Machined steel. I prefer obsidian. There is something about volcanic glass that makes what I am about to do feel so much more intimate. Maybe it's the way the lightless surface seems to absorb and swallow whole the brilliance of it's illumination. Maybe it's earthy quality it possesses, less interference from man and more as nature intended. Introspectively, it is probably because glass never needs to be sharpened, and is infinitely more dangerous when used as I intend. Oh yes. I like the danger. Cold. Oiled. A blade like Victorian wit - refined to a point. The surgical scalpel sits nestled in the neck of a moulded leather handle. It will sit perfectly in my hand; no more a knife than an extension of my arm. A metallic phallus, aching to penetrate supple, virgin skin. To thrust and spring forth with the water of life. It is a simple thing with a simple purpose. It is the tool of an artist. I have my other blades with me. The hatchet, the cleaver, even the saw. But those are the implements of the Butcher, and tonight have no part in my designs. It has been too long since I've created art. I must check my canvas. You must have dressed up for me, you precious thing. This was our date, a special night shared only between the two of us. I can only imagine the hours you spent labourously applying make-up, preparing your hair. It almost makes me laugh to think of you agonising over which dress to wear. What goes well with red? It was all moot. The tattered remains of your dress hang hopelessly at your sides - torn off savagely to expose my work area. You may have cried in alarm then. Stripped from the waist up, your alabaster back is coated in a thin veneer of sweet sweat. A roaring blaze cackling madly in the fireplace would claim to be the culprit, but I can taste your fear in the night air and it excites me. The dancing flames sway hypnotically, fixing your gaze. You are strapped, gently, to my easel. A thick cuff of leather and bronze is wrapped tightly around your wrists, binding your hands together and letting them hang from a hooked post for just such a purpose. Each leg is lashed to a post of my easel, ensuring that my canvas is still and sturdy, and readily displayed under the muted light reflected from the fire. The smooth contours of your flesh are an intoxicant in every way. Like a heady wine, I feel myself dizzy and staring. You must have worn a perfume, because I can feel my head begin to swim. It relaxes and unwinds me, muscles rippling with anticipation. You are tense, and that simply will not do. My hand finds your neck, gaunt fingers gently wrapping around your throat, I apply little pressure - just enough to force you to tilt your chin up and out, whispering honey'd sweet-nothings into your ear. Gloved hands ease down your form and over your shoulders, the warmth of my breath cascading like satisfaction down your neck. You don't need to fear me. You don't need to fear what we are about to do. Fear has no place in my world. This is an intimate thing. As intimate as we will ever be. I must ready myself. No work of great art was ever created ill-prepared. My black leather gloves come off easily, and I weigh the tool in my hand. It fits perfectly, as I knew it would. Fingers enclose around the handle and it twirls gently, forefinger and thumb supported by middlefinger. Held like a brush, with an artists poise. The clean blade fits perfectly into the slot, held tightly like drunken lovers. Nimbly cutting a figure eight in the air, I cherish the glint of firelight off the knife's edge. Such simple pleasures. Skin on skin. The first and only time I will allow you such simple pleasures while I am working. I gently brush my lips over my canvas, and I begin my art. Did you know that skin is such a malleable thing? It yields so readily to wanton desires. So perfect in it's beauty, I cannot help but feel I am improving it. Flesh parts like air, the silver in my hand ethereal. You shiver and shake, but you stay silent. A consummate professional, I applaud you with a cut across the trapezius, quick and curved to cover the rhomboid major and the infraspinatus too. I keep my hands from gripping your pearlescant skin, to save myself from spoiling the work. No blood wells, no crimson to mark my path. The blade is too sharp for that. If it wasn't for the heat of the edge, your body would never know I had slit it open. I work from memory, every movement of my body precise and measured, every angle calculated internally before I express it in your meat. I catch your eye in a glance, watching from the assortment of mirrors set up to reflect the light and illuminate my work. I can understand my lust for the cut. My hunger for slicing and flaying. I am a predator. I crave dominance. In this you are my canvas, my meat and my slave. When I open your body with strokes of steel, I do no more than play and preen with a favoured toy. But I've never understood the mind of the prey. There is lust in your eyes. So wanton and carnal. But there is more. So much more. A depth of feeling. A well of emotion that I simply cannot comprehend. Is it acceptance you feel? Power? Control? Betrayal or rage? Your mind is an enraptured alien thing and at this moment means as much. You have your desires and I have mine. We are fortunate that here, in the waving heat of our fire, they meet. With my blade in hand, you are my meat and I am your butcher. You are supple and firm and plump and moist, but I will cut you and carve you and shape you into something fit to be devoured. I have put you on display, so the morbid and the hungry can watch as I shape you into a meal fit for a king. Lines dance ablaze in my mind, but I can see your confusion. Through reflections of silvered mirrors, your back looks untouched, still virginal and pure. But you still shiver with every kiss. You still moan with every touch. For a moment I wonder if I should have gagged and blindfolded you, to save from spoiling the surprise. The thought passes quickly. You are far too lost in sensation to follow my dance. I add the final touches, digging in the point of my scalpel just under your thoracolumba fascia until twin beads of carmine tears well up. You yelp each time, and I am ecstatic with your pain. I put the blade aside and gaze in wild wonder at the joy I have found. Like a message written in invisible ink, only the proper application of certain forces will reveal what I have made to the greedy eyes of our audience. I slap your back, swift and sharp. A rose flowers on your back, blossoming to life in pain and blood. The twin beads are slowly dripping down the canvas from the tips of two thorns, gouges torn into the work for an added depth of realism. For the final touch, I gouge my signature into the exposed meat of your rump, rosy and pink from pain and embarrassment. Your fingers squirm and dig in to the leather, but I don't hear a scream. Your legs shake and strain at the lash, but your lips only quiver. Such a strong girl. Such a brave girl. You take so much with so little care for yourself. You are my favourite work of art.