Condom is not a sexy word,
and safety can’t always be confused
with restraint, a hindrance:
arms tied behind back, your shoulders
nearly giving from the strain, I’m giving in
again. We abstain from the confusion
of ball gags and too many musky perfumes
assaulting our senses. Safety is knowing
every word you wish to say: your lips cracked,
tongue twisted when I claw my path
down your chest. We accept that latex
is sexy, reminding us of
how a rubber suit can bind you to me
in body and word. Latex allows for
poodle or trumpet to become safe,
a limit but not a hindrance.
Simulate the scene:
pleas met with rope burns met
with my mouth. My saliva
has no healing properties.
I can’t redeem you, can only adore
the perfect pink bracelets I’ve created,
the swelling of chafed wrist-flesh.
Safety is more illusion, a ground
we agree on each time you sit down
on the beige carpet and place your arms
behind yourself, ready, willing
with a poodle or trumpet coiled
in your throat but pushed toward your lungs
as each strike renders you more pliable,
more mine to my patient hands.
Safety is word is sex is the last barrier.

Justin Holliday is an English lecturer and poet. His work has appeared in Fire Poetry, Rogue Agent, Dreams and Nightmares, Impossible Archetype and elsewhere.

Gem Blackthorn is QMT's Sex Columnist, and the author/curator of Lust Thrust Thursdays. Send her your submissions and questions at sexsexsex [at] queenmobs.com

Image: Stavaros Gracemount