Someplace I've never been, part 1

Josef Breitenbach
For Ever and Ever, 1938

What do you need to know about me in order to understand that what I did with the man from New York was a shock to my system; a willful reversal of nature?

When I search my own memory for clues, I see flashes that illustrate the paradox I suppose I'm trying to complete. In reverse chronological order:

Lying in bed with Rick, my head is on his chest, so that when he speaks his words seem to percolate through him and into me. He tells me, "You don't seem to have any sense of self-preservation."

My soon-to-be-ex-husband says, "You have no idea how strong you are, Neysa. You'll be all right -- you'll see." He sounds as though he is trying to convince himself. Then he starts to cry.

I find my mother's journal when I am barely old enough to read. Of me she writes, "Neysa weeps at the drop of a hat for anyone else. She cries for the people who lose on game shows. She cries for the animals she sees crushed on the highway. But when she herself is hurt or angry, she closes up. She refuses to speak. She will not cry. That's when I look at her and see myself -- when she turns to stone."

* * *

In the stifling heat of late August (hard to believe it was only a few weeks ago) I browsed page after page of dismal listings in Craigs List. It was late evening, and I was hungry for something I had no name for. Ever since my return from Australia I had been restless; disoriented; desperate for some grounding experience, preferably sex. And then one listing caught my eye. The author was in a similar state of unrest, judging by the tone of exasperation struck in the first line of his ad. It went something like "Well, I've just waded through a metric ton of spam. Are there any real women on Craigs List in this city?" He went on to write that he was from out of town and looking for someone sane and . . . submissive.

::frisson::

There was more. The ad was terse and intelligent. I answered him with an email titled "real and sane." I told him I didn't know whether I was "submissive" but that the idea was very attractive to me. I attached a photograph. It was getting late on a Monday night, and I expected nothing to come of my little exercise in forwardness, so I started to get ready for bed.

Shortly thereafter I heard the chirp of my email alert. He had responded. He wanted to know the following:

1) Will you inform your boyfriend about meeting me?
2) When are you available to serve me? The sooner the better.
3) Are you prepared to be restrained? To be blindfolded?
4) Are you prepared to follow my orders without question?

Reflexively I recoiled from the word "serve." I don't "serve," I began to sneer internally before I caught myself. I made myself let go of the word. I tried to imagine being restrained. I felt my face flush. I wrote to him and answered in the affirmative to all questions.

We wrote back and forth a few more times, and then he had this to propose:

Finally, if you really, really want to earn my trust, you could set out to meet me tonight.

Later, of course, I would read any number of essays and forum posts on sites about dominance and submission that classify such a request as a red flag; a classic warning sign; a signal to run, run, run in the opposite direction. Fortunately, by the time I uncovered this sober, responsible advice, it was far too late to follow it.

After a minor amount of dithering, I indicated that I would be willing to meet him, even though it was after midnight on a Monday. On a school night, I think inanely to myself.

And my acquiescence is met with this:

When you are showered, put on a skirt, no longer than knee length, with no underwear. And a shirt that buttons up the front.

Email me when you are ready to leave.

My blood turns to needles of ice. You idiot. What have you done? And suddenly I realize yes, that's exactly the point. This is something I am doing. I will do this. And once in motion, I cannot stop. It isn't even a promise I make to myself; it just is. This is what will happen. I will shower. I will dress as he requested. I will email and tell him I am ready, and he will tell me where to go. I will gather my purse and my car keys and walk out the door without saying a word to Jeff and I will start the car and put it in reverse and I will back down my driveway, back through the years when life was just something that happened to me, and I will deliberately go to a place I have never been.

To be continued