Max D, The Wulf
Max D @ Cherish Desire
Max is the go to guy for those crazy sex questions that only come up during a night of drinking - because he “just knows that stuff” and he doesn’t drink. When not receiving text messages with queries about British boys wearing unicorn suits and SMS messages with wine bottle adventure photos, Max wanders North America and Western Europe music festivals and clubs so he can dance his own way. His sexy companions try to keep him in line, and his work tries to keep him too busy to get into trouble - but Max is an unrestrainable phenomena orthogonal to the Zeitgeist.
That’s the official blurb anyway. There's always more when you take the time to look though.
I remember walking along the river in HafenCity in Hamburg, das Fuchs and I taking photos at different angles to highlight the Elbphilharmonie, while laughing about “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,” and the wind swept over us with whispers of impending rain. I spent an afternoon with the Mistress of Wiesbaden at Kloster Eberbach, wandering the abbey after walking the grounds, before driving along the Rhein to take her home. The loud conversations in a pizzeria, the soft accent of Wien drifting into the night, and the pause as a cluster of departing friends share one last set of shots. A week later, looking down over Los Angeles from the Griffith Observatory as black helicopters circle overhead, Mistress Militia enthusing about her drag queen shows and posing for photos. That night laughing with the Chicago crew at Das Bunker while our friends, Alter Der Ruine, play a final show, and the Portland crew is meowing and dancing in the middle of the crowd for the headline band. There’s no time for sleep until I get back to Orlando, and then it’s time for work a couple of hours after the red eye lands. Life continues without a pause button everywhere - and the music slows before building up to another crescendo.
The past is a collision of what we knew and where we’ve been. Perspective rewrites the narrative, and we discover new truths amongst old experiences. Over time, the drift of passions leads people to different ends. Perhaps we can finally accept that people are not meant to be interchangeable parts and they don’t have to be cut and shaped to fit into specific shapes and forms. Probably not. I don’t think the center of the bell curve is ready to admit the rest of us exist. No offense. We’ve never been their kind.
So there are these stories. The Mistress of Wiesbaden likes to say that each one is a chance to sit back, close her eyes, and wander through the imagination of friends. Of course, she’s a big fan of imagination as long as she gets to satisfy her natural passions for destruction and domination. Some of them are only a moment expressed in a furious detonation of confrontation and resolution. Many more are the edges and outlines of a bigger world.
By way of introduction, none of these are the reality of Max or Ronin or Tom. You meet them and their companions bit by bit. You get a chance to watch their affairs and their fights. They can’t possibly tell you everything, so instead you have to learn about them through what happens. Sometimes, they know more than you’d expect. Other times, they’re as lost as the rest of us. Pieces fall into place, and they are just as likely to jump to conclusions as the silent stalkers reading about them. There’s no easy way in or out of the desires and chaos of life. Time passes but some things stay the same. It’s never clear whether this is how they escape their limits or how they define their choices, but it doesn’t take much to figure out that they’re doing the best they can.
Stepping back, Cherish Desire as a whole - whether we’re talking about Very Dirty Stories, Very Wicked Dirty Stories, Singles, or Divinations - is a project that’s about alternate voices. If EL James can play make believe and write poorly about a scene which she clearly doesn’t belong in then why can’t we write about the actual fetish parties we attend? If the media desperately wants to portray a world full of fear and danger at every turn with only religious belief to save them then maybe it’s time for the masses to discover what we believe in - and that’s a much broader pantheon of gods and demons and shapeshifters and elementals than they are probably prepared for. If we must live within the surveillance states demanded by our fellow citizens then why not accept the perversion of our bondage and submission to the devices we hold in our hands?
While some people want comfort, want direction, and want closure, I’m guessing there’s a bigger audience for people who want the rush and to unleash the primal energies they suppress every day and night. That can get brutal. Emotions happen. People do get hurt. They fall in love. Companions stumble into anger and frustration. Friends fight back. Some decisions change everything.
Maybe yours did as well.
Do you own the Cherish Desire Singles titles? The stuff released or re-released after January 2021? He's scattering breadcrumbs for you to follow. And you probably don't even realize where all this is heading.
