Scene Failure and the Scary Party, Part One

I really wish I’d been telling this story while it was still happy-it would’ve been so much more fun to write. I liked him so much that I was even calling him Emotionally Available Guy in my fb updates. Our first scene together was so close to being my dream come true that it was hard to be myself afterwards—I felt like he could finally be the guy to give me what I needed. Except.

Remember the episode of Doctor Who where the little boy keeps everything he’s afraid of locked in a cabinet in his room? That’s what one of the local play parties has felt like to me for a while—there are no boundaries anywhere, anyone feels free to waltz into any scene they see fit, so I’ve left there on more than one occasion feeling exploited and trampled. On the other hand, it’s also the place where I had my amazing first public scene with Fireguy, so it can’t be all bad.

The Man (as in the Man who brings one down) is the head of security at this venue. I was thinking that being with him would make me safe, rather than realizing that he is part of what makes it so chaotic. I was excited when he invited me, thinking it could help me to heal my creepy feelings about the place. Still, I hemmed and hawed about going, especially when he sprung it on me that his wife (who I didn’t know very well yet) would be going too. She didn’t end up going, and after much coaxing and reassurance, I decided to go, even though I worried that it might be the end for us. I really wanted to spend time with him and I wondered if the badness of the Bad Party was all in my head.

When I first got there, there was already an emergency—a woman had been getting her boobs whipped and she started to bleed, needing stitches. She was all woozy and no one could find the first aid kit. We ran into her in the aftercare room later, asked if she was okay, and for some reason her “I’m happy!” rang hollow, like, really, do we have to put ourselves through this?

As I was signing my waiver, The Man introduced me to Sadist Girl, a member of his security staff, who referred to me annoyingly as “Ribbons,” part of my Fet handle, instead of my real name, which I’d given her. “She knows you from FetLife,” he explained, “and she knows why you’re here.” Cue the foreboding I’m-in-trouble music.

At this point (actually at many points before this night) the horror movie audience would be yelling at the screen: “Get out of the house! Run DOWN the stairs, not up!” But I trusted him and you know what? He smelled really, really good. It’s amazing the lengths I’ll go to for a good man smell, let me tell you. I wanted to please him so that he’d notice me, so he’d really make me someone important in his life, so I’d know that he would stick around.

He led me into a harshly lit red room where people were kind of crowded in, but there was a free spanking bench. I didn’t really care for it because it wasn’t very showoffy/safe and it was away from the really good DJ that usually makes the place bearable. The beginning of the scene wasn’t like the first one or the nice time that we’d had in my living room earlier in the week. He didn’t stop and look into my eyes or ask me what I wanted. He didn’t brush my hair with the brush he’d requested the previous time. He didn’t stop and connect with me at all—it was like I was a chore he had to get through before he could get back to the real fun of working security. I should have stopped the scene or at least moved to another room.

He was complaining about the people talking around us, so I asked if he wanted to move and he said no. He told me to keep my mouth shut even though I’d told him several times that it was a hard limit. I don’t know why, but I kept my mouth shut—I am ashamed of how desperate I was and how much I compromised. I wish I could get in the Sex Tardis and save myself, but it is always too late.

It was an okay scene, if uninspired. Flogging, handcuffs, hairpulling. I had on my shorty pajamas that I always wear and my shirt was pulled up, exposing my nipples. “You’re my sweet girl,” he kept saying, “My good, sweet girl.” I melted. I was so happy in that moment—I’d dreamed of being his and he was saying that I was.

Right about then I heard him talking to Sadist Girl and handing her his soft leather paddle. I don’t know why I said it as okay. It certainly hadn’t been negotiated beforehand or even mentioned as a possibility. I would have said no if I’d been asked outside subspace. I don’t know why I did any of this. He held me tight from the front as she hit me all stingy, not the thuddy the way I like. She slapped around the edges of places so that it was hurtier, the sides of my thighs, the back of my knees. I don’t remember her hitting me in the crotch but it was bleeding after. I liked being tight in The Man’s arms, sobbing and screaming, and I liked feeling like I was giving him what he wanted. Sadist Girl tried hitting me on the bottom of my feet and at least I remembered the word “red” for that. She kept calling me “Ribbons” and it was making me mad. “Why do you say you’re not a masochist, RIBBONS?” “Huh, RIBBONS?

I started to really really not like it so I whispered to him that I wanted to be with just him now. She stopped hitting me but wouldn’t leave. They stood around talking as if I wasn’t there. She was listing off the people she had grudges against, talking about how they’d have to ban them.

I started to feel exposed and violated. I tried to work my shirt down over my breasts even though I was still cuffed. I told him again to get rid of her. He looked annoyed and she looked pissed off but finally went away. I told him to get me out of the handcuffs and I got dressed. I should have left as soon as I could drive, but I didn’t. Even though he’d broken our agreements and ignored my safety, I still wanted to be with him.

Letter to The Song Sender

Last week, I thought about going back and talking to The Song Sender about what happened between us. I was/am feeling stuck and I thought maybe his point of view would jostle something loose. This morning, my stuckness/curiosity got the best of me and I emailed him my number. As soon as I did that, all the bad feelings came rushing back, I remembered what it really felt like to be with him. So I reblocked everything and sent him this letter:

"But sending you my phone number made me remember how it really felt back then. It brought back all of the fear and anxiety and worry and desperation and shame. Being with you opened up such a chasm of greif, not all of it from you, but still.

Whether you literally wanted me to be a doll or not, wanting to do all that big meaningful stuff (it was big and meaningful to me) without any pesky emotions was treating me like an object. I deserved better. I gave you so much trust, all those first times, all that love.

 

I wanted to know if you did it on purpose or maybe it was just a bad match, but it doesn't matter. I wanted to know why you didn't want to go out in the world with me, but the fact is, you didn't. I wanted to know why you didn't treat me like a friend, but it doesn't matter now, it just sucked, it was a horrible way to treat somebody.

 

I'm pissed off at the damage you did. I'm doing my best to repair it.

 

Forward is a good way to go."

I'm giving myself a gold star for finally talking back to him, even though it was so long after the fact. I hope it makes a difference. Hope it makes me feel free again sometime soon.

What I'm looking for seems really, really far away, but I do know that backwards isn't the direction it's in.

How I Found Out I’m Kinky Part Seven: Baby, It’s Cold Outside.

This part of the story is really hard to write because it’s the part when I really started not to like myself. I could never really tell if the Song Sender was the one who made me feel so bad or if the relationship just brought up bad emotions. Probably both. I’m not sure what made me quite so scared of the Song Sender, aside from all the hurty stuff we were doing.

We were decidedly doing the D/S thing wrong. He scoffed the first time I suggested a safeword, so I was never sure he’d listen if I used it. We talked a little bit, but any time I had to ask him what he felt, he seemed dismissive and pissed off. During aftercare time, when I was all soft and subby, he’d say things like “Next time, I’ll just come over, fuck you, and leave. I’ll put my shirt on the cat for your snuggle time.” Or he’d say jealous things about my other partners. MKT is a Lego enthusiast, so the Song Sender would say things like “You don’t need me, you can just build me out of Legos.”

I was also really worried that he didn’t like me as a person because he wouldn’t go out in public with me. I don’t mean to play parties, I didn’t know those were even an option at the time. I just wanted to hang out and pal around sometimes. We’d make plans to go places, but he’d always have an excuse to end up on my couch instead. I felt like I was no good to him unless I was naked. He gave me so little praise that, pathetically, I remember the one thing he ever “liked” on my fb. It was this:

As I said before, he called me a good girl exactly once, over email, and then told me not to let it go to my head. His smiles were so rare that I felt nostalgic about them before he was even gone.

The morning after we’d failed to have sex, I went online to listen to some of the songs that he’d sent me, and I noticed that our latest 100-song email thread said “this conversation has been clipped.” I still don’t know what that meant, could’ve meant nothing, but the bottom kind of dropped out from under me: I was sure he was gone. He’d smiled so sweetly the day before when we were listening to Courtney Love singing Violet, and now it seemed like it was coming true: “They get what they want, and they never want it again.” That was one of my worst fears about men, that they’d just fuck me and leave me every time.

I wasn’t sure if it was just Christmas that was taking him away, but he really did seem gone. We’d exchanged songs every day all day for two months, so the drop-off in communication was startling. He sent me only one more song, a generic rock-steady Christmas song, and I asked him to send me a picture of his Christmas tree, and he didn’t. I felt so sad and far gone, and I didn’t feel like I could call him up, so I did that stupid thing of reading his fb posts to other people. I mostly just cried and felt guilty for messing up Christmas for Sweetie.

I wouldn’t say that Christmas was ruined, although I was too upset to eat the extra dough when I was rolling out gingerbread men. But how bad can things be if I was still rolling out gingerbread men?

Our yearly family debate over whether Baby, It’s Cold Outside is romantic or creepy was more vivid and in depth (was I really talking about “Yes Means Yes” around the Christmas table?) until I felt like my ragged psyche was leaking out.

When Sweetie and I got home, I rushed right to the computer to see if he’d written. Sweetie was superpissed because I seemed so beholden to him, and also because I wasn’t helping her unload the car. After I was online for a few minutes, he sent Love Cats, which was a favorite of ours and seemed unequivocally affectionate. But I was still worried, because no, we couldn’t go out, he only had daytimes free.

The last day he came over, I got my period, and I was scared that he would get mad and leave because he wouldn’t be able to have sex with me. I wanted to ask him if he’d meant to blow me off over Christmas, but I didn’t have the courage. Instead, I told him that he could cover my mouth if he wanted to—previously (and still) a hard limit. I really did want to give him everything. He told me about a bad dream. There was this pair of Siamese twins, he said, and he was maiming one of them while the other looked on judgmentally. I didn’t say that that was probably me and Sweetie.

He wasn’t feeling good but we started to play. I put on the makeout mix I’d made and when Someday, You Will Be Loved by Death Cab for Cutie came on, it seemed to emo for us, so I went to get up and skip it, but he wouldn’t let me up. He held me down and I wrestled and struggled, but he kept grabbing me and pulling me back and kissing me, saying, “Is it too emo now?” Of all the things I miss about him, I miss his kissing and his insurmountable physical strength the most.

Next: (Really!) The Long Goodbye

Last April, I Accidentally Wore the Scarlet Letter: Part Four

Scrabble boy and I planned a phone call shortly after I found out his wife didn’t know. He called from his car outside his local library, where he had a gig. He told me I was the first person he’d done anything with besides his wife since the Nineties. I painted the above painting while we talked. I was so touched by what he was telling me that I couldn’t stay mad. He choked up at the idea of not being my friend.

I feel like I want to apologize to everyone I know for the few weeks after that. I feel like I went kind of nuts. Sweetie tried to talk some sense into me, but I was desperate to believe he loved me. I’d always been afraid that I couldn’t be loved by a man, and I saw this as proof that I could be. “He doesn’t love you,” she said, “He screwed you over.” Adorkable was more sympathetic, listening to the songs he’d send and dissecting the poems over gelato. But still, I’m embarrassed for how I acted.

Whenever he mentioned a song, I’d put it in my iPod immediately and listen to it like a jillion times.  We had deep, romantic conversations on Scrabble chat, and my life started to revolve around that little chat box, around waiting for him to play his next word. He mailed me a poem (not his) about being trapped under a parachute. The migrating birds in the poem got tangled in the strings. He sent me his students’ poems and my delighted comments ended up in the introduction to their book. We took the Scrabble words and arranged them into poems. I combed his poems for clues he was still thinking of me, and they were always there. I was a window, a star.

Things continued with varying levels of angst until something fairly innocuous finally blew it all up. Scrabble Boy’s best fried is Feral Girl, a twenty-year-old former student of his. (He was 37) She was also a friend of mine from poetry. One day, they posted on facebook that they’d gone to a How Water Music show together and screamed along with the songs. The physicality of that image versus the computer-and-poems trapped feeling of my relationship with him sparked something and I texted him that I felt envious.

That’s when he kind of lost it on me. In that claustrophobic Scrabble chat box, he said “I don’t talk about this much, but I love my wife and kids. I don’t intend to abandon any part of my life here.”

I flipped out too—had I ASKED him to abandon anybody? He’s the monogamous one! I was so mad about the accusation that I did that impossible-to-feel-mature-about-but-still-necessary step of unfriending him. I made a lot of sarcastic jokes to my friends about being a homewrecker, but his accusation stung to the core of my love-loving heart. It still makes me scared, even in very very poly situations.

Our friendship was poisoned, as was my friendship with Feral Girl, somehow. I eventually did tell her why I unfriended her, and that probably wasn’t very nice.

Last fall, Scrabble Boy and I took another crack at being friends and planned a call. He and his wife had separated for reasons unrelated to me. It turned out, he’d never told her. He considered the fact that we “made out that one time” (Oh, crap, straight people have a different idea of what sex is!) to be “beside the point.” Which, in the grand scheme of things, I know it was, but still. What girl likes to be called beside the point?

We both spent a lot of that conversation apologizing, but I also realized he was never going to love me, and I was unreasonably angry about that. I mailed him back his poems and mix CDs. (The poems are still saved in the computer though. And the Scrabble games still live on, archived.)

I don’t know how I can be both the communicative and becoming-more-confident person I am not and the so-desperate-to-connect-with-a-man-that-I-helped-screw-seven-people-over mess that I was then. It’s almost April, I hope it’s time to forgive myself.