First

A warning - there will be no preamble. This is going to start where my thoughts are now, I have no desire to write up the backstory. Love it or leave it, that's the way it's going to be.......

When I was with Him I felt a strange ownership, but only while he was sleeping. When he was asleep I used to watch him and feel strangely territorial - I'd find a freckle, a rogue chest hair, a scar and I'd think - they're mine, for now at least they belong to me. And I'd feel strangely proud, a sense of accomplishment. As if by lying there with him I'd already achieved something. But then just as I could feel my hand creeping out to claim ownership of what I'd already considered mine for the past few years without him even knowing, I'd remember where I was and who I was with ... and I would bring my hand back.

I've never really felt like that with anyone else. I never felt the need to own anybody before - I didn't want to be theirs and I didn't mind that they weren't mine. But with him, there was an almost physical yearning to own him, to keep him, to hold the exclusive rights. Maybe it's the old cliche coming true - I wanted what I couldn't have. But I'm not convinced by that. I don't think having him would have lessened it, it just would have made it easier. And harder too perhaps - I'm not niave enough to have not realised that there was a certain amount of projection happening. That the reality may well have fallen short of the fantasy.

I think that's why I've been so dissatisfied with everyone since. I miss that sense of ownership. For the first time in my life, I want to own and be owned. I want to take possession of someone, every flaw, every mark, every success and I want that sense of pride. I want to belong to someone too. That's what was missing with Him - he didn't want to own me. Next time, I want the ownership to be a two-way street.