December 18, 2017:
We were close then.
Relaxed in a booth, eating cheeseburgers, reading Fielding and Bukowski aloud to one another, laughing our asses off.
We'd had sex a few times in the past, but our physical relationship was interrupted by my long relationship with the first woman I was ever in love with. When that ended we picked up immediately where we'd left off.
It was sweet. She was very kind, and very beautiful, and we felt comfortable in our books and our humor and our kinks.
She changed. A disastrous love affair left her embittered and controlling, determined never to be powerless in her own life ever again. She began giving orders, for example, "You'd better come over right fucking now." With predictable results. You can't give me orders.
I dropped her and our friendship basically ended.
She married a mutual friend. Named their son after another mutual friend. Joined a cult, not because she wanted to be told what to do but because the exactitude of the rules meant that when others behaved unpredictably she could quote chapter and verse to tell them what to do. She evolved from a cult-like university to a political cult to a strict traditional religion upon whose cultic paraphernalia she strictly insists.
In the handful of times we've seen each other after university she's behaved toward me with aggression, including specific acts of sexual harassment that #MeToo would be quick to label.
I loved her before her heart was broken.