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A
Wicked Witch offered me a Poisoned Apple, and I took a Bite
By
Sensuous Sadie
SensuousSadie@aol.com
www.sensuoussadie.com
Taking things personally makes you
prey for predators. They can hook your attention with one little
opinion, and feed you whatever poison they want. Refuse to eat poison!
~ Don
Miguel Ruiz in
The Four Agreements:
A Practical Guide to Personal
Freedom
Today I had a scary experience. I received a series of anonymous e-mails
from a person who claimed to be close friends with a Dominant I'd dated
some time ago. This person had a lot of things to say about my
relationship with Rex, a lot of hurtful and even cruel things. Perhaps
Rex had confided in a moment of pain, or perhaps it was just a
conversation overheard. After the first letter, I deleted the rest of
the without reading them and blocked the e-mail address, but it was too
late. I began to have doubts about everything Rex had said and done with
me – even to his telling me he loved me. This anonymous stranger had
offered me with the poison apple of gossip and I'd taken a greedy bite.
I later discovered that the anonymous writer was one of Rex's former
girlfriends, one who had stalked him until he got a restraining order.
Clearly, she's not quite the bosom buddy she pretends to be. In fact, it
took only a few inquiries to hear many and sundry stories about her
outrageous behavior. She is one of those bad seeds of our community who
got booted out of a local BDSM group for outing several people, among
other horrifically bad behaviors.
This story is not really about her however, because sadly there are
unbalanced people in every community. This story is really about me, and
how I allowed her to seduce me with her juicy apple of inside knowledge,
despite my confidence in Rex as a decent guy. One of the important
things to remember (for me most of all) is that when people are in pain,
they sometimes say really hurtful things. Heck I'm pretty sure I said
some nasty things about Rex when we split, and heck he probably said
some nasty things about me too. Pain surely makes us vent unfairly
sometimes. More than that though, I recognized that somehow she had
become privy to some things which I'd rather have remained between him
and me, and that maybe he even betrayed my trust. Hard to tell though.
Now you might be wondering right about here why I found this gossip so
seductive. The truth is that it affects the part of my heart that's a
little tender to the touch. In a general sense it's titillating to have
the inside scoop on someone else, or at least to think you might. But
more importantly, I was drawn in because I was ever so hungry to know
something, anything about Rex. I have long wondered what happened with
us and where he is now, and this anonymous writer pretended to have the
very thing I wanted. So when she offered me that little bit, I couldn't
help but listen. Had I not been so hungry for information already, I
would have laughed off her kooky letters and gone on my way.
Now I've pretty much processed my way through this and there's been no
harm done. But I do want to highlight the very real damage that can
happen from cruel gossip of this sort. What really hits me is that this
woman isn't the only person who's ever carried tales to me, and what she
had in common with all the others was anonymity. It's easy for people to
tell you unkind things when they don't have to take responsibility for
hurting your feelings, and nearly all the unkind things I've ever heard
about myself came from anonymous sources. Not once have I received an
anonymous compliment, which pretty much tells me that cruelty works best
when it's cloaked. The real problem with this shadowing of the messenger
is that just like in the game of Phone – where something is whispered
around a circle of people and comes out completely different – that
there is no way to validate what agenda the gossiper has. So not only
could the things this woman told me about Rex be entirely invented, but
one can only guess her motivations for invading both his and my private
lives. I don't know what all she wanted from me, and I can only imagine
that she is perhaps still infatuated with Rex and sees me as a
continuing threat. Silly of course, but she wasn't exactly listening to
reason.
In a way, I had come upon knowledge that I really should never have
heard, and this took me back to when I read the Chronicles of Narnia
books as a child. In the third book of the series, The Voyage of the
Dawn Treader, the protagonist Lucy slips up to a forbidden tower
room to sneak a peak at the Magicians Book. This mysterious tome
was full of spells for everything from toothaches to taking a swarm of
bees. After browsing the book for a while, she came to a spell which
would tell her what her friends thought about her, and she whispered the
spell before she could think twice and possibly change her mind.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
And all at once she saw the very last thing she expected – a
picture of a third class carriage on a train, with two schoolgirls
sitting in it. She knew them at once. They were Marjorie Preston and
Anne Featherstone. Only now it was much more than a picture. It was
alive. She could see the telegraph posts flicking past outside the
window. She could see the two girls laughing and talking. Then
gradually (like when the radio is "coming on") she could
hear what they were saying.
"Shall I see anything of you this term?" said Anne,
"or are you still going to be all taken up with Lucy
Pevensie."
"Don't know what you mean by taken up," said Marjorie.
"Oh yes you do," said Anne. "You were crazy about her
last term."
"No, I wasn't," said Marjorie. "I've got more sense
than that. Not a bad little kid in her way. But I was getting pretty
tired of her before the end of term."
~~~
"Well, you jolly well won't have the chance any other
term!" shouted Lucy. "Two-faced little beast." But
the sound of her own voice at once reminded her that she was talking
to a picture and that the real Marjorie was far away in another
world.
(from The Voyage of the Dawn Trader, by C.S. Lewis)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Soon after Lucy finished reading book of spells, Aslan the Lion, who was
a wise and loving friend, came in to speak with her. He chastised her
for eavesdropping on her friends, even though it was through magic,
saying "Spying on people by magic is the same as spying on them in
any other way. And you have misjudged your friend. She is weak, but she
loves you. She was afraid of the older girl and said what she does not
mean." Lucy realized then that because she had seen and heard
something she was not meant to, that not only would she not ever be able
to forget having heard it, but that she had spoiled any chance that she
and Marjorie had of being friends again.
I thought of this story because I have not only heard something I
shouldn't have from this wicked witch of bad intentions, but I allowed
it to enter my bloodstream through its sweet juice. I allowed her to
make me see something that I was not meant to. And perhaps like Lucy, I
may have spoiled any chance that Rex and I will ever find closure.
Perhaps it was already spoiled and I just didn't know it. I hope not. In
fact, I hope that by writing about her I will purge the taste of that
toxic apple from my lips and cleanse my soul of any remaining hurt that
her cruel words brought to me. I will close that Magicians Book
and walk away from that tower room with my hands sunk deeply and safely
into Aslan's fur, just as Lucy did when she recognized her mistake. On
the way I'll toss that apple out the tower window to the north winds,
and continue down the stairs with a lighter step.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sensuous Sadie is the author of It's Not About the Whip: Love, Sex,
and Spirituality in the BDSM Scene. Read an excerpt at http://www.trafford.com/robots/03-0551.html.
She is the founder and leader (1999 - 2001) of Rose & Thorn,
Vermont's first BDSM group. Comments, compliments and complaints, as
well as requests for reprinting can be addressed to her at SensuousSadie@aol.com
or visit her website at www.sensuoussadie.com.
Sadie believes the universe is abundant, and that sharing information
freely is part of this abundance, so she allows reprints of her writing
in most venues.
Copyright 2005 Sadie Sez Publications
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