We'd been talking online for two months until I finally lured him to my house the first time. At least that's the way it felt.
He wanted me, and I him. We'd had phone sex a dozen times—he had such a good voice. Smart, grammatical, and not a hint of danger signs, even when he was—as we established very quickly we both wanted—describing, in great detail, the ways he wanted to rape me.
Yes, rape. (I believe in calling things what they are. So did he.) We both had an element of apology in our stated desires. And then we said them. Again and again, our voices cracking as we came, our shared aural narratives of violation ringing in each others' heads.
When he finally came to me—he balked. Not that he didn't fuck me. He did. Four times during the sleepless night. Or that he didn't tie me up at various times, spank me, or place his hot hand over my mouth, usually at the end, when he was coming (and I usually was as well.) It's just that I couldn't draw him out of his polite, civilized shell. Not all the way. When he left in the morning, it was with averted eyes, and a promise to write me. He did—and it was a mess.
He rambled, he waffled. It was clear he was afraid—afraid of letting himself go because then we'd have made a connection that he feared he'd have to follow up on in reality. Or, I thought, the sight of me, the reality of me, scared him because I wasn't what he thought. My mind—as much of a mess as his—thought about my weight, my performance. Maybe just who I was.
We licked our wounds for a few weeks. Then he wrote this. No warning— just black words on a white background of my email, left for me on my laptop like an intruder, lying in wait:
Tell me a day you are free. All day and all night. I will leave my door unlocked. (He'd never given me his address, another worry.) The lights will be off. You will park where I tell you, then walk in the door. When you choose to enter my door, you will signal your agreement to the following scenario and conditions:
—You will be raped, all night, until the sun comes up. At exactly 7 a.m., you will be untied and released. I won't be here when you remove the blindfold you will have been wearing all night. You will wait, as instructed, until you count to a slow 100. Then you will remove your blindfold, dress yourself, and leave.
—You will receive no reassurances once you walk through that door. Whatever sounds you hear as you are raped will be from your rapist.
—Your pre-established limits will be observed, but they will not be adjusted or changed once you choose to walk through that door, no matter what you say. When you are allowed to say anything. As understood, those limits are as follows:
