My now ex husband never hit me. Mitch had violence in his childhood, and I thought about that before we got married. “Oh no,” I said. “Mitch would rather die than hit me.” It was a chance I took; I brought a monster into my life and loved him.
I reexamine my memories, shuffling over the pieces of paper until they’re soft as cloth. Within 12 months of our separation my husband
* Showed up uninvited at my home
* Showed up uninvited at my new home
* Drove across town to surprise me at my morning bus stop
* Parked his car near my workplace in the daytime “so he could feel near me”
* Sat on my doorstep and waited for me to return from my pre-work neighborhood exercise
* Left presents at my door for me to find when I got home in the evenings
* Called–I always answered if I was home. He called, the calls eventually got into a cycle of him threatening to walk into traffic while we were on the phone.
There’s an old Louis CK joke about women dating men being like women rationalizing bears. My new metaphor for Mitch, is he took his claws and sliced me deep and surgical, and I didn’t notice. The incision is still there and I can take out my organs, and admire my bile ducts, intestines, etc.
****
I got mansplained two years ago. Erik dressed half his current age and nudged me to the inside of the sidewalk. When I thought he had manners, he explained he gesticulates while talking and didn’t want to accidentally hit me. He also lectured on safety, and reiterated how dangerous this world can be. Thanks, Erik. If I told you about the real and re-lived and imagined things you’d never stop vomiting.
Let’s take a list and you tell me the danger.
1. I go to recess.
1. On a Friday night, my loving partner of 10+ years kisses my hand in one of our go-to restaurants.
1. I pursue casual sex with men I don’t know. I meet them for initial conversations at my home, at his home, at coffee shops, on deserted beaches, in a city park.
1. A friend tells me he’s charged his name because of sexual abuse. He’s my first peer to tell me that sort of things, and we never speak of it again.
1. In 6th grade some of the boys would surround a girl at recess– they would slap at the her parts, dig their fingers around. The boys cycled through three or four different girls. I was never picked off or herded into that group, and felt jealous of the attention.
1. Mitch did that a lot. I’d like to put a pin in this for a minute, okay?
1. It’s been pretty cool.
1. I was a very young 12, and remember feeling relieved, as if my friend had pneumonia, and received antibiotics and oxygen treatment. When was the last time you felt relieved after a friend told you about childhood sexual abuse? That’s how young I was.
****
I’m seeing someone new, Aaron. I’m not monogamous, so don’t owe any explanations. He’s a cheerful anarchist with an aversion to wearing deodorant, is as inexorable a lover as anyone could want. He goes down on me for so long he might as well change his ZIP code.
He will cum in my mouth, and lets me lick him clean after.
Yes. Fuck me. Then pull my hair. Please cum in my mouth.
***
I’ve vivisected and excised so much of me–I am tippy as a well played Jenga tower, solid as Swiss cheese. I am either re-growing, or parts of me forever stunted and retrained in a new direction. We are adults here, right? We will all get cancer sometime in an average lifespan. We will have it sliced out of us, in poisonous circles, checking for clear radiuses and margins. I have hacked enough away, my body has lost sovereignty.
A vampire myth–hey it’s not just a Lore podcast. It’s me, living this life and responsible for my home, heart, family. My postbreakup song had a line, “I wish every time he touched me left a mark.”
What do you think? Am I one of those girls on the playground yet?
***
Bill walked next to me in semi-suburbia. We walked a dog, which was not his dog, and I don’t remember who’s dog. Bill was in exactly the same business as my ex husband, working for more or less the same family of companies. I was in same profession as Bill’s ex wife. Bill thought the coincidences were funny. I identified silently with Confederate war reenactors, and felt like a wounded ghoul about to repeat bad mistakes.
***
I hadn’t seen Jesse in a while. He requested I wear lace panty hose and my tall high heeled boots. They made me almost as tall as him, he stripped me down and bent me face first over a piece of furniture. I breathed through upholstery, my eyes covered by a blindfold. I do well with the disruptive force; I’m not submissive, but I do dearly love the physical sensations. After, he stroked my back, ran his hands over my body, and his eyelashes had an unexpected curl.
I didn’t come out of a closet like my queer friends, but have been trying to get to the beating heart of my desires. I have adorned myself with Wolford thigh highs, XS. I’m fucked up enough to like that sizing, and love that I purchased them for myself.
***
I’m 26, sitting in a basement on a workbreak. I’m writing a letter to the kindest, gentlest person I know. I use this description of him often for over a decade. Now it’s Spanish moss clogging parts of my heart.
****
Aaron doesn’t ask much, just allows my recitations. I tell him he’s seen me have two orgasms, and the rest is me at high arousal. He wants to change those totals so I point out the fancy name brand condoms are in a box near my bed, with my vibrators. He tells me I am the squirmiest partner he’s ever had, and seems shellshocked with my neatly outlined understanding of arousal.
****
Aaron curled around me and kissed traces on my waist. He tells me about years of celibacy but his strong, jerked thigh between my legs, the way he puts his thumb-palm-pinky between my breasts, sizing me. He takes in every centimeter.
His hands make a game of how close he can skim along without touching me. He indulges my insistence at being naked in the sunshine. I hope I can enjoy my time in this harbor before the inevitable, “If we were just different people…”
He laughs at the the three locks on my flimsy door. The locks are funny, but still. I have three locks on the door, four blankets, two robes, seven pillows, six lamps. All trying to keep warm, keep still, illuminate my sharp edges. I’m afraid of bears, but I’m also afraid of myself.
***
This isn’t sexy, and I know I’m on r/gonewild, but if I don’t write it down, then it’s like it didn’t happen. Someone told me to be compassionate with myself. I don’t know how to do that, but I do know how to have sex and not be in love. I do know how to be a good, casual partner.
***
Aaron and I are trying to muster from our late morning naked time, and get to a midday movie. He holds me down and presses a cold water bottle to my lower stomach–I squeal and tell him I don’t know why I have him around. He gets serious, doesn’t let me wiggle out of the way, and kisses my stomach and gives two quick licks to my clit. “That’s why,” as he put the lid back onto his bottle.
I get dressed and dither over the choices. We are stupid and warm at the movie, and after he herds me into his bedroom and gets naked lickety-split (guy does not like wearing clothes!). I get down to almost naked. He face plants into my cunt and after a few minutes giggles a little. I ask what’s so funny, he looks up my pale skin and odd freckles, black lace. He mumbles through my mound, “This is great,” and closes his eyes.
Source: reddit.com/r/gonewildstories/comments/7iq8sw/fm_me_later
The fuck is this? This sub isn’t the place to post your diary entries.