The Collar

But not like the rings I keep tucked in a special box in my jewelry drawer:  my engagement and wedding rings.

Those are different.  Those are symbolic.  I don’t wear those anymore.

I don’t have a collar like that.  I never have.  Almost did, once.

This is the story about that one:

I always wore red nail polish.  She wore blue.  Whenever he got us a similar thing, I would get the red, and she’d get the blue.

She had a lot of insecurities.  Most of them were based on a lack of self worth. The angry part of me would tell you that her self-worth was probably right where it belonged, though at the time – I tried to convince her otherwise.

She started doing things….little things at first, to undermine my relationship with him.

He kept letting her.  He kept catering to her insecurities in such a way that our relationship (his and mine) would suffer.  Cancelling plans on me regularly. Changing our dynamic to please her. Subscribing to her near-constant emotional manipulation.

There was more.  Stuff I don’t want to get into because it’d bring up memories I don’t want to re-live and put him in a very unfavorable light.  He’ll read this.  He’ll agree:  he behaved very badly toward me, and he regrets it.  He’s asked for and received my forgiveness.

He’d told us he was getting us something special.  I can’t remember if I figured it out or if he told us point blank that he was getting each of us our own collars.  I was excited, because I’d never been given a collar before that meant something.  All the ones I had were freebies or accessories.  Costume pieces.  I’d wear them with him when we played, and I was attached to wearing them – but I wasn’t attached to THEM.

The last weekend we spent together, all together, she’d come over to our hotel room and unpacked her overnight bag.  She laid out, in the closet – on a shelf where it would be very visible – her corset, a leash, and …

A brand new, red leather collar.  He’d given it to her earlier in the week when they’d spent some time alone. He said the blue one was on back order and hadn’t arrived yet.

She known I’d seen it.  She’d known I hadn’t received mine yet.

I withdrew.  I was so upset. That was her intended result.  I left the room and went and sat by the hotel pool for over an hour. That was her intended result, as well.

He came up, eventually.  I told him how it felt seeing it.  How it looked as though he’d given her my collar because her insecurities had flared up when the red one had arrived and the blue one was on back-order.

He kept insisting that wasn’t what had happened.  That he’d intended for me to get the blue and her to get the red, contrary to the color-coding system we’d used for virtually everything in the short time we were all on the same continent simultaneously.

I couldn’t believe him.  There had been so many previous lies and manipulations he’d participated in, that the trust between us had been broken. No matter how often he swore to me that was the truth, I could never believe him.  I still don’t.

We broke up by the end of that weekend.  The blue one had come in a few weeks later.

I never received it.  That’s probably best.