Last year I received this email out of the blue.
I hope that you might by chance remember me… We met online some years ago, 90’s. Your tag was SweetAs… I asked you what you were Sweet as and your reply was chocolate ice cream melting on a summer day. My name is [redacted]. You and I enjoyed a lot of correspondence. Your first website had pixel that could be clicked on to see the hidden pages. I have searched your name a number of times and was lucky enough to find what you had on amazon.
You changed my life. I wanted to connect with you. If you don’t remember I will understand.
*smile* Of course I remembered him.
His nick was ‘colorado’, not because he was in Colorado. He wasn’t, though he was in the US.
He was my first exploration into BDSM some 20+ years ago. Online only. In the days when there was no skype, no digital cameras, no web cams. The days when international phone calls were exorbitantly expensive and long haul flights were unthinkable.
We met on IRC, were involved online-only for maybe a year.
He was my first submissive, before I ever made it out into the physical BDSM world: He was the one I explored with, the one I found my feet with, the one I initially felt my way with.
He was smart, eager, funny, cheeky, incredibly sweet. The thought of how we were makes me smile still.
I learnt lessons with him, about myself, about BDSM, about the incredible hotness of having someone who would do as I say, about how D/s builds intimacy, about how power works. I got so very lucky with him.
The most valuable lesson I learnt was to be kinder. I was newly exploring and testing my power back then (my recollection of myself was almost a stereotype), and while I didn’t feel as if I was particularly harsh, at one stage he disappeared from me. I was devastated (I suspect he thought I didn’t/wouldn’t care). When he reappeared, he said he left because he never felt as if he had pleased me or made me happy and that was very difficult for him. I hadn’t even realised. I was glad to learn that lesson so early on.
Well, I thought I learnt that lesson, but apparently I had to learn it multiple times before it sank in: I heard the same thing from my First after the fact. Apparently I am a slow learner.
It was a shock and a delight to hear from him.
I search on your name at least once a year. You have never left my thoughts… It was just a deep desire to reconnect and thank you for a gift I don’t think that you knew that you provided me. You were the first and actually most sincere woman I ever submitted to. Even if it was virtually.
I stepped out into the real world towards the end of our relationship, he was a significant contributor to my desire and confidence to do that. But once you add physical touch into the mix, online interactions lose their lustre. As they should I suppose. And soon after, we lost touch.
Of all the things, he wanted to know if it was real.
The most complete I had ever felt. So powerful and it was just via text… In finding you again it strikes me that there was a piece of me given away to you and in some way I needed to connect to know it was real. I am happy to know it was and I am happy to know that I offered you something you enjoyed and it was memorable.
*smile* Yes, it was real. Valuable, powerful.
And thank you for giving me that.
7 comments
Sweet As???
*muffled hysterical giggling*
Coug
*laugh* Right?!
It was actually SweetAs_: Most people assumed it stood for SweetAss, which was okay by me. But really it was ‘sweet as [something, why don’t you ask me]‘ which worked a treat as a conversation starter.
And the ‘something’ was at times bitter and ugly and not sweet at all. And even then, it still worked *smile*.
I must admit I thought myself rather clever… :P
Ferns
That’s kind of beautiful, but also a little sad.
However powerful our ability to reach out and form connections is, time turns all of them to dust in the end. If we’re lucky some of them endure until we die, but most of them drift away before our eyes.
As a great songwriter once said Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust”. *nods*
I don’t think of it as sad.
I think we share ourselves with people, our time, our energy, our love and care, we make connections, and if there is something in it that touches them or us, it’s a gift. If it lasts longer than the moment in which it happens, then we are lucky.
Those moments are what we are made of, and what makes us, whether we specifically remember them or not, they are still part of us.
Most aren’t meant to last forever, nor should they.
That doesn’t feel sad to me.
Ferns
I think that – for me – what makes it a little sad is when one or both parties are tied to the past for whatever reason, and continue to spend their limited time in this world longing for something at was but never will be again.
And that’s no-one’s fault, and no guilt or regret should be attached to it, but empathy sometimes attaches to another’s words and you feel something, and for me that was little bit of sadness.
Notwithstanding, I agree with everything you just said.
Yours,
Unusually deep in thought comments poster.
I absolutely carry ties to the past and I love that: We bring that forward with us in all its complexity.
To your point, I sometimes think of past things in romantic and wistful ways, even, dare I say it, with melancholy. Because obviously if they are in my past they didn’t turn out the way I thought or hoped they would.
I still don’t see sadness in it though. I WANT to have impact and to be impacted by people I invite into my life, to feel in ways that move me, in ways that linger. That’s what life is, no?
I just don’t see the sadness in it that you seem to. Perhaps you are projecting?
Ferns