Daddy Issues

Awakening

Steve and Aleksandra messaged each other for hours every day. Mostly the conversation was about what she had been doing - her morning routine, her long mornings in bed, what she was going to eat. The mundane details of her life fascinated and enthralled Steve. With every story, every fact, he felt like he was getting to know her, getting to understand exactly the person she was.

It was those details you'd only know about someone if you lived with them that Steve really enjoyed discovering. When they were in a long chat he'd begin to recognise her snacking habits, her toilet routine, the ebb and flow of her mood.

Aleksandra told Steve about every stage of her monthly cycle. He wasn't use to this openness. In his world, talking with a woman about her period was taboo. To begin with he wasn't sure how to react when she would tell him that she could feel something churning around inside her body, a movement through her tubes. He was always startled when she would interrupt the flow of their messages with the comment "I'm just gonna go change my pad. BRB." He'd always avoided any kind of sexual contact with his wife when she was menstruating, and they never spoke about her periods. She'd hide her box of Tampax away, and go to bed and close the door when she had bad cramps. This aspect of her life remained firmly behind closed doors.

Aleksandra's openness about the intimate details of her body and her subtle changes of mood awakened something in Steve. He felt like he was getting to know a woman for the first time. All these details had been hidden from him in his marriage. He really felt like he understood Aleksandra in a way he had never known his wife or his daughter. More than that, he felt like he was beginning to understand women. He now appreciated the extent to which a woman's monthly cycle determined everything - her moods, her sexual appetite, her choice of clothes, her sociability, her hunger for food even.

Steve felt closer to Aleksandra than he'd ever felt to his daughter or wife. Her openness, her trust in him, and her need for Steve to share in every detail of her life made his head spin.

From the moment they started chatting Steve noticed that Aleksandra would frequently put choices to him. "Should I get up now or have another 10 minutes in bed?", "Should I have tea or coffee?", "Would it be better to shower before or after my breakfast?"

What she was doing, though subconsciously, was giving up some element of control over her life to Steve. She wanted to share her life with him, but more than that she wanted him to influence the course of her life. Even if it was only over small things, she found that giving control to him made her relax in his company. She was trusting him, but more importantly signalling to him that she wanted to give up more and more control of her life to him.

Steve understood what was happening. He recognised her need to bring him into her life. He understood that she was submitting to him, in small but significant ways. It excited him to think where this would go. What other aspects of her life would she give control over to him? What other details of her life would she share? How much trust would she ultimately have in him? He began to think of himself as the tattoo artist, indelibly etching his influence onto her delicate vulnerable life.