Signs and portents

We had to ride it out.
He had to ride it out.

He was stuck on a furious bull, condemned to ride until one of them wore down. And for a while, it was unclear which one would survive.

Luckily for both of us, he managed to hold on.

We spent hours chatting today.
Hours.
And even after things smoothed out, he would have kept going.
Except I was exhausted.
I needed to get out.
Away from the computer.
Into the air.
So he let me go - but offered me more time later if I wished.

He calmed down a lot last night. He kept cycling through all the different emotions, but not as fast and not as intensely.

He wasn't cruel today.
He confessed that he had been deliberately cruel before.
The Beast had been party to our previous chats.
He never knew the Beast could type, he said.
It was nearly an apology.

He asked how I was. He hadn't wanted to hear about my feelings before. But now... somehow, through those letters on my laptop, I could hear a gentleness in his voice.

This whole thing has been awful.
The pain on both sides has been nearly unbearable.
And the damage has been real.
There are no guarantees that we will return to where we were.
But we're going to try.
And we've made a lot of progress already.

In some ways, though, we're way ahead. Because he's not hiding. He's not pretending. And I'm not doubting what my eyes and mouth and ears and heart were telling me.

He came as close to a declaration of his feelings as I can expect. He defined them as "somewhere BETWEEN what [he] was admitting and what [I was] hoping/suspecting." Which sounds just about right. Except that I didn't actually think, or even hope, that he full-out loved me. It would have been inconvenient at the very least.

Are you wondering what he thought he had been admitting? He thought he was telegraphing things by saying how I was his special treasure and all that. Men. Feh! Because he kept vaccinating me against believing this meant anything by reminding me that I was one of many, just something he used and could easily through away. (I'm sparing you his really awful metaphor.) Protesting too much. Definitely. But it hurt. A lot. And made me doubt that there was indeed so much more.

He is, as I've said, very vulnerable.
And he carries around hundreds of pounds of armor.

The thing is, now it's out there. It's acknowledged. Directly. Not just by the inference that if I could cause him that much pain he must have cared very much indeed.

I'm not used to people having such strong feelings for me.
I could almost handle his lust and his sadistic urges better than that.

So there it is. A wall has come down. We are in some ways still further apart than we were, but in some ways we are closer. Although he shies away from the word, we are an Us. That feels very different.

That feels very beautiful.

Remember how on Saturday he said he was afraid to see me?

He's talking about coming on Monday.
Tomorrow.

One last thing.
We are going forward very slowly.
Very cautiously.
Or so he says.
I'm not the only one who can be impulsive.

So there are rules.
There are always rules.
I can still address him only as Sir.
And I wasn't allowed to tell him that I loved him.

Until this afternoon, as I said goodbye before going on my walk.

Him: Do you want to go?

me: I think so, Sir. I think I need to go for a walk.
I... that thing I'm not allowed to say now.
But I do.

Him: Go ahead

me: I love you.

Him: Good girl

I cried.
I always cry.