Claire and I first went, as a couple, to a FetLife play party because it was always a long time curio for her but her exes always find this curiosity a tough obstacle. They are attracted to her because she was a petite, exotic Chinese-American, plus has a corner office in a corporation that rents 10 floors for its operations, lives in a condo with a doorman in fancy uniform, goes to hikes on Sunday mornings, listens to audiophile classical vinyl - signs of stability and not sexual experimentation. Her subtle hints of her inclination like open FL browser tabs always ended up being the tiny crack that developed into a full on rift, but I was already a FL member before I met her, so I was pretty chill about it. 


I think she was getting desperate when the topic of FL came up between us. We had just been served our appetizer on our second dinner date when she pushed aside her asparagus prosciutto and softly asked if I knew about something called Fetlife. It was so cute that she used the word ‘something’, I was trying so hard to contain my laughter that she blushed like a little girl giving her first presentation in class - cuteness just got doubled, and I could smell my pheromones seeping out. I never thought us two would ever sprout; she was all ponytails, business suits and executive tote bags, while my hair was neon highlights and my biker jacket/leather mini dress/combat boots combo made everyone in the Michelin restaurant uncomfortable, except Claire, who quickly and correctly sensed I was the one take her on THE sexual journey she craved. I nodded and Claire couldn’t wait to get the cheque and continue the conversation at her place. What started as a free dinner ended up as a spanking trial. 


When I ordered her down on the couch she knew what to do, that’s not hard, just watch more porn, the hardest part is how I ratchet up the naughty factor, but I can recall lines I overheard at play parties.

“Someone has been slacking at work.” As I lifted her skirt and pulled down her panties.

“Tell your boss lady you are sorry.” A bit cliched but so far so good.

“I’m sorry, boss.” She squealed.

“You know what I have to do now.” And there goes the first slap.

“I’m sorry.” A request for another one.

“You know you fucked up bad in the office.” Yikes, it was really cheesy, but passable for a first-timer.

“I’m very sorry.” “I’m so sorry.” “I am a mess.” Etc. 

I was slapping her with my right hand and jerking myself off with my left. But it’s hard to cum and slap at the same time, and when the pause got a bit too long, she turned around with a disappointed look.

“Who said you could turn around?” I pivoted to a teacher-student relationship to salvage the situation, and threw my body on her, because my legs are really soft and trembling, muscles contracting hard. 

“I am sorry.” The cycle begins again, but Claire grabbed my hand and put it between the thighs, I get the message.

“You only turn around when the teacher says so.” “You belong to detention.” “Misbehaving students get what they deserve” Etc.

She screamed quicker than expected. It was primal. It was like a tiger finally breaking out of the cage.

“Thank you so much.” She hugged me, and her face shone, embellished with those cute blushes.

“Can we do it again some other day?” She asked as we both tidied up our outfits.

“Of course, if you like it.” OK, I have to do some homework. I don’t think she will be satisfied if I keep on winging it, I really like her now, and she is a keeper.

“I’ll order you an Uber, what’s the address?”

This is a bit awkward. I thought we were going to snuggle and watch something on her Flatscreen. 


Soon we were meeting weekly, and branched out into hiking and movie dates. Thinking back, our initial conversations seldomly deviated from sexual themes, when they do its just superficial things like funny client meetings, actual fuck-ups at work, repulsive colleagues, she never mentions her childhood or past. She would react to my complimentary texts with hearts, she would hold my arms when shopping together, but when I wanted to reach for her hands, she would fix her hair or reach for something in her bag; if I invited her to hang out at my place she would counter offer to cook me dinner at her place, and always the Uber order. Sometimes I would kiss her on the cheek and then try to move on to her mouth, she would insist she is too shy and turn away. Our intimacy is always attached to role-playing, we never truly made love. I know there’s something different about her, but I was too infatuated with her to stop and think more deeply. If only I had more interest in couples psychology, I would have a better understanding of things like avoidant-attachment. 


We were 3 months in when she stopped inviting me to her home for kinky intimacy. I know I am basic and wasn’t the skilled pilot who can get one to higher climaxes; I lack inventiveness on spanking angles and placement, I took too long to figure out the knots, my vocabulary range is limited to the 5-6 phrases I learned the day before; I don’t blame Claire for losing interest in me. Though we still meet after work or go hiking, the chats got shorter and shorter, even reducing to me monologuing and something is always weighing heavily on her mind. Then during one dinner, she again pushed aside her plate of appetizers and softly asked me.

“Please don’t take it the wrong way, but can you take me to the play parties? I needed something more intense, but I want to experience it with you beside me. Please don’t be offended. Please. I really like you too.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve been around the scene longer than you, I understand you.”

“Thank you, thank you.” She grabbed my hand and gave it a courteous squeeze. This is the first time our hands have emotional contact.


I registered her as my plus one and went to the (official) monthly play party. When we went past the entrance curtains, her face shone, and wandered around the dungeon, lost in all the wonders before her eyes, seemingly forgot about me. The host recognized a new face and approached Claire.

“Hello and welcome, is this your first time here?”

“Yes, but I’m here with my partner.” She grabbed my hand and our fingers interlock. Finally. I guess this counts as our first PDA. 

The host explained the ground rules to Claire while I said Hi to some buddies. Throughout the night, our hand never separated, except of course when she needed to get attached to the ‘furniture’ or trialling Shibari. There were a lot of satisfactory moments in the parties but the rule is no one is allowed to share details, so let’s leave it at that. When the party was over and we were alone in the changing room, she looked at her newly acquired scars and caressed my face and kissed me in the mouth.

“You are the only person that understands what I really wanted and indulged me.”

Still the Uber order at the end of the night, though slightly different. We got in the car together, and she leaned her head on my shoulder, exhausted from all the many climaxes. She dropped me off at my place and slammed the car door shut to head home, leaving me wondering alone, what’s up with this girl that lives in my mind 24/7 but sorta kept me at arm’s length IRL. 


We soon started to venture out to private play parties as well, as those are the only occasions she would hold my hand or kiss me. Yes, nothing changed during vanilla hours in terms of body contact, though she loosened up during conversations and got around to letting me know her school life and exes and family, it was rough, dad left and her immigrant mom toiled to raise her alone and died just after Claire graduated college; I began to understand her more and my feelings for her grew more intense. The more parties we went to, the more scars she collected, the deeper the bond between us grew, but at the same time, her body was shared with more and more anonymous people. It doesn’t matter, I tell myself, love isn't always about roses and kisses or saying “I love you.” Sometimes all one needs to exchange is trust, right? Some days when we don’t meet and I’m alone at home thinking about her, I get really bewildered. Am I in a one-way street situation or something? But she did care about me deeply in her own way; when I was sick and recovering at home, she would order me three nutritious takeaways each day, plus top-shelf grocery deliveries; when one time I fainted at work, she have me transferred to a private hospital and footed the bill, then bought me two fancy platinum wearables, the redundancy is for when one needs recharging, for me to monitor my heart rate and blood pressure so I know when to rest and not faint again. If only I was less self-centered and made an effort to comprehend why she never spoke about her childhood and why there are zero family photos at her home. 


Then, our mutual good feelings fell off a cliff without warning when Sebestian appeared at the play party, and she pushed me away for the first time, and bolted out of the dungeon. I ran after her and called for her but I had become invisible to her. She vanished into a taxi and I followed her home in another. I rushed to her floor and I could already hear her loudly sobbing when I stepped out of the lift. I tried calling her but her phone had been shut off. I tried the spare key she gave me but she double locked the door, so I knocked at her door and shouted,

“I’m will be here for you, I’m going to stay here until you’ve calmed down and we can talk about it, OK?” 


No reply. After listening to half an hour of intermittent sobbing. I finally have one practical thought: Should I return to the party and find out whose presence inflicted such anguish? But what if I left and she opened the door and found out I abandoned her? I had never been so close to a mental crisis of a loved one before and my brain keep drawing blanks. I sat on the floor, dejected, helpless, unable to process my incompetence, and I nodded off.


I was woken up by the sunlight from the corridor window. There was no text, no calls, no written notes passed under the door. I know Claire don’t want me here now so I left. Maybe she just needed some time, but the next day I noticed she had deleted her online presence, and soon terminated email accounts, deregistered her phone number and I started to worry. I tried knocking on her door again but the doorman told me she moved out and donated most of her stuff to charity. I went to her office, and she has resigned. All this within two weeks, she excised me from her life as if I was a cancerous tumor, when all I did was love her. 


It feels strange to say this but it wasn’t very hard to adapt to life without her. I miss her and think about her all the time still, but apart from reduced texting, reduced fine dining, reduced shopping, I am still doing the things we did together. Hiking, play parties, kink events, maybe not going to the cinema alone, but a lot of things remain unchanged like sleeping alone, going home alone. I felt like she has always primed me to be able to live without her present. 


Summer came and the flowers started blooming. Out of the blue, I picked up a call from an unknown number and it was her, Claire, inviting me to her new home and have a home cooked dinner together. I was both elated and perplexed, but I chose to treasure this reunion and not ask ‘What happened?’. She taught me her recipes. We had a relaxed, uneventful meal, did the dishes together, sat down to watch a movie and then she ordered me an Uber home. The next day we went hiking, the next few weekdays day she picked me up from work and took me back to the restaurants we frequented. Our dating schedule returned to just like before, but strictly vanilla. We never talked about anything sexual, if I made a dirty joke, she would change the subject. However, she smiled and laughed more, and nothing else mattered. There are certain themes and topics I need to avoid of course, but it is no big deal; there is much less passion between us, though why should one sacrifice the equilibrium just for a few minutes of pleasure. Maybe our relationship is more mature now. Maybe she somehow found a way to heal from whatever trauma that was triggered at that play party, and I should respect her strength to claw out from the abyss. 


A few weeks of such warm times together pass by, sometimes it would rain and can’t go hiking, we hanged out at her home. She has been passing the time with all sorts of handicrafts, and we would add colours together. Things were steady like a little stream on the hills. Sometimes the usual doubts would pop up in my head, but I never let them linger, because I am seeing Claire daily. She would plan something for everyday, I was so preoccupied with being with her I longer have time to question what our relationship is anymore. One day, she told me it was my turn to cook for her, I thought she was joking, because she was always the head chef in her home, but I was a good student so I was able to serve her a decent meal using her recipes. I was washing the dishes when I heard her weeping on the sofa. 


“ What’s wrong?” I went to console her.

“I owe you an explanation.” She leaned on my shoulder for the first time since our reunion.

“How about we let what happened be water under the bridge, OK?” I caressed her always 10/10 cute face. 

“Just let me tell you my story once. Once only, then all will be water under the bridge.”

“Sure.”

Claire sat up, wiped away her tears and looked me in the face. 

“The person I saw at the play party was my dad, Sebestian.”

“Oh.” WHAT???

“And there is a secret I never told anyone. I’ll tell you but don’t interrupt me or respond, OK?”

I nodded while praying silently, “Please don’t tell me he molested you.” 

“He had sex with me when I was 10 and didn’t stop until I was 14, my mom knew but we were really poor back then, living in a foreign country and knew no one, so there was nowhere to go.” WTF??? 

“He chose to move the family to a city with no Chinatown so we are isolated and he can control every aspect of our lives.” How can this be real? 

“He got me pregnant when I was 14 and I had to get an abortion by some back alley doctor.” Claire kept on calmly narrating. This is all kinds of fucked up.

“After that, he went to Africa and found oil or something and never came back for us. Then I learned about using the internet at school, and eventually found a relative on mom’s side who owned a restaurant in this city’s Chinatown.” I started shedding tears.

“Then I studied hard and worked hard. But all along I can never escape the PTSD. I have night terrors almost every night and I took a lot of medication to sleep through the night so I can keep up with studies and work, I can never sleep with people overnight because I sometimes sleepwalk, not in a cute but in a violent way, like finding the pillow completely ripped open, things like that. So, when we were together, even though I never let you stay the night, you didn’t question me; I have intimacy issues, but you accommodate  me; I had some messed up sexual preferences, you didn’t abandon me and I love you so so much.” I cannot stop crying. 

“When I saw him again at the party, I really couldn’t bear the sharp pain that sliced through my heart. I know you were outside my door. The whole night, I was looking at you through the security camera all along, but my mind has completely crumbled and I had really really bad urges, I was afraid I would treat you like a punching bag and hurt you.” Knowing the truth makes forgetting so much harder.

“Oh, Baby...” She hugged me tight. 

“I went to look for his FetLife profile and wanted to expose him to the community, but there wasn’t any proof, so I gave up but some details in his profile made me thought of other associations. To my horror, I found the place I worked in for the past decade was a subsidiary of his. So I disappeared a bit. And I missed you, and I thought it was very unfair to you, it was my trauma, and I shouldn’t pass my suffering onto you, so I reconnected with you. But there are too many hurdles to get things back to the way they were.” 

“What…”


“Shhh…Let’s just quietly enjoy this moment.”

We hugged for the longest time, it was just pure tranquillity, freed from our memory palaces. Until her phone started buzzing, and I could guess what it is. 

“Your Uber has arrived.”

“I don’t want to leave you, not now. Please.”

Claire pushed me away. One. Last. Time.

“Go home and sleep. You have to fuck up at work and be a bad employee tomorrow.” She winked, and I smiled. “Go, no more words.” She turned away. 


I walked out the door with a premonition, but I was still processing what just happened and it got tucked away.


The next day I called her to say Good Morning, but it happened once more. She didn’t answer. I try again every hour, no change. The phone tracking app I secretly installed shows the phone is still at her home. But I somehow know she won’t be there when I knock on the door. I called 9-1-1, made up a story about receiving a distressed phone call to request a welfare check. I waited anxiously at the office for the police to call back, I missed a meeting with a major supplier, I failed to submit urgent applications, I thought of Claire winking at me last night, I started sobbing at the desk. My manager told me to take the day off and I obliged. When I got home I finally got the call back, Claire is now declared missing. Now I know why she finally told me her secret, why she is more relaxed than ever, she had made up her mind.


I picked the phone up and deleted all the News apps, I know what’s coming and I needed a distraction, I next added Sebestian as a friend on FetLife.