From my kink journal, Nov 14th 2023. Written without capitalisation protocol, because W/we didn’t have that yet. i’m in Paphos again now, with my love beside me, and wanted to share how i felt when this first started.
It’s 25 degrees in Paphos, and vodka is €9.50 a litre. The hedges surrounding my villa for the week are high enough that I’m topless, though not quite high enough to go without my thong. Watching the tan lines is fun, though – I’m going what I call to my friends “spitefully brown”. One of my old rules was no tanning and reclaiming my skin feels wonderful.
In the sun, over two days, I listen to Taylor Swift’s entire discography in order. The ceremony exit song is in there. The first dance song too. They sting a bit – but no more than the faint pink of mild sunburn that tells me gently to wear clothes for just one day, please. Turns out I can reclaim my favourite music too – that’s my emotional support billionaire, thank you – and not just the sad songs.
I’m on honeymoon by myself and I’d put a brave face on it but I’d suspected I’d spend most of the week in tears but I haven’t, and that’s surprising. I cried on the plane (alarming the nice older couple next to me – oops) but it wasn’t about her, at least not mostly. Two days of violence followed by a 5am start might not have been my best idea and I found out how drop feels at 35,000 feet (about the same as sea level, but without blankets, and the chocolate is overpriced).
Something I’ve been ignoring starts to creep up on me in the Cyprus sunsets, and I start to look for a certain name in my notifications, and pretend I wasn’t waiting for it when I see it. But it’s consistently there, so I’ll use that as my excuse to message them first for some post-holiday violence. They’re keen, nothing to do with me. Right?
It’s a rainy night in Newcastle when my plane lands late and the screen on the bus tells me it’s 9 degrees. I’m fully sober for the first time in a week with a self inflicted headache and I already know I’m going to puke when I get home. What I don’t know yet – but soon find out – is that I’ll come home to a flat that stinks of cat piss and when I look for a snack to settle my stomach I find mouldy strawberries and rancid hummus in my fridge. Not having a slave doesn’t yet suit my fiancée-turned-flatmate, she’s relearning life skills as I relearn autonomy, and I step over a mountain of laundry to collapse in bed.
And she’s left me a note – finally telling me how she feels about the breakup. Wonderful. Confusing. Awful. We fight over the phone, and we apologise, and some time later I realise I miss the certainty but maybe, actually, not the relationship. Not anymore. Something sweated out of me in the sun and danced out of me poolside. Maybe as I learned how to make my own choices again, I learned how to choose to be happy again too?
There’s confusion and clarity in the days that follow. Aftercare that feels different, deep conversations over coffee in the winter sun, kissing in their car, grinning like an idiot at my notifications and not trying to hide it, finally. There’s caution too because god I do not want to fuck myself up if I get this wrong. I don’t want to fuck them up if I get this wrong. But I can’t deny that I feel like myself again in all the best ways, and even if I could, my submissive side wakes up ravenous and is letting me know in no uncertain terms who is worthy of its attention. I tell it patience, with mixed success.
One evening, she slips up and uses an old pet name – then freezes in horror and apologises profusely. And I burst out laughing. Old habits and all that – like my weird hovering by the couch waiting for permission I don’t need before I sit. It doesn’t mean anything. We’re rewriting patterns we’d lived without thinking. And I realise – two weeks ago that would have devastated me. Over pizza, she tells me she’s happier, and I tell her I’m happy she’s happy, and that I’m happy too. “Can you be happy quieter please?” She says. “If you need to listen to your happy music at full blast at 8am, consider headphones.”
I’m a slightly inconsiderate flatmate, I’m an overthinker and an occasionally anxious texter, I’m a bundle of chaos with a quiet little voice in my head that says it might like someone to tame me sooner than expected. I’m tanned and sometimes bruised, I’m smiling again (except when I’m choking and crying – which is always good too), I’m dancing in the kitchen and I’m not pretending I wasn’t. I’m eating and drinking water more, I’m smoking less, and I’m horny all the goddamn time. The future is a work in progress but the right now – the right now is good.
kirizal talks kink 