A couple of people have tagged me in the thing where you pull up iTunes and post up the first 20 or so songs that come on your shuffle. I wasn’t sure if I was going to do it, but I pulled up iTunes just to see what came of it. 

The first song was one that I used to listen to right around when Sir and I first were messing around back in fall of 2012. Hearing it again, it took me back to the really weird space of that time where we sort of had no idea what was going on between us.

He’d given me the panic attack when he found my tumblr, he’d turned out okay, but I was still nervous. Even though I’d never seen him before at school, even though we had mutual friends and yet somehow had never encountered each other, once I met him he started turning up everywhere. Not in a stalkery way, in the way that something keeps appearing once you’re actually looking for it. And it made me anxious, because I worried about people somehow finding out about this blog.

I might just text you
Turn your phone over, when it’s all over
No settling down, my text go to your screen
You know better than that.
I come around when you least expect me.
I’m sitting at the bar when your glass is empty.

We started seeing each other behind everybody’s back. Not romantically, but just to mess around. After meeting him for the first time, I awkwardly got really subspaced when he tested out a flogger on me and felt really strangely attached. And I carried it out in doing this weird secret arrangement where he’d sneak in after my roommate fell asleep, tie me up and play with me, and then leave. It made me feel a little naughty and a little brave, and they say nothing brings people closer than sharing a secret.

You start calling, you start crying.
I come over, I’m inside you,
I can’t find you.

Aside from the obvious emotional fuckery that something like that comes with, I was coping with the fact that my relationship with that guy from my frat was not going to work and that he and I were awkwardly transitioning back into being just friends. To make matters worse, he was getting interested in my close friend, the Redhead.

And, even worse, I was placing all my shame and anxiety over this blog and my kink onto Sir. Worse, I was conflating it with him. 

Meanwhile, Sir wasn’t over a girl and the two of us would just wind up venting to each other about our respective issues. I spent a night at his place, talking and crying on his couch until five in the morning.

I was wrong, but would you have listened to you?

In an effort to protect ourselves, we were absurdly cold to each other. He had trouble kissing me. I had trouble not turning every other comment into a bitchy wisecrack against him when we weren’t just messing around. It was a harebrained effort to protect my heart from someone I felt an instant connection with but who I wasn’t sure would reciprocate. 

Looking back, it’s weird to think that I felt so ambivalent about someone almost two years ago who now means so much to me. It’s also clear to me now how freaking lucky we were, because this could’ve all come together horribly. We were navigating this strange in-between space, we were trying to subvert an intimacy that was attempting to take root. Until, one day, he asked if he could kiss me. And then, at a Halloween party, he forgot himself and kissed me in front of my friends. Just like that, we weren’t a secret anymore. And suddenly, we felt free to be ourselves with each other, I felt safe being sweet and open with him, he felt comfortable being affectionate with me.

So, Sir and I are in love and happy. Even that guy from my frat and the Redhead are happily living together and are some of our closest friends. But, damn, could that have turned out pretty shitty. 

I guess the moral of the story is that even though he and I were fortunate enough to work out, don’t put up walls with people you want to let in.