They say subfrenzy is enthusiasm dressed up in a kinky cloak, that it brings out a desire to try everything, but E and I were to enthusiasm what teacup rides are to roller coasters. I didn’t have a desire. I had a compulsion, and it dripped sex all over my days. It was an addiction so overwhelming I thought I’d developed a new pathology.

Thoughts of kink crept into everything I did. My world melted in the heat of him and turned into a rainbow. Nothing was what it had seemed to be a month before. Who was I now, and what had happened to my sexuality?

I wanted belts and hogties and restraints now, and now, and now. I wanted to do all of everything: Anonymous sex, beatings, rope, chainsfloggersmagicwandsbenwahballs but mostly, I just wanted more–of anything. It didn’t matter what.

That’s when he started enforcing short spells of celibacy. It was the only way to tame me, and what better torture was there under the circumstances?

You can wriggle out of that kind of scenario. You can wear the chiffon blouse. You can “accidentally” forget your underwear. You can rest your lips on his neck just so. You’re innocent, you swear it. He’s still the dom in your relationship. Oh, yes, he is.

With E, power exchange became power struggle, and he didn’t win. I didn’t win either. Frenzy won.

A chemical reaction happens when something breaks the bonds in-between atoms. E had broken my bonds. He was the first man to accept every part of me because he was the first to hear all my secrets. Complete acceptance set me free, not just sexually, but emotionally as well. Subfrenzy was just the thrill of finally being my authentic self.

There was no way to find balance when everything was dipped in sex. After E and I broke up, I thought I’d lost a one-time deal, but then I realised he wasn’t its source, only the catalyst. He had prepared me for a new kind of future and proved that I was inherently acceptable. I was okay, and that’s a lesson I carry around with me every day.