Sticking to the Black and White

Ok.... trigger warning...which is why the Wicked Wednesday sign is here right at the top creating some space... Go away if a reference to sex abuse is a trigger for you. I'm sorry to include it here, but this is important to my backstory and will undoubtedly influence my writing from time to time.

In the recent past,  I was at the IPCC misconduct hearing of the police officer who made mistakes that allowed an identified sex offender to apply to work in my home, and ultimately commit further sexual assaults. 

Their barrister gave reasons in evidence as to why they had allowed mistakes to happen. They were all completely trivial. Mainly they were included because months before, when the mistakes had been uncovered, they had been full of bluster and self defense. 

The reasons they had tried to work on the case, where they were out of their depth, were more important. They wanted to learn about this line of work. Wanted to improve their own knowledge. Wanted to help other people in the future. 

They wanted to apologise and I was not ready to hear it until I had made my mind up on the evidence. I didn't want them to think words were enough to fix this. But then I heard about the steps they had taken to improve their practice, their time with offender units and social services looking at the damage missing an early chance to stop someone could do and I accepted their apology.

They were found guilty of multiple counts of misconduct. The chairperson of the enquiry then turned to the two parties of interest...myself and representatives of another caught up in the offending that followed. 

Did we want the officer dismissed?

Ask me when I found out about their mistakes. YES. Ask me if I'd read their first "defense" rather than explanation.YES. 

Ask me now? Ask the other representatives now?

We asked that they be allowed to keep their job, and the chair told us this was the defining and only reason they were not dismissed. 

Why am I saying this now? 

Partly because you don't know me. I am anonymous here. This reference to my "other"life allows me to let out the emotions without you knowing me. And you won't know the police officer from Eve either. 

And this is not a self-righteous thing either, but I have had to think a lot about what a gift forgiveness is. The morning after I had forgiven them I felt lightheaded. Literally reeling. It didn't feel good, but I knew in the longer term, their being an officer was probably going to be a positive thing. 

When making an apology I think about the old prayer from being a child at church. When we confessed in the Church of England we asked to be forgiven for 

"thoughtlessness, weakness and our own deliberate fault" against God and persons unknown. 

The first two I could see. Easily. The first two I could forgive. We really were persons unknown

Deliberate fault. From me much harder to forgive. Good job I'm not God. 

Twitter has been full of angst recently. Lots of forums I follow too. World politics. The whole world is angry. 

Things are black and white in their immediacy. 

Stepping back everything becomes greyer. 

I am not just sex positive, but life positive. We learn and move forward. We teach the ignorant. We put forward better, more persuasive points of view. We cannot make up for things that are wrong in the past, or beyond our own actions, but we can demonstrate the tools to improve things. 

So my story...

Sticking to the Black and White

The view from my window was apt. Enough storeys to quite literally look down on the world. I couldn’t look at him, so I watched tiny people doing things that from here looked quite meaningless.

He was kneeling still. Not a perfect position, but one that showed his genuine emotion taut in the stretched sinew at his ankle, the tight muscles of his shoulder line. He was sorry. But was it enough?

Fuck it all, I’m angry with him! Or, I was. Something that is mine and he shared it with his blog readers as though it was no more personal than a holiday snap. I’m just so tired and disappointed, irritated as though his transgression was an insect bite I cannot ignore. Perhaps the start of anaphylaxis. God knows, I think of what he’s done and I nearly can’t breathe.

But then I am to blame. I think. People don’t have the power to hurt us if we don’t give them that power.

Bullshit. I am not a cartoon. Individuals crawl under our skin without a second thought from our conscious brain, and they can colour our lives or let us down in the same vein.

I am to blame for embarrassing him. I could have handled my response differently, but it was just so immediate, so hot a flame that I called him out in public. His peers and mine. On fucking twitter.

So… I sit here, musing about forgiveness as though it was a one way street. The power in our sex lives rests with me. He looks to me to be strong in other areas too. His family. His friends. I encouraged him into this public dissection of our lives and wasn’t strong enough or involved enough to make sure he didn’t fuck up.

I thought he was able to negotiate this without… without this. This clusterfuck that I am unable to ignore or sweep away with another orgasm from his talented body.

He is a puppy. My pup…or I wouldn’t be so fucking… Shit. I just don’t know anymore.

And that is just it. I am with him because of those traits. He was my discovery. I loved to show off his creativity and revelled in his excitement until it became my own. I loved to show him new things, in bed and out and loved the uncensored joy and exuberance he brought to my black and white world.  

When he first posted an almost dick-pic I let it go. It wasn’t tasteful, but it was honest and raw and I respected that. I remembered him being that hard for me and glowed with pride, but hoped no-one could see it. That pride was private.

I did take him to task when a few months later, his cock bounced into life in a post again. But the meme he followed, the one where I introduced him to, had a theme of anticipation and again, I could see his train of thoughtlessness. He had forgotten that sight was now just mine. It was an old picture, from before our time and worse, taken by a previous lover. I raged, but rationalised that he would learn. I fucked him through my anger and into our mutual pleasure, because that was, in that second, more important than correction and practice and all the fucking basic ground work I should have done to make sure we didn’t end up here.

My thoughts are tortuous and while I think, he kneels in supplication, each second I deny him forgiveness mentally pulling him down.

I think I have to cut him loose. He shared his pleasure with his blog followers when it was meant to be all for me. His blog followers that include my friends. I am so fucking embarrassed. Some of them will know that is not what I expect. Some of them will know how rules work.

Like I said. Black and white.

I can’t be associated with him anymore. Can’t let …Who are these people I am so frightened of?

A few hundred people saw his post. Of whom I know a few tens.

Most of whom will have discounted his fuckwittery as just that and will assume I am beating some sense into him right now. Or at least would have done had I not exploded our entire relationship on fucking twitter. Now it is my followers. A good couple of thousand. And some I want to impress.

Why the fuck did I do that?

He could be kneeling now and I could be anticipating the correction. Not that it is fun, but the joy when he’s forgiven can have spectacular results.

Now he has to go.

My fault, or his?