Beautiful Agony (A Tale Of Savage Love, Part I) (4 page)

If the person reading it had half a brain, a modicum of intelligence, reasoning, and deduction, then he would be able to figure out what lay just beneath
the surface of
my words; decode my sentences, unravel my bio, discern the truth of
who I was and what I was after. 
And that was the kind of person I was searching for.  Someone smart, intuitive, adept, and like-minded.  Someone who could sense the submissive intent inherent in my overtly average consonants, and the slight, masochistic need that ran like rivulets of blood beneath the vesicles of my vowels.

So, f
irst of all, I
decided that I
needed to
find a singles agency that
only
catered
to
Manhattanites
; I
truly
had
zero
interest in a long-distance
relationship.  Second, I needed
a site that did not compel
you to post a picture of yourself in order to place your ad
(I was well-known enough in the publishing world to
not
want a picture of myself floating around the internet at large for any competitor or co-worker to see and use to ridicule me)
.  And third, I needed a site that seemed to have a
certain
bit of class. 
Again,
I wasn’t just out for one, cheap, sexual
ly gratifying
encounter.  I was out for something that was hopefully going to change
the fundamentals of me
from now on
.

That being the case, it was easier said than done
.  I spent hours simply
trying to find a site that
met all
of
my
prerequisites
.  W
hen I finally found one, I joined
quickly
, using an anonymous-style email address that I had just created that night. 
Then, face flaming wi
th mortification, I wrote out my
ad;
carefully
formulating
my
personal
description in rather vague terms
, all the while
hoping it would eventually result in luring in exactly
what I
wanted
.

I left no name, only
my new email
for responses, and
I
made
it crystal-
clear
that a recent photo
was
necessary
in order for me to read them.
Not because I was particularly snobby, but I did believe that you could tell a lot about a man from just his picture.
I also stated that I’d se
nd a return photo with any replies
, and as an afterthought, I posted a bold, high-lighted statement that
a supremely clean bill of health
was absolutely essential
.
  Perhaps I was overstating my case, but I truly wanted to let any man who might be interested, know upfront that I was highly discriminating.

The summation
of what I was looking for was
, of course,
the hardest part
for me
to do. 
Bearing in mind
my reason
s
for doing this in the first place
, I had very
, very precise
requirements
. 
As such,
I needed a
very specific type of
man
, a
man
who did not know me in my current incarnation as a high-powered bu
siness woman. 
Simply put,
I needed a man
who would
go into this
think
ing
of me
only
as a
partner to please and punish
; that and little more. 
Considering how complicated I was (in the bedroom and out)
, I knew I’d have to
do some
serious
digging.

It’
s not like you could go pick the perfect man
out
of a catalogue
. 
There might be a number of guys out there who, on the surface, were interested in trying to help me with my unique, individual problem.  Only it wasn’t just a matter of desire.  They had to not only
want
to
“
handle
”
me; they had to be
capable
of doing so.

I
had to be careful, selective,
and judicious.  I
had to choose
exactly the right
type of
person for the
requisite
job. 
If, just like in the movie, finding a do
minating
‘
Master
’
to inflict pain
could somehow deliver what it overtly promised, it
just might
end up saving
my life.  Not that I was suicidal by any means, but living like
this
, wasn’t truly living at all.

I didn’t know if this would
work out on the first outing, or if I’d have to go on a series of ‘blind dates’ before I found
the man I believed was
the one
for me
.  A
nd even then, I had no idea how easy it would be to go through with it
.  All I
did kno
w was that I
had no choice left but to try
.  Every
thing else had failed me so thoroughly, this was
simply
my
very
last hope.

For the first week after I’d placed the ad, I found myself weeding through ridiculous responses.  I immediately tossed out any
emails
with
glaring
spelling or grammatical mistakes,
deleting them with a lightning-quick finger-stroke,
regardless of how handsome they were in their
attached photos
.  The kind of man I
required c
ould not just be meat, bones, and brut
e strength.  He would need to k
now how to control me, push me, pleasure me
.  And seeing as how seriously screwed
up I was, that was going to take a fair amount of
brains
.

Those whose pictures looked more than a few years old, I chucked in the
electronic
trash
-bin
as well.  The only reason
not
to
provide a fairly recent picture
was if you truly had something
hideous to hide; a receding hairline, a pot-belly, a flash of white, un-tanned skin around your ring finger indicating that you were currently married. 
I
certainly
wasn’t searching for perfection, and
I
could
easily
deal with physical flaws.  But honesty was absolutely crucial.

After that initial run-through, I then
disposed of all the
emails whose photos had backgrounds looking
too family-residential
.  You know, the house, the two-car garage, the dog, the cutesy neighborhood.  Those men were
probably
also quite likely married,
desiring
nothing more than the freedom to fool around.  And in that case, they were looking in the wrong direction.  There were literally
tons
of websites geared specif
ically for the casual, chicanery-type
cheater.  Besides, even if they weren’t
technically
married,
they were
surely
in the process of dealing with a recent divorce. 
There would be no oth
er conceivable reason t
o live in such a neighborhood - a place where each street screamed “suburban dad” - when something much more “bachelor-like” wou
ld be quite preferable for a man
in th
at kind of situation. 
I
don’t think I personally knew of even
one
truly
‘eligible’
man who lived out in the ‘burbs.  No – those guys
all stayed in tiny, sparse lofts, lived in high-rise penthouses, or shared a
n apartment with other single friends
in the city (depending, of course, on their individual financial situations).

There was another thing that bothered me about “dating” a man who had recently gone through (or was still in the process of muddling through) a
nasty
divorce.  For him, a great deal
of
his desire to dominate a woman could very well be little more than a direct result of his need
to take
his raging
vengeance
towards
his ex-wife
out
on a willing
and unknowing
substitute.  Thanks, but no thanks, I quickly decided.
  What I wanted, what I needed, involved so damn much
more
.

And
so it went:
all
of
this fastidious weed
ing-out of undesirables, leaving
me
in the end,
with
absolutely
nothing at all.  No o
ne passe
d my initial scrutiny; no one.

But then
,
on the eighth day, I
found
Adam
.

First, though, I had to go
through twenty-six other emails
just
to get to him.  Getting more and more disappointed by the second, I finally
got
down to the very last box. 
Hoping for the best, I moved my mouse over and clicked on
his message
, the subject of which
read simply
, “Your Ad”.  The letter was quite lon
g, and from the very first word
, the viciously
candid sentences
stabbed
out at me from the computer screen
like
sucker punches
aimed
st
raight to
the
soul.  Suddenly
seeming as if it
had come half-unhinged inside
my chest, my
oscillating
heart began to pound
faster and faster as I read:

I saw your post.  You’re not being
straight with yourself, or your
prospective applicants.
But that’s a common human flaw
for silly little girls
.

So,
then,
are you a silly little girl?

Or p
erhaps
it’s
nothing more than an innocent mistake; the culmination
of a complete and utter inability to see yourself
clearly
,
combined with the sad fact that
you have absolutely no idea what you really want.  However, regardless of the mitigating factors, you are
unintentionally
misleading
whosoever is
pitiable
enough to fall for your inane and rather ineptly-written lines.

Either way;
you need correction.

It is inexcusable
,
in my book, for you
to dance around the truth of what
you’
re honestly seeking,
couching your
carefully-constructed
prose with socially acceptable
mores and norms.  Hiding your true inner
character
, and p
retending
all the while that you’re not the twisted,
damaged merchandise that stares
blankly back at you from the mirror every
morning
and every
night
.

Here, I paused, feeling bilious anger rising in my chest.  Who in the fuck did this guy think he
was?  He was perversely
cruel
and cold.  I grabbed the mouse and moved the cursor up to the tool bar.  My finger hovered over the delete button.  I took two deep breaths.  I tried to push down on the little trashcan icon, but something inside me balked.  I couldn’t do it.  I simply had to see what the rest of the letter said.