I'll be honest and say I don't remember the last time I mentioned Sunshine, my former sub. She's popped up here and there in the blog, but I hadn't actually talked to her in more than a month and a half - since October 17th - until today. She sent me an e-mail yesterday saying she'd seen one of my old messages while going through her mailbox and wanted to say hello.
We didn't part on the best of terms. She was, in fact, incredibly upset at me. I had told her I was not prepared to take her as a submissive; she felt betrayed; I was not in a mood to deal with the additional stress in my life; and she stopped talking to me. I'm not about to go back and analyze what happened. I could go into a lot more detail justifying my side of it, but it just doesn't matter - I was not willing to handle the way she was acting, she took exception to my deciding that and how I presented it, and there's not much more to it.
So we talked a bit today. She explained part of why she acted that way, told me she doesn't want to not talk to me forever... And then she asked me what had happened to our contract, the copies of which I had when we stopped talking. She had demanded of me, at the time, to send them back or destroy them, and I'd never responded to her; and she wanted to know what had happened.
What had happened is that I'd totally ignored her. Both copies are still in my correspondence in my bedroom. There are two very good reasons why I still have them.
The first isn't complicated; they're memories to me. I value my past a great deal. There are huge swathes of it which are sad, unpleasant, or extremely painful... And yet it's very important to me. I don't always like everything about myself, but I'm proud of who I've become. My past is a part of me, and every terrible event, every memory that makes me sad or cry or ache also brought me closer to who I am today and the place I am in life right now. I keep a lot of small things like that because of the memories they evoke, and I have no interest in losing that small tangible connection to my past.
The second is both very simple and far more complicated; those contracts are proof, tangible proof, of both of our involvement in case a... Problem arises. It's a sad truth, but there is enormous precedent for D/s relationships to end badly. It's a terrible idea to get into any such relationship if the people involved don't trust each other; but as my marriage proves beyond any reasonable doubt, you can go into a situation in good faith and absolute trust and still have it end far worse than you could possibly imagine. A contract written in no uncertain terms involving a discussion of BDSM, signed by her, in an envelope addressed in her hand and return-addressed to her, is about as strong a defense of at least original consent as you can have without multiple witnesses to support you.
I don't even mean defense necessarily against a legal dispute - an accusation of rape or assault, though obviously that's a concern; I mean just as much defense against the accusations of a loved one (a husband, a boyfriend, whatever)... Or against her.
My assumption, when she asked if I had, was that she was afraid I'd use the contract against her; and though I never would use it against her, it's not an unreasonable fear in general. She says, rather, that she asked at the time because she "didn't want me to have the part of her heart she put into it".
I can understand; that's part of why I kept them... And I'd do it again.
No comments:
Post a Comment