He was one of the first people to start messaging me when I created my online dating profile. He had a shaved head, deep set eyes, and was covered in tattoos. In conversation, he was dominant, but inquisitive. I thought I did well. He was young, divorced, and a father to a cute little boy. He seemed to love learning, philosophy, and bantering about the nature of the universe and what it meant to be human. Sisyphus was tattooed to the side of his skull, he wasn’t lying about that to humor me.
We spoke on the phone for weeks leading up to meeting in person since I was out of state for work. Looking back, the way he was so quick to capitalize on my time should’ve made me more cautious. The unsolicited pictures should’ve been another clue. In a misguided attempt to make things safer, I told him all of my vulnerabilities.
I told him I was damaged from my marriage and from my childhood, and I said that I would need to take things slow.
I told him it would be completely understandable if he didn’t want to deal with that.
I told him how all of those things hurt me, and he told me he understood.
And damn, he really did understand. I handed him a roadmap to use me, and he quickly found his way.
I called him when I got home from my work trip and invited him out with some friends that I had plans with that night. He lived about an hour away and agreed to make the trip out, and I drank more anxiously in anticipation. He promised me nothing sexual would happen.
MP happened to be at the bar we were at that night. He texted me:
MP: So I feel like should at least say hello..
MP: Maybe we could talk if you want and get the chance.. it would be nice is all I’m sayn
Me: I’m sorry MP, I’ve got someone who is meeting me here tonight. If you’d like to talk, let’s figure out a night where I haven’t been drinking. You’ve been seeing other girls, which is super great! No reason to be hung up on me. I care about you, and want things to turn out well for you
MP: Well I guess all I can say is that first, I never meant to make you feel like I’m hung up on you in the sense of holding my life back from anything.. Second, based off of what you just said to me there’s only a few things I can say back.. Like for one, the girl you saw me with has been the only girl I’ve talked to that actually gave me the time of day since we were talking.. lol
MP: I never meant to make you feel like I moved to fast for you, I was only giving you the me that I was raised to give an amazing woman such as you..
MP: Anyway the second thing I got to say to you is that I guess I’m happy for you, and I hope you find the peace I had hope to one day give you.. but at the end of the day I have no problems being cool with ya and stay in touch ya know.. after all we’ve both said that we mean something to each other so why not right..?
MP: Please don’t worry about me yo, I’m used to it.. and to be really honest just getting the time I did get to hang with you meant more to me than I guess I’ll ever get to tell you
MP: Have fun tonight love
MP: Xoxox
N arrived shortly after that exchange. MP stared from the corner and I let N know who he was. It wasn’t an issue.
We were immediately affectionate. I don’t think we spent more than a few seconds without being close. He got along well with my friends, he was gorgeous in person, he was kind to me and I thought I found someone who I would actually want to pursue.
The bar closed and a few of us walked to my office to continue drinking. Eventually it was just N and I alone. He began kissing me, then at some point my clothes were off. I don’t really remember how quickly it happened.
He was laying on his back on the couch, and he had me on top of him while he ate me out. I remember being scared and feeling frozen in my mind, but acting as if everything was fine and enjoyable. I don’t remember if I pretended to finish or if I actually did. But at the end I looked down at him and he smiled gently back at me. It was disarming.
I don’t remember what happened in between, but the next thing I remember is him giving me oral again, except this time I was sitting on the edge of the couch and he was kneeling on the ground performing oral. He then had me face away from him and he started eating my ass. I didn’t like how it felt. At some point it was over, and at some point he went home. I don’t really remember how it ended.
I texted him the next day:
Me: Thank you, it’s been okay. I wrote something up that I wanted to share, though it’s probably going to be kinda annoying. Is now a good time to send it?
N: Send it mama
N: Everything ok?
Me: Everything is okay, here’s what I wrote:
So there’s something I want to talk about before I go see you today. I promised myself that I was going to be honest and open with whoever I met, so even though this is probably really annoying, I feel like I should tell you. I am feeling kind of fucked up over last night, and I don’t think I am capable of handling that again any time soon.
I want to give you some context, and first tell you that you didn’t do anything wrong. I was really caught off guard by my inability to ask to stop or slow down. I was scared and overwhelmed, and I reacted by trying to convince myself that I was being ridiculous and that I needed to calm down and act like nothing was wrong.
For some context on my history, when I was 6-7 years old I was coerced by my neighbor/best friend who was a couple years older than me into doing a bunch of sexual acts and having sex. When I was 13-14, my mom had a 50 year old roommate who would be inappropriate with me with lots of groping and a weird emotional type of thing (he’d do lots of things for me, tell me we would get married when I was older, etc.). Middle of 9th grade when I was around 14, I was drunk on the bus and a boy very forcibly made me give him head. At 17, I met my ex-husband. He was extremely pushy, and if I said no to anything he would either get extremely cold and mean or he would just try again within a few minutes. When he proposed to me 3 months after we started dating, I just let him have sex with me. All throughout our relationship, he would continue fucking me even while I was crying and he would get extremely angry with me if I was upset with him afterwards. I remember, at one point early in our relationship when I had broken up with him for a short while when I was 18, I asked him why it seemed like he didn’t care that I was in pain. He said that it made him feel good that I was willing to hurt myself for him.
I only got back together with him because he nearly killed himself after threatening it for months, and I felt really guilty. But that’s a story for a different day.
My ex husband apparently really traumatized me pretty bad. I don’t know why I feel paralyzed when I’m trying to voice my needs. I just know that I was made to feel really bad when I didnt just accept what was happening. I also feel overwhelming guilt and shame that my needs are ridiculous and childish.
I know I’m the fucked up one and I have no illusions of how undesirable this is to deal with. I can’t move this quickly, and I let things go so far beyond what I was ready for. I really don’t want to do anything sexual yet. I need weeks or months to actually be okay with what happened last night. I completely respect if that’s too long to wait, and I’m not going to go crazy on you if you say it’s not worth the time. I’m really sorry that I’m like this, and I hope this makes sense
N: Thank you for being honest baby, I am so sorry. I thought when started you were fine, and I didn’t think you were forcing yourself at all and I tried to make sure if I saw your anxiety going I stopped to make sure you were ok. I didn’t mean to hurt you in any way
N: I hate that you had to experience all that, and I will sit and listen to all of it that you need to tell me if you want to be more in depth.
N: I’m not here just for the sex, I’m here for you. All of you
N: That’s it. If I have to wait I have to wait baby. You ask nothing that is too much, unfair or dissuades me from being here with you
N: You’re worth more than just the physical and I felt more than the physical from the moment I saw you, and I haven’t stopped being as happy and content as can be
Me: I know that you didn’t mean to hurt me at all. And it really meant the world to me that you stopped when you noticed me getting anxious. I have years of experience in pretending to be okay when I’m not, it’s not fair to expect you to read my mind when I’m acting completely fine.
My history makes things extremely complicated. I wish it was as simple as being able to just say what I need in the moment. I promise I am going to try to work on all of this. I don’t want to be this way.
It really means so much to me that you’re okay waiting. Just know, that if that changes, you can tell me and I’m not going to be angry
N: I’m here for the long haul Jane
N: I’m not going anywhere
N: That’s it. Ok baby? I’m here
N: And when I say that’s it I don’t mean it mean or anything, I’m saying it like put that against your worries and fears. I’m here babygirl
Me: I believe you. Thank you baby
N: Always mama, are you still coming today?
And yes, I did go drive to see him that night. I spent time with him at the bar that he worked at, and everyone was excited to meet me and “see that I was real.” I remember being surprised that he wasn’t lying about not having dated in two years. He was conventionally attractive, outgoing, and seemed to have steady work. After the bar closed we met up with a friend of his and we all took a walk. I didn’t talk much as the two of them bantered – I was quite nervous.
At some point, it was just the two of us in his truck driving through the woods. I didn’t know this town or where we were. We parked in a random driveway that I eventually learned was his mother’s house. He looks at me, “There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you, Jane.”
I panicked, but did my best to appear calm. I asked him what it was.
“I love you.”
The reality of where I was in that moment crashed down on me. I was alone with a man who has only known me for a few weeks, only met me twice, in a random driveway, in a town I don’t know, in the middle of the night.
“I love you, too.” I said, cuddling up closer against him.
“Oh thank God. I felt so weird doing stuff the other day without being able to say it to you. I know it’s soon it’s just that…” and there was some explanation for why it really wasn’t too soon. At some point he asked me to be his girlfriend and I agreed. My head was spinning trying to anticipate what would happen next.
My default for when a man makes me nervous is to be affectionate towards him. I don’t know what I did, I probably kissed him. He pulled down his pants. I don’t remember if he asked for it or if I just started. I remember feeling strange about the way that he finished. I didn’t want to swallow and he just came on me, no regard for where it got. It somehow felt possessive.
After this, he drives me back to my car. He’s rambling about our future together and I don’t remember many of my responses. I drove home trying to make sense of things.
I didn’t confront him this time because I thought that I must be crazy. I knew it was too soon for him to feel that way, and I definitely didn’t love him, but I rationalized that maybe some people have different definitions of love. I also figured that I just didn’t set my boundaries well enough, and that’s why the sexual things happened despite me not wanting it.
A few days later he visited again. He met some of my coworkers, my best friend, and some friends of mine from a bar I was a regular at. He had found a kitten on his way to visit me, and named it Mew. She was quite the center of attention. Nothing sexual happened that night – we didn’t have much time alone together. At the time though, I thought it meant that he was being honest about waiting.
On the way home, my best friend who was staying with me for the week expressed how offput he was by him. I was actively trying to deny how bad things were to myself. The concerns that got raised just turned into a fight without a resolution.
The next day I went back to go see him. He had just moved into a new place and said he wanted to do some shopping to get the place put together. I told him I’d be happy to help, I’d just have to be home by 5:00am for some work stuff the next day.
I pulled up to the address that he gave me and texted him. He came to the driveway and greeted me.
“You’ll have to walk with me, they’ve got three dogs outside that can be a bit aggressive.” We went through the gate to the backyard; the fence was tall and wooden. The dogs lunged at us but he yelled for them to get back and they seemed to listen to him. We got to the small guest house in the backyard and he let me in. The inside was a studio setup: a bathroom, a small kitchen area, and a bed. The inside was dingy, old food from the previous occupants still in the fridge and the old furniture obviously abandoned. Mew ran around on the bed.
Within moments he was kissing me, and I was soon on his bed. I knew once he undressed me that I was stuck. I didn’t know how to say no. My goal became to get out of this without having sex.
The first thing he did was have me bend over and face the wall while he ate my ass. He put his fingers inside me and I didn’t like how it felt. The order of everything else is blurry.
At one point I’m on my back and he’s eating me out. He’s telling me how much he loves me and would never hurt me. Then he’d look me in the eyes and bite my thighs so hard that I had welts for over a month. I clenched my jaw and held my breath when he did that, like a wounded animal attempting to hide its injuries. The longer time went on the more I realized that he was sadistic, and I decided it would be best if I reacted as little as possible to what he did. I was worried that if I acted like I enjoyed it he would push further, and I was worried that if I acted like I was in too much pain it would excite him. I did my best to be neutral.
At another point I had been giving him head after he had already finished at least once. I was convinced that the situation would end if I got him off again – that always seemed to work with my ex-husband at least for a couple of hours. He was sitting on the bed, propped against the wall. He asked me to move, lay on my back, and hold my head off the side of the bed. I anticipated that he was just going to fuck my throat and that letting him would make this end more quickly. I complied. Very quickly he leaned over me and began licking my pussy. I couldn’t help it – I started crying.
“I’m so sorry, baby. I forgot. I love you so much. Hey, hey now. I make mistakes. Look it’s over. You’re safe,” he rambled while I sobbed. I controlled my breathing. I slowly calmed down. I don’t know how much time passed before he continued, but he did comfort me for some amount of time.
For context, less than a week earlier:
Me: […] 69 is just a specific thing that I would have a hard time with
Me: For context baby, the only time I did it I was 6 years old and it’s stuck in my head as a specific flashback. Sorry if that’s like gross, I don’t know how much you want to understand these things and I’m also not sure how much I’m supposed to tell you
N: Baby you tell me everything
N: Every happy memory and every worst. I want and need to understand you
N: I fully intend to ask if you’d have me as your man, and I can see you have had sorry excuse for men, and I have already gathered plenty the traumas you have lingering. So (a.) I am going to be the standard of a man you deserve (b.) I am going to take all that as it is, and be as supportive and understanding as I can through any and all of it
Me: That really means the world to me. I definitely want you to know these types of things about me, because I think they are very reasonable dealbreakers, and I want to respect you by being transparent. I’m just not 100% sure how/when to bring them up.
Honestly, I think it’s kinda morally wrong to impose my issues on someone, which is why I have been so hesitant to date because I don’t want to waste people’s time. Like, I know I can hide them and be okay for a little while, but I’d definitely bolt the second I felt unsafe. Alternatively, I can be honest about how much it affects me and risk someone actually wanting to stick around and letting me impose all these issues on that or feeling a sense of obligation to it
Me: I don’t know, I have lots of complicated feelings on it. Just mostly wish none of it happened, but in an ideal world, no one but me would have to carry the burden. I hate the idea that other people get inconvenienced by my issues
N: Stop.
You are not an inconvenience. Your pain you feel is not a limitation to the extent of your ability to give and receive love. It sets no boundaries to me. The extent of pains, transgressions and traumas does nothing to dissuade me of my need to witness you.
Witness your intelligence firsthand in your work and day to day; to hear you speak your passions and drives.
Witness your beauty and the maturation of your features as each second passes and take you in as, hopefully, decades come and I watch nature craft so perfect a muse.
Witness your pain. Your tears. Your innermost thoughts. The ghosts that prod at your insides and revel in you feeling so cynical towards the life that lets you live justly and achieve your dreams fully.
N: It is morally wrong to withhold and let a rot set in.
N: I don’t do a thing out of obligation.
N: I don’t see a bit of it as a burden to shoulder an ounce or the entirety of those things
Me: That really means the world to me. I will do my best to open up more, because I want to be authentic. I have always just wanted someone to understand me and the things that happened to me
Me: Thank you for being so kind
N: In an ideal world I wouldn’t be in so much pain at all times myself. You would not be. My son’s future wouldn’t be predetermined such struggles born from his own parents’ failings. The billion billion before us and the endless number after us (not even taking into account the ones already around us) whose pain has come already and is yet to come.
N: If they have suffered, survived and thrived in spite of it though, then so too shall I, and you also.
N: And if you feel like you question anything of your own power, success, ability and right to happiness then I would be satisfied with nothing less than to be told, in it’s entirety, or shown, in it’s entirety, until I could no less understand you and each facet of you till I understand you to the same extent I understand how to simply grip a cup and my need to drink from it every day.
N: Your body is now the cup, and you are what I need to drink to continue existence and grow every day. If it is bitter then I need to take in the bitter, if it is sweet then that too, if it is nearly poison then I merely have to swallow and stomach it. I cannot ask to be your partner and not give you the strongest measure of that
N: I’m sorry, I know that was a lot but I refuse to accept any allusion toward you not being worthy of, deserving of and rightful to being loved and understood to the utmost of every measure I can give.
I’m almost certain we had more detailed conversations about it, but I don’t remember.
What I do remember, is that at some point quickly he started again. I struggled more this time around to stay present and my memory is even more hazy. I remember he would tell me to tell him that I loved him. I’d say it lightly, and then he’d tell me to say it louder. He made me scream it.
At some point, he had his fingers in my pussy and was laying at my legs. He asked me if I was getting sore. I shook my head “yes,” slowly and cautiously without saying a word. I know I must’ve looked terrified. He said, “okay baby, then I’ll stop. I love you so much I would never want to hurt you.” And then he locked eyes with me, and he just kept going. Didn’t change his pace, just kept exactly as he was before. I don’t remember what happened next.
One of the later times that he finished he asked me if I wanted it on me or inside of me. I told him I wanted it on me. He came on me, and started talking about how much he loved me. He said that one day, he would love if I would mother his child. He said he knew I didn’t want children, but that if I ever changed my mind to not even tell him, just go off my birth control and make it happen. He took two fingers and gathered the cum from my stomach and stuck it inside of me. I don’t remember what happened next.
At some point he tells me I can go shower. The bathroom was dingy and dark, and the shower handle was somewhat broken. I stared out myself in the mirror and I felt a feeling I can’t well describe. It was similar to when I was psychotic and didn’t feel quite like my reflection was my own. I don’t think I even hated the person in the mirror, I looked at her and knew that we were alone in this together. I stood under the water – he had no soap. I rinsed the cum off my body the best I could with just my hands and the water. I didn’t feel clean. I stopped showering when I realized I had been in there for a long time relative to what I was able to accomplish.
He was making dinner. A large piece of steak, certainly undercooked, and some type of vegetable noodle. He had severe body dysmorphia, ate one meal a day, and worked out incessantly. He offered me food and I politely declined. I’m not sure what we talked about, but I know he did the majority of the talking.
We laid down and it started again. He came once or twice more. I don’t remember what we did. Eventually we fell asleep.
I woke up to him touching me again. He came one more time. I don’t remember what we did.
I told him I had to leave to make it to work on time. It was around 4 or 5am. Before I had gotten there, I told him I needed to be back home by 6am. He walked me to my car. The dogs lunged at us in the yard.
We texted a bit throughout the day, and later had this exchange:
Me: I want to talk about why my head has been fucked up today. Last night went much further than I wanted or was okay with. I haven’t been with anyone since my divorce and I just don’t think I’m ready for any of the sexual stuff. Maybe I didn’t communicate clearly enough when I last brought this up, and I’m sorry. I don’t think I’m able to handle being in a relationship right now
N: I understand…
Me: I’m open to any thoughts you might have
N: I don’t know what to say. I know the one point when I didn’t think and went down on you and I realized and paused and everything. Just.. yeah. I would rather it not be like this, and now have place cleaned up to actually start making it look nice and change what need change and have you watch movies to get the references and everything or cook with me and just.. yeah.
N: If this is decided then it is decided… I don’t want to argue my case or do anything because then it just feels forced and I don’t want to be forced
N: I apologize. That’s it, that is what I can do. I’m not going to beg though or come up with something to say to make you be here or anything like you’ve had before though. It is your choice. That’s it.
Me: I appreciate that. I guess I just want to understand if I wasn’t really clear when we had talked originally about this stuff after the first night
N: I see..
And that was the last I ever heard from him.