, Aaron might have been trying to bring his sexual union with women to a divine level. "But isn't there real danger to the women? I mean, come on, you're setting their heads on fire." "I don't hurt them," he said. "I take very careful precautions. For example, I use fire-proof blankets and make sure everything flammable is safely away from the bed. I used to keep a fire-extinguisher by the pillow, but one night this really evil bitch got pissed and sprayed me with it. So now I just keep a big basin of water by the bed to dunk her head in." Aaron said that he had the best conversations of his life after these erotic conflagrations. "The feelings that come up are extraordinary. In her experience she's come close to death, and surviving it makes her love of life amazingly heightened. It's really intimate, too; me rubbing first-aid cream all over her smooth head while we talk. She's given me enormous pleasure; I've given her a totally unique adventure. We're both so grateful to each other." Aaron told me about one woman who loved it so much that she wanted to repeat the experience. "But she didn't have any hair left to burn, obviously. We tried it with a wig, but it just wasn't the same. She volunteered to make her pubic hair a burnt offering to my erotic muse, but I said, Lookit, I'm not a hotdog. So she grew her hair out, it took a few months, and we did it again. It was even more amazing. Next time, she says, she wants to be lying on a grassy hillside when we do it, so that our love-making sets the hills on fire. I'm not sure what I think about that, but it's a pretty image." "A darling image," I said. "Yeah. She's really evolved." "So what about masturbation? Have you ever set your own hair on fire when you were jerking off?" "Ha! I'd probably die during the post-orgasmic bliss. Probably be too dazed to extinguish it on time." Naturally I wondered what attracted some women to sex flambe. I remembered seeing him a few times with a woman wearing a colorful knit cap which covered her entire head. They had been openly affectionate, and I assumed correctly that this must be the woman who had come to love having her head roasted. One afternoon I got coffee with her, and asked her to explain. "Why do I do it? You mean it's not obvious?" I shook my head, so she urged me to speculate. "It drives him crazy; you like being able to fulfill his pleasure completely." "Nah." She thought for a minute. "Well, sure, that's part of it." "It makes you feel courageous that you're doing something few other people would even attempt?" "Maybe partly. But mostly it's the intensity of my experience." "Can you describe it?" She hesitated at first, but then she leaned toward me, her eyes narrow, her voice tense. "His penis is inside me, he's thrusting harder and harder, my he's goaning wildly, then...boom! My whole world is ablaze; my mind explodes, bits of it flying everywhere. I can feel him surging inside me, thrashing like an animal in a deadly trap, and I'm riding his mania like a sled through collapsing dimensional gates. It's like for an instant you become other-worldly in this wild electric charge. It's incredible." Recalling the experience had made her vibrant; one of her hands gripped her coffee cup, and it rattled against the saucer; her other began rapidly smoothing out her cap, as if patting down the fire of her imagination. For several days I was unable to reach Aaron on the phone, and then I received a call from his public defender. As soon as I could I visited Aaron in jail. "Aggravated assault," he said, shaking his head as if it were the most ridiculous thing in the world. "Can you believe it? What a load of hogwash. This is nothing but sexual persecution. They don't approve of how my libido expresses itself, so they're trying to roast me. It's that simple." "How'd the police find out?" Aaron sank back in his chair. "It's fucking awful. I was with this girl, right, and she knew exactly what I was intending, but then she just freaked out." "So she knew in advance that you were going to set her on fire?" "She just couldn't handle her own erotic energy. She got frightened by it. She didn't want to think that all those feelings were really coming from her, so she lashed out at me by calling the cops." He seemed unable to continue. His grief was palpable, overwhelming, and for a moment I thought he was going to cry. "I think they'll find some way to acquit me, but I'm not counting on it; our society is incredibly hostile toward any forms of experience that don't reinforce the idiotically frightened judeo- christian attitude toward sex. Look, would you do me a favor?" "Of course." "Keep my lighter until I get out. I don't want the authorities to confiscate it. They're going to try to hold it as evidence, but I know that if they do I'll never see it again. Look, it's in the top drawer of my dresser. As soon as you leave her, go to my apartment -- you can get in through the window -- and get my lighter." "Well, if it's supposed to be evidence..." "And when you get it?" He leaned forward and lowered his voice to an urgent whisper. "When you get it, use it." "What?" "Use it. Just like I told you. Jeanette -- that girl you met -- her hair will be long enough to do it again soon. I want you to have the honors. Okay? Do it. And write about it; tell me exactly what it's like for you, everything that happens. Then send me the pages in a letter. Would you do that?" "Aaron, I'm not sure. I mean, it's your kink; I don't really think I have any interest in doing it myself." Aaron stared at me unbelievingly; shocked, betrayed. Then he began cursing me; accusing me of being a mindless minion, a hapless Christian robot, craven yuppy scum. Astounded by his outburst, I suddenly doubted whether he really had told his female accuser what he was planning to do to her. "Forget it," I said against his barrage of insults, "I've had it." I rose to my feet. "You'll do it?" He said, his voice suddenly full of hope. "Will you do it for me? Please?" "No! No, I won't." I walked out. Aaron was convicted, and sentenced to three years with parole. After the conclusion of his trial, about two months after out last conversation, I ran into the his pyrophiliac playmate, Jeanette, at the same cafe where we had met before. I was sitting alone drinking espresso and reading a textbook. "Hey, wimpy." I looked around my shoulder and saw her glaring at me. Her hair was longer now, forming short brown bangs. She wore a black jacket with the zipper open, and underneath a tight striped shirt that displayed her large breasts. If I hadn't been perplexed by her hostile greeting, I would have relished her sexiness. "What did you say?" I asked her. "You're a wimp." "What are you talking about?" "I know; Aaron told me. You're afraid to do it with me." "Afraid? No, I just choose not to." "You're chicken." "Wait a minute, Jeanette. Look--" "You're not a real man; you won't set my head on fire." As she walked away from me I gestured after her angrily, stammered and stuttered. And for a brief moment as I struggled with my frustration, I felt all the old adolescent self-doubt resurface in me: Was I not a real man? Did I even know what consituted true manliness? Was it unmanly of me to shy away from any sexual experience, no matter how exotic it seemed? Wasn't the essence of manliness courage and strength in the face of challenge? As Jeanette walked away with her look of disgusted pity, I felt myself shrinking, melting into a puddle. Her insult had hit its target; just by denying my manhood, she had sent me into an emotional skid. And if my confidence was so weak that she could affect me that deeply with a simple insult, surely she was right to discount my manliness. As I rose from my table a few minutes later I remembered how enlivened Jeanette had been talking about her experiences with Aaron, and I admit I felt deeply envious of his ability to give her such earth- shattering ecstasy. But no one else does it that way, I consoled myself, walking dejectedly to the crowded sidewalk. Into the pedestrian flow. The flood of wimps. http://members.aol.com/Siskur/rhet.htm -- +----------------' Story submission `-+-' Moderator contact `--------------+ | | | | Archive site +----------------------+--------------------+ Newsgroup FAQ | ----