Elara Stone's Blog - Posts Tagged "identityloss"

As an author, one of the most fulfilling aspects of my work is connecting with my readers and truly understanding what draws them to my books. I’m always on the lookout for thoughtful, in-depth feedback—those insights that go beyond the surface, delving into the emotions, the arousal, and the intensity of their experience with my stories. When I find readers like this, I dedicate time and energy to engaging with them, exchanging emails, and learning what makes them tick. Dozens of readers have shaped and continue to shape my understanding of what excites, arouses, and challenges them through these invaluable conversations.

I have a little tradition of changing my readers’ names over the course of our exchanges—almost like an initiation. Slowly but surely, I craft names that capture their essence as they reveal themselves through their responses. Pat-Pat, as I now affectionately call him, is no exception. Early in our exchanges, he, too, “lost” his real name and took on this new one. Isn’t Pat-Pat such an endearing name for a loyal pet? There’s something undeniably erotic about this process, about a man gradually losing his identity in the intimacy of our correspondence, becoming simply who I decide he should be. It’s a reflection of the themes in my stories: the way men fall under a woman’s spell, surrendering parts of themselves, piece by piece.

In recent exchanges, Pat-Pat and I have been discussing Isabella, the mesmerizing, dominant woman at the heart of The Isabella Series. Isabella isn’t just a character; she’s a force of nature. She commands attention, loyalty, and devotion so profoundly that the men around her are willing to forsake everything—spouses, careers, assets—for just one taste of her approval, her touch, her attention. Pat-Pat’s recent message perfectly captured this phenomenon, bringing to light the overwhelming allure of Isabella and how deeply her pull runs. His reflections helped me see the common denominator across so many of his—and other readers'—favorite scenes: the intoxicating pull of Isabella that drives men to the edge, making them lose sight of anything but her.

With his permission, I’ve shared my response to him here. In it, we explore this overwhelming attraction—a devotion so intense it eclipses all else. For Isabella's men, nothing matters except her; they’re willing to burn their lives to the ground just to be close to her.

So, read on, and perhaps you’ll find echoes of your own fascination with Isabella, or maybe a deeper understanding of why her presence leaves men—and readers—utterly captivated.

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Wow, your examples truly struck a chord with me! They illustrate so much more than fear—they reveal the depth of Isabella’s unparalleled power over men, an attraction so profound that it eclipses everything else in their lives. What’s happening here, Pat-Pat, is a total surrender of identity, a magnetic pull toward Isabella that drowns out all other attachments, loyalties, and even self-preservation.

Take the penthouse restroom scene, for example. Walter isn’t just mesmerized; he’s utterly possessed by the need to be inside her. Locked in that intimate, almost forbidden space, with her legs artfully open on the counter, his entire world narrows down to just her. He can’t even hear his own wife’s desperate pleas behind him. All he can feel is the overwhelming urge to thrust, to lose himself in her, deeper and deeper, until there’s nothing left but the electrifying sensation of cumming violently inside her. Victoria’s presence, her hands pounding on his back, don’t even register—his entire being is singularly focused on fucking Isabella, on giving himself up completely to her.

Or take Franklin at the poolside, on his knees, scrubbing, working tirelessly, his every muscle taut with restraint as she glides nearby, bare and unattainable, her every movement a symphony of controlled seduction. The rule is clear—he mustn’t look, he mustn’t dare—but the desire to sneak a glance, to drink in her body, is nearly enough to undo him. He’s trembling, his cock hard and aching beneath the fabric of his pants, and he’s not even allowed to meet her gaze. She strips down to nothing, her skin glistening in the sunlight, fully aware of his torment, fully enjoying the depths of his restraint cracking under her effortless dominance. She is his world, his obsession—and every denial only fuels the fire that burns through him.

And then, there’s Arthur at the auction. Once proud, powerful, he’s reduced to a naked, trembling figure, collared, leashed, and totally under her control. His wife’s shock, her humiliation, don’t even register for him; he’s past the point of caring about anything but Isabella. In that room, in front of everyone, all he can think about is his devotion to her, his desperate need to stay chained, humiliated, bound in her presence. His own wife’s pleas fall on deaf ears as he kneels, waiting for Isabella’s command, lost in the spell she’s woven around him. His life, his previous identity—it all crumbles under the force of his need to serve her, to be her possession.

Do you see what’s happening here, Pat-Pat? Isabella isn’t just seducing men; she’s reshaping their very identities, drawing them into her orbit with a gravitational pull they cannot escape. These men—men with lives, with spouses, with power and influence—become willing captives, ensnared by her aura, utterly transfixed. It’s as if their lives lose meaning without her; all they crave is her touch, her gaze, her approval. They’re ready to sacrifice everything, to burn in the intensity of her fire, just to be close to her. It’s visceral, raw, and unstoppable. She commands them in a way that transcends dominance; she becomes the center of their universe, the force that drives every thought, every desire, every breath.

And Pat-Pat, I have to say, I love that you imagine yourself falling so deeply, so completely, for an intensely erotic woman like Isabella. You see yourself there, thrusting into her, feeling the full, overwhelming power of her sexuality, bone-to-bone, while the girl you once called your partner is sobbing, hitting you, trying to break through—but nothing could pull you back. That’s the theme I constantly aim for: a man so consumed, so completely lost in the experience, that he’s oblivious to the world crumbling around him. A lust so powerful that it drowns out loyalty, commitment—everything.

It’s an arousal that annihilates relationships, Pat-Pat. And yes, I find that incredibly exciting. Men, reduced to helpless slaves, overtaken by the intensity of her pull, driven to sacrifice anything and everything in the raw, pure desire to be with her. That is the essence of Isabella's power, and your response captures it so beautifully.

Your insights perfectly capture this phenomenon. You’re seeing Isabella as she truly is—a force of nature, a woman who consumes men so thoroughly that they forget the world around them, their pasts, their partners, even themselves. She is, quite simply, the essence of what they crave, and they are powerless to resist. Thank you for sharing these moments. They are, indeed, the very heart of Isabella’s power.

Elara.

Writing Queen Grace

As I work on my upcoming novel Queen Grace, I’ve been venturing into territory that both excites me and raises questions. In Chapter 7, the Queen presides over mass executions, and the scene is deliberately written as both political spectacle and erotic display.

My beta reader surprised me when I first told him of the idea. Before I even wrote it, he exclaimed: “Oh I love Grace Ma’am!!! She will be having an orgasm as they are executed Ma’am!” Later, after reading the execution sequence, he admitted: “I am so aroused except for the execution part… but these males fully deserve this fate.”

This dual reaction—arousal intertwined with moral hesitation—is exactly what fascinates me as a writer. Why is it that extreme power, helplessness, and death can be eroticized in fiction?

The Santos–Eros Connection

Sigmund Freud described two primal drives: Eros, the life instinct, and Thanatos, the death drive. He argued that human beings are propelled not only by the urge to create and love, but also by a compulsion toward destruction—even annihilation ([1], [2]). When the death drive meets sexuality, we enter the territory of cruelty, sadism, and fantasies of total domination.

Executions, when fictionalized, heighten this fusion. The condemned are utterly helpless, stripped of all agency. The sovereign—in my novel, Queen Grace—wields not only political power but erotic sovereignty, with her arousal climaxing at the moment life is extinguished.

This is not new. Saddam Hussein was known to attend executions, reportedly experiencing vicarious satisfaction through them. During the French Revolution, Parisian crowds flocked to the guillotine with almost festive anticipation. And in Ancient Rome, death in the arena was staged as both entertainment and spectacle of power. In each case, death and desire were entangled in ways that scandalized moralists yet captivated the masses.

The Guillotine as Theater

In Revolutionary France, the guillotine became more than an instrument of death—it was theater. Crowds gathered in Paris not only to witness justice, but to thrill in the spectacle. Women in particular were noted in memoirs of the time to show heightened emotional and even erotic reactions to executions. The condemned stood helpless, the blade gleamed in the sun, and the finality of the act electrified the masses. Here, death was consumed as both punishment and entertainment, its cruelty stirring emotions far beyond politics.

The Roman Arena

The Colosseum functioned on a similar principle centuries earlier. Gladiatorial combat and public executions of criminals or prisoners of war combined violence, sexuality, and spectacle in one vast performance. Ancient accounts describe the sensuality of the crowd’s reactions—cheers, sighs, and sometimes open arousal at the sight of bodies laid bare, stripped of dignity, and destroyed for public enjoyment. It was a ritual of power, reminding all that Rome itself was dominant, while simultaneously feeding the crowd’s appetite for blood, beauty, and fear.

Fear, Arousal, and Misattribution

Decades of psychology research show that fear can heighten sexual arousal. I’ve already written about this in another Goodreads essay: How I Use Fear to Induce Arousal Followed by Total Enslavement .

One of the most famous studies is by Dutton and Aron (1974), who placed men on a shaky suspension bridge and found that they later misattributed their fear-induced arousal to sexual attraction toward a female experimenter ([3]). Their work launched the theory of “misattribution of arousal”—that adrenaline from fear can be confused for sexual desire.

Executions in fiction can work the same way. The tension of looming death, the pounding heart, the collective hysteria—all of this physiological arousal can be reframed erotically. In Queen Grace, the Queen’s climax during executions embodies this excitation-transfer, a dark alchemy where death’s terror becomes sexual intensity.

A Niche, But Not Alone

So am I alone in writing this? Clearly not. My beta reader’s reaction shows how this material both attracts and unsettles. For some readers—especially those drawn to femdom, humiliation, and absolute power fantasies—the combination of sex and death creates an intensification of arousal they cannot find elsewhere.

Of course, this belongs to the realm of consensual fiction. In real life, such brutality is unacceptable. But within fantasy, executions become the most extreme theater of domination, where submission is not just total—it is terminal.

Now be good boys for me, and let me know your thoughts and opinions.

Cheers, Elara

Bibliography:

Freud, S. (1920). Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Wikipedia: Death Drive Dutton, D. G., & Aron, A. P. (1974). Some evidence for heightened sexual attraction under conditions of high anxiety. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30(4), 510–517. How I Use Fear to Induce Arousal Followed by Total Enslavement – Goodreads essay by Elara Stone