So, the chronology gets a bit muddied here for a few reasons. While the Veronica forays were winding down, there was the simultaneous dissolution of the LC2 relationship which, as I mentioned earlier, involved a lot of fetish manipulation. Then, I relocated, began working. Not long after starting my job, I got into a fling with a coworker, KH, who happened to have a long-distance boyfriend. For over two years, we danced a dance of her infidelity and my pursuit. She never broke up with the boyfriend, and I never stopped trying to get her to break up with him. It was a passionate, yet completely forbidden fruit. She was fairly strongly anti-smoking, though I knew she'd dated smokers before, more than once. But during that relationship, the fetish lived only in my mind, and I think the reason why it never made it to the relationship in any way was because I was too busy with the parallel obsession of "winning her". It was an emotional rollercoaster, and I was almost constantly tortured, miserable, and completely devoted to the pursuit of that misery. My friends and housemates had to constantly listen to me whine, and constantly provide advice about what I should do. I was incredibly self-absorbed, and I don't know why people kept listening to me, since I never took their advice.
At various points in that relationship, I dated other people, who actually were available and some of these people were decent prospects. But I invariably blew those opportunities, because of the obsession with KH.
At one point, I met a very cute woman, DR, who was 2 or 3 years older than me. She worked at a travel agency that was affiliated with my company. DR was a smoker. We only dated for a few months, and for some reason I never told her about my fetish. And for some reason, I never was really interested in the fetish with her, even though, honestly, she looked very good smoking. I think my obsession with KH kept me from even wanting to take a swing at being intimate with DR, and instead, I just sort of dabbled in that dating situation long enough for DR to get pretty hurt, and then get dumped. I wonder why it is that I never, at least from a fetishist's perspective, wanted to indulge in the fetish with DR? I did find it sexy, I was turned on by her, but I kept it from her. I think, because she was a regular smoker, and she also was a bit repressed from a communication standpoint, I didn't feel comfortable broaching the subject with her. She was not an intellectual. And I am not saying that because of her profession. It was just a fact. Her smoking actually bothered me, but I think it was because I was not turned on by her. So there's an interesting factoid that ties in a bit with some of the previous conversations in comments here. If I am already interested, the smoking has a great potential to enhance the attraction. But if I am not already interested (which, in that case, I wasn't) then the smoking is seen as either uninteresting, or in some cases even repellent. Another reason why I may not have had the same interest was because she was a regular smoker. Again, it feeds into that thought about "control". With someone who smokes either specifically for me, or only occasionally, there is at least the illusion of control. But if they're a regular smoker, than it's out of my hands; it's specifically not for me. I am not sure exactly how much the control factors into the allure of the fetish, but I do know that the fetish has always been weaker in cases where a woman was "a smoker" versus "someone who occasionally smokes". Maybe it's not the control. Maybe it has to do with it being "for me". Is there even a difference? I don't know.
Back to KH again. At one point, we went to a friend's wedding. We drank a little bit. Not so that we couldn't drive, but that we were perhaps just a little uninhibited. Somehow the subject of smoking arose. I don't remember if she brought it up, or me. It probably was me. But I am not sure. And somehow, on that drive home from the wedding, we stopped and bought cigarettes and stopped someplace and had one together or both had one. I really don't remember how it went down. I only remember that it was like it was some random thing to do, and that she didn't really inhale, and it was dark, and whatever it did for me, it wasn't much, and I don't think I told her about the fetish. It was more just about suggesting the idea, and acting on it. That was probably less than a year into things, and I never mentioned again.
Until "the breakup".
There came a point where, after two years of cheating, she and I could do it no more. It was tearing both of us apart. She said she wanted it to end. I, like a crazed freak, told her that if she wanted it to end, she had to come clean and tell him what she'd been doing, because she shouldn't just be able to walk away with no penalty. That's just crazy talk. I know this! But at the time, in my deranged scorned mindset, it seemed logical. And somehow, during these breakup discussions, I told her about the fetish. It was sort of what one might call a "Hail Mary" pass. I knew it was ending, and I guess after having had fantasies about her smoking for over 2 years, I wanted to see it once. It was a violation of my own code, in a number of ways, and I allowed myself that violation because of the same irrational thought process that drove me to make her rat herself out to her boyfriend. I am not proud of it.
But she did it. On one night, she indulged it. And I think she did it because it intrigued her, and because she was in a sort of vulnerable spot where I think she wanted to do anything to make her guilt feel less than it was. The surprising thing was that she wasn't half-assed about it. I want to spare all details, because I don't really think they help the story. But the takeaway feeling that I had after the experience was that I felt worse for having done that. I felt dirty, like I had broken my own code, of encouraging someone who had not been a smoker, to do it specifically for me. And I used the situation to my advantage. I felt very glad that I had not ever mentioned the fetish to her before, because given her personality, she probably would have indulged it, and then it could have been even messier.
There was one more element to this story about which I think I demonstrated some shameful behavior, and about which I have regrets. I had housemates at the time. And though we started the smoking activities outside, she eventually ended up smoking in the living room as well. It had been cold outside, and kind of wet too. This was a clear indiscretion on my part, and involved ignoring my better judgment. And obviously, there is no way to hide having done that, because it is beyond obvious. But when my roommates confronted me about it, I lied straight to their faces, and said that nobody had been smoking, but that maybe they were smelling it from our clothes because we'd been at a bar. That is so utterly absurd, that it is hard to believe I would utter it. But I was so unwilling to acknowledge that I, or someone I was with was smoking, that I would go beyond what is real or possible to avoid admitting it. And that was not the only time I did such a thing.
It pains me to think that I told such an obvious lie, because it insults the intelligence of those to whom I told it. And they didn't call me on it. They didn't say, "Listen, asshole. You are lying. And I don't know why you're lying, and it doesn't really matter, but don't play me for a fool". More likely, they just said to each other, behind my back, "What's the deal with him? Why's he lying about this?"
After having indulged the fetish with KH, she and I parted from our "relationship". She apparently did tell her boyfriend about the cheating. And I have no clue what happened to them after that. Within a month or so, I had moved to a new department at work, and we vanished from each others' lives.
0 comments:
Post a Comment