Friday, October 3
It’s Locktober, when my partner who i call bestie and i usually spend doing a month-long scene. Fae encourage me to write by telling me that if i do, fae will grant me vibrator time. i'm up at 1 A.M. finishing the writing. i can’t stop thinking about them and us and everything we’ve done, and me and my brain and my appointments.

i walk to the grocery store on my crutches, realize that i forgot to bring a bag for groceries, buy an energy drink, then give up, frustrated at myself. Ever since the madness came back these events have been more and more common. Planning basic things has gotten more difficult, remembering things has become almost impossible. i drink an energy drink at eight, and the meds still send me to sleep at ten.

Saturday, October 4
Shot day. We planned to do it on the beach but i decide to do it early, then everyone else forgot until we got back to the rental house.

My Lover, Val, announced She was getting married three weeks ago, and we all celebrated. Her butch partner feels like they were made for Her, and we all love them. And then She started working out how She wanted to get married.

We, Her leather family, drive out to a beach on the Olympic peninsula. Through Forks, around the peninsula, then to a beach. The beaches here are rocky, not the soft sands i grew up with. But there’s a brutality to the beaches that is gorgeous. We sit in the treeline, right before the beach starts, and my Lover and Her partner stand in front of us. A butch dressed up in a leather blazer with a leather priest collar perform the ceremony, a wine glass is smashed, and then we watch the sunset.

There’s not (as far as i know) a long history of leatherdyke marriages. But we’re a ritual heavy culture. Watching the woman that i love stand in front of me and combine so many parts of Her and Her partner’s cultures into this beautiful amalgam is so fulfilling.

i sit in a lawn chair on the beach and watched the waves break and slither across the beach. As i watch them, some of them move sideways, spirals under the surface tumble, and they move like a carpet being pulled. i get a sense of fear and remember that i have a neurologist appointment on Friday.

Sunday, October 5
We leave the house we’re renting too soon. my Lover spent the night playing with me and Her new legally betrothed, so we all wake up fried and too early. We drive from small town to small town, again, seemingly back and forth through Forks. We end up in the woods and hike a mile to a waterfall. i marvel at the fact that i can move with so much ease after six months of physical therapy. On the way back, my head is filled with dogs barking. The trails are quiet.

As we drive home, we talk about leather culture having an ethic of care. That leather means we take care of each other and we stay with each other. We have a long history of that. Through AIDS and through repression, through the difficulties of our own lives. It suddenly hits me that what my community and family are doing for me is an expression of that. i feel so full of love, love from others and love to others.

Monday, October 6
Work. Therapy for my eating disorder. We talk about how nothing is static and this is a coping mechanism that fails all the time.

i wrote an essay for my partner, bestie. This time, it was on the eroticism in a short story about a man who is treated like a dog. “Petplay stories have a long history of featuring veterinarians as a character archetype. These characters enable a particularly intense dehumanization…” i send the essay to her in our chat. After a moment’s pause she sends “this passes,” and i skitter off to the bathroom with my hitachi. i fall asleep thinking about her.

Tuesday, October 7
Work. Call my bank twenty times. Work out scene plans with a regular play partner.

Bestie and my sibling call, and we try to remember what happened over the last year to give a history to the doctor. Later this is described as “positive for memory issues.” As we try to work through it, i struggle to remember a coherent narrative rather than impressions and possibilities.

Wednesday, October 8
Work. Physical therapy.

Our community gathers in the home of a member who wants to dispel some previous bad vibes from a not-great roommate. They want to do that by making someone bleed. We gleefully descend on their apartment. We started doing these meetings because we had a group of people who were interested in being in each others’ lives, came to the same events and parties, and wanted to continue down this path of leather together. With subcultures like ours, so much of our imagery is used on the outside, but so little of the meaning transfers with it. Being in community like this, discussing like this, and sharing like this gives us a precious, small moment to be seen by each other, and to try to drive through to something more.

After talking about plans and making decisions for a moment my Lover places me on a couch. She puts one needle in me, and the crowd marvels at the fact that something has changed for me and i’m not screaming or hyperventilating. Later i’m holding onto the seat of a chair while my play partner Doc makes me bleed. i look in their eyes and say, “Is it enough, Daddy?” and they laugh at the opportunity to express power that i just gave them.

On the way home with Doc, we talk about scene plans again. Another essay due tomorrow, but it’s also date night—so i spend all evening writing about erotica.

Thursday, October 9
After work, i walk to Val’s place on my crutches. We talk about zine and zine writing. We have a backlog of zines that we’ve never printed, mostly because they came out of rants or good ideas or little weird jokes between us. We talk about tabling at an upcoming radical bookfaire. We have a bunch of really fun, neat ideas. She’s so smart and i’m so consistently happy to have her to bounce ideas off of. As we’re talking, we quickly build out a new performance piece. The piece is based on our shared punk lore, our histories playing shows with bands in tiny bars, our love for noise music and art and scaring people. It's the next part of a conversation we've been having since we met, a conversation about transness and art and music and how we're read and seen. As we're talking, we start touching, and then blushing, then she hauls me upstairs. i look into her eyes with glee as she takes one of my breasts into her hands, and then drives her other fist downward into her palm. The night ends with floggers, screaming and laughter.

Afterwards i'm in her arms and minorly worried about symptoms popping up again like they did last time. But as i come back to earth and nothing happens i start to feel more and more ok. We talk about the scene, we laugh a lot, i start looking for a place to perform the performance piece at. On the way home i start to feel weird. i walk home in silence, without headphones, which quickly becomes a problem. i look up at the bright clouds and watch them stir subtly. No one else looking would be able to see that. i get home, feed my cats, and crash.

Friday, October 10
Work, then off to the neurologist. It's felt like there's been a constant wave of experts that i've been going to where they don't really confirm anything. "Nothing is wrong, I have no new information for you." Nothing changes, but i get the joy of re-explaining the stigmatized brain things i've got going on. i beg the doctor to not note down the next thing, then i tell him. i insist that i'm under the care of another provider and that he doesn't need to diagnose me. Instead, he has me lie on the table, then stand, and diagnosis me with POTS, a common ride along with EDS (which he has me prove again, for the fifth time, to providers in this same system).

As we're leaving the hospital, the fear comes over me again while i sit on a bench and bestie gets her car. i'm terrified someone is behind me or watching. We speed away and i exhale. i look over at my partner, and i feel love and loved.

chastity vale (she/her) is a white, disabled leatherdyke, a submissive, a trans woman, a dyke and a faggot. she is an artist working mostly in text and video art, a writer, and a leather archivist and historian. her research has focused on trans women, inclusivity in leather, and submission. she believes that honesty about desire can be radical, rebellious, and liberatory. chastity fucks in Seattle, Washington. she flags red, teal, black, and purple on the right. You can find her online at https://www.instagram.com/_chastity_vale_/ or teaching with Val Violet as T Slur Collective.