Hunter and prey, vampire and human, dominance and submission. That is the natural law. Anything else is perversion.
This month we delve into the erotic world of Light Play by Jaap Boekestein from our Ravenous anthology. Today Jaap investigates the ties between vampires, power, and sex.
The Power Play of Vampires
By Jaap Boekestein
Blood defines a vampire. A need for blood, or life force. It’s all symbolic.
You can take all other things away, the garlic, the crucifixes, the holy water, even the scorching daylight, but without the taking of blood/life force you don’t have a vampire.
So a vampire needs something. He needs it bad. He will do anything to get it. He hunts, he dominates, he seduces… He is the predator, the taker.
We mere humans of course don’t want to give our blood. For blood is life, the Bible says (Leviticus) and we sure don’t want to give it away. But for the vampire we are prey, the giver.
Predator and prey, dominator and submissive, seducer and seduced. The relationship between a vampire and a human is defined by power. The power demand, to take, to force if need be.
Vampires are natural tops. They are above us in the food chain and in our mutual interactions we are the bottom. The strong and the weak. Yes, that is vampires and us.
Artwork by Jaap Boekestein
With all of the above in mind, it was inevitable that I made the connection between vampires and that other world with power play, tops and bottoms, giving and taking. And don’t forget the interesting sex! And love, that too.
I am talking of bdsm of course.
A certain series of books and movies made bdsm a bit more mainstream and lots of people now have at least some idea that that world exists. The ones in the scene just laugh and say: “They don’t really know.” They forget everyone started out by not knowing. And my advice: distrust anyone who says: “I know it all.”
The story Light Play combines both worlds: vampires and bdsm. Of course there always have been some form of bdsm in the vampire lore: look into my eyes, I force you to do things you should not like because of your cultural taboo but you secretly long for… (Which is very much a fantasy. Nowadays consent is very important in erotica, and rightly so. I’m glad we seemed to have learned something.)
Putting vampires in a bdsm-setting is less common, and I decided to try it.
But…
Yeah…
Strong, sexy, seductive vampire top and helpless, willing, submissive human?
I could tell that story, but basically I would end up telling a bdsm story with a top who had fangs. It didn’t really do anything with the whole vampire-element, except maybe some sucking at the end of the session, right before the after care.
I needed a twist.
I found a twist.
And I wrote Light Play, vampires, bdsm and twist.
Jaap Boekestein (1968) is an award winning Dutch writer of science fiction, fantasy, horror, thrillers and whatever else takes his fancy. Five novels and almost three hundred of his stories have been published. His has made his living as a bouncer, working for a detective agency and as editor. He currently works for the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security.
Website and social media:
http://jaapboekestein.com/
https://www.amazon.com/author/jaapboekestein.com
