There are times, there have been times, when I have been suddenly swept up by a powerful wave of joy, doubt or fear.

Like someone fishing peacefully from rocks I have been swamped by a wave so powerful and so unexpected that there can be no preparation, no defence.

At such a time I feel myself pounded and compressed into nothing – annihilated by sudden devotion I succumb. I am engulfed and extinguished.

There is a kind of thrill to it to though, if I am honest. There is something exquisitely pleasurable at the capitulation, something sensual, even sexual that taps a deeper root. Such surrender flays dead meat from the bone revealing a superbly sensitive spot. A zone delicate and erogenous, and fully open to the whip.

This is so even if the proximate cause, the genesis of the wave itself, lies in fear or self-doubt, rather than joy or devotion. Accepting ones utter defeat, unreserved and unqualified. Wallowing in it, revelling in it, and at last accepting that absolute, orgasmic, failure, can trigger a raging ecstasy. Ones every nerve quivers expectantly before the lash.

This is a guilty pleasure, selfish and solitary, never to be revealed, never to be explained and never, ever to be shared.

Annihilation is the ultimate, personal act, not only preceding the adoration of the beloved, but primary to it. Succumbing therefore, if understood correctly, is, must be, a betrayal of the beloved – a rejection of the beloved, cleansed in private bliss.

Shall I admit this then to my beloved, shall I confess? No! Never! In guilt there is satisfaction, but in shame, nothing.