We all have a first love, but some leave marks that go deeper than we realise at the time. Emma was mine.
She wasn't my girlfriend. In fact, she made a point of telling me that she never wanted to be. But we kissed, shared beds, whispered "I love you," and tangled our lives together in ways that felt far more intimate than friendship. I was utterly besotted with her when I was nineteen, and even now - decades later - her influence lingers in a way no one else's quite does.
Back in 2012, I wrote about Emma - bitterly, confusedly - at a time when I was just beginning to wake up to who I really was sexually. I didn't yet know I was submissive. I hadn't named the desires that had been silently shaping me for years. But I was on the cusp of that realisation, and Emma, whether she intended to or not, had been the one to nudge me toward it. What follows is a version of that 2012 journal entry - edited for clarity but left mostly in its original emotional tone - alongside the reflections I'm only now able to see clearly.
> I met Emma at ASDA, that's where I was working in my late teens/early 20s. I loved Emma, I really loved Emma - so much that I wondered if I'd ever love anyone as much ever again. Maybe I haven't and never will...
Even now, that line stings. Not because I'm still in love with her, but because I remember just how deeply I needed her. I didn't yet know what it meant to crave control, denial, attention, or the electric thrill of being told what to do. All I knew was that Emma made me feel completely absorbed - held in orbit around her, and powerless to escape. What I thought was "love" was more than that. It was the first real expression of my submissive self.
> Emma was never my girlfriend, we were just friends. Friends who kissed a lot, shared a bed (and a little bit more). We spoke on the phone every night, we saw each other most days... we both used the line "I love you" and meant it...
The confusion in that paragraph says everything. I didn't have the language then to understand that intimacy and dominance don't always come packaged in a traditional relationship. Emma didn't want to be my girlfriend - not because she didn't care, but because something about that label didn't serve what she needed. And what she needed, though neither of us could have articulated it, was control.
She created a dynamic that blurred boundaries, because that's how she maintained power. She let me close enough to worship her, but never close enough to feel equal. At the time, I found that maddening. Now, I recognise it as the essence of the D/s dance.
> She treated me like the psycho-bitch from hell... but I couldn't walk away from her.
Reading that now, I laugh - not cruelly, but knowingly. That "psycho-bitch from hell"? She's every submissive's dream. She bit, scratched, teased, humiliated me. She made me beg for attention. She played mind games I didn't even realise were games at the time. Back then, it felt chaotic and painful. Now, I understand it for what it was: unstructured, intuitive dominance.
She wasn't cruel - not in a sadistic, heartless way. She simply wasn't finished becoming herself. Just as I hadn't yet found the courage to say, "I want to kneel for you," she hadn't yet figured out that she wanted to be knelt before.
> She gave me so many mixed messages that it's no wonder I don't understand women now... I have no ability to grasp whether a girl is just a friend or if she thinks more of me...
I used to see this as a flaw in myself. A kind of social blindness. But now I see it differently. I wasn't confused because I was emotionally broken - I was confused because I was interpreting intimacy through the wrong lens. I was trying to navigate conventional courtship when what I was actually responding to was power, not affection. I wasn't misreading the signals - I was tuned to a completely different frequency, and no one had told me it even existed.
> There's no way that I made it through the Emma-era without having part of my confidence ripped from my soul...
That line hits hard - and it's still true, in a way. She did damage me. But she also shaped me. And I've come to see those two things as connected, not contradictory. Emma didn't just take something from me. She revealed something I didn't know was there. She showed me the kind of desire that would come to define me.
What hurt most wasn't just the denial of a "relationship" - it was the lack of recognition. Not just from her, but from myself. I didn't know what I was giving her, or what I wanted in return. I just knew that her control lit something inside me. I'd have done anything for her - and did.
Today, I'm in a long-term relationship with someone who isn't dominant, and while I'm happy and fulfilled in many ways, there's a part of me - a quietly kneeling part - that remains untouched. And I find myself thinking about Emma again. Not because I want to rekindle anything, and not even because I think she was the "one that got away." But because she saw me before I saw myself.
Unintentionally, and without the safety nets we now associate with kink - consent, negotiation, aftercare - she introduced me to submission. She drew it out of me slowly, like pulling a thread from cloth. And even though it was messy, confusing, and sometimes painful, it was also transformative.
Looking back, I don't think she was cruel. I think she was a young woman with power she didn't understand, and I was a young man giving away mine without knowing why.
She didn't just break my heart. She woke it up.
