I walk back to town with my best friend, where I've agreed to meet him. I tell her not to wait, because I want to be on my own when he arrives. I am suddenly self-conscious about how I might seem to her, who I might become when I'm with him.

Not long after I started seeing Kristan, I was at a lady’s lunch where we ended up talking about our relationships. The recent ex-boyfriend, the bitter ex-girlfriend, the prospective fuckbuddy, the intense crush. I never know how to talk about things, in this context. I feel like a teenage boy, and I’m looking down and idly twiddling the the cutlery. I mention I’m meeting him afterwards, checking my phone distractedly, already starting to feel that slightly queasy feeling that’s somewhere between anticipation and nervousness. “Is it the same guy as last time?” Alice asks. “Must be going well, then?”I shrug the question off, because I am not sure I know the answer. “It’s mostly just sex and him hurting me.” We all laugh – they know (though some to a greater degree than others) my involvement with kink and pain. But I can see the small concern frown around Alice’s eyes. She is a sweet woman, and if anyone would be uncomfortable with this level of honesty, it is unsurprising that it’s her. “But hurting you… just physically? Or emotionally?” And I am about to reassure her that of course it’s just physical, just sensations and skin. But it’s not, is it? 

I walk back to town with my best friend, where I’ve agreed to meet him. I tell her not to wait, because I want to be on my own when he arrives. I am suddenly self-conscious about how I might seem to her, who I might become when I’m with him. I’m fidgety and restless with nerves so she sticks her nose in my ear and we both lose it, breathless with giggles. She leaves, and he arrives. I asked him to bring me a jumper because I was cold, but I’m flush now with nerves and put it in my bag instead of on my body. I get a small and very perverse kick from that – asking him for a favour that I then ignore. Such small victories. I take what I can get.

We walk together, explore streets and building yards and parks and industrial estates until it’s dark and cold and somehow we’ve ended up on what he insists is a golf course and I am equally as convinced is a park. “It’s not a golf course. The grass is too long.” I am protesting, as he pulls me by the hand towards some trees (“What would you call this, then?” – “A copse? A hanger? Or is that just beech trees..?”). He pushes me hard against one, and I can feel the jagged bits of bark through my coat, grinding into my shoulder blades. He knots his scarf around my wrists, pulls them up above my head so he can more easily pinch and pull and hurt me, thrust his hand under my clothes and between my legs. He’s talking to me in a low voice, threats and nonsense, telling me how he could do anything to me, how no one would hear me. It’s so incredibly cliche and it turns me on so much, which in turn makes me feel predictable, stupid, and even more aroused. He stops, lets down my hands so he can take his coat off. I am confused by this – it’s a freezing December night – but when he places it on the ground I understand. I am surprised by the thoughtfulness of this gesture, but soon I am unable to breathe as he chokes me with his cock, and I cannot think of anything at all.

We walk back, quiet together. I feel the way I often feel with him, dazed by the suddenness of how things can change – how he changes them. And I feel small, reduced to something less than when we started, some layers stripped away. And I am sore, because he fucked me there under the tree, and walking is slightly uncomfortable. As we are leaving the green, he announces without preamble: “Golf course.” I am smiling in the dark and he cannot see. “Golf course.” I agree, docile now.