From relationships past

Little reach-outs from relationships long past are strange things. I’ve mentioned a few over the years but was musing over a few others that came out of the blue.

None has had the same impact as my first submissive’s, but those jolts from the past were still a surprise.

My first proper boyfriend: 15 years later

I can’t remember the last time I saw my first proper boyfriend from when I was 16 or 17, but our end was tumultuous. I essentially left him for my girlfriend, which I’m sure was hard to take as a young man. I suspect I was not kind about it.

He must have Googled my name, back when it was actually much harder to find people on the internet. Still, he found my full name on my e-friends Dave’s blog (my god, we were so naive then: Posting full names of online friends on personal blogs!). I think Dave had just listed his besties there: I was one. My ex got in touch with Dave, said he wanted to get in touch with me. Dave asked me, I said ‘fine’ so Dave gave him my email address.

He sent me a friendly email. He was a head of IT at a school somewhere. He was married, I think he had some kids (I can’t really recall). I think we exchanged some ‘catch up’ types of emails, I was a little puzzled over what he wanted from me. I had treated him poorly back in the day, so felt kind of guilty, but he didn’t at all touch on any of that (phew!).

The conversation was, from recollection, completely superficial and not very interesting: I have no idea why he got in touch with me at all.

It ended when he asked if he could bring some of his IT kids to visit my company. I could probably have arranged it, but frankly, I didn’t want to. I said no. I can’t remember if he sent an ‘okay, thanks’, but that was the last of the exchange.

Odd.

The two-night stand: 5 years later

He was 19. I was 30. He worked at my offices, I didn’t know him from there, though. I met him that night, at a work event.

He was Clark Kent: Maybe 6’2, built, but nerdy-looking. Glasses, studying accounting. He lied to me about his age because he thought I wouldn’t be interested if I knew he was only 19. I suspect I wouldn’t have cared.

Some formal work party, I drank too much. I expect he plucked up the courage to ask me to dance. We danced way too close for a work do, flirted madly, maybe partied on afterwards. I can’t recall.

I remember taking him to my place, I remember shoving him up against a wall, telling him “No, I’m driving” when he tried to lead. He was bad at taking instruction, but he was delightfully big and really sweet, like some giant lumbering teddy bear. The sex was sloppy, not in a good way but in a drunken messy way. I don’t remember much about it except giving it a pretty low rating in my head. I woke with a terrible hangover. Drove him home to were he lived out in the sticks with his parents.

I talked about our second one-nighter here. The second one-nighter was like a do-over. The first had been somewhat average: I hadn’t enjoyed him as much as I thought I could. It felt like a waste. I wanted to try again, see if we could do better. We did. Less drunkenness, more exploration, more pleasure.

“You fuck like a champ,” he told me later, which made me feel like I should have a special ‘fucking trophy’ (though to be honest, at 19, I imagine his basis for comparison was slim).

5 years later I got an email from him. He had moved out of home: “I’m no longer living with my parents!” he declared proudly.

He was living in a trendy suburb, his career was going well, he wondered if I wanted to catch up for a drink.

I’ll admit my ego was made happy by this, but I was in a relationship then: I declined.

The first submissive I dated: 10 years later

We met when he answered an ad I put in an alternative newspaper for a ‘male slave’.

His was the only reply that made me laugh. He was beautiful, all dark unruly hair and angular face, tall and lean and muscled. He was sweet, unpredictable. We were madly attracted to each other, he was alternatively eager to please, then sullen and uncooperative. Conflicted.

I was new, wasn’t sure how to handle it.

He blew hot and cold, it wasn’t working. The last thing I asked of him was to write me a letter telling me what it was he wanted because he was all over the place. He never delivered it, so I wrote him off. Reluctantly.

The last time I saw him, he turned up at my flat uninvited one evening. I was studying, IMing with friends. I was wearing a tiny mini-dress, it must have been summer. He had left a wok at my place, we had tried to arrange for him to pick it up a couple of times without success. Deliberate on his part. He didn’t want to pick it up from outside the door. He wanted to see me.

He knocked. I opened the door. He looked sheepish, shy. I was icy towards him, I gave him nothing. He had already blown it with me.

I let him in, found the wok, handed it over. Waited for him to leave. Staying silent.

He shuffled, awkward, unsure, wanting… something.

I held his gaze and gave nothing. He stood there as if he was lost, looking around, then back at my face.

He finally asked hopefully, “What are you doing?”

I told him I was working. I let the silence hang between us and ushered him towards the door. He lingered still⁠—his longing palpable, puppy dog face. We got to the door and he was still hanging back.

“This place, you… magnetic… I keep wanting to come back here…” His voice trailed off.

It made me angry, this show of wanting something but refusing to do even the simplest thing I asked of him to try and make it work. My reaction surprised even me.

I grabbed a fistful of his hair and and wrenched his face down to mine, an awkward angle.

I hissed, “I asked you to do one thing. ONE. THING.”

His face registered shock, surprise, surrender.

I physically shoved him out the door and snarled, “Get out.”

I never saw him again.

Ten years later, he rang me out of the blue. My partner answered, handed the phone to me.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” he asked when it was clear I was struggling to recognise his name.

I did, a flash of him: The steel artist who looked like Johnny Depp and who couldn’t submit in the way I wanted, refusing to do even small things that I asked, but he bottomed like a champ, kissed like a demon, and was so very pretty.

“I remember,” I said. “You weren’t really into it.”

“I know, I’m sorry. I wish I had done it differently…” He trailed off.

I nodded into the phone.

I asked him if he had explored further after me. He hadn’t. I told him that he had been my favourite. I could hear him smile at that.

He asked if I was single. I wasn’t.

“Oh,” he said. Regret.

I was sorry that I didn’t take his number before he hung up, I was single soon after that and could have used a Johnny Depp lookalike to kiss.

. . .