On new beginnings

I've turned a corner. I've got through the storm. I've made it. I've got my mojo back. I've survived. And many other varying cliches.


It's pretty much a year to the day when HR broke up with me and my world came crashing down around my ears, but now I can actually say I'm happy and content and over him. And for a reason that you would probably never guess....


December 2015 is going to go down as a particular memorable month in my life, (and not just because it's when the fabulous new Star Wars film came out). Now, I had been labouring away at Tinder and other dating apps and becoming rather disillusioned with the whole thing. I'd managed to get a few conversations going and had set up a first date with someone on a Wednesday in early December. To be perfectly honest I wasn't massively feeling it but felt like I should at least be trying. He, however, cancelled on me with about 3 hours notice (with the world's Worst Excuse Ever. So fuck him. As I said, this didn't bother me too much and it did instead allow me to ask another match if he was free that night (and this guy I was much more interested in....)

Flicking through Tinder I very rarely swipe right. I came across one (anonymous) profile where the photos were all edited to not be showing his face. But it was the profile that really reeled me in where it said he was kinky.


*deep breath*


Now, it's been in the back of my mind that the world of kink, and in particular domination and submission was something I'd been interested in for quite some time, and by quite some time I mean at least 2012. And I can pinpoint that year because I can remember talking to men about it on OkCupid and early 2012 was the last time I did internet dating. At that point I was 25 and was too scared to actually follow through with anything. It got pushed away and never really surfaced with any partners, but was always something that I knew got me off. In the blogs I read, in the porn I watch, in the fantasies I have. But up until now I'd never really told anyone, talked to anyone about it, never acted on it, and certainly never had anything other than fairly vanilla sex.


So I swiped right.



And when it comes to writing the history of my life, I think that action may come to be one of the defining "game-changers."



He also swiped right. We started talking. We started talking about D/s, and how it was something I was interested in. He told me he was a Dom. He was impressed by how much I seemed to know, and by my curiosity. We met up when that first date cancelled. We went for drinks. We got on really well. And then he started stroking my arms. And then my hair. And then my neck. And then pulled my chin up with his fingers to kiss me, occasionally slipping into Dom mode. And that was it, game over for me. I was a quivering mess.

We stayed in the same bar until 2am, and I barely noticed the time. He walked me most of the way home, and I had the resolve of a fucking saint to go home by myself (and also the fact it was 2am, I was in work for 8am and would have literally not slept). He said goodbye by pushing me against a door and kissing me, whilst parting my legs with his knee and telling me how much he'd enjoyed the night.


The second date was nearly two weeks later. Two weeks of near constant messaging and conversation, about kink, about D/s, about my interests, about Christmas, about Star Wars, about mundane shit, about work, about children, about it ALL, before meeting up on a Monday for dinner and drinks in a small bar, where we were the only two people in the whole of the downstairs area. I already knew that he would be coming back to mine afterwards and before the date was feeling a mixture of nerves and excitement. After we finished eating he whacked out a set (? pair? I have no idea) of hand restraints and asked if I'd be comfortable with him putting my hands behind my back and then putting them on me (right there in the restaurant).

I just looked at them. I definitely hadn't quite expected it, and I wanted to but couldn't quite bring myself to, in such a public area. So they were put away, and instead he held my hands together by the wrists behind my back with one of his. Waiter comes down and takes another drinks order during which I can't quite look him in the eye, god knows what he must have thought of the whole thing, as it must have been really fucking obvious.



ANYWAY



We walked back to my flat, which took a lot longer than it should have, as we kept stopping off in various nooks and crannies when he would tell me to sit and keep still, then kiss me. One place in particular  - there's a shortcut back to my flat which involved going through a barred gate which gets locked late at night. It being quite late, it was of course, locked. But considerable time was spent being pushed up against said gate, the bars biting into my back....



Needless to say, not an awful lot of sleeping was done once we were back at mine. The night (and the second night I spent with him) merit a post all of their own. But apparently this has now opened the flood gates on my what-had-been-incredibly-barren sex life, as I managed to notch up getting laid with another four men during December, which I'm pretty sure is some kind of personal best!

So I'm now super excited to see what this year brings, and exploring things a lot more. Tinder Dom and I have spoken about a lot of things and he's really very careful about not pushing me too hard, being very careful about boundaries and asking me what I am and am not comfortable with, which is obviously as it should/has to be! I've also learnt about what sounds like a very intriguing venue close to where I live, which puts on regular kink/swinging nights which I'm sure I'll get to sooner rather than later....


Here's to blowing away the cobwebs of last year and moving on to the next fucking exciting (kinky!) chapter....

The one that got away. To Scotland.

So over the last year me and HR continued to talk regularly, continued to see each other, continued to sleep with each other. He came to see me for a weekend in my new house in my new city in August. We talked about him moving to Liverpool next year. We talked about him coming to my Hallowe'en party. I wasn't really sure what was going on with "us" but I was quite happy for the status quo to continue.

And then, quite suddenly, he changed his mind. He wasn't going to apply to Liverpool for his job any more. He was going to apply to Scotland.


Scotland.


Fucking SCOTLAND.  COULD YOU GET ANY FURTHER AWAY.

The only reason he would come to Liverpool would be for me, and he'd feel foolish if when he got here I was with someone else. And actually, he'd visited Edinburgh recently and quite liked it.


And so, in the period of nine months, he broke my fucking heart into pieces for the second time.

We haven't spoken since. He got disinvited to the Halloween party.

And for the last month I have been up and down like a roller coaster. I've tried to tell myself that I need to get out there and meet someone new. I've downloaded all the dating apps, and have really tried to put some effort into them. But it's not really getting anywhere, I start talking to guys but inevitably it peters out, and not by me! Literally all the last messages sent are from me, not the other way around, so not really sure what's going wrong or why these men are getting bored of me. I go through a flurry of activity, it dries up, I think what is the bloody point, none of these men are
HR anyway, - I think NO - persevere, repeat, rinse, ad nauseum.

Being super busy at work helps, I go through the entire day without thinking about him, and can be generally pretty happy and on top of things but it's the mornings or the evenings or the long weekends alone where I cry myself to sleep/burst into tears in the middle of exercise workouts because I've lost the love of my life. Like, if our circumstances were different and we'd been at the same stage of life we'd still be together. Without one shred of doubt. And I rage against the unfairness, against the sheer bad luck of it all. Because that's the only thing that's kept us apart. We didn't have a single argument.  No one did anything shitty. We fancied the pants off each other. We had so many common interests. We went on two amazing holidays (I can now never go back to either Bruges or Iceland). He made me laugh. He was generous. He let me rant about feminism. He fucking dressed up as a Game of thrones character with me. He made 2014 the best year of my life. He knew me. He got me. He loved me.


And now I'm crying again.


Because now, and for the rest of my life, I'll have A One That Got Away.

Because I have someone that I'll probably never truly 100% get over.

Because we'll always have unfinished business.

Because there will always be a part of me that will ask, "What if?"


And whether I want it to happen or not, every man I meet will be measured up against him and he's set the bar fucking high. And I'm not optimistic currently that anyone will even come near to the impossibly high standard that he's set, let alone surpass it.