I remember when we first met at Bridget and Brandon's going away party in Ottawa, February 2017. I had just moved back to Ottawa from Nairobi with my 9 year old daughter. You caught my attention because you were the loudest person in a room full of mostly Americans (which says a lot!) and you were regaling some younger marines about your heroism in Iraq. It sound like a very personal and traumatic experience that here you were sharing publicly at a party, I could definitely relate to that as I had just moved back to put a few traumas behind me. I was newly single. I had left my American husband of 4 years in Kenya for a variety of reasons but the main one being his inability to have my back in emergency situations. I had also just recently traveled back to Soweto to tie up lose ends and reconnect with my baby daddy/1st ex husband after about 3 years and we managed to work a lot of things out. 

I was single for the first time in forever. I had already been dating in Nairobi and it was a lot of fun, being that I was determined to never be tied down again. Friends (especially the unmarried ones) will often tease me about how I am always the one to look down on serious relationships because I just don't think they are for me and I think marriage is a tool of the patriarchy, also just an ancient survival mechanism to have a male protect you from a world full of potential rapists and scammers because women couldn't protect themselves, whereas I am already doing all the things a husband/father would do so why carry around dead weight? yet I was the one to get married twice, not for romantic love but for administrative/visa purposes both times, never willing to fully give up my sexual and emotional autonomy despite both of their insisting on it, because they were in love and I was not. they were also selfish in bed leaving me craving experiences with me at the center reaching my states of ecstasy which I knew I was capable of but had only caught glimpses of during heightened war time sex in South Sudan.  So here I was actively single and non-monogamous in my sexual prime, focusing on my one true love, my daughter and fitting in some casual sex when I had the time. So I looked you up on Facebook and sent you a message.

You replied. we chatted. you came over to my place for tea and we chatted in person. you were charming and interesting and a critical thinker, not too caught up in the trappings of western society or the belief in American exceptionalism, qualities that are rare in people generally. we didn't even had sex that first time but the chemistry between us was palpable, making me blush and demur every time we made eye contact. we continued to chat, you told me you get involved in anything because your posting in Ottawa would be done in the summer but we had a few months to hook up before you left. this was perfect for me. you lived close, you worked closer and I suddenly had more time to myself at home than I had ever had since becoming a mother.

At this time I was also exploring the BDSM scene. I am a very sexual person and I wanted to fully explore and expand my knowledge and interest in things like masochism, sub/dom relationships, anal, toys, squirting, making porn, fucking machines, group sex, sex in public, women and sex dungeons. I did. I would see you weekly and put that new sexual energy into the time I spent with you, which was quite the opposite and something I equally desired. you are such a generous  lover and would lick and caress  all the parts of me that had been batttered. You were never demanding or degrading, in fact the complete opposite of the other guys I was fucking. It was a perfect balance.