"Stars, hide your fires, Let not light see my black and deep desires."

Look, if you want to torture me, spank me, lick me, do it. But if this poetry shit continues just shoot me now please. ~ Lori Petty in Tank Girl

I almost don't know where to start. I've had so many new experiences...been to so many new places in my head in the last couple of weeks, that it's just blown my mind. I need a bit of time to reflect and process what has happened to me, in the best way I know how - write it out, pour it out, let myself organise and frame this personal history in a way in which I can understand it.

Back in November, I contacted M on informedconsent.com (IC) - because his profile struck a chord with me. Something about it, I don't even know what, spoke to me, and resonated. I contacted a few people from IC around that time, in the wake of a relationship break-up - I think it's very common to start searching for something to replace what you've lost, long before you're ready.

I never chat online with people I don't know. I prefer to memo back and forth, and within a few memos-worth of conversation I usually know whether I want to take it forward or not. I tend to go with my gut instinct, and all but a couple of IC'ers got excluded on the grounds of just not being what I was looking for, bad writing skills, bad attitude, or hideousness in the photo department.

M though, stood out right from the beginning. But I wasn't ready. I felt strongly drawn to him, but my instincts were saying 'no' - and I think now, that they were GOOD instincts, because if I'd gone forward with it at that time, I would have blown the chance to connect with someone, so damaged still as I was from the ending of my previous relationship. I needed to give myself time to heal, and let go. So I told him 'no'. He took this rejection in the most gentlemanly fashion, asking me only that I would promise to get in touch, should I change my mind.

A few weeks later, I was still going through a really tough time. I blogged on IC as normal, struggling to make sense of my messy head. He got in touch again - not in a predatory 'brilliant, you're a bit fucked up, can I have a go on you?' sort of way, but in a 'listen, I know you're not into me in *that* way, but if you want someone to vent to, or offer advice, or just be here for you to offload on, then I'm offering'. I was so desperate at the time, that the chance to pour my heart out, even to some random stranger on IC, was a lifeline. He wasn't the only one I memo'd about what I was going through, but he was the only one who offered advice that actually made a significant difference to my problems. In fact, I think it's quite possible that his advice might have saved my marriage, which is quite bizarre under the circumstances!

It was I, not him, who asked if we could meet in person. He treated me much as you might a scared rescue dog - with patience, gentleness, and kind generosity. And I responded to it - god, did I need someone to just carry my burdens for a little while, so I could rest. I was so lost. I got so lost. But I was so, so afraid. I'd barely lived through my previous break-up, and was terrified of being hurt again. I kept running scared...but still, that patience, gentleness and kindness, even in the face of being pushed away, time and time again, remained one of the few consistent things in my life, at that point.

Then the day came when I stopped pushing him away. And fuck - how I wanted him. Desired him. Needed him - not just sexually, but the person that he is, what he gives to me, how he makes me feel, about him, about myself, about the world. The world is...softer...because he is in it.

When we started playing, it was in a very different way from how I was used to. I worried we wouldn't be compatible, couldn't, or wouldn't, meet each other's needs. I couldn't have been more wrong. I have never felt such a perfect sense of 'match' in a partner, sexually. Over time, it has become less and less, something that can be described as 'play'. One scene merges into another, and suddenly - it's not sexual role-play anymore. It's just the way we are, together. And I have never, NEVER, felt such a burning desire to couple with someone.

A week or so ago, he came to see me at my house. It was only for the evening, I was tired, he was tired, we expected only to cuddle and maybe just talk, kiss, be soft with each other. He knocked on my door - I opened it, and he was wearing a thick leather trenchcoat. I've got....a bit of a 'thing' for leather trenchcoats, so my eyes lit up on sight. And frankly, seeing M in one...my god, the man *IS* sex personified. He came in, and before we'd even gone up the stairs in the corridor, he made me come, noisily, messily (in the echo chamber that is our corridor, right above the downstairs flat's kitchen). Twice.

We ended up in a sweaty, tumbled heap on my bed, via the sofa, the floor, the walls... Instead of fighting him, defiant shouting, swearing, kicking, slapping or shoving, this time I just...submitted. He took what he wanted from me - and I gave it. With difficulty. Some of the things he was choosing to make me do were hard - physically, and emotionally. Humiliating. Shameful. But I was so frightened that he would punish me more if I refused, or denied him - frightened that I wouldn't be able to take the punishment, and also frightened that I would displease him.

I don't think it's accurate to say that I have never truly submitted before this time - and yet, something new did happen. Perhaps there are levels of submission, and this took me deeper - far deeper into that space - than I had ever been before. It made something inside me be....not broken anymore. As I lay in his arms afterwards, and he put my pieces back together, I became something a little more whole than I was before.

Just a few days later, we saw each other again. In our fierce need for each other, we kissed, falling on each other with starved haste, and as we started to become more intense my anger flaired - never suppressed for long. Defiantly I shoved him off me - he shoved back harder. I fought and struggled - he overwhelmed me. He pinned me down, then let me go, free to move as I wanted to, while he spanked me. He struck me - I slapped him in the face. He struck me again - I slapped him again. Then the anger inside him exploded to meet mine - he held me down and beat me over and over again, his sweat hitting my face in droplets, along with the spittle from each expelled word. Shocked, I lay unmoving as he tossed me aside onto the floor, and walked away.

When he returned and put a knife to my throat, ripping my head back by the roots of my hair, a hot, burning fear jolted through me. I felt sick with terror, ill with it. A deep and primal dread pulsed back and forth through my body as he ran the knife over my back, and when he told me to stay still and not move, I had no thought other than to obey...there were no thoughts in me, only reaction. He beat me so hard I almost couldn't take it - it was pushing my limits, and the pain made me cry out, scream, beg, and then sob, soaking the fabric under my face with tears, hot and full of release. He held the knife to my throat one last time, and just as I thought I couldn't take any more, he held me, and stroked me, and made me safe again. I sobbed piteously for a long time - a very long time. And when it was all over, all gone, I felt....clean. Scrubbed new and shining. Light, and more than light - golden.

Later, as he took more of what he wanted, I gushed for the first time in my life. I used to find it so hard to come - I even warned him before we first played together, that it was hard for me, and infrequent, and took a long time. Now, I lose count of how many orgasms he's given me, every single time we're together. I felt safe enough this time, ready enough, to ask him if I could make myself come while he watched. Not only was I given permission, I was reassured that it was okay to ask, that it was a good thing, and I realised I would not be laughed at, or ignored, or that he would just tolerate it but be bored as I'd feared.

We went out for the evening, and were walking back through a little used side street when he pushed me up against a lamppost, kissing me. As we became more passionate, little flashes of consciousness that we were in a public place, intruded. Every time I looked around, to see who was in the alleyway, or walking past it, he turned my face back to him. He was controlling what I could see, and my mind played tricks on me, not knowing whether the echo of heels on the pavement was a few yards away, or in the next street.

He pulled my knickers down - fucked me with his fingers - pulled my knickers down MORE so they were below the level of what little modesty was preserved by my coat - finger fucked me again - took my knickers off completely and put them in his pocket - brought me to orgasm - very loudly - and finally, supported my body until the shudders left me.  I asked him if I could pull my skirt down - I was clasped in his arms in my heels, fishnet stockings, yanked up skirt and no knickers, in a public street, curtained only from view by my undone coat, and his body. He said 'let me look', in a soft, firm voice, and backed away a few paces. I'll never forget the sight of him, his coat framing his muscular body, his eyes drinking in my naked and moistened thighs. My face was turned to one side, I couldn't meet his eyes, my cheeks burning. Then he let me cover myself, and we walked - with him holding me as I struggled to walk, my legs shaky, my face flushed, my eyes shining in the dark.

We made it to the pub for a quick drink, and curled up together on the sofas on which we had sat when we first met. We talked, stroked, kissed...he got hard, I got wet. I wanted him - and I told him so. He threatened to take me outside to the smoking area, and fuck me bent over the grimy table in the beer garden, if I wasn't careful, and didn't stop taunting him - but I continued to tease. And then with careful deliberation he folded our coats and tucked them out of sight, and led me by my hand to follow him. There was no thought in my mind to refuse - I could have as easily stopped my heart beating, as told him no.

Against my expectations, he led me into the toilets instead - the urinals stank of stale male urine, the floor was dirty, the walls scrawled with meaningless graffitied swearwords over the red paint. He took me into a cubicle, where I knelt on the floor at his will. Afterwards, he told me to stay there while he checked outside, then led me back onto the sofas again, to reclaim our seats. Then he held me - and my body sank into his like a physical manifestation of my submission. My very flesh submits to his. He told me once, that it's almost as though all of my body is submissive - that as he pushes himself inside me, his tongue into my mouth, his fingers into my pussy, he sinks in so easily, just taking what he wants. That's how it feels to me, as well.

And that is what he did to me, with me - as we sat on the sofas together, in full view of the foreign student couple seated at the sofa in the other half of the 'L-shape' from us. As they talked, the unknown words of their conversation provided a dream-like quality to this already surreal evening. He sat upright, I lay sprawled in his lap, facing him, his arms around me. Slowly he slid a hand under my skirts, encountering my soaked and slippery cunt. No knickers impeded his fingers - they were still tucked out of sight in his pocket from when he took them away from me earlier. Slowly and deliberately, he brought me to a silent climax that was almost unbearable, so hard did I have to work not to cry out. I gushed over his hand again...

Despite the intensity, the transcendent, all-encompassing nature of the experiences I have with him, unlike other lovers I have had, I do not find him draining or emotionally exhausting. I do not spend many hours in tears because of him, or troubled in my mind. He is so....*easy* to be with, someone I would want in my life as a friend, even if I never touched him again. But oh, how I need to touch him. It is almost impossible for me to be in his presence, and not to be touching him, and more. I cry less, I worry less, I angst less...because he is in my life. The only other person I've ever met who caused that effect, rather than the opposite, I ended up marrying. I wake up every day and think how lucky I am, to have two such special people give me their love, in such completely different ways, but ultimately two people I can hold in my heart to adore.