This week's guest blog is written by Skye Montague from the "Mariel Cove" writing team. Skye Montague is a writer, graphic designer, exotic dancer, and occasional boudoir photographer. She's an avid LGBT rights activist and a sex educator who specializes in consent and kink. She writers in many different genres under different nom de plumes. She lives on the West Coast with her cat and hopes to one day be writing full time. Skye writes the characters Kennedy, Rei, and Emery.
Trigger warning: This posts talks about specific kink acts including consensual nonconsent.
Note: Names have been changed to protect anonymity.
So this one time I went to a public sex dungeon with two friends and a slave.
The dungeon is nestled in a nondescript building tucked beneath a Seattle freeway, blending so smoothly into the background that you only see it if you know what you’re looking for. The corners are dirty and rough like all old buildings buried in big cities, the sounds inside silenced by thick walls and heavy doors. It could be an old office building, a small warehouse even, but the moment you step inside you’re transported somewhere else entirely, somewhere darker, deeper, a different reality.
I huddled close to my friend Elena. Neither of us had done anything like this before, but when our friend Eve invited us to watch her play with her Seattle slave curiosity got the better of us. Plus, Eve promised they had free all-you-can-eat snacks, including m&ms, and that’s about all you need to say to get me to go anywhere.
“You can go by fake names if you like. You don’t have to play with anyone. You can watch, but don’t talk about other peoples’ scenes. Don’t walk through the middle of the dungeon or interrupt someone’s scene without being invited in. Keep to the open lobby along the wall and you’ll be fine.”
Eve laid out the rules with a wicked smirk. She was no newb when it came to kink, public or private, and she’d admitted to me before that she gets a thrill out of introducing the lifestyle to first-timers. This is the same Eve that eventually took me to my first sex party, showed me how to use a violet wand and got me to let her set me on fire. In short, she’s a bad influence, but a great time.
When you first walk in the door, it could be the entrance to a hardcore strip club, the dungeon blocked from the check-in counter by a tall black wall. Rock music reverberated softly against the walls, adding a humming, weighty resonance to the air more than drowning out noise. Even now, early in the night, the sharp thwak of leather beating against skin is louder than anything else. The scent of clean sweat and sex linger in the air. I’m surprised that it feels oddly comforting even as nerves and adrenaline tumble in my stomach.
Eve led us to a soft couch against the wall. The dungeon stretched out before us, a wide open space that looked like the Hollywood set of a medieval torture chamber: cages, stocks, St. Andrews crosses and bondage chairs. People of all ages, shapes and ethnicities were clumped together, absorbed in their own scenes. No one was having sex, but there were already a dozen or so people tied up, chained down, spanking, punching, whipping and tormenting each other.
I watched Eve, my friend I’d always considered warm, affirming, light and fun transform into deathly calm, strong, vicious dominant capable of bringing a grown man weeping to his knees while she laughed with impish delight. This didn’t shock or scare me. It didn’t feel unnatural. It felt like seeing a new side of my friend. She was the lighthearted, fun, even dorky woman I knew well. She was also this controlled, confident, sadistic mistress. It was a natural part of her.
I thought I’d be scared but instead I was fascinated. There was something intriguing and, in a twisted way, wonderful about seeing so many very different people embracing and exploring their sexuality without judgment. This wasn’t the white-washed, straight, cis, sizest sexuality that infuses western society. These were people from all walks of life at their most primal.
My friend Elena stayed close. At one point we were relaxing together, huddled close on a bondage bed while we waited for Eve and she held my hand so tightly I lost the feeling in my fingers. Every muscle in her body turned to stone until I could even see her toes curl tight. She was obviously distracted, obviously processing and it was obviously none of my business. But as long as she wanted to me close, as long as she had a death-grip on my arm and hand, I wouldn’t leave her.
After ten minutes, one of the owners, a massive, middle-aged white man with silver hair and an impressive fringe leather vest, walked past. I tensed, wondering what he was going to say or do. We were in a dark backroom filled with beds, obviously used for more than just public play. Elena and I were both conventionally attractive and feminine. I expected that perverted smile. I expected intrusion. I expected I’d have to put on my no-nonsense hard femme face and warn him off because so many men can’t resist the urge to invite themselves into a private moment between two women.
Instead he stopped a few paces from us, smiled softly without a hint of a leer, glanced at Elena and asked if we were okay.
The knots in my stomach loosened. I told him we were fine and Elena nodded her approval and he walked away without another word or glance.
It was then I realized why I felt so safe. It was the unspoken truths of the place, the themes of consent and respect that were treated as a given. This was a place where no one even touched my shoulder if I was in their way without asking. No one told me to smile, whistled at me, invalidated me. This was a place where “well, she didn’t say no” had been turned into “I won’t touch her unless she tells me yes. And means it.”
This was a place where even white men who towered over me would glance at me and my seeming girlfriend cuddling on a bondage bed and show not only respect, but care. Here the fact that I was a woman didn’t make my body property or my intelligence suspect. I knew that if I delved deeper into this community I’d find prejudices and privilege, but in that moment, for one of the first times in my life, I was surrounded by strangers and I wasn’t afraid.
I’d always secretly been interested in kink. My personal desires often drifted south of vanilla but I’d spent most of my life trying to ignore these feelings or even being ashamed of them. That changed after my first night in the dungeon. I lost my shame and I opened up about my interests, both academic and personal. When I was asked to write for Mariel Cove, I knew I had to involve kink into at least one of my storylines.
My decision to make Kennedy kinky, however, wasn’t an easy one.
I knew from the inception of her character that it fit her. No one else on the team was taking a kinky angle with her characters and I felt like it was a big hole in our desire to have something for everyone in Mariel Cove. I could even speak personally and lovingly on the subject. Having a kinky character wasn’t the problem, however. My dilemma was over the ethics of making the kinkiest character in Mariel Cove the “villain.”
On the surface, it seems to play into every bad stereotype about kink in erotica (and in life): that all kinky people are somehow damaged and perverted with desires born of past trauma. Kink is rarely shown as what it is: a natural part of human sexuality, a genetic desire coded into our genes. I didn’t want people to read Kennedy and think “Of course she’s kinky, look how messed up she is! She’s a drug-addicted manipulator and a cheater. No wonder she’s such a pervert.”
In the end, it was my fears that pushed me not only to show this part of Kennedy but to center entire scenes on it. I wanted to start a discussion. To openly show real kinky characters engaged in power plays. To make a point of showing educated, enthusiastic consent even in a situation where the name of the game is saying “no.” To show how kink can be healing. How so much of it is more about power than sex.
Kennedy is never more honorable in season 1 than when she’s having an intense scene with Carmen in “Inspired Insanity.” There’s no “implied” yes between Carmen and Kennedy. Kennedy extracts vocal, enthusiastic consent multiple times (and not just because it’s a major turn-on for her.) This is the only time you see her show real concern for a lover that isn’t rooted in selfishness. The first time you don’t see her spin the truth or mislead.
You also see what makes Kenndy tick: power. Kennedy loves sex, but she thrives on being in charge and being adored. She doesn’t need sex. She needs to play. She needs the scene. These intense acts are healing for her. Spiritual even.
Dominating Carmen is a reflection of her nature, a part of herself that’s deep and unchanging. Part of her core that will always be there and needs to be expressed to make her feel whole. Sober Kennedy is kinky. Sane Kennedy is kinky. Unselfish Kennedy is kinky. It’s part of who she is, not a condition caused by her past.
In the same vein, Carmen is submissive but hardly the weak, insecure submissives that flood the media. Carmen knows exactly what she wants, knows her limits and owns her scene as much as Kennedy. Even when she’s asking Kennedy to hit her or ignore her no, she’s drawing strength and actively getting what she needs to feel complete.
I told Eve once that I could never hit a woman even if she asked me to. I couldn’t get over the idea that it was wrong.
“You need to understand that submissives get fulfillment from being submissive. Masochists draw strength from being in pain. Why do you think it’s okay for you to know you want to rough someone up, that you draw strength from dominating, but it’s not okay that another woman could know she wants to be hit? You’re doing them a favor by hitting them when they ask you to. They’re doing you a favor by letting you hit them. If it’s a hard limit for you personally, that’s fine. But by telling them you can’t hit them just because you can’t hit a woman, you’re invalidating their desires.”
This conversation came back to me dozens of times while plotting “Inspired Insanity.” I knew Carmen asking Kennedy to ignore her “no” and writing a scene explicitly showing a couple engaged in consensual nonconsent wasn't going to sit well with everyone. But I wanted to show the line between assault and kink. I wanted to show that solid foundation of trust and consent required to play out these fantasies. This absolute insistence that everyone involved in a scene is respected while going after their deepest, darkest desires. I wanted to show the real difference between kink and assault.
In Kennedy’s scene with Carmen you see this give and take, this symbiotic relationship that’s so often misrepresented or missing entirely in popular media. The power imbalance is part of the game, part of the give and take. It’s consensual. It’s never coerced. Carmen knows her limits and Kennedy respects them. There are rules and safe words. There’s respect.
And it’s frickin’ sexy.
I made a choice to express something personal and powerful in my life through my writing even though it’s incredibly controversial. I chose to talk about consent -- to glorify it -- instead of ignoring it. I chose to challenge popular misconceptions about myself and people I love.
I made Kennedy kinky because she always was kinky and shouldn't have to hide. I *loved* writing every second of “Inspired Insanity.” I’m proud of every word. And I hope you all loved it, too.
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