#testing limits

 Part 1

Reaction Junkie leaned in close, his mouth against my ear, and started speaking in a low voice. He told me that over time, he will make me increasingly dependent on him. He will become the person I rely on for support. My social life will go through him. Our finances will be entangled, with him as the only one able to access the money. I’ll be living in his house. As he painted this picture, I realized how close this was to our actual situation. I spend a lot of time with him, the group of friends I have now mostly grew out of knowing him, and we’re planning to move in together once he buys a house. The future he was describing sounded extreme, perhaps, but not entirely unrealistic. It also wasn’t all that upsetting.

Then he continued. He told me that, after making me entirely dependent on him, emotionally, socially, physically, and financially, he will slowly withdraw from me. At first, he will just seem more distracted than usual when we’re together or having a conversation. Then he’ll start focusing more of his time and attention on other people, other partners. He’ll make time for them, but not for me. Initially, I’ll try to write it off, tell myself that I’m being irrational. I’ll think, “I must be imagining things. He wouldn’t just do that.” I’ll tell myself that, but his fade out will continue. And I’ll continue trying to pretend that it isn’t.

First, a text I send won’t get a response. I’ll try to ignore it, to counter that negative self-talk about him drifting away. Then, a whole weekend will go by without response. Even though we planned to spend time together. With this I’ll be so hurt that I’ll finally say something to him about it. He’ll apologize so profusely and sincerely, so genuinely, that I’ll believe him. But it will keep happening. He’ll keep fading out, giving me less and less, and I’ll keep trying to write it off, calling him out, and buying his apologies.

As Reaction Junkie spoke, telling me about my future, I started settling into a headspace where I opened myself up to what he was saying. I was ready to believe it, to accept what he was telling me as a real prediction of the path our relationship might take. I drew on memories of how it felt when people from my past faded out. That cold and lonely feeling in my chest, the hopelessness, that weird numbness in my fingertips I get during a really emotional cry, the desperate attempts to reconnect, to figure out what I did wrong, to bring them back to me.

I dredged up those feelings and linked them with Reaction Junkie’s words. It wasn’t hard. His description of slowly withdrawing and distancing himself hit home, and hit home hard. That’s a very real fear of mine. It’s happened in my relationships before, and I’ve been on both sides of it, really. You second-guess yourself, wondering if you’re just imagining it, just being irrational. You try to counter that negative self-talk, even while knowing deep down that it isn’t just your imagination, that it really is happening. The worst part is, you want to point out to the person that it’s happening, want to ask them about it, but you’re afraid of pushing them away. So you just sit and worry and wait, trying to hold the hurt in and ignore it. But you can’t. And it eats you up.

So, I opened myself up to what Reaction Junkie was saying, letting his words sink in and feel real. He told me that the slow withdrawal of attention, time, and affection will continue,getting worse and worse until, one day, he’ll be gone. I’ll frantically call him, email him, text him, anything to try to contact him. Finally, he’ll respond that he’s gone. He caught a cheap flight to start his round the the world trip. I’ll be stunned that he didn’t even bother to say goodbye or let me know what was going on, but I’m so far in by this point that I’ll just write it off again.

Reaction Junkie told me that as he travels, he be in contact less and less often. He said that he won’t respond because he’ll be busy “fucking some Polynesian chick.” In fact, he won’t even be able to be in contact because he’ll be somewhere without Internet access. It won’t matter to him because he won’t be prioritizing talking to me. He told me that “[his] blog will be less and less about [him and me] and more and more about the fun [he’s] having with other people.” I’ll feel rejected and abandoned and ignored. I’ll be incredibly hurt. And there won’t be a thing I can do about it. Hearing Reaction Junkie talk about fading away from me during his travels hit another real fear, and I curled up against him as he spoke, shaking a little.

He continued talking. By this point, I’ll be entirely dependent on him, including financially dependent. I’ll focus in on this, trying to take solace in the fact that he’s still taking care of me. Then, one day, something will slip. Maybe a mortgage payment, maybe a car payment. Something serious. I’ll send him a bunch of increasingly panicked emails and texts. When he finally responds, he’ll say, “I’ll take care of it, babe. Why are you getting so upset? Don’t you trust me?” What will I even be able to say to that? I won’t have a choice but to trust him. I’ll go on this way for a while, part of me telling me that it isn’t right, that I should get out, but by then I won’t be able to. As Reaction Junkie told me, “I’ll be your entire support system.” He’ll have isolated me from my friends and family. There won’t be anyone to turn to. I won’t have anyone else except him.

Reaction Junkie predicted that as more payments get missed, as he contacts me less and less, I’ll start going down hill. My physical and mental health will deteriorate. I’ll constantly worry about becoming destitute. I’ll lose my job, not that it will matter, since all of my paychecks will be going straight to his account. Eventually, once I’m as low as I think I can get, he’ll prove me wrong. He’ll send me a two word message, “We’re done.”

I gasped in dismay when he told me that, and Reaction Junkie held me tighter and continued whispering my future into my ear. When I receive that message, I’ll finally lose myself to panic. I won’t have anyone to ask for help or any way to get money. Finally, it will all be too much and I’ll kill myself. But not before writing a long, raging suicide note, blaming him for everything, cursing his name. Not content to tell me that I’ll commit suicide, Reaction Junkie added insult to injury “I won’t read it. Someone will probably send it to me, but I’ll see who it’s from and throw it in the trash.” He just won’t care. He’ll go on with his life. As told me, “You’ll be dead and I’ll be happy.”

Reaction Junkie and I arrived at the party and socialized separately for a while. Or, rather, he socialized and I half socialized, half felt socially anxious in a corner. Eventually, I wandered up to him talking to a couple people and joined in the conversation. I’d recently written a post about objectification in which I’d talked about my enjoyment of being used as an object in terms of being a demo bottom, and about having my limits regarding feeling replaceable and/or ignored pushed (by particular people). So, when someone asked him about his handcuffs, Reaction Junkie grabbed me and used me to show them off, not speaking to me, but about me. It was exactly the kind of objectification I enjoy.

After he was done showing the last pair of cuffs, Reaction Junkie didn’t remove them. He left them on me and, with me facing away from him and the rest of the conversation, put his arm around me and talked to the other people, completely ignoring me. A few times, he put his arm around my neck and squeezed, choking me, but continued to ignore me. I wasn’t bored, since I was facing out into the party, so I had plenty to look at. When I looked back to see that he was using his free hand to play with someone else’s tits while continuing to ignore me, I felt somewhat uncomfortable, maybe a little jealous, but it wasn’t unbearable.

Eventually, he let me go, and I started talking to Mort, one of the girls he’d been showing off his cuffs to. We were having a good conversation, enough that, when I noticed Reaction Junkie kissing someone else, I was able to focus in on Mort and get through the jealousy pings without much difficulty. I was so focused on our conversation, that I didn’t even watch where Reaction Junkie went when he left to go play. Mort and I talked for a good while, about all sorts of things, from death, to being submissive, to her time in the BDSM scene in Germany, to wanting to try being dommier and toppier, and more.

During our conversation, I did look around a few times to see where Reaction Junkie had gone, but I couldn’t find him. I laughed and told Mort that he was probably right behind me. I looked over my shoulder, but didn’t see him. Later I learned that yes, that’s exactly where he was. Mort and I continued talking for what felt like an hour or more. She eventually went off to find someone and I sat alone for a little while, thinking about the conversation and considering whether or not to go hunt down Reaction Junkie.

I didn’t have to consider for too long, because he walked up to me shortly after Mort left. We talked for a couple minutes, and then he sat behind me with his arm around my throat. I wondered if we were going to start playing. I’d asked him to make me cry, but requested that he not take the easy way out by slapping me in the face or something like that. What I’d meant was that stingy pain brings me to tears pretty quickly and without too much effort, so I wanted him to make me cry with thuddier, deeper pain, like punching and elbowing and kicking. Reaction Junkie interpreted what I’d said differently. He decided to use his words.