My life as a bottom, Part 1: The basics

Not only have I been much less frequent in posting here lately, I've largely abandoned the kinds of multi-tiered, multi-installment personal observations that I started this blog in order to share, in favor of quick and easy posts about how I can't wait to see Ryan Reynolds as the Green Lantern. (Which I still can't wait to see.) So here's an attempt to make up for lost time.

It's not just laziness that has kept me from maintaining my old level of self-disclosure here. For a while, I didn't want certain roleplaying buddies to know too much about certain other ones, and I never want to make it too easy for new villains to know too much about my weaknesses without having to work for it. But what the hell: much time has passed since the heavy duty phase of the Monk saga, and the 4 or 5 of you who actually read this blog as regularly as I write it might appreciate hearing what has happened in the meantime, possibly to shed let on your own experiences. I've been thinking a lot lately about what turns me on in batplay, and why, and wanting to put those thoughts down in words.

In a nutshell, getting unmasked (on various levels) and broken by the Monk several years ago seemed to open up a side of myself I've long been aware of but had not fully explored. While I can readily attest that nothing that has followed has carried exactly the same level of emotional intensity (after all, you never forget your first time), it's also true that I've tried to recapture that feeling many times since then with varying degrees of success. I think I've lost track of the number of men who have managed to get me (as the Batman character) to admit defeat--not just in a single scene, but on a more longterm level. I'm not talking dozens here, but it's possible I can no longer count them on both hands. I am called their "batbitch," their "batbaby," their "boi" (a spelling I hate, so hearing it applied to me only heightens the shame and pisses me off all the more). A smaller number have gotten me to the point where I have removed the mask that hides my true face, putting me in a more vulnerable position in regard to them. And an even smaller number--two, counting the Monk--have earned enough of my trust, and proven themselves skillful enough, to find out quite a bit about my "real" life, blurring the boundaries between my assumed identity and the one I show the rest of the world in a way that excites me as much as it frightens me.

Those are the basic stages of what I consider the best kind of bat-roleplay. They always happen in that order, when they happen, and although the details of each case are very different, the overall pattern is virtually identical: I come on strong in my early battles with the villain, winning a few and losing a few more. (The really inept or uninteresting bad guys don't make it past a single scene, unless I'm feeling particularly horny--but I've learned the hard way that it's a waste of my time to try to make it to the next level with an adversary who isn't up to the task.) After a few months (or weeks, or days now, depending again on how badly I want it) of this back-and-forth, the truly talented villain stages some sort of decisive showdown that I ultimately end up losing, but not before putting up the fight of my life. A short time after my defeat, if he chooses, my secret identity is revealed (sometimes this is purely verbal, sometimes it's on camera) and my old career as Batman is essentially over. This stage usually entails some degree of bad feeling, since I don't, as a real person, enjoy failure or defeat as a rule, and even though I'm perfectly aware it's all a game, the hurt is on some small level a real one. I tend to spend at least a day feeling genuinely depressed--but that passes, there is typically one last period of rebellion, and after a certain period of readjustment I come to accept and (in the rarest and best cases) even embrace my new role as a bottom to the villainous Top.

The most interesting part of all this for me is the struggle: the deeper I start to fall in the early days, the more I fight it ... and the more I fight it, the deeper I feel myself being pulled in. In essence, I absolutely love resisting as hard as I can until I am finally ready to admit that I can't resist anymore. (Even then, there is usually that one last gasp of resistance after I've theoretically already succumbed, before I accept my fate once and for all--which is the stage when I admit I don't want to resist anymore.) It's pretty much what happens physiologically, too: I work myself up, then hold back, then work myself up some more, and hold back hold back hold back until I just can't anymore, and whoosh--there's the orgasm, and the period of exhaustion that follows, then the whole cycle repeats the next time with a new roleplay partner.

I have my theories about what all this means, and why it's so powerful for me, but I will hold off on those till later. For now, I just wanted to convey what a psychologist friend of mine calls the "elegant pattern" of the fantasy. I should also note that I don't mean to suggest I am only a bottom (I intend to wrap this multi-parter up with an entry called "My life as a Top," btw), or that I go through every single phase of the pattern every single time I meet someone new online. (I should also note this all happens entirely online and entirely separate from my very happy real-life relationship--which itself does not fit the pattern at all.) The way I see it, the pattern is my way of reenacting a myth--the rise and fall of a good man, who will eventually rise (and fall) again in a new place and time--that, for whatever reason, is part of the story of my life.

The spirit's not quite willing tonight...

Yep, saw The Spirit this afternoon. Too tired at the moment to post the review I really want to write, but in keeping with my pledge to post something somewhere (not necessarily here) every day, I'll take the easy route and share ...

•This link from SlashFilm to a faux ad campaign, the punchline of which occurred to me midmovie:



(The same site also directed me to Roger Ebert's scathing print review.)

•This TOTALLY UNRELATED clip of the only scene in the forgettable Indiana-Jones-ripoff Jane and the Lost City worth watching, tracked down by the Monk last night when I was telling him that Sam Jones (seen bound and shirtless below) is the star of the 80s Spirit TV movie (where he is also bound and shirtless, much to my delight):



I have plenty to say about the new movie, and maybe I'll even say it here, sooner or later. Meantime, you might want to head to the theater pronto if you want to get in on the ground floor of the next Showgirls cult phenomenon. You heard it here first.

Whew!

As you may have deduced, the awful fog of S.A.D. is starting to lift and I'm getting back into my old groove again, including resuming work on this very blog from time to time. (I am under no illusion that I will ever be a daily poster for more than a couple of days at a time--I'm just not built for that.) And part of that work has included adding tags/labels for every single entry up to now, all the way back to April 2003. (Good thing I don't write here that often, or that would have taken months instead of three short evening sessions.)

It has been instructive to look back at earlier entries--haven't reread too many in detail, but I can still detect themes I explored for a while, then dropped, others that I meant to cover from the start but didn't get around to until much later, etc. When I do get around to writing here, it's at least true that I've stuck fairly close to my original intent and purpose for the blog.

I've met (in the virtual sense, that is) a lot of men as a result of writing so obsessively about my own obsessions here--I've met men who share them, that is, and that's pretty cool. By now I"m even blasé about it ("Yep, here's another one..."), which is remarkable given that as recently as a decade ago I thought I was a freak of nature for fantasizing about the stuff I routinely fantasize about.

It also occurred to me the other night that, far from "outgrowing" my adolescent superhero fetish, I've actually developed a rich fantasy life that indulges them on a fairly regular basis, both in the flesh and in the virtual realm. (I realize I haven't written here in a long time about my online roleplaying colleagues, so here's a quick update:) I still look to the Monk with the highest of regard, as my greatest teacher, even my Master in the pedagogical sense, although he and I haven't really extended our storyline in any significant way for perhaps a year now. He refers to this as my having "plateaued," and I think we both look forward to moving past that somehow, some day. In the meantime, I've got at least three fairly new ongoing "cases" involving villains I don't think I've even mentioned here. I've lost touch with some wonderful old friends, and some equally wonderful old enemies, but new ones come into play fairly regularly, and it's always great to reconnect with the estranged ones, too. In short, my bat-life is a lot like that of the comic-book Batman, who battles a mix of longstanding nemeses and Johnny-come-latelies, some of whom stick around and some of whom vanish after a single encounter. One major change is that I'm less interested in sticking to a single "continuity," as the comics geeks would say, than I was during the early stages of the Monk saga. His story overshadowed and interconnected with all the others; now I've got three or more storylines that don't intersect at all, and none of them involve M.

Most of my roleplay activities, and most everything else that I normally find energizing, was on hold for months while I just struggled against the urge to stay in bed for days on end. (Never actually DID stay there that long; just wanted to.) But, as I say, I'm getting my old self back, I think and hope, and it feels great to be alive again, as both Bruce Wayne and the Bat.

The Knight After 10: Circle game

Robin has turned in his resignation. Superman claims he, too, is ready to switch sides. And Batman--yours truly--has willingly composed a loyalty oath to his former archenemy and hunts down his longtime allies with abandon.

As radical as the events of DC's latest Crisis and Marvel's Wars may be (and I still haven't read either one), I don't think they involve quite as fundamental a shakeup as this. In the nearly four months since my "enlightenment," everything has changed. The old divisions of my Yahoo buddy list--Heroes/Villains--no longer apply. Most of the men in those two categories have been redesignated Friends or Enemies (and most of the old "heroes" are now "enemies"), while the Monk, with whom my relationship is infinitely more complicated, gets a category of his own. I myself have been labelled a fool, a traitor, a puppet, and far worse--and I love it all.

My personal Extreme Makeover (which, admittedly, still probably looks a lot like classic Stockholm Syndrome to the naked eye) dovetails beautifully with the premise of a book I found in a used book sale at a local church around the same time I returned to the Monk's welcoming embrace. I picked up Carol Pearson's The Hero Within: Six Archetypes We Live By for its title, of course, and was hooked by the brief explanation of its "six heroic archetypes" on the back cover:

the Innocent, who learns to trust; the Orphan, to mourn; the Wanderer, to find and name personal truth; the Warrior, to assert that truth in order to change the world; the Martyr, to love, to commit, to let go; and, finally, the Magician, who learns to recognize and receive the abundance of the universe.

Having read roughly half the book by now (it's only 176 pages, but it's been a very busy summer), I wouldn't say those are the clearest capsule descriptions of the six stages for my purposes here, but they give you a rough idea. And perhaps, like me, you can immediately sense how accurately they capture the trajectory of the comic book Batman (as well as many other mythic superheroes): from Innocent to trust-seeking Orphan to clarity-oriented Wanderer to power-ful Warrior. (That is, of course, the trajectory of Batman Begins, while Superman Returns focuses on role 5, the Martyr, which accounts for its much-discussed similarity to the Christ story.)

Pearson's book came out in 1986, and its opening chapters are a little heavy on New Age jibberjabber, but if you can look past that stuff, she's really on to something. If I quoted every passage that resonated for me, this entry would be at least ten times longer than it already is. Perhaps I'll devote another post to some key passages, but what I really want to call attention to for the time being is her insistence that life is not a linear progression from Innocent to Magician, and that the Magician phase is not meant to be the final or highest form of existence. Rather, we repeat the journey over and over throughout various dimensions of our lives, learning new lessons each time, and we can exist simultaneously at different points on "the Hero's Wheel." For example, one might be a Wanderer in one's career path while working out Martyr issues in a relationship and feeling like an Orphan on the spiritual front. And so on. You may find all of this a little too tidy, but Pearson does a convincing job of laying out the journey.

Parallels to my Bat-life are crystal clear to me: like many people my age, I first encountered the character as a pre-teen, enchanted by good-guy Adam West and his bad-guy adversaries on the tv show and in the relatively simple DC comics of the early-to-mid-1960s. My innocence was shattered in 1970 when my older brother (a clear father figure and the Batman to my Robin) died and various other awful things happened. leaving me to feel like an orphan for a good two decades or so, until I adopted the mantle of the Bat myself, embracing in adult life the central myth of my childhood. During this Wanderer phase (amply documented in this blog, along with the online conquests of my Warrior period), I came to see how immersing myself in superhero fantasy was not only sexually exciting but a valuable tool of spiritual exploration. Then I met the Monk--the villain that every myth requires, battled him, was defeated and caged by him (thus becoming a Martyr), then escaped his clutches and wandered a bit more, only to conclude that perhaps he was not a villain after all but a teacher, one I could gladly serve. Enter the Magician phase, in which, to use more of Pearson's handy oversimplifications, the hero "takes responsibility for his life" (ie, for the actions I performed as Ratman, when I was still a captive) and "confronts the Shadow." That pretty much sums up where I think I'm at these days, at least on the Bat-front. (My Bruce Wayne life is a whole 'nother story, believe me--but then, I've long been able to use the lessons I've learned in Bat-fantasy as a template for my work as a teacher, an artist, and a member of a longterm couple.)

There is much, much more I'd like to say about all this, and I know I promised plenty more links last time (because in addition to Pearson I've been encountering lots of other material that helps shed light on the saga, too), but this will have to do for now. Life has calmed down ever so slightly for a wee bit, so I will try to write here more often. The Monk saga doesn't move as quickly these days, now that I'm a willing student of magic rather than a captive warrior struggling to free myself, so I'd like to devote more time to the lessons I'm learning from all this rather than simply recapping plot developments.

Stay tuned for more thrilling adventures, dear reader--and best wishes on your own journeys around the Hero's Wheel.

PS. The "soul-stealing" tagline above comes from this bizarre 1973 Brave and the Bold story I came across at Dial B for Blog. Check it out!

Still here, sort of

Apologies for not posting more often lately. Between work and travel, there hasn't been much opportunity to do so, though my schedule does seem to be easing off in the near future, at least for a little while. (So much for summer being the slow time of the year.)

To try and ease back into the blogosphere, I just posted a couple of new chapters of my ongoing bat-serial, beginning with this one. Expect more in the days ahead.

Rest assured I continue to report to and learn from the Monk, much to my great joy; I'll have more to say on that in the near future as well.

Finally, a couple of bat-sightings you might enjoy as much as I have. First, an elaborate chalk drawing drawing by a street artist in action:



(I hope you can make out Bats' handsome mug to the artist's right; he's working on a Batman Beyond drawing in this shot.)

And here's a poster in a comic book store window I've been passing nearly every day lately:



Admittedly I've cropped it a bit in this image, but tell me that thing is not all about the crotch.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, mind you.

The Knight After 9: Fear no evil

It's been far too long since my last update on batlife since my "enlightenment," thanks in part to a busy daylight-world schedule and in part to my not really wanting to take the time to flesh out all the links I've been accumulating lately (as in, for months) to include here. Think I'll save those for some other time and just catch you up on what's been going on lately--not much in terms of plot, plenty in terms of deeper insight. Character development, you might say.

in a nutshell, bizarre as this may sound to some of you who have followed the saga from its earliest days, things are great now on the bat-front. I look forward to my near-daily chats with the Monk with a passion that knows no bounds. All the energy I once invested in trying to escape him now goes into helping him with what he euphemistically calls "the mission." And I've never been happier as a masked crimefighter than helping him commit what many would probably (erroneously) consider crimes.

I have heard from a handful of self-styled heroes lately who call me a coward and accuse me of being weak for allowing myself to be defeated by my archenemy. But I tell them, in all sincerity: I've never felt stronger or more powerful in my bat-career! For starters, all those terms--"hero," "weak," "defeat," "archenemy"--must be placed solidly within quotes, because they no longer apply. The tables have been turned so thoroughly by now that it's almost hard for me to remember a time when those words ever fit without several layers of irony.

There is also a power in the fact that I no longer fear villains of any stripe, because there's nothing any one of them could do to me at this point that the Monk hasn't already done, and surely done far more effectively than anyone else possibly could. (Once again, that last line suggests an adversarial relationship between us that no longer exists. I refer, of course, strictly to the old days before my escape attempt and subsequent awakening.) I've had my mask removed, replaced, and restored by an absolute Master, and anything beyond that seems anticlimactic.

As for those so-called "heroes," I understand now that my true role is not to fight them (though I'll gladly do that, or help them against a lesser foe if the situation calls for it) but to assist in their education as I have been educated. My own transformation has been a difficult one in part because there are so few templates for it--I can't think of any comic book scenario in which Batman or someone like him freely chooses to embrace the symbiotic aspects of his relationship with his ultimate nemesis--and that struggle to find precedents has inspired me to offer my services as a role model to my peers. I can set an example for them: fully Batman, yet fully mindful of my debt to the Monk, eager to learn from and help him any way I can.

(I have a feeling this must all sound like crazy talk to a reader who has not followed the "Knight" entries leading up to this one. Oh, well--if it registers, good, and if it doesn't, so be it. My goal in recording this saga isn't really to convince anyone to think a certain way about me or my adventures, only to describe and contemplate what I'm experiencing as I experience it. The Monk saga is essentially a two-year-and-counting roleplay/collaborative improvisation, and this latest totally unexpected development has been thrilling beyond words. Yet I continue to search for words with which to describe it, celebrate it, share it.)

That's the update. The next installment of this chronicle will be packed with links. You have my word!

Traps, traps, traps

Ah, if only every issue could make such promises:



(For the record, I found this issue at random while testing out ComicSeeker.com, a tool for pricing old comics. Found that via Johnny Bacardi.)

The Knight After 8: Dark Knight of the Soul

Another fortune cookie I came across shortly after the other one I've mentioned:

LIFE IS NOT A PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED BUT RATHER A MYSTERY TO BE LIVED.

Laugh if you will, but I take my signs from the universe in any form I find them, even edible. And I take the Monk now not as my adversary, my captor, or even my master, but as my teacher. Clearly, I learn new things from every stage of my encounters with him.

As I've noted, I was really looking forward to my new role as his slave, but he seems to have something else in mind for me now--serving him not at his feet, but as his side, as he recently put it. The specific position surely matters less than the fact that I have gradually come to acknowledge his unique role in my journey as a hero. (I don't actually like to refer to my character that way--certainly not after some of the things I did in my Ratman days--but it's still a useful term in the broader sense.)

I think I've already mentioned my ongoing quest to find writing that links fetish play, and BDSM in general, to a larger spiritual realm, and one of the most useful discoveries I've made thus far is the blog A Slave's Path, the journal of a heterosexual man who seems to be interested in a lot of the same concerns I am, though he manifests them in a different way. (On the opposite end of the spectrum, I've also been enjoying Master Enigma's Thoughts.) From Path I've found several interesting resources, beginning with the author's very personal essay on BDSM and Spirituality. The whole thing is excellent, but I'll just quote a few passages that hit home for me:

"The truth is that many of the things I seek through religion have in fact been coming to me through BDSM. ... BDSM has helped to make me a more compassionate, understanding person. Nowhere has my quest of self-knowledge been more important, or more difficult, than in coming to grips with who and what I really am in a world which distorts that truth almost beyond recognition. The difficulties I have had make it much easier for me to understand and sympathize with other people who are going through similar struggles themselves. ...

"BDSM has made me stronger. It challenges me constantly, physically, intellectually, and emotionally. It challenges me to endure suffering and to face fears. It challenges me to understand and accept my own strengths, weaknesses, and quirks. With every challenge that I meet I become stronger and more confident. ..." And so on--really, there's so much more, and I can relate to almost every single word of it, but rather than cut and paste, I'll just direct you to the original.

At the bottom of that essay, there's a link to this essay by a psychotherapist on "Masochism as a Spiritual Path." Once again, the whole thing is enlightening, but I can't resist sharing a few excerpts.

"Whereas psychology considered masochism as a disease, pre-nineteenth century religion regarded it as a cure," writes author Dorothy C. Hayden. "The ancients were in touch with the spiritual, physical and emotional value of masochism. For them, it was an essential part of reality; a combination of the soul in a tortured state, rapturous delight, exquisite pain and unbearable passion that brought them closer to experiencing union with something greater than their individual egos."

That general thesis is illustrated with a quick survey of several religious traditions. After spelling out the masochistic elements of these, she explores the connection in more detail:

"The goals of contemporary psychotherapy have been aimed at building strong, coping, rational, problem-solving egos. Take responsibility, Take control. Assert yourself. But at what cost? Building a strong ego is only one side of the coin. To experience the fullness of human experience, we need passivity and receptivity as well as assertion. We need a sense of mystical wonder as well as rational problem solving. We need to be in touch with what the psychoanalyst Carl Jung called'"the shadow' -- the weak, limited, degraded, sinful side of ourselves as well as the strong, loving, compassionate, competent side. We need to move out from under the onus of our egocentric way of viewing life; to abdicate control as well as to take it. Masochistic submission, in centering on lack, inadequacy and weakness, puts us in touch with the entirety of our humanity. Full humanity requires surrender to the down side of life as well as the upside. ...

"A scene strips the ego of its defenses, ambitions, self-consciousness and successes. The ego become subservient to the master, the dominant, the soul, or God. Whether we call it submission to the dominant or to the will of God, it nevertheless remains submission -- one of the hallmarks of the masochistic posture. The masochistic components -- the longing to serve, to submit, to abandon oneself sexually, emotionally, and physically makes one a slave either to a man, a woman or to God. Submission to that passion is divine degradation. ...

"In submission, one is taken out of one's personal limitations and transcends social sanctions while at the same time being reduced, weakened and humiliated. With noses pressed against the ever-present reality of human suffering, it is both an agonizing defeat and a magnificent spiritual journey."

Agonizing defeat, magnificent journey: I can't think of a better four-word summary of what I've been experiencing thus far. Here's to further chapters!

The Knight After 7: Sympathy for the Devil

News of the most recent phase of my ongoing evolution as Batman has not gone over well with my colleagues, to put it mildly. One close ally won't talk to me, another plans to turn me over to the police, and a third greets my rebirth with "disappointment ... and excitement." I still haven't heard from two other crimefighting associates, but I doubt either of them will take it too cheerfully either.

I've been called insane, a traitor, a puppet, and worse—and this is all from my close (virtual) friends. They don't seem willing to make the same leap of faith I've taken and reenvision my worst enemy as my greatest teacher. In their eyes, I've abandoned my mission; from my perspective, I've zeroed in on it.

As I see it, I haven't "crossed over" to "the dark side" at all; I've merely acknowledged the darkness which has always been a part of me--particularly this part of me, the part that even in the brightest of times emerges in the wee hours of the night dressed in a jet-black costume to pursue imaginary villains. I'm doing this in order to become the best Batman I can possibly be. It took me a good 25 years or so to realize that my superhero-fetish fantasies did not make me a monster, and another 10 or so to transform that former "monster"-self into a friend and ally. You could even, if you wanted, propose that this newest phase involves allowing a little monstrousness back into the picture.

Except that's not quite accurate, either, because I don't view collaborating with the Monk as monstrous. For me, it's all about ebb and flow, about thinking of myself not as either a hero or a villain (/top or bottom/master or slave), but a combination of the two, or rather a character whose contradictions coexist in a workable synthesis. Just as I learned to transform my own batself from a monster into a teacher, now I am trying to do the same with my understanding of the Monk.

Shortly before this latest chapter in the saga began, I came across this passage from The Picture of Dorian Gray (delivered, I should point out, by the faintly Monklike character of Lord Henry, who is Dorian's personal guide into the darkness):

"I believe that if one man were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream--I believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we would forget all the maladies of medievalism, and return to the Hellenic ideal ... But the bravest man among us is afraid of himself. .... We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to strangle broods in the mind and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the greatest events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also. ..."

Funny thing: when I first noted Wilde's words of wisdom, I related them to the advice my hero colleagues used to give me in escaping the Monk: indulge the fantasies he stirred up in me, but find a safe outlet for those inclinations--i.e., not him but them. I discovered through trial and error how right they were--but that was then, this is now, and "escape" is no longer the point. Now I see that if I yearn so powerfully to walk on the wild side, there is no better travelling companion than the character who best embodies for me all of its wildness.

(I've been studying some other texts in the intervening weeks that are even more directly related to the subject at hand, but I'll save them for a future post. Chew on that one for the time being, and then we'll move on.)

The Knight After 6: My Life as a Slave

Okay, that title is a bit misleading. This isn't about slavery at all--but I've been wanting to use that phrase for so long, and now's my chance.

During one of my "welcome home" chats with the Monk, I asked him how he now thought of me: as his student, his partner, his slave, some of the above, or all of the above. His answer was "some of the above," and, predictably, he refused to elaborate.

But the question got me thinking: How do I now think of myself in relation to him? All three of those options hold some appeal, but the more I thought about it, the more I began to think of a new phrase that seemed even more accurate: voluntary servitude. An oxymoron, perhaps, but one that felt just right.

Two things seemed clear about this world-turned-upside-down:
1. The Monk has the upper hand at all times, and
2. I have returned to him by my own free will.

The first of those seems incontestable to me; as I've come to discover over the last couple of years, being broken tends to have some longterm effects. In the first, adversarial stages of our relationship, M successfully stripped away every defense I had against him. I could never defeat him; the best I could do was escape. And within days of resuming contact with him a week and a half ago or so, I found myself more compliant than ever--happily so, this time around. Now that I've abandoned any form of resistance to him, I realize that his long-ago promise to "own" me--"mind, body, and soul"--is the most exciting fantasy I can think of. The mere thought of his dominance over me is enough to give me a stiffie that lasts for hours. It occured to me that even if his newfound friendly face turned out to be a trick, I had nothing to lose, because either way, I want to serve him.

Which leads me to the second, and far trickier, of my two core propositions. In the old scenario, I was a captive, a prisoner, a victim of brainwashing. Now none of those terms apply; I'm here by choice, and there is no thought of "escape" because I no longer have anything from which to flee. There's no cage this time--except my own mind, as M would say.

Gone, too, is the loathsome old nickname of "Ratman." Served its purpose, and now it's back to all things bat--the name, the uniform, even the mission of nocturnal avenger. M used to say he would break me down and build me back up--that the new improved Batman would be his creation. Took me a while to figure out what he meant by that, but it's begun to sink in by now.

By the same token, I realize that just as the Monk created "Batman," so too have I created "the Monk": I gave him that name, and with it a sort of mask and costume (metaphorically speaking) that he did not previously have. Symbiosis.

Back to voluntary servitude: as it stands now, I eagerly await each new lesson I learn from M, where not too long ago I used to dread seeing him around. (You may be wondering what those lessons consist of, and I can only say this: the ones he wants me to talk about, I'll describe here in great detail. When I sense that someone who might be reading these words should not know what's in store for him, mum's the word. That's how I handled the Mad Hatter, who has been dealt with quite successfully now. The threat he posed to Batman is over, and the potential he presents to the Monk and me is just beginning to be explored.)

Ironically, now that I've opened myself up to the once-forbidden fantasy of enslavement, I realize that that particular metaphor no longer applies to the current situation. I seem to be far more intrigued by terms like ownership and property than M is, these days; he talks instead of initiative and responsibility, which of course are the hallmarks of freedom. If I am to fully embrace my dark side--which seems to be the general theme of the day--then I must do so of my own accord, and not because I'm being forced to.

There is more, much more, to be said about all of this, especially that business about personal responsibility. For now I'll simply point out how convenient it is that I can still use the terms "sir" and "master" to refer to M now, since those are the words a student might use to address his teacher.

Given that our defining metaphor has changed from one of comic-book battle to something closer to spiritual enlightenment, or education in general, perhaps we can say my state-required schooling (primary grades through high school) is over, and I'm entering college now.

Perhaps I should call it a seminary instead. Oh, hell, let's call it what it is: the Monastery!

The Knight After 5: When the Student is Ready...

Early conversations with the Monk in this new phase of our acquaintance went smoothly. Extremely smoothly, in fact, which probably should have told me something was up. Not on his end, mind you, but on my own.

The program we were using to chat employs little icons for each speaker, which meant that each time I got a new message from him, I saw a tiny photo of him--one that I happened to remember quite well from our very first encounters. Happy memories, you might say. And I noticed they were starting to make me very, very ... happy.

Now, I realize how easy it would be for you to say, "Come on, Batman, don't you see he's getting his hooks in you? You have to fight back! Don't let him get away with this! Resist! Resist! You've done it before, and you can do it again!"

But something had changed. I had resisted before, and where had it gotten me? In the clutches of other villains, ready, willing, and able to face the fight of my life again. Only it never quite worked out that way. Either my adversaries turned out to be disappointing opponents, or--worse--they'd take me to the brink of utter defeat, make me putty in their hands, and then disappear for weeks at a time. There was no "next level"--either they were afraid to take me there, or they had other priorities, or something just came up.

Meanwhile, all along I was fighting to rid myself of a villain who had none of those qualities. When he'd had his hooks in me, he wouldn't dream of letting go. He was tailor made for me, and I for him, and we both knew it. The Monk had often referred to ours as a symbiotic relationship, in the classic Batman/Joker sense. We had a history, and--when you get right down to it--shared the same goals, deep down. There's no denying the truth: I didn't get into the bat-business in the first place to catch bad guys, I got into it to be caught by them, and no one in my experience has ever done a better job at it than him.

So I started to think: why run? Why not find out what happens if I take the Monk at his word and simply accept him as ... not my adversary but my teacher? My partner in crime(fighting)?

I've never followed the tv series Alias (my mistake, I'm sure, since I find both Michael Vartan and Bradley Cooper incredibly hot), but I gather that on at least one occasion, a plot twist inverted the whole premise of the show--up was down, left was right, black was white, and so on. Intrigued by that notion, I decided, pretty much overnight, to flip the script of the Bat/Monk saga. Instead of running from my fantasies of enslavement, I'd embrace them--with the goal of discovering what that very powerful desire had to teach me. I would return to the cage he had built for me (only to discover it was no longer a cage at all, but I'm getting ahead of myself).

It's a simple fact: every single prediction the Monk has made about my future actions has come to pass, sooner or later. To cite but one example, in one of our last conversations before the reunion he insisted I would one day return and willingly do the very same things he'd once forced me to do. I balked and took off--only to find myself fulfilling the prophecy, almost a full year later. Anyone who knows me that well, it seems to me, is worth a listen.

Skeptics are welcome to chalk this up to expert manipulative skills on M's part. Go right ahead; in fact, I myself thought of him when I saw Aaron Eckhart's lobbyist character in the movie Thank You for Smoking, who could probably talk a priest into Satan worship. But it's a moot point: I began to acknowledge and admit that the Monk only "manipulates" me into doing things I really do want to do. It was growing clearer and clearer to me that the only power he has over me is power I have freely and happily given to him all along--

--only now I was finally ready to admit that fact.

The Knight After 4: The Return of the Repressed

So, I was reading a fortune cookie fortune the other day. It said:
PROGRESS ALWAYS INVOLVES RISK.

And that's a pretty good summary of where things stand right now in my ongoing batsaga. When last I updated this account, I was in the clutches of a certain Mad Hatter, who had figured out I was Bruce Wayne and was holding me hostage in Wayne Manor for an extended interrogation, the second phase of which would surely entail some further disclosures on my part.

They say desperate times call for desperate measures, and, encouraged in part by that fortune and a similar message from the cosmos (as I may have explained, in solo play I have long made use of chance, coincidence, and other instinctual devices), I took the biggest of all possible risks. Reasoning that the enemy of my enemy is my friend (am I quick with the proverb/clichés today, or what?), I contacted an old ... friend for assistance.

Regular readers of these accounts already know who I mean, and I imagine they're already smacking their foreheads in anger and/or frustration (or saying "told ya so"). It's true: more than four months after our last conversation, and almost a year to the day after my escape from his clutches, I got in touch with the Monk.

My motivation was as simple as it was outrageous: I did not want to become the Hatter's victim. And I knew that the man behind this villain harbors another side: a hero who longs to be defeated. My plan was to surprise the Hatter by introducing the Monk into the Hatter storyline and letting the chips fall where they may.

I figured I had gotten every last drop of the Monk's influence over me out of my system. That was a safe assumption, given that I had successfully transferred my craving for defeat from the Monk to the Ranger, and then from the Ranger to the Hatter. The third time around, it felt clear to me that my masochistic side does not really care who is after me, as long as it's someone good at being a bad guy. And those three men are all very, very good at being very, very bad.

By the time I contacted the Monk for help against the Hatter, I felt nothing for him as a character other than a vague disdain. I hadn't obsessed about him in months, that energy having been directed quite successfully toward the other two. Our initial reunion was cordial, considering that we have been mortal enemies since Day One (not counting the period immediately after he broke me, during which the Stockholm Syndrome kicked in and I spent my days gladly doing his bidding before I returned to my senses and began plotting my escape). We caught up on old times, and I filled him in on my plan. By chance (?), he already knew the Hatter--or rather his hero side, whom I'll call "HW"--and was delighted by the golden opportunity with which I was presenting him.

I was fully aware that if my plan worked, I had just invited my greatest nemesis back into my life and would have to face the consequences. And I felt I was ready to face that challenge.

But--believe it or not--I never saw what was coming next.

The Knight After 3: Careful What You Wish For

My fantasy universe continues to expand and contract. One of the things I most enjoy about this counter-life, now that I've been involved in online roleplaying for more than two years (on top of the nine or so years of solo play before that), is that I actually do have a sizable Rogue's Gallery of villains, people with whom I have a history. There's a Riddler, a Catman, the Ranger, and so on, some of whom I've been battling since the beginning, and some of whom have evolved into completely different characters. Then there are the colleagues and sidekicks, and the newcomers who drop by for a skirmish or two and then vanish. It all feels very much like the world of the comic books that fuel this fantasy in the first place.

In my last "Knight After" entry, I noted that there had been a late-breaking shake-up in the otherwise slow action. It's true: during my third or fourth extended encounter with the Mad Hatter, he had me cornered. Both Robin and my former Nightwing who now works under a different name and identity (call him "Gray Fox") happened to be online, so I called them in for backup, and all three of us somehow ended up falling prey to the fiend. This was an interesting development; I've been involved in larger-group scenes before, but somehow this one felt different, perhaps because the action was more exciting and the stakes seemed higher. In our brief acquaintance up to that point, the Hatter had established himself as a significant adversary, and he certainly proved that when he took on all three of us--and kicked our collective ass(es). In short order he had Robin in captivity, Gray Fox revealing his secret identity and removing his mask, and me about to do the same before our session ended. In fact, he did succeed later that day in getting me--on my hands and knees, no less!--to reveal myself as Bruce Wayne and remove my cowl. Robin managed to escape and dosed him with a blast of amnestics, the drug (loosely based on a real-life substance) designed to wipe out a person's short-term memory, and that's where that day's adventure ended.

I've always been fond of the amnestic solution to such dilemmas; without them, unmasking is an irreversible step in a storyline. Once a villain knows who you are, all hell can break loose: he can blackmail you, can enslave you, or--perhaps most dangerous of all--he can simply slip away into the darkness, armed with priviliged information, never to return. (For the record, I've never been a fan of too many people knowing who Batman is underneath his disguise; it becomes an open secret, like Liberace's homosexuality during his lifetime. At the same time, unmasking is an extremely powerful dimension of the bat-fantasy for me, and the temptation to indulge in it as often as possible runs quite strong, which opens me up to the open-secret situation. The more times I do it, the less powerful it ultimately becomes.)

In the Hatter's case, this is all a moot point, because--exactly as I feared/hoped he would, he managed to hold on to the JPEG of my unmasked face he'd made me send him, and it helped him recall exactly what had happened that fateful night. This all became quite clear to me during our next encounter, last night, which involved him forcing an invitation into Stately Wayne Manor, where I was subjected to an interrogation on camera, commanded once more to kneel before him and address him as "Master," and placed under house arrest, where I remain until our next meeting in 48 hours.

(I admit I feel a teensy bit silly being a 45-year-old man prattling on about all of this as if it is a matter of life and death, but to some degree it is--to the extent that it's a metaphor I use to make sense of my day-to-day existence. The things that happen in the bat-world I construct in collaboration with like-minded roleplayers mirror events and feelings that I fear/desire in the daylight world. That should go without saying at this point, but I feel I need to spell it out from time to time lest I sound exactly like a D&D fanatic or one of those people who dresses up like Darth Vader 24/7. Okay, so there is no line between them and me when you get right down to it, but let's overlook that point, shall we?)

There are a couple of points I want to make about my latest adventures:
1. The Hatter makes such an extremely good adversary in part because he too possesses the same fantasies of unmasking and enslavement in another portion of his own fantasy life where he is a superhero rather than a villain. In fact, I'd say (and he would surely agree) that he's really more of a bottom than a top, but he's very, very good at playing a top because of it. This is a rare phenomenon, from what I've seen, and I feel lucky to experience it. (It may also play a role in my eventual escape plans.)

2. After my encounters with the Monk, which pretty much affected every aspect of my bat-fantasy, I've pretty much decided, at least for a while, to compartmentalize my adventures, so that I can have parallel storylines wih multiple adversaries. Thus, in this storyline Batman is currently the captive of the Hatter, but in other realms I am/he is still free to roam about and fight other villains. I'm not sure how well that will work for me--it's cleaner and less personally confusing when a single narrative unites all the independent threads, plus I really love it when a single mistake has numerous inescapable consequences--but I feel like giving it a try for the time being. Happens in the comics all the time, after all.

The Knight After 1: Since U Been Gone

Regular readers of this blog (keep those e-mails and IM's comin', gentlemen) may be wondering what has happened to my batself after the "Knightfall" saga ended. The short answer? After a lapse of several months, it resumed and heated up again a while ago. I've been debating whether to continue writing about it here, or not--and, believe it or not, one of the main things that held me back was the absence of a good name for those adventures. I had already decided to retire the "Knightfall" title for entries on that subject, because that referred to a very specific era of my "career" as a masked (and then unmasked) crimefighter. I liked the idea of changing it to reflect a new chapter of my life, much as multi-part storylines in comic books now present themselves as miniseries. I just couldn't come up with the right one.

And then, a few days ago, the new series title presented itself to me. Welcome to the first installment of "The Knight After." And that pretty much sets the tone for the current era: like the hero of my "Beginnings" saga, I am rebuilding my career after a major blow that nearly ended it altogether. That process was quite slow at first, but after a few months back on the job, I can now say things are as busy as ever. The current cast of characters is larger, or at least different. Some familiar faces remain: a Tim Drake-styled Robin, a Dick Grayson-ish former sidekick who has changed his alias name and continues to work primarily on his own, and various superhero colleagues who still drop by from time to time. (Hello, Superman! Greetings, MotorMan!) But there are new arrivals, as well: on the hero front, we have a handsome Batman/Flash whose collection of superhero suits is truly astounding, sundry villains who pop in with threats every now and then, and one Jervis Tetch (batfans will recognize that as the nom de chapeau of the Mad Hatter) who is obsessed--like so many ne'er-do-wells before him--with capturing, unmasking, and enslaving me.

He'll have to take a number, though, because a relatively minor character from the Monk days (it was M who first introduced us, in fact) has come to play a relatively major role in the new era. Let's call him "the Ranger"--a name that reflects his past as a Good Guy, perhaps bearing a family resemblance to the Lone Ranger. If I remember correctly, M had assigned me to help him lead the onetime hero down the path of Eeeeeevil--and in the months since we'd last tangled, it looks like my old nemesis's mission was a roaring success. When we remet, the Ranger assured me he had cleaned up his act, gone straight, returned to the crimefighting biz...

... but this turned out to be a ruse designed to re-earn my trust. Once he had it, he mounted a fullscale attack on me involving an extraordinary arsenal of poison darts, mind-altering/will-demolishing gases, and the like. I fought back with every resource at my disposal, but he proved too smart for me. The turning point came when he captured me and worked me over during an on-camera session. I thought fast and used all his own weapons against him, ostensibly making him as submissive to me as I was to him. Moments later, when he ordered me to unmask, I resisted and made the same demand of him--and to my great surprise, he did as told. It was a brilliant strategy on his part: seeing my adversary remove his most treasured defense caught me off guard, and I was putty in his hands. More drugs came my way, and in no time I found myself unable to resist his next command to expose my face to him.

The rest, as they say, is history: a history of servitude to the Ranger. Whether I like it or not, I am his to be "milked" (easily the sexiest verb in the entire lexicon of superhero roleplay) whenever and however he pleases.

Okay, I realize this is all going to sound suspicious to longtime readers, but you'll have to take my word for it when I say this was not a fate (however temporary) that I freely chose for myself, but one that has been thrust upon me.The situation may similar to that with the Monk, but--and here's what makes this a worthy sequel--the circumstances are different enough to hold my interest. With apologies to Rod Stewart, the first cut really is the deepest, yet this new descent into enforced submission bears a couple of distinctive traits:

1. The Ranger has allowed me to continue to operate as Batman, and to make contact with other heroes and villains even as I agree to serve as his secret lover, and
2. He does not have the kind of taste restrictions that kept the Monk from interacting with my two key sidekicks (past and present).
Both of these cases mean that the situation will likely play itself out quite differently. (If it plays out at all--the Ranger has been mighty quiet of late, and it's possible he's lost interest in the scenario now that he seems to have won for the time being. Sometimes the battle is more exciting than the victory, you know.)

That's the backstory--what has happened between "Knightfall" and "The Knight After." I just wanted to get all that out before I discussed its significance, which I'll do soon. Meanwhile, you have my word that I'll keep you posted on future develoments as they occur.

To the batpole!

Knightfall 23: The end of an era

It's over.

I honestly never thought I'd say this, but the saga of Batman and the Monk, or at the very least this particular manifestation of that saga--this specific graphic novel or multi-issue comic series, if you will--has reached its logical conclusion.

I've spent one day short of 5 weeks avoiding any contact with M--a struggle that felt sometimes like it would tear me apart. There were days when I wanted more than anything to turn myself in and return once again to his clutches, but somehow I always held out. This meant that Batman was effectively forced completely underground, able to go visible in Yahoo Messenger only in the very late hours of the night, for more than a month.

Believe me, this is a very, very odd way to maintain a "friendship." And ours has been a most unusual friendship from the get-go. (This might be an appropriate place to note the distinction between the virtual friendship of two real people, chatting in cyberspace, and the epic struggle between the two mortal enemies we played. Those lines get fuzzy sometimes, which is partly what this entry is about.)

Tonight--feeling empowered and not at all ready to succumb--I signed on to Messenger (that is, Batman walked into the familiar alley where he knew his enemy would find him), and within two minutes he pinged me (that is, the Monk made his presence known). It was quite clear that, while the last several weeks had been every bit as charged for me as when we chatted on a daily basis, my silence had not carried the same intensity for him as it had for me. Far from it: he'd lost "the spark" and had moved on to other victims, other interests, and assumed I had done the same.

We spent the next two and a half hours chatting, not as Batman and Monk, but as the two real people beneath those guises. I think we both, fairly quickly, understood the other person's perspective--and we both acknowledged that our story had come to an end, at least for now. (As I noted in my last entry on the subject, the beauty of an adversary in the comics is that he never really goes away, just gets sent to jail for a few years and then resurfaces, sooner or later--or could, at any minute. Keeps the hero on his toes, which is always a good thing.)

And as Ii wrote in the very first chapter of this "Knightfall" saga, I hit a point a few years ago when my solo "batplay" reached a dead end--there was only so far I could go, playing both villain and hero, tying myself up and breaking free. That was fun and/or enlightening for a good ten years, but I needed to explore territority I couldn't cover by myself. I craved an element of surprise, a real sense of an adversary outside myself. The Hub was more than willing to suit up and play good guy or bad guy for a night, which was/is always fun and sometimes remarkable, but for the most part the whole business does not carry the same intensity for him as it does for me. So I turned to the online community to deepen my bat-adventures. Problem was, I've never been in this simply to jerk off. (When I want to get off, it's way less work to grab a video or even a comic book than to have to type a scenario for some horny semi-literate guy I'd probably never want to talk to if I met him in real life.)

Enter the Monk, who seemed to grasp exactly the kind of longterm 24/7 fantasy I was into and who was more than willing to create it alongside me, enjoying it as fully as I did. As I've documented here in great detail, that ultimately involved my being unmasked, broken, humiliated, and transformed into a lowly slave he dubbed "Ratman"--until I eventually came to my senses (or, to hear him tell it, fulfilled the destiny he had always had in mind for me)--and broke free of his clutches, reclaiming my old costume and mission once more. All of this unfolded on a more-or-less nightly basis over the course of a year and a half, and it was one of the most powerful experiences of my adult life. That is to say, the fantasy taught me as much about myself as any real-world experience.

Alas, "powerful" does not always mean "pleasant," and there were times when being beaten and broken just made me feel ... beaten and broken, or, at the very least, like I was conducting some kind of torrid affari behind my Hub's back, even though that was clearly not the case. I wrestled with my attraction/repulsion to the Monk, and weighed my major options:

*I could return to him and surrender forever, which did not feel like a wise thing to do on any level (given how crappy my earlier subservience had me feel), or
*I could leave the online world altogether, never to return, which also did not seem like something I really wanted to do. (For one thing, I've made some really nice friendships in that world, and I didn't want to leave all of them behind.)

Between those two extremes lay a middle ground: I could go cold turkey and wait out my "addiction" to his charms until he no longer held such force over me. Thus the 5 week hiatus. Alas, the real person behind the Monk persona was not privvy to any of this, and simply lost interest in waiting for me to resurface. In short, we'd both reached another dead end: I couldn't defeat him or reclaim the secrets he'd stolen from me (my unmasked face and identity), but neither did I want to continue living with the less than pleasant feelings this whole saga conjured up for the real-life me, and the Batman in me was similarly left in limbo, unable to fight other villains and unwilling to submit to the one who had defeated him. In the course of our discussion, we mutually agreed that our adventure, or at least this version of it, was over. I called it a victory,he claimed it as a draw. And we both expressed our high regard for each other, as adversaries and friends alike. As he put it, "Monk found Batman to be the ultimate prize...and ___ found ___ to be the ultimate roleplay chat bud." (The ____s being real names, of course.) I couldn't say it better myself, and the phrasing makes the stalemate clear: it's hard to keep the "ultimate" going continuously for an unbounded amount of time. Again, a dead end--which is in no way a complaint or shortcoming.

He asked if Batman would seek out other villains, and I reminded him that that's what Batman always does. I just can't say whether those will come from the online world (not too likely, since I really do find the vast majority of opponents from that realm are not into the same thing I am), from my own imagination once more, or from some as yet undiscovered realm. I only know that I treasure the saga that unfolded and the friendship of the man who helped unfold it, and I'm happy to move on. After our talk tonight, I feel pretty certain that the friendship is still intact, even if the circumstances that first brought us together have now changed. Until this evening, I had not figured out a way that could happen--so, for me, the "battle" is over, and both of us have won.

It's thrilling to me on some deep level to fantasize that the Monk could resurface at any time--online, on the phone, even in person. Like any great archenemy, he's always out there, plotting his next move. And it's also exciting to realize that, like any hero, my own work goes on--on other fronts, in other battles, against other adversaries.

It's funny: in the daylight world, I have all kinds of problems with endings. (I could devote an entire blog to that last sentence, but then you'd want to charge me for your services, and I already pay a shrink.) This one, while hard won, feels exactly right. I have a feeling I'll have more to say about the Monk in the future, and our paths may even cross again, but at the moment it feels great to close the book on this particular case. I can even call it a happy ending--something Batman seldom allows himself to do.

Knightfall 22: Enemy mine

I can't tell you how cool it is to have an archenemy.

One of the main things that has always appealed to me about the comic book and tv-series versions of Batman, as opposed to the films, is the fact that the villains stick around for years--decades, even. Oh, they may be sent off to jail every now and then, but their time in the stir only hardens their resolve to break out and return to their work destroying their nemesis with a renewed sense of purpose. The characters have a history together, a shared language. They're like forces of nature. And the intensity of their battles grows stronger with each encounter. Because Batman's moral code does not permit him to kill his enemies--and because I suspect they don't really want to do him in, either--they're stuck with each other for life.

Likewise, I've always been intrigued by the element of time in SM (or whatever you want to call it) roleplay: the longer the better, if you ask me. While it's not really in the cards for me, I'm fascinated by the prospect of a longterm master/slave relationship, or something similar. It's definitely the same in my solo batplay: when I get a weekend, let alone a week (or, on one glorious occasion ten years ago, an entire month) to myself, time to suit up and go wherever my imagination takes me for hours and hours at a stretch, I'm ecstatic--literally. There may be forays into the outside world now and then, but it's immensely comforting to know that I can return that night to an extended fantasy of my own design, and even more satisfying to know that I've been spinning an ongoing, albeit deeply private, saga for more than ten years.

So you can imagine how thrilling it is to realize that I now have a longterm cast of characters on my IM buddy list: the Monk, of course, but many others as well--fellow superheroes, current and past sidekicks, lesser villains, and a troubling number of "shifters" who tend to slide from good guy to bad guy without warning. Most of these characters know each other and have their own adventures that don't necessarily include me; sometimes two or more of them work in cahoots either with or against me. I'm not really interested in the brief encounter with a passing stranger, though there is certainly a place for those in the comic book world, too: the petty thieves and crossover cameos that add texture to the main storyline (or storylines, since my online saga is sometimes a bit different than the private one I conduct by myself, in the way that, say, Legends of the Dark Knight varies from Detective). The same is true of my Beginnings serial--unlike your average slash fiction, it goes on and on, with characters dropping out and returning from time to time, and having interconnected lives, just as real people do. I enjoy being able to incorporate the passage of real time as often as possible (and to imply that various things have taken place without my having to spell them out.) That's also been the appeal of soap operas as a narrative form for me--except in that case, the content is totally uninteresting. I just like the potential for a tale to span years, in the writing/telling/performing as well as in the reading/viewing.

As for the Monk, he's still out there, and resisting the sometimes burning desire to return to his clutches has become the struggle of my bat-career, the year-and-a-half-long battle that defines my very (fictional) character. He has long insisted that he is no mere outside force by this point but a part of me, and I'll be damned if I don't believe him sometimes. (And, er, perhaps I'll be damned if I do believe him, too.)

So stay tuned--the worst (or best) may be yet to come.

Knightfall 21: Here we go again

The long gap between updates on the Monk saga does not mean, sadly, that he's out of my life. Would that that were true! No, just because the Joker doesn't show up in every issue of Detective, it doesn't mean he's not still out there, plotting his next nefarious move.

The Monk's most recent move in our ongoing saga has been to sit and wait for me to come calling--and I've done so, I'm appalled to admit, more and more often in recent weeks. I've realized that the main "drug" in his arsenal is adrenaline: I get one charge when I venture out into his presence, and a second, larger one when he contacts me. I invariably come back to my senses after a few seconds of repartee, but each time I risk recapture... and each time it seems to get harder to make my exit before it's too late.

Obviously, there's a big part of me that wants to be caught (you can guess which literal body part I'm referring to). There's something extremely seductive for me about the chain of events that leads from initial failure to imprisonment to helplessness to utter submission. I've already lived through that cycle once with the Monk, and I can't deny that it evoked some powerful sensations for me.

In the process, by the way, I came into contact with lots of other superheroes. Some sought me out through these entries-- and I'm still always delighted to meet fellow travellers that way, BTW--while others I met when M would assign me to help him break them. In almost every case, I discovered that they shared my appetite for destruction at the hands of an unbeatable adversary. Not always to the same degree as me--though some would happily go even farther than I ever did.

Many of these heroes wanted to be able to control the details of their downfall: to come and go from captivity as they pleased; to decorate their cells according to their own desires, as it were. And lord knows there are times when I long for one single afternoon of surrender to my nemesis, after which I could pack up my mask and cape and be on my way. But the deal is, it doesn't work that way: the Monk will be satisfied with nothing less than my complete and irreversible elimination from the ranks of herodom. He vowed, long ago, that he would own me "mind, body, and soul," and there is no time-share option in a proposition like that.

One of the tactics he uses, shared by other nefarious types, is the gentle approach: to encourge me to relax, let my defenses go, and just surrender to the feeling of safety in his presence. Every time I hear this line (and I've employed it on numerous occasions in solo sessions), I want so badly to give in; I usually kick myself later for not doing so, foolish though it would be. But every time, something prevents me from letting go. I stand my ground--even when I feel myself sinking into quicksand.

And that's where I stand right this very minute: aware that I'm in danger of sinking, but not quite over my head just yet.

Knightfall 20: Unchained melody

I'm starting this entry with yet another image from Jekyll and Hyde--in this case, the cover of issue #3, which is the must-get if you're not really interested in the story and only want the good stuff--ie, Bats in captivity from cover to cover.



I'm including it here because:
*I forgot I had it earlier,
*it's really hot, and
*both the image and the issue bring back memories of my time in the Monk's clutches.

In the comic (and I guess you can consider this a SPOILER ALERT), Two-Face has captured our hero and poisoned him with a compound designed to unleash his inner monster--his "Hyde" side, if you will. While waiting for the drug to take effect, TF addresses his captive:

I'm not talking to Batman--I want to talk to the other one: the one that hides beneath the leather mask. The good man--your daytime persona. Your Henry Jekyll. A man with a secret he can hardly contain. A man who lives in plain sight and wishes more than all the world that he could run away from it. ... The good, honest man is just your daytime face--that's the real mask you wear. The man in the black leather mask who skulks in the shadows is your true persona... You don't have to keep it inside. Whatever it is that holds you back, let it go. ... Don't struggle. This is all perfectly natural... It will only hurt until you accept the truth. You're no one else--you're only Batman.

All of that reminds me of the way the Monk coaxed me into his control (except, of course, that once he had me there, he replaced the name "Batman" with "Ratman"). I reached a point when it simply became too difficult to keep up the balancing act between the part of me that wanted to surrender to him (Hyde) and the part that wanted to fight back (Jekyll). Rather than tear myself apart, I let my Hyde side take over completely.

And then, a few months ago, I simply snapped out of it. Came back to my senses, and broke free. I wish I could claim I'm completely back to my old self, but that would be a lie. As one of my crimefighting colleagues points out, I may have to struggle with this for the rest of my life. It seems instead that I'm truly changed--I've been to the bottom and come back to the surface, and nothing can removed what I learned (and what I did) while I was down there. Put it this way: now that I've been utterly humiliated, I've learned a thing or two about humility. If you're following my serial story, you know that the Batman there is also dealing with the lingering consequences of being broken by an enemy, although his recovery is taking a rather different form.

I was back in contact with the Monk for a few weeks recently--including one phone conversation, when my personal storyline suggested that I had no other choice--and held my ground each time. Lately, though, there's been not a word from him. Nothing. If you ask him, he'll insist that he's written me off because I've disobeyed him (shunning is one of his favorite methods of punishing adversaries he's pissed off at), but my version of the saga is a little different.

From my perspective (and, as always, I can't write openly about all this because I know he reads these accounts), his silence has provided me with exactly the opening I needed in order to further clear my head of his influence. Getting him out of my system is akin to getting over a relationship which has ended, or recovering after the death of a loved one: it takes time, more than anything, and the silent treatment has bought me more of that at last. A part of me is ready to move on (to see other bad guys, as it were), and of course another part longs for the days of captivity and subservience.

I take that all-too-familiar inner struggle as a sign of progress: it means I have my Jekyll side back again. The other day (after months being otherwise engaged and unable to suit up on a regular basis) I put the batsuit back on and spent a nice long time in it, reflecting on what I've been through and where I'm headed next. One thing was abundantly clear: no matter what other yeanings I may experience from time to time, a part of me is and always will be the good guy in the leather mask, fighting the good fight. I carry a part of my childhood hero with me at my core. I may be other things as well, but on a very deep level I am Batman... and always will be. While I doubt I've seen the last of the Monk, I count that revelation as a victory.

Knightfall 19: Walking on a wire

Two months have passed since my last Monk update, and almost three months since my "escape" from his clutches, so you'd be forgiven for assuming that that particular chapter of my batlife is over. In fact, I even thought for a while about renaming this series of reports something more optimistic, since I wasn't feeling particularly "fallen" anymore.

As it turns out, though, I am still prone to relapses from time to time. Had a close call with near-disastrous results around Memorial Day, which strengthened my resolve for a month or so, and then last week I felt the strong desire to put myself in M's path again. Can't say that impulse has quite left me yet. (As always, I'm mindful that M is a regular reader of this blog, so I can't reveal too much about specific strategies here.) I keep expecting--hoping for?--a phone call or some other invasion of my space. Suffice to say I'm torn--yet again--between the desire to be a free man and a strong hero, and the yearning to submit to the depths of degredation. M is well aware of this ambivalence and exploits it at every possible opportunity.

It occured to me the other day that the overt antagonism between the two of us is something that distinguishes our fantasy relationship from the conventional master/slave dynamic (and, yeah, I'm aware of how odd that phrase sounds), at least as I understand that. When I see men on leashes wielded by other men in leather bars, I assume the leashees are there by choice, not because they've been captured, held against their will, stripped of all their secrets, and transformed into something they abhor. (That list of abuses belongs in quotes, of course; in earlier entries here I've described my superhero-downfall saga as being "consensually non-consensual," or words to that effect. I know full well this is all a game, but I do put my whole self into the playing of it, which often entails fighting back as hard as I can.)

Built into the Monk/Bat saga is the notion that I don't want to be defeated by my mortal enemy, that what has happened to me is a degredation, an obscenity. And throughout the events of the last year or so I've noticed that when I'm not in contact with M I long to be, but the minute I actually encounter him, I don't feel particularly good about it. It's an intense feeling, to be sure, and enormously enlightening, but I can't say it's a happy one. I don't enjoy, at least not in the conventional sense, being the servant of another man, being the bad guy, the loser... but those fantasies are still very strong for me. As I've noted before, I generally feel most vulnerable to M during periods when my daylight-world self esteem is low, or simply when I'm feeling drained. Fleeing him was accompanied by an upswing in my mood--I felt good about myself again because I'd broken free of him, and I was probably able to break free because I felt good. Lately the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction again, so it's no surprise that I feel the familiar pull of the gloating nemesis who gives voice to the very things I'm so used to telling myself about myself.

It's often said that art comes from pain and unhappiness, and it's true that stories about happy people are usually not very interesting. So the question becomes: is it better to be a happy person with no story to tell, or a miserable one with fascinating adventures?

Knightfall 18: I've Got You Under My Skin

I keep thinking I need a new title for these recurring reports on the Monk saga. After all, I'm free of his clutches at last; I'm a new (Bat)man!

At least for now. I feel absolutely great--stronger, clearer than ever regarding my identity as a hero. But--as I expected--there are still lingering traces of his influence over me. While withdrawal hasn't been nearly as painful as I'd assumed it would be, it's still a struggle sometimes. And I've been lucky to have been so busy in my daylight life that I haven't had much chance to think about the other one. Sooner or later real-world obligations will let up, and that's when I'm most vulnerable. (To the Monk, at least. But actually I've noticed that the "ratself" tends to be strongest at precisely those moments when I'm most stressed out--tired, open to self-doubt, etc.)

Tonight I suited up, as I've been doing as often as possible lately (and let me tell you: it feels damn good to be back in that uniform), and one of my colleagues--the one whose capture by the Monk I am directly responsible for--wanted to see me on camera. "Man, you even look like him now," he said.

That was creepy, because I'd had exactly the same thought when I looked at myself in the mirror with the mask on a few days ago. The new one is a tight fit, and it contorts my features in a way that distinctly recalls my archenemy's face. It was almost as if I was looking at him--as if he really was "inside" me, as he'd insisted was the case. I told myself at the time that it was just my imagination--after all, the Monk's parting words to me were intended to fuck with my head and convince me that this newfound "freedom" was really just a new form of captivity, that I was simply doing exactly what he wanted me to do by reclaiming my old identity. But I admit it's an effective mindfuck.

Speaking of which, have I ever unleashed my spiel here about how amusing I've always found those classified ads that demand "no game players"? While it's true that I don't really want to be jerked around by a real-life partner, in this particular fantasy realm, what I'm looking for is an excellent game player--since this is, after all, a game at its very core. And when you get right down to it, aren't most human interactions one sort of game or another? In any case, the man beneath the Monk is one of the best--no, the best--I've ever encountered, and obviously I miss the regular interactions with him I once enjoyed, as I figured I would. But something tells me he's not gone for good.