I want to write about this in a way that is honest. You need to know that I knew better from the first night without me coming off as arrogant. I just did. But I fell anyway.

V told me he knew things about people in his life. Didn’t know how, just knew. Knowing without thinking is part of the game. Very Gurdjieff. I know things I’ve never thought about. Just known them to be true. Call it abstract intuition. It allows me to walk through the world without worry because I’m in tune. I’m awake. And because I have this knowingness, when V told me things he knew about me, that he knew we would sleep together the first night we met years ago, I didn’t question whether he was right. I just accepted it and asked him about his intuitive process. Because part of me knew it too…enough to memorialize it and keep things going. But sex is the least of it all. It’s not why we were brought together. That remains to be seen. At least by me.

I knew the first night I met J that it wasn’t going to work. I didn’t screen him properly. I just needed to get out of the house. I’ve become pickier about who I go out with now because I’ve finally learned what works for me. But I needed to not be alone and I chose to not be alone with someone who fed into every trauma response I could possibly conjure in one person. It was the last attempt to feed my ego.

Betrayed, bitter and broken. There was once something there that was pure. But I came too late into the story to be able to access it. It’s a shame because I’ve never had better sex with anyone in my whole entire life. I’m not sure I’d ever need to say a word to him because he’d just know what to do. He’s an artist when it comes to the female body. There is integrity in those moments and a sense of self-assurance. And because I am so responsive, so uninhibited, a kind of Stradivarius, we could make beautiful music.

And yet, it would never be enough. At some point, the world would pierce the veil of our intimacy and cast a harsh light on the peace we’d created between us. I was never looking for what he had to offer. I don’t look for soft men. I look for alphas. I need direction. Not because I’m weak, but because I can lead from the back if he leads from the front. Who “he” is, I still don’t know. It doesn’t bother me. It’s just a promise out there in the future.

I don’t regret J. He was a test of the new me. Would I break under pressure and give up all I’d learned to enter into a cycle of codependency that had been my calling card for decades? Or would I stay calm while he threw fits and stomped all over like a five-year old child? Would I react when he said that he knew someone who thought Billie was trafficking in heroin chic? Or would I just know that he was quoting some girl he’d fallen in love with whose words he couldn’t get out of his head? Would I defend myself when he judged me? Or would my ego stand by while I watched him shake with unprompted anger, needing to be right all the time?

J had to come into my life. Not because he was meant to stay, but because he was meant to clarify things.

1. I’m capable and deserving of fantastic, earth shattering sex.

2. I’m worthy of love that isn’t tainted by substance abuse and codependency.

3. For the right person, I would serve up the world on a silver platter.

4. I can wait for a very long time to meet him because right now I’m so in love with me. If I’m supposed to be unhappy without someone, it’s not going to be a problem. Because as long as I have me, I am not alone. I am someone.

And as for the sex? That part I can teach to the willing student who shows promise. It’ll be a new experience for me, but it will be a gift to both of us if we can make it work.