I love it when you bite back

Every love has its rituals. Those ceremonies that lead us down paths of no return.

Ours begins with a bass line. An undulating tone that is difficult not to move to, to grind to. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The first time it happened, it wasn’t planned. Vana’s “Bite Back” came on—dark, pulsing, hungry—and something in me recognized something in him. Now it happens the same way every time the song plays. It really doesn’t matter where we are. Luckily, this song is a bit too sexy to come on at the grocery store – what a sight that would be.

The opening notes unfurl like a velvet curtain, and he looks at me in that way that says, It’s time.

I always pretend it’s spontaneous, because it was the first time. That’s now part of the ritual.

In the car or at home, the first beat of the song pushes me to slip off my shoes. Slowly, methodically. Not because it’s sexy—though it is—but because I need to feel the floor, the ground. I need the grounding. Cold hardwood, soft carpet, dirt, sharp blades of grass under bare feet. The music vibrates up through bone and muscle. My perception narrows until it’s just the two of us and whatever energy has been summoned by the rhythm.

He sits, still and expectant, like an offering – the first time, it was because he was mesmerized by my movements. Since it’s become part of the ritual. I don’t rush. I let the song build. I let my hips answer the percussion. My hands trace the air, then my own body, then the space between us. It’s a dance I’ve refined over time—part goth cabaret, part burlesque séance, part something older that I don’t fully understand.

He says I become someone else when I do it.

I don’t think that’s quite true.

I think I become more myself.

The ritual is about repetition. Same song, or one like it – Usually Vana, sometimes DeathByRomy. Same dim lighting and outdoor darkness. Same deliberate beginning. My movements are never identical–this isn’t a memorized routine–but they echo each other. A reach, a bend … The way I let my hair fall forward before I lift my gaze back to him.

He doesn’t touch me until I allow it–an unspoken rule.

It’s playful, yes. Seductive. Intimate. But there’s something else layered beneath it. Something electric and alchemical. The dance is not just about arousal—it’s about power passing back and forth like a secret.

There is a moment in “Bite Back” where the music lightens and coils in on itself. I always feel it in my spine. That’s when I lean close, close enough for him to feel my breath but not quite enough to kiss. I wait there–no movement. Suspended.

Every time, I swear I can feel the room shift.

The first few times, we laughed afterward. Giddy, flushed, alive. But after months—after years—the laughter faded into something quieter. More reverent.

Because something strange began happening.

The ritual started bleeding into our days.

On nights when we didn’t do it—when we were too tired or distracted—there was a subtle restlessness between us. Small misunderstandings flared brighter than they should have. We felt slightly misaligned, like magnets turned the wrong way.

But on nights when the ritual happened, the world smoothed out. Conversations deepened. Sleep came easier. Even arguments softened before they could harden.

It was as if the dance tuned us–a bonding of Twin Flames.

Or perhaps it fed something–some otherworldly being or energy.

I noticed it first.

Writers notice patterns. We live on subtext and repetition. I began to track it in my head like a scientist with a clipboard. Ritual night: harmony. No ritual: friction.

So I tested it.

One week, I refused to initiate it. The song would come on shuffle, and I would skip it. He didn’t comment, but I saw the flicker of confusion. By the third night, the air between us felt heavy. Not hostile. Just… off.

We were kind. We were affectionate. But something vital hummed just out of reach.

On the fourth night, I gave in to the need, the call of the song, of the energy.

The music began, and I stepped into the space, slipping off my shoes.

And the relief was almost palpable.

He exhaled like he’d been holding his breath for days.

So had I.

That was when the unease began.

Because rituals are supposed to be symbolic. They’re meant to remind us of connection, not be the connection itself. But this—this felt like a requirement. Like feeding a fire that would otherwise quickly burn out.

What unsettles me most is the way my body anticipates it now.

When the bass hits, I don’t decide to move. I respond. As if the choreography lives somewhere deeper than thought. As if it’s etched into muscle memory I didn’t consciously build.

Sometimes, mid-dance, I feel watched—not just by him, but by something beyond him. Not in a sinister way. Not exactly. More like the way an audience watches a performance they’ve seen before and waits anxiously for the familiar crescendo.

The ritual has structure. Beginning, middle, end. I slip off my shoes. I tease. I approach. I withhold. I finally close the distance and let him touch me. Skin to skin. Heat answering heat. Nothing explicit. Just breath, hands, closeness.

But there’s always that suspended moment—right before contact—where time thins.

I linger there longer than necessary.

It feels important.

What does the ritual accomplish?

It keeps us magnetized. It reminds him that I am not just soft and nurturing but also commanding and authoritative. It reminds me that desire can be art, not obligation. It pulls us back into each other when the world tries to scatter us.

But what does it consume?

Energy, certainly. Vulnerability. A certain innocence. There’s a part of me that feels slightly hollow afterward, like I’ve poured something essential into the room and left it there.

Sometimes, lying in the dark, I wonder whether the dance belongs to us anymore.

Or whether we belong to it.

Last week, something shifted.

The song played. I rose. I began as always. As I slipped my shoes off, slowly, deliberately, I felt resistance—not from him, but from myself. A flicker of hesitation. A question.

What if I stopped mid-ritual?

What if I broke the rhythm?

The thought terrified me.

Not because I feared his reaction—he would be confused, maybe amused—but because I feared what would unravel. Would the static return? Would the subtle friction widen into something we couldn’t smooth over?

The ritual has become a tether, a knot that won’t come loose.

I don’t know whether it binds us together or keeps something else at bay.

Still, when the opening notes of those sexy songs ripple through the room tonight, I know what I will do.

I will slip off my shoes.

I will feel the floor.

I will move smoothly, methodically.

Because love, for all its softness, sometimes needs a blade of edge to stay awake. And if this dance is the price of that sharpness—if it is the strange, beautiful maintenance of our connection—then I will keep performing it.

At least for now.

The ritual persists.

And so do we.