When I met Kristan, I started to write again. I would come home from meeting him covered in painful marks and emotional bruises, unable to understand why I felt so simultaneously elated and like I wanted to lie down on the floor, cry, and never move again. I found myself lost, unable or unwilling to see the thing that was in front of me...

I’ve always written, on and off. I kept a LiveJournal – a DeadJournal too, even. I would long-distance role play with friends in far-off places via e-mail before MMORPG’s were a thing, or MUCK’s in common use. We would write stories, weave worlds together, create characters who wistfully represented the things we wished we were. I wrote fan-fiction – who spent time on the early internet and didn’t? I grew up online, raised by the at-the-time cyberspace version of wolves (Quake clan lost boys and goatse.cx misclicks) and I got into the habit of writing down my feelings to understand them, because the written word was so often my means of communication growing up.

When I met Kristan, I started to write again. I would come home from meeting him covered in painful marks and emotional bruises, unable to understand why I felt so simultaneously elated and like I wanted to lie down on the floor, cry, and never move again. I found myself lost, unable or unwilling to see the thing that was in front of me, and writing words about it felt like it helped.

Predictably we met online through a dating app. He sounded interesting to me – definitely someone I could have a fun evening with if nothing else – and I found him most attractive in the one photo where he was smiling. He mentioned kink in his profile, which admittedly put me off a little. I’d dated around my local scene before, and my experiences hadn’t been entirely positive. But as we chatted it became apparent that there was something there, some little spark.

Our first date we smooth-talked our way into a hotel rooftop bar, then get lost in the corridors on the way out. We broke into a public park and avoided late-night maintenance men. We talked a lot. Avoided much physical contact. When we parted company he kissed me with one hand holding my chin firmly, almost forcefully in place. It made me feel unsure – it made me feel a lot of things. Not all good. Intrigued, definitely. There was an atmosphere between us I couldn’t quite work out. But I wanted to.

Our second date we explored an abandoned hospital and drove back to town to eat Mexican food. I can remember the exact moment whilst sitting in that restaurant that I felt the little flutter of lust that meant I undoubtedly wanted to get to know this man more, much much more. He had rolled up his sleeves to eat and revealed the edge of a tattoo, and something about the contrast of ink on skin made my insides clench. When he offered to drive me back to his flat for a nap I only made light, token protests.

We didn’t nap. We didn’t fuck either. He hurt me. Did absurd and terrible things to me. Stuck his entire hand in my mouth, watched my over-wide panicked eyes as I drooled down his arm, and laughed at me. He knuckled my sternum hard enough it hurt for a week afterwards. Tugged my nipples til I squealed. Lay me on the cold floor with a foot on my throat as he sat comfortably in a chair above me. When he let me sit up, I stayed kneeling on the floor but curled myself around his middle companionably, and he carefully took a biro pen and stabbed me in the webs between my fingers. Everything was pain but I felt relief – I understood this, now, at least.

He stopped hurting me, eventually. We cuddled in bed for what felt like a brief time before he threw the bedclothes off me and told me to get out. Leaving me off-balance, confused and uncomfortable once more.

And that was how I began my relationship with Kristan.