Jim was physically gentle, and generally kind. He thought I worked out just to boost my sex appeal though, so he didn't want to work out with me. This was in Toronto. He lived in a disused canteen truck he had a parking spot for, in a gravel parking lot behind a huge liquor store. I forget how I met him, but he was short, cuddly, clean, neat, and he didn't recoil when I told him I had herpes. I never had an outbreak other than the two times I was freshly infected, with two different strains, from two different men. But at the time, I believed it was only a matter of time before I got an outbreak. Turned out not to be true.
I was living in a homeless shelter, and would drop in on Jim. Sometimes he wasn't home, and I would eat his vegan dry food, and wouldn't be able to stop. Raw almonds, dates. Once I went up onto the canteen's roof, and handed almonds to a family of raccoons that would climb onto the roof from the overhanging trees. I used to read his books on fasting, mucous free diet, etc.
When I asked him to come work out with me up on the train tracks, he declared that I only did it for superficial reasons. He'll never know how hurt I was by that statement, because I wasn't very verbal at the time. I was like a wild animal. I used to get high from running on the tracks in the dark, with Echo and the Bunnymen on my Walkman. I don't know how I never tripped. I would run to the canteen. I loved Jim. But I could sense his guilty feelings about me seducing him. That was emotionally off putting, because it painted me out to be a corrupting influence on him. Big turn off. It made me want to avoid him.
So one day I was in the canteen alone, and his friend Peter shows up. He invites me to the forest nearby. I take him up on it, and we work out in a playground. I admire his build, and healthy drive to work out. He takes me to his apartment, near the top of a high rise. The place is completely cluttered. I help him clean it up. Then we go to bed, and he says he has to smoke pot before having sex. I figured being seduced by another man would relieve Jim of my bad influence, so here I was, plunging in. I don't remember if we actually ended up having sex or not. If we did, it must have been hum drum.
I moved in with Peter, and started working temporary jobs in factories. One day, I rearranged the contents of the fridge, and when Peter saw, he was incensed, and demanded I go through the courtyard to the all night supermarket and buy fresh eggs, because now that I'd rearranged the eggs in the fridge, he didn't know which ones were stale. It was 2am, but I went, and instead of taking the elevator back up, I decided to get some exercise and climb the stairs. I come out of the stairwell, and guess who's sitting in the common hall sulkily glaring at me? He says "You took the stairs? I'm waiting for you and you take the stairs?"
He grabs the dozen eggs and flings them against the wall. We ended up cleaning it that night, before anyone saw. He threatened to throw my clothes out the window. When a friend of his showed up the next day, I announced I was leaving. The friend called me a Princess Dianna. I felt sorry for him, having Peter as a friend. Peter surprised me, by giving me $25 to ease my transition. I went to a women's shelter.
Another time I was with Jim, my ex boyfriend Charlie showed up, while I was going to school and living in a house owned by the school. The ex pushed seduction on me though I made it clear I wanted to stay monogamous with Jim. After having sex with him, he bugged me to pose naked for him to take pictures. He'd tell me how to pose, insisting that he knew what men wanted to see. It just felt awkward, and when I saw the developed photos, I wasn't impressed. I looked unhappy and enslaved, and not well treated. Neglected. Dismissed. Laughed at. A doormat. Is that what men want? Apparently some think they do.
I think I saw Jim ride by Charlie and I on his bicycle. I felt it was a shame that Charlie had come and surprised me from Montreal, and clearly I had trouble standing up to him. I'm confused about the timeline, but I guess I went crawling back to Jim when Charlie left to go back to Montreal. I can't remember the timeline.