I Guess I Never Knew

I Guess I Never Knew
by Matt for Cat, May 2001

Copyright by Matt Anglen et. al. 2001 - please do not copy, distribute or re-post without permission

That first night, I didn’t worry. Cute, I thought - she set this up for a night she’d be working. Ah, well... interest never sleeps, she’ll have this to pay for as well. I smiled at her bravado - not even content with getting herself in over her head for burning the cane...

I seem to remember expecting that she would show up just when I would have to choose between putting her off and being late for work - had she planned that, too? Did she know this was a morning I would need to be on time? I had shaved and showered with a smile at the thought of her sailing in at the last minute, so pleased with herself. I wished I could make a quick change, and beat her at her own game, surprise her by announcing that no one was expecting me until ten... but then she didn’t sail in at all, did she?

When my meeting was over, I had expected to find a message from her... one of her favorite tricks, waiting until I was safely tied up at work, and then calling to admit her latest indiscretion... I checked all of my e-mail accounts and phone mail, repeatedly, then obsessively... If she’d gotten stranded somewhere, she still should have had access to her e-mail, I was thinking - though maybe she hadn’t wanted to say anything too obvious from a place she might be seen. But we had enough secret phrases between us, didn’t we? Just the phrase “I’m sorry” led to very predictable results - a thought that brought another smile to my face, the last I would have for quite some time...

By evening a nameless worry, the worry of the unknown, perhaps? was nagging at me. I called out hopefully when I came through the door, I looked through the house, I checked the kitchen, the table, and the desk in the den for a note. The answering machine did not hold any answers. My e-mail filled with offers for credit-cards and Viagra...

For three days I jumped between being on line and keeping the phone line open, cursing myself for having never put in a second line... some confusion over cell phones, voice mail - and my usual procrastination.

That wasn’t when I knew - oh, I had known. There was a tidiness I had tried to overlook, an absence small personal items that had only existed on the edge of my perception. Ominously, what she had left behind were things I had bought for her - I had the idea that some of those things she had brought with her were no longer here, and maybe they hadn’t been thrown away...

So I had known for some time before I first started thinking about it... forced myself to want her to be gone and safe and happy, not lost and hurt and out of touch... I had always wanted her to be strong, wanted to help her feel secure in her independence - shouldn’t I be happy now? Then why am I crying?

It would be unfair to say she was afraid - that is the wrong place to start. She was so brave! But she knew, or she had learned, or had been unwillingly taught, that the world could be a dangerous place, and that someone who wanted to give and give had to be strong - stronger than those who would just take and take. What did I always tell her? “I won’t punish you anywhere near as badly as the world would for the same thing...” Now I wanted to scream “It was a game! A game, that’s all!”

Her cell phone doesn’t answer. I don’t leave another message. My e-mails don’t know what to say - “I’d like to talk with you?” That’s code for a caning. “All is forgiven?” What if she doesn’t think its my place to forgive, this time? What if she’s gone because I never let her know how important she is to me, while she never failed to tell me how important I was to her?

I remember being a teen, on an intolerable family trip... a fast-food stop at the junction of two interstates. Stick out my thumb and disappear forever, I thought - a million square miles to look for me... but she’s done me one better, she could be anywhere in the world... her friends work in distant cities I never quite bothered to keep straight... it would be easy for her to arrange to stay far from here for however long she chooses to...

Is she alone? I have seldom met a person who could be so alone as she can... has she stepped across the country and I am the only one who knows? Do all her on-line friends think she is still in front of a screen in the den?

Or has she found someone else? Someone with a better balance of support and discipline? Which did I give her too much of, or not enough of? There is an easy question - did I have to be so hard on her? Did I have to break her every time I punished her? Sometimes I think yes... I would punish her so hard that we had to refer to all of the other spankings as massages... our massage board... our massage belt... a hand massage... mmmm a tongue lashing...

But punishment, that was different. She wanted to stand up to me, to show that she was stronger - as if she could win against a cane, and in that position! She wanted to show that she could take more than I could dish out - that she was strong enough to face the world without fear... that she could give without reservation... and I always chose to show her that she wasn’t...

How strong would she have to have been? To comply with “more arch to your back, turn your heels out. WELL out...” in a bored, annoyed tone... to endure that “third stroke,” where I would release my hips and spring my full weight and motion into a single thin line across her proffered buttocks? The sixth, and ninth, and twelfth, put in the crease where she could least ignore it? And the fourteenth, if she had earned it... my cruelty of waiting until I sensed that she had planned a trip to the bathroom just before announcing a session, so that she could suffer - or beg to exchange the luxury of relief for extra strokes or some unspeakable depravity...

And how many times did I fail to break her? Once. My regret compounds itself a thousand times at the thought... one time, when I knew I would have her back in position in less than 48 hours, I let her think she had beaten me... two nights I had let her go to sleep thinking she had won... and then in the morning the phone had rung and the trap had sprung as neatly and as surely as a complicated dance step, many time rehearsed. Oh, how she had hated that session! Her eyes, her grimaced jaw held as much true hatred as they did mere anger... Had I been the least bit merciful? Had I been the tiniest bit generous? Or had I merely been pleased with myself for how well I had orchestrated the whole thing? Perhaps her absence is the answer to those questions...

Her work - I could go by there, wait around, look around - for what? In hopes of having a public, humiliating scene? Her family, our friends - I hesitate to let them know that I don’t know where she is. I’ve told her I want her back, now I must leave the choice to her...

I am struck by two facts - one, how little I do alone. How many of our activities were just an excuse for changing the locale of our being together... And two, how little our paths cross. Without conscious effort, I may never see her again, not even incidentally or coincidentally...

Has she found someone else? Does he fill more of her needs? Or just not know that she has them? Does she need to be free of me knowing her so well? Does she think I judge her and find her wanting? It was a game!

How do I say the right things? How do I remain the person she wants me to be, and yet tell her how much I have come to need her in my life? Or has she decided that the only way I can remain the person she needs me to be is for me to remain, while she moves on? Shouldn’t I be willing to do that for her?


It was the ruby that she wore
On a stand beside the bed
In the hour before dawn
When I knew she was gone
And I held it in my hand
For a little while
And dropped it into the wall
Let it go, heard it fall

I guess I never knew
What she was talking about
I guess I never knew
What she was living without
People speak of love don't know what they're thinking of
Wait around for the one who fits just like a glove
Speak in terms of a life and the living
Try to find the word for forgiving
You keep it up
You try so hard
To keep a life from coming apart
And never know
The shallows and the unseen reefs
That are there from the start
In the shape of a heart


(from “In the Shape of a Heart, Jackson Browne, 1986)