the Leathermines

It had been on my 'to do' list for a while.  Go through my documents folder and move things that were years old into an archive.  Time to clean was far past.  It was time to purge.

And then it was time to not freak out.

I hadn't exactly forgotten.  I just didn't want to remember.  While figuring out what was going to go where, I came across it.  A letter.  It had been written on my computer, by you.  It had been to someone else, who we both knew.  At a time that relationships were in flux - no.  Not Flux.  Uproar. Chaos.  Outright Violation.

It had been in amongst the correspondence for one of the endeavors we had tried together.  The shreds of ambition in virtual form.  The ideas the two of us had been bouncing off each other, before the tear that sent us on our separate, but linking, paths.  It was vaguely labeled, and, as with all the documents I was shuffling around that day, I opened it to make sure of what it was before putting it into the archival oubliette.

Him.  It was a revision of a letter you sent to Him.  You had not cleaned it off my computer, and it had followed me through data transfers for... years.  Sitting there.  An emotional mine amongst the financials.  I had not purposely thought of Him for years.  It had taken Years to not have him pop out of the back of my brain, fouling that which I had been enjoying.  And this was...  I am looking at it now, and I know more than you ever told me.

You Never Told Me.

The pinpricks started up my spine as soon as I opened the file.  His name...  No, the name he made you use in the scenes that rent us apart.  The name I refused to call him because he was *That* kind of Dom.  That kind of Master that took.  That was all he did.  I did not know how much he took from those he plied his wiles on, but I could tell, because he was the type, like the one who I walked away from, barefoot and clothed in the bathrobe I had taken from the pile of clothes by the door, leaving behind what I thought I was.  His demeanor, even to those who also led the clubs and gatherings, was always demeaning.  He never outwardly showed any compassion, and sympathy, any... anything but malice towards other people.

And you submitted to Him.

I knew you...  I thought I knew you and your wonts and your tastes.  And then, in the middle of a scene at a play party, he came into our space and took you.  He. Took. You.  Slick with sweat, marked by my signal whip and rope, you stepped out of our scene and knelt to him.  Not to co-Dom.  To submit to him.  You said the name He wanted you to use.  You bowed your head.  YOU broke yourself.

For Him.

I was stunned.  I tried to pull you back.  That was the only time he touched me, and the slap to my chest, pushing me out of the way, broke me.

Heated words when you came up for air, several weeks later, made it clear you were not who I thought you were.  That what we had had been a stepping stone in your life, not the beginnings of a foundation that I thought it was.  Many of the ideas I had about you, about us, were flayed from my mind, cut by cut as you retrieved things you had left at my place.

Not everything.

My heart aches.  My hands are clutched in fists.  I cannot see because of the painful tears that are failing to flow down my face.  I feel as though all the hurtful things that happened years ago were happening.  The cuts of glass from the picture I had in my mind as it shattered.

Reading the letter, again, you told Him that you were not sure if you could go through with... things.  That you were not sure what He meant by what He said.  Uncertainty of actions.  Of hurting... me.

But you Had gone through with it.  You Had hurt me.  For Him.  For the scene.

I looked at it, one more time.  That anger, that hate, that betrayal.  There is nothing to get over when there has been such great damage.

I considered dragging the missive into the trash, emptying it out of my computer and life.  But...  It was part of my life, even as a dark part.  I put it into the old correspondence archive, to be saved for...  I don't know.  But right now, I am certain of one thing.

I hope his cock was worth it.