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An unknown entity places a knife in front of me. "The blade is your implement. You'll need it if you want to do this right," they say, and so I pick it up. When I finally meet the princess, I do as I am told. I forcefully penetrate her flesh. In an instant, I am inside her. In an instant, it is finished. I feel nothing.
In high school, it seemed like the only thing my friends could talk about was sex. Music, sports, theater: it always led back to fucking. Over time, it seemed less like an accident of nature and more like a lesson. Blurred Lines plays in the locker room while the coach tells the football team to fight for the attention of the ladies. They all have a copy of A Streetcar Named Desire in their lockers, reading it under the direction of a teacher who thinks Blanche deserved what she got.
We were taught to fixate. We were taught to be aggressive.
You must penetrate her. You must know what it is to be inside her.
My first time lasted 30 minutes. I struggled to get my half-hard phallice in with half-hearted enthusiasm, half-assing my fake orgasm a half-hour later. There was no joy for me, but I would lie to my friends and tell them how great it was. The woman I laid with would be nothing but kind the rest of the night. I haven’t talked to her since.
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An unknown entity places a knife in front of me. "The blade is your implement. You'll need it if you want to do this right," they say, and so I pick it up. When I finally meet the princess, I sit down and try to talk to her. She's not buying my attempts at a peaceful resolution. She sees the tool I hold in my hand. She knows no matter what words I say, I've come down to this basement to eviscerate her. When I finally decide it is time to end it, she puts up a fight. We trade blows, and in between the scratches and slashes I could swear I see her smile. When I finally manage to stab her, she lays on the floor, laughing.
I met her on the train. We sat next to each other, talking about polyamory, kink, depression, and horror. A week later, she asked to come over to my place.
When we began to entangle ourselves in one another’s bodies, I tried to be assertive like she asked. I struggled to find the words. As I fumbled through my attempts to call her some variation of a slut, she laughed at me. Flipping us over, she stared down from her newfound throne. She told me to grab her breasts as hard as I could. I obeyed, and she reminded me that she was in control. I was not penetrating her; she was enveloping me. When she left, I cried tears of joy I did not understand.
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An unknown entity places a knife in front of me. "The blade is your implement. You'll need it if you want to do this right," they say, and so I pick it up. When I finally meet the princess, I sit down and talk to her. She attacks, but notices that I freeze and refuse to defend myself. I am tired of flaying her. I want to do anything else, to be anywhere else. If the only agency I have is to do nothing, then I will do nothing. "You poor thing," she says softly. Taking my knife from me, there is no malice in her eyes. I stand with my chest wide open, and she stabs me repeatedly until my body finally gives out. I've never felt more alive.
The first time I was with a man, I did not know how to handle my body. Despite being three years into my transition and knowing my preferred role, I still felt as though penetration was a requirement for my existence. I felt frozen.
We talked through our awkward first time, how we each felt the shackles of gender around our wrists every time we entered an intimate space. He also did not know what he was supposed to do with his body. Next time, we both decided, we would ask for what we wanted, not give what was expected. Simple and nerve-wreckingly vulnerable as that.
The second time I was with a man, he did not penetrate me. Instead, as his fingers approached me, I enveloped him. I pulled as much of him inside me as I could. I was hungry, hungry to fill the void I was told for so long did not exist. When we finished, laying sweaty and sticky in my bed, I held him tightly, desperate to continue enveloping him however I could.
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In Slay the Princess, I can never turn the knife on the narrator. The one who set up the construct, who forced the princess and I into the roles we play, has long since left the world. They are but an echo. Because of this, the princess and I will push and pull and play in the space we are given as much as we can. Nonetheless, every loop starts with me as penetrator and her tied up in the basement, waiting to be penetrated.
Many of those who held power over me in my formative years are either dead or out of my life. They are merely echoes. But their systems remain, and new horrid monsters have taken their place to see that those systems are upheld. Their words reverberate in my head, asking me why I would choose to abandon my manhood, why I couldn't be happy in a body built for dominating, why I would let another penetrate me.
An unknown entity places a knife in front of me. "The blade is your implement. You'll need it if you want to do this right," they say, and so I pick it up. I turn around and face the narrator. Echo, construct, monster, whatever. If I must hold the knife, I know who I am going to rip open.