I got to Kansas City on a Friday...

...by Saturday I learned a thing or two." --Kansas City (Oklahoma!)

From TNG reader Andrea, longtime submissive and first-time submitter.

I'm not typically one to indulge in the sort of overwrought, maudlin screed that follows, but after the last five days, I'm entitled to some wound-licking. Can you hear me now? That, and I endeavor to tell the truth almost as compulsively as you evade it. I'm unsure which is more dangerous.

I never believed you would be there to pick me up at the airport. Still, awful was the twelve-hour wait before you deigned to show. Meanwhile, the audacity to accuse me of rushing you. I will never forget your cruel laughter in the car as I stared out the window, holding back tears.

I never believed you would reimburse me for anything. Still, it sucks, and I can't afford, the $700+ between airfare, hotel, and rental car—the first two purchased at your insistence, and the third out of necessity once it became evident I would be stranded without one. Had I been able to find or afford a flight back to DC sooner, I would have left. I've tried to make the most of my time here in spite of your being—albeit utterly predictably—a horrible, derelict, nonexistent host. You are fully aware I came only to be with you, not to guide myself through a strange, second-rate Midwestern sprawl, spending inauguration weekend roaming the cleavage of two Red states.

I never believed you were honest or altogether sane. Now, I genuinely question your capacity for empathy. Entirely devoid of any warmth or compassion. Over the course of the (admittedly) little time we spent together, I don't recall you venturing a single non-self-oriented thought. You didn't ask me anything about myself. You exhibited no interest in my thoughts or feelings. You didn't offer a single compliment, or even comment, on my appearance or body. You hardly acknowledged me during or after sex that managed to feel simultaneously compulsory and grudging. You either have no idea how to touch a woman or you purposely manhandled me; I don't know which is worse. I've never seen a woman so unaffected and detached after such unmistakably intense orgasm. Thus concluded the least satisfying sexual encounter of my life.

Because I have never been prone to all-or-nothing assessments, a few things I appreciated: 1) Your adherence to a safe word. It goes a long way toward reassuring me you aren't a sociopath; 2) Your undeniable physical beauty—your pretty, delicate features, rich skin, generous curves, and splendid locs—your exceptional attractiveness diminished only by your self-awareness; and, 3) Our conversations about literature. It's a privilege to casually discuss reading with an English professor, and I will always take your literary recommendations to heart, if only because they supply the narrowest of windows into understanding an otherwise impenetrable soul.

I never believed you would reveal yourself to me in any sort of meaningful way. Your sheer inscrutability, in which you no doubt relish, was once upon a time intriguing. Later vexing. Then infuriating. Ultimately just tiresome. In order for me to submit, I need to trust and be trusted. I need to be inspired. I need to be challenged, not jerked around. I need a Mommy who is as tender and nurturing as she is controlling and disciplining. Most of all, I require a lover secure enough not to interpret these needs as threats to her dominance.

I never believed our interaction was about anything more than your sadism, rivaled only by my masochism. It's what has enabled you to come and go with the intermittence of your damned cell phone alarm, and for me to be awakened every time. This perversion alone explains why you had me travel here despite your obvious preoccupation, and despite ample opportunity to back out. I was uncomfortable as soon as you became difficult to reach a couple weeks ago, and I told you so. But I came anyway, because the "S" and "M" that dictate you and me, respectively, are not emblematic of any authentic or healthy kink. I can't speak for your motivation. But I know mine hails from a profound, deep-seated, clichéd need for approval from women who treat me like shit. I came anyway. I fucked you anyway. I'm fairly certain you took post-coital pleasure in watching your 100-pound Labrador retriever, Annabel Lee, pummel me. You would probably delight in the scratches that fittingly tattoo my arms and torso. I continued to text, even solicit you, after you dropped me at the hotel with no intention of seeing me again. Perhaps you would have immured me there à la Montresor if you thought you could get away with it. But, like the ever-ironic Fortunato, I will never know what underlies your vengeance.

I never believed you would have any consideration for my feelings in the midst of all this. I resent that if you are still reading, it is only because my catharsis of hurt and humiliation is your pornography.

I never believed you could or would do whatever it takes to rebuild my trust. Indeed, you couldn't have done more to erode it. I can't say how many times I've wanted to tell you to go fuck yourself instead of letting you fuck me over. Again. And again. And again. But I can't do it, even now. Every piece of me repulsed by you is belied by a part beholden to you.

I never believed you could or would be my Mommy. The problem is not that I ever believed you. It's that I still can't believe myself.

"Mother hunger—to be one or have one—both of them were reeling from that longing which...remained alive, traveling the bone...

...I stayed on my knees. In the dust where my heart will remain each night and every day until you understand what I know and long to tell you: to be given dominion over another is a hard thing; to wrest dominion over another is a wrong thing; to give dominion of yourself to another is a wicked thing...

...Hear a tua mãe." --Toni Morrison (A Mercy)