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Sometime this summer, in a high-rise condo looking out over the city, I will be given something I've been wanting for a long time: a black eye.

The man who will give it to me is complicated and beautiful, and beautiful in his complexity. He is confident but withdrawn, self-assured but not uncaring. And though he barely knows me, this doesn't stop him from beating me.

There is no logical reason for wanting a black eye. When he asks me why I want it, I want to turn it around on him, and ask him why he wants to give it to me. But I don't, because I don't know why I want itand I don't think he knows why he wants to give it to me.

The craving came to me last summer. Where do you search for such a thing in this day and age? The internet, of course.

As much as some feminists bandy about the evil of men, finding one who will actually punch you in the face is harder than they'd imagine. Even at websites dedicated to introducing sadists to masochists, the sadists are amazingly tame. Most didn't just turn me down; they professed shock at my request. Then I found George.

For my previous partners, sadomasochism was just a game to be played when traditional sex lost its thrill. They separated themselves from the violence they wanted to inflict; they tried to be nice guys by asking ask me questions about my life. They equipped me with a "safe word"that one word I could say if things got out of control or too painful.

Mixing sex and violence is not a game. For George, there is no safe word, only the door. Don't like what he's doing? Fucking leave. Everyone else was a one-nighter; George is the only man I've ever returned to. He is the definition of authenticityhe isn't playing a game, he's being himself. Which is refreshing. It takes the pressure off of me to be anything but myself.

George was born to dominate women. Blindfolded with a gag in my mouth, I kneel under the ladder he has set up in his living room. My breasts are tied obscenely tight; the rope that binds them has been thrown over the ladder and wrapped around my wrists. My arms are stretched out straight behind me. If I want to lower them to ease my burning muscles, it puts increased pressure on my chest; if I want to ease the pain in my breasts I have to increase the pressure on my arms.

As he watches me struggle from across the room, thoughts enter my head: He is such a genius, and I can't believe I'm so lucky. I must have won the sex lotto.

I'm probably not the only woman who ever met with him for the sole purpose of being beaten, but I am the first who didn't insist on a public meeting first.

The public meeting is a waste of time. Women want it so they can determine if the man is a psychopath. They don't understand that you can't tell that by sitting across from a guy, sipping coffee for 20 minutes. It gives you a false sense of security. Better to get directly down to business and find out firsthand if your partner is a psychopath.

Men want the public meeting to see if the woman is hot enough to strip and beat. In the back of their minds, they know that if she shows up, she's hot enough. No one gets turned down.

The first time I met George, I didn't get my black eye. In fact, I've seen him approximately 15 times in the last nine monthsand still no black eye. I know it's in him, and he promised to give it to me soon. Is he afraid that once I have what I want, I'll disappear?

By all outward appearances I'm a normal, cheerful individual with a quick wit and a helping hand for my friends and neighbors. I keep a tidy home, and my husband and I have a wonderful relationship. I feel truly loved and cared about and understood in a way I never thought possible. No one would guess I've cheated on him eight or nine times in our two-and-a-half year marriage. Or that he knows about it.

More than once, I've had sex with a complete stranger while my husband was at work, and then told him when he got home. He's begged me to stop hurting myself, but being physically hurt is a major part of the sex I seek out. You see, my husband can't always turn me on. He's too nice; he's too gentle. Often, I'm only satisfied when there are tears in my eyes.

I've had violent sexual fantasies since I was seven or eight years old, and I've been fighting them for the past 10 years. I've seen therapists, taken medication. Nothing helpsthe fantasies flood my mind and it's very hard to find a way out. My usual solution, masturbating to them, isn't considered "healthy."

I first became sexually "active" at four years of age. It never felt like abuse to me.

I know it's not normal for a four-year-old and a six-year-old to have a six-year sexual relationship, but that's what James and I had. He was the popular kid on the block, and when he kissed me behind the big tree in my backyard that first spring, I was exhilarated. Methe object of James' attention!

Those kisses quickly turned to orders, which I obeyed: Take off your clothes, spread your legs, put your hand in my pants, bend over, show me, touch me, tell me. That led to me masturbating at such an early age that I don't even remember the first time I had an orgasm. I just know that I've always done it.

My parents were strict but fair, never abusive. They loved me but couldn't afford to spoil me. They dressed me well, fed me well and taught me to mind my manners. They installed in me a working-class ethic and a love for the struggling creatures of the earth. How were they to know the six-year-old across the street was a sexual predator who was shaping their daughter's sex life into a pretzel of fear, shame and pain that would last the rest of her life? They knew nothing, so I've never blamed them.

James had puppy-brown eyes, dark brown hair and an ego the size of Iowa. He was the kid everyone wanted on their team. He was athletic, confident and judgmental. He could stop anyone in mid-sentence with one look. In front of all the other kids, James treated me like anyone else. When he was particularly mean to me, I was convinced he was just showing off.

He was also cunning. Often he'd say, "Let's play house" and pick me as his wife. We'd head down to his basement or over to a junked car that littered the neighborhood, and do the dirty things. He'd tell me that I couldn't tell anyone or we would be in big trouble. It was then that I felt special, because he'd chosen meand no one else. He never threatened me or forced me. He just told me and I did it. The only fear was the fear that it would stop.

I lived for those moments of taking my clothes off and putting them back on in various places, of laying over his lap and him spreading my legs while his hand was in his pants.

Once, I asked him if he wanted a girlfriend. "Yes," he answered. So I asked, "Who do you want it to be?" He then listed the five girls he had in mindnone of them me. I cried while he laughed at me.

I've always fantasized about being tortured and humiliated. When I was seven, I imagined that I had pubic hair and James was pulling the hairs out one at a time. I've also fantasized about spreading my legs and walking over a fire, burning my pussy. Often, I'd imagine being spanked in front of the neighborhood kids. I assume the sexual connection to spanking came from pulling my pants down for my parents and during my encounters with James. Sometimes, immediately after being spanked by my parents, I'd run to my room and masturbate.

I grew up in a small town in northern California where nothing scary ever happened. One night when I was 13 years old, I was walking through the mall parking lot, which was one block wide and two stories tall.

Suddenly, I noticed a man staring at me. I walked quickly to the staircase and started down just as he started up. I decided to ignore him and look the other way, but when we met in the middle he grabbed my left arm.

"Where you going now?" he asked.

He was stronger than me. My only escape was to fall. So I jumped down the stairs, crashing down the last few steps, my Walkman hitting the cement and sliding into the gutter. I let out a yell and looked up the stairs. He took a quick look around, then ran away.

I walked home and told no one, but thought of it for days. What if I had gone with him? What would he have done with me? Would we have had sex?

How exciting.

It was around this time that my fantasies turned to kidnap and rape, of being used and discarded. Imagining this felt so good that I thought it must be what I was made for.

When I was 15 I ran away to Berkeley. I had just enough money to get there, but none to get back. I arrived at noon, and by midnight was bored out of my mind and ready to go home.

I was sitting on the curb when a car pulled up.

"Need a lift?"

Sure, I said.

"How old are you?"

Eighteen, I told him.

"Get in."

He was middle-aged and balding, driving a station wagon with a baby seat in the back. He told me he was running away from home, too. His wife was a bitch, and did I want to go to a motel?

This is what I had been fantasizing abouthaving real sex again. I weighed the question carefully, then decided I didn't want to go to a motel with this guy.

Instead, he drove me the 30 miles home, making that awkward small talk between adults and teenagers. I didn't want him to know where I lived, so I told him to turn into a parking lot, where he said he deserved a reward for bringing me home.

"Why don't you blow me?"

I just wanted to go home.

"Fuck. You're at least going to watch while I jerk off."

He pulled his pants down and I saw my first adult cock. As he masturbated, I started to cry.

"Isn't it big? Don't you want to taste it?"

He took my hand and rubbed himself until he came. I wiped off on his pants and jumped out of the car.

Not long after my 21st birthday, I went shopping for pornography. I paid special attention to the spanking section while trying to appear that I wasn't paying special attention to the spanking section. This is how I came to have my first adult sexual experience.

He was a city plannerbald and seemingly old, but probably only 30 or so. He'd seen me inside the store, and caught up with me outside.

"Do you want to go to a hotel?"

I asked what we would do.

"What do you want to do?"

Spanking.

"We'll do whatever you want."

I followed him to a nearby chain hotel. He paid for the room and, once inside, asked if I'd mind showering. He liked "really clean" women. Though I was insulted, the thought of getting spanked was foremost on my mind. I showered quickly and put a towel around me.

When I came back into the room, I noticed my little city worker had been busy. He'd undergone a transformation, and what a lovely woman he made.

"What do you think?"

I was thinking a lot of things, none of which I told him at the time. I've always been open-minded; people should be encouraged to do whatever they want so long as it doesn't hurt anyone. I don't remember exactly what I said, but I did give him positive feedback. I didn't want him to feel badI understood what it was like to be seized by the balls by a fetish.

I also understood that this was all about him. It was his game, his ruleshis fantasy, not mine. I was disappointed, to say the least. We fooled around, I sucked his dick, he spanked me with light taps I could barely feel. And it was over.

The progression of my sexual fantasies was slow and steady. There was a time when I couldn't concentrate on anything but spanking. The more I used that as my tool, the less effective it became. I also never have the same fantasy twice. It could be the same situation, but different things will happen and I'll come up with alternative ideas of torture throughout.

I once saw a documentary about a woman war photojournalist who said she couldn't stand to take pictures of flowers and happy things. Her subject matter must be bleak and painful. So are the days of my sex life.

One day I read a story in the newspaper about a man with a problem similar to mine. He had a fantasy life that overtook his own. He was a prisoner to sexual fantasies that he neither asked for nor had the ability to control. His name was Jeffrey Dahmer.

Dahmer was a necrophiliac, a cannibal, a pedophile and a murderer. As young as eight, he was already planning to beat a local jogger. When he found a dead dog, he didn't bury it; he cut off its head and stuck it on a pole.

"At last," I thought, "someone who could understand me."

On the one hand, here was a man controlled by fantasies beyond his controljust like me. On the other hand, here was a murderer.

In simplified terms, the legal definition of insane is not understanding right from wrong. To me, that should make one legally stupid. My definition of insane is not being able to control oneself. Dahmer couldn't stop himself from killing. If you choose to believe his statements before, during and after trial, he wanted to stop.

This is my dilemma. I have strong sexual urges that lead me to actions I later regret. More than regret: I hate myself for them.

My encounters with George can be rather violent. I'm not always sexually aroused during the acts, which is hard to explain. Think of my time with him as creating future fantasy material. Since my violent fantasies lose their effectiveness when they go unrealized, I need to make more.

Before George, I never fantasized about a man whom I actually knew. I could never picture anyone doing the violent things I wanted. But I can fantasize about George because I know I'll see him again, and I know he'll do all the things I crave. He particularly enjoys torturing my breasts, and is an expert at tying and flogging them. Bruises are the norm; some last for weeks. Most of the time, he keeps me blindfolded, which is especially exciting. I can't tell what he's hitting me with, and afterwards I lie in bed trying to picture what really happened.

I'm atypical of women who are interested in sadomasochistic sex. For one, fear is of paramount importance to me. If I'm not afraid, then there's no feeling. I genuinely fear George on many different levels. If I didn't, I wouldn't see him anymore. Most other women want to feel wanted"He wants me so much he'd tie me up and rape me"while for me it's about being protected.

Like most females, on some level I'm very concerned about my safety. Maybe that's why I'm attracted to the baddest motherfucker around, the one who will slap me around, yes, but also kill anyone who touches me. It sounds strange, but I feel safe with Georgeeven though I'm afraid of him. I'm not afraid of anything else when I'm with him, which is unusual for me. My time with him also normalizes my feelings about my own sexuality, because he's at least as twisted as I am. Perversity loves company.

Mostly, I feel sympathy for George. Some will read this and perhaps feel sorry for me. They'll feel sorry for a young woman ensnared in a spider's web of sexuality. I am a victim, they might say. I need help. I need loving and caring and support and self-esteem and many other things that they think I need.

Though we are two sides of the same coin, there will be no sympathy for George. I often wonder how he reconciles this. How does he feel about himself, about how he copes with his urges? I ache to reach out to him, to reach into him, to taste the darkness he keeps inside, but he will not allow it. He only gives himself to me in the form of bruises.

With each bruise, I know him a little better. o