Lately, I've had some interesting encounters with people knowing my status and wanting to own me in various ways. I received an email from the first person I loved and who consequently also posed as being into bdsm (and by 'into bdsm', I mean the fetlife version of bdsm). My memories of him grow less fond over time.
When I was sixteen I fell in love with a man who was fourteen years older than me and was someone who I thought would be considered dominant. At first avik1 and I spoke online for a few months and then it progressed to him flying from Atlanta to Chicago to visit me. My friends covered as excuses for my parents, while I would take the airport buss for an hour to met him at various hotels surrounding O'Hare. The buss was about 20 blocks from where my childhood home was. I would mostly get rides to the station from my friends who knew what I was doing - other times it was a real bitch to walk through the Midwest snow with suitcases. Whenever I think back to those times, I am always amazed and appreciative that my friends could keep that secret for me. I grew up in a tiny town in Indiana2 that was mainly protestant and I don't want to imagine the scandal this secret relationship would have caused me to deal with. No one in school or my parents ever found out that I was seeing Avik and those friends and I remain close to this day. Avik and I spent the weekends having sex and eating at various restaurants downtown. One of my favorite memories was eating at Gaylords. It has the best Indian food in the city, a name that would make any sixteen year old laugh, but also as a teenager I thought it was cool to have eaten at the same restaurant as Obama (I seriously doubted any other Indiana high schooler could say that they had eaten at the same restaurant as the current president). Every two months Avik would fly to see me until I turned seventeen. When I turned seventeen I started flying to his house in Atlanta every four months. The off two months, he would still see me at different hotels. We spent my seventeenth birthday at the first hotel suite I've ever been in downtown - I spent most of that birthday on my knees but could still see the Navy Pier fireworks. Avik had another sub, Ashley, who lived with him in Atlanta and I got to know and care for her very much. Traveling to Chicago and Atlanta, I was having what I thought was the time of my life. Since we were doing long distance and I was in high school, I never really got to see the dominant side of him, it was mostly just fantasizes incorporated to our plans for the future. At the most I was lectured about having good grades and making a future career a priority. Career and institutional education were the most important things to him, as he came from a background of getting a perfect on his SATs and attending graduate school at Duke. We had plans for me to move to Atlanta and I would take a year off of school so that I could get instate tuition at Georgia State. Avik constantly whined to me about the serious issues between him and Ashley. I thought she was just having a hard time with his high (what I thought was) standards of getting a Georgia Tech bio chemistry degree and being his submissive.
Finally graduation came for me and it was time to move. I had a great lie crafted so my family didn't ask many questions. However, this was the first time I hesitated and wasn't so sure about moving to Atlanta. I told him it would be a few weeks until I could move, which turned into a few months. After much pushing on his part and confusion on mine, I finally packed up and moved to Atlanta. My dad and brothers were heartbroken. I don't think they thought that I would go through with the move and when I did, I knew I would never be home with them for good again.
The first few months in Atlanta were great. Ashley graduated from college with honors and continued her job as a software tester. Things started to get a little dubious when Avik started a new job as a data scientist. His anger became explosive over the smallest things: tv cords not being arranged the correct way, money, politics, and work...etc. This anger turned into yelling which would last for hours and his words didn't produce anything productive. Avik and Ashley were arguing a lot before she got put on various psych meds (xanax and ambien). Which was something he also proposed for me and then insistently talked about when I refused. No real bdsm ever occurred. I missed out on being tied up, getting beat, and serving someone. More than that, it was just fucking boring. I longed for the exciting days at the hotels. When I expressed my boredom, I was met with yelling about me possibly saying anything of the sort and then eventually a dog. I thought taking care of one would help take up the time before school began. Unsurprisingly to anyone besides a teenager, the dog didn't help and I adamantly started talking about leaving. No one took me seriously and after almost a full year of being yelled at for hours and for nothing, I again packed up my things and moved back to Indiana.
In a few months the fall semester was starting at Purdue and I had a shoddy plan of getting a job and moving into the dorms. By this point, I was depressed and confused. Avik and I were still in touch and he was constantly berating me for leaving, most of this consisted of how I would never amount to anything or get out of Indiana (my biggest fear was being stuck in Indiana or the state that wants to be Iowa). After school started, we barely spoke as I was tired of being online, realized I desired something more out of life, and altogether tired of the toxic relationship. I explained to him that I probably wasn't submissive and this isint something I wanted to pursue and he cried, a lot. We went months without speaking and then someone would contact the other. Brief plans would be made for travel and I would always back out.
Fast forward to after graduation and me moving to Chicago. I finally got a decent HR job and our company had a plant near his house. When I saw the location I started messaging him again. The company needed an HR rep to visit the site and I volunteered with plans to stay the weekend at his place. Two other girls3 had moved in so my plan was to just visit as friends. The first night I stayed at the hotel and all was fine when he and I just had dinner. Things took a dramatic turn when he wanted to become sexual. My lack of interest in him wasn't well received, so the rest of the night was spent with me fighting him off (mostly kicking) and me locking myself in the bathroom. In the morning the travel company changed my flight for the best 200 the company ever spent and I returned home. My message to him of being done (and also the kicks) didn't take because I received a hilarious email the other day:
Look , people who are witty and "fun" and entertaining and cool and hipster but put out articles on the internet about you being their unicorn , replete with pictures , are NOT people with your long term best interests at heart
http://trilema.com/2018/do-you-know-what-an-unicorn-is/ this is not a good life choice . you have 277 connections on linkedin. you don't advertise that you're a unicorn with a famous fetlife troll ( yes he's famous for trolling fetlife and making women on there feel upset and harassed - I only know cause people told me ) on linked in . These are poor choices and i am worried for you . Perhaps if you ever check any of this , and need to discuss someday , i will be there .
I wont breakdown how delusional this email is, but I feel fortunate for having the realizations that I did at eighteen. I'm sure it sucks for him to realize that I wouldn't drive eight hours or claim him "publicly", but updating my linkedin position and moving to another country has been a pleasure.
1. For more hilarity, see his fetlife here↩
2. a fun little place called Highland↩
3. Two other girls also on psych meds↩
[...] learned). I responded without knowing that this douche already wrote to our favorite famous fetlife troll and was lucky enough to receive a message back. Let's peep the conversation between him and I to [...]