Nine years ago I wrote “Willing”, a queer vampire story in which I explored sadism and the yearning for a willing bottom who could really take it. I had already begun thinking of my own sadism as a beast that lived under my skin, that fed on blood and fear and that I kept caged and leashed in order to manage it. The metaphor of a vampire who saw his sadism and blood thirst the same way felt delicious, and affirming. For me, this story was an important step in the acceptance and celebration of my own sadism. If you talk to other sadists, in quiet moments, they will often admit that they rarely unleash their hunger for pain, that they barely feed much of the time. This story was about a sadist finally letting himself feed, and in the process of writing it, I let myself touch some of the…