I learned a lot about lying this past week. When meeting someone new, engaging in a relationship with them, it is essential to know what can be tolerated and what cannot be tolerated. Months ago I had proposed a hypothetical question to anyone I was in any kind of relationship in: What if there was an accidental pregnancy? After they gave their answers, I asked: What if you found out she’d had an abortion and didn’t tell you? For one, that withholding of information was like the worst kind of lie that could be told and he would terminate the relationship immediately if he ever found out. Even if it was 10 years later? Even if it was for your own good? The answer to each of those was yes, for his own good reasons. The original question’s information gathered paled in comparison to this new thing that I had learned. Lying, anything that could be construed as lying, was intolerable.
Months later, another incident came up. It occurred when we weren’t together, I was taking care of things just fine on my own, and there was no actual solution to the problem that he could help with. There was also no outcome as of yet, so there wasn’t any need to inform him of anything going on — in my head. It turns out he felt differently. Not only had I withheld the information about the circumstances I was dealing with, I had withheld my feelings about the circumstances I was dealing with. To him, that was lying. That left him to wonder what secrets I might have, what I might not be sharing with him. That led to a few questions of trust that tied into the sort of relationship were currently engaged in: consensual nonconsent.
When was enough enough? To me, it was a simple question with a simple answer. For months we’d been playing with energy. For months I’d been able to put him in a hypnotic state where I could get straightforward questions without the clutter of his thought and societal pressures pushing him around. This was the part of him I consulted frequently to know if he still felt happy, loved, and taken care of. This was what I consulted if I needed to know if things were too much for him. Sometimes he was scared but he was still always on board. He was happy where he was. He knew what he was and where he belonged and the last thing in the world he wanted was to be disowned. Satisfied, I related all of this to him. While he had no conscious memory of it, he knew that there was a very real part of him talking to me.
What happens when you get me locked in a device and all I can do is trust you? Then you have to just trust me, is what I told him. Trust that you picked someone with ethics and morals who can stick to them, no matter what. What if you don’t? he asked. Well, you’re not going to know that until it comes time to prove it. I already had, once before, when he’d left once before. I’d written him a note not long before saying that I always wanted to be a part of his journey, to see where he was going and where he’d end up and what he’d look like when he found what he was looking for, essentially. It didn’t matter if we were in a relationship or not. He was someone that I loved regardless, and that love transcended relationships, and I just wanted to know that he knew love and happiness in his life. I’d kept that promise even though he was off fucking someone else for a while. One could argue that I only kept the promise because I was expecting him to return, but that’s a matter of opinion.
Do you love me more than the lifestyle? That one was tough, because there was only ever going to be one way to prove it, but the answer without hesitation was yes. He told me he didn’t feel that way. That to date it felt like I cared more about the lifestyle than him. I thought about this question for a considerable amount of time after I’d answered and I still always came to the conclusion that I did in fact love him more than the lifestyle, but again, to prove it would be difficult. At least to prove it in a way that he would understand.
The day came that I would finally get to see him again. I was so excited. Hours upon hours to spend with him lay before me. The day before, I’d shared a very personal story with him, something from the very core of my being, something that I don’t share with most people. He seemed to like the story, but soon after turned around and pretty much told me that it didn’t matter what had happened to me in it, it wasn’t true. I wasn’t sure how to feel about it, but I reasoned it didn’t matter what I felt. I gave him that story, as a gift, and he was free to do with it as he pleased, even reject it.This is how I rationalize a lot of things, especially when it comes to sharing things about me.
One of the minute notes of the story was how when I was a kid I felt I could influence the weather with my emotions! It seemed silly, sure, but when I was feeling ridiculously happy, the sun would shine so bright. If my day soured, it wouldn’t shine as bright, or a cloud would block off part of the sun. The evening that I was driving to his house, the clouds were gathered in the sky. Unusual weather for where I live, but I tried not to think anything of it. As we left his house for dinner, a wind picked up. In my fingertips, in my toes, I could feel my energy brewing. Something was going to happen, for better or worse, and with the lack of sun I could only imagine for worse.
We made it through dinner, shared some stories, had a good time. We joked and commented on commercials and talked about how ex-spouses can really fuck a person over. We got to the house, he showed me some things, and the first time I touched him he started to pass out. The energy was too strong for him to fight. I took him to the couch, I asked him some questions, and he led me to his secret, finally.
After forty-five minutes of guessing, after so much of it being spent in silence, after a fight and an emotional break down, he finally told me his secret. I woke him up, gave him water, and told him he’d been lying to me. I asked him what his biggest secret was and he told me the one I’d known to date — not the one he’d just admitted to. He soon realized. Then, it was over.
He had asked me one question the day before that I couldn’t answer. Does absolute power corrupt absolutely? I wanted to say no. Gut instinct was no. It depended on the person. It depended on their heart. It depended on their soul. But I couldn’t prove it. So, while I had him hypnotized, I did an experiment.
For as long as I’ve known him, as long as we’ve known this could occur, I found that anytime I put my hand near this throat while he was under, he would start to choke. He’d go through all the motions of choking, his air would literally be cut off, even though I wasn’t touching his body at all. He literally could not breathe. Often times I would do it for only a moment, just to see if it still worked. Tonight, I wanted to do something different. This time, I looked at him and I told him, “You can’t breathe unless I tell you to” and sure as shit he started choking. I watched him for a moment, my hands still in my lap. “Alright, you can breathe. You never need my permission to breathe again,” I told him and suddenly he drank in the air like he’d been saved from the brink of death.
Absolute power.
I could have told him that roosters can fly into space. I could have told him to bark like a dog anytime his phone rang and I have no doubt in my mind that he would have done it. He wouldn’t know why he was doing it, but he sure would do it anyhow. But most importantly, I could have fixed the one problem that we were having in our relationship: I could have told him to love me. He would never know any better. He would have no idea that it was an idea planted by me. He would only know that he loved me and because he loved me, he would do everything for me. His surrender would have been so much easier. Life for us would have been so much easier.
After hearing his secret, there was that flutter inside of me. I could fix everything. I could have everything I wanted and fix everything so he was no longer confused, so that he knew what he wanted, so he could be happy. But that was wrong. That would not be living up to my morals and my ethics. That would not be taking care of him. That would not be taking care of me. So instead, I did the only thing I knew how: I released him.
I went back over everything we’d ever talked about while he was hypnotized. I took back his name. I took back my name. I took back Ownership. I disowned him. I told him he didn’t belong to me. I told him he could never come and ask me for Ownership ever again, at least not because he felt he belonged to me. This whole time, he was crying. The boy mind fucks the Master.
When all was said and done, when I made sure he understood what had happened and why, I sat in the living room for a while and asked for closure. I couldn’t rely on him to give it to me. I had loved, again, someone that couldn’t love me. I’d learned the first time not to wait around. Even if they do come back, it’s never quite the same. I lived up to my promises, again, despite the fact that I had been questioned, relentlessly, found to be untrustworthy, and despite the fact that the only person that would be hurt from the outcome was me. I had given a piece of my heart to him, to do with as he wished, even if all he wished to do with it was reject it. In normal relationships it wouldn’t matter — there would be something given in return so that there is a quilt work of a heart inside a person. For me, I have gaping holes.
I had told him that there was a piece of my heart just for him, a part that no one else could ever touch. No one could surpass the feelings I had for him; no one could replace him in any fashion. I wasn’t lying about that. There will always be that piece of my heart that belongs to him, no matter what he did, no matter what he chooses to do in the future. But now, now I’ve learned that I need to stop doing that. A person can only give away so much of their heart before it collapses, before it shuts down for good, before the heart is robbed of all the love in it, rendering it absolutely useless to any future person that might be able to actually offer a piece in return. There will be someone, someday, but for now I need to work on protecting myself, work on mending this heart of mine, so that even before that someone can show up, I can go back to loving this boy that was once mine and making sure that he stays safe on his path, so that I can continue to watch his journey and root him on.
Edit: Upon receiving some new information about some of the answers he had given me Saturday night, it is decided that the only reason for dissolution of the relationship was because he asked for release in the only way that would have granted it to him, not because he lied. More on this later.
