A little background

A little backstory on myself, E, and B.
B and I met in high school and became best friends almost immediately. We were pretty much inseparable, constantly having sleep overs, hanging out in between classes, all the silly shit high school girls do.
Her family ended up moving away during her senior year, so we parted ways promising to keep in touch, though we never really did until years later.

 Meanwhile I stayed in town, finished up high school and started some college. I wasn't going full time, I was just kind of dicking around until I figured out what I wanted to do in my life.
I met E when I was 19 and we started dating. He was...well, he was different. Not conventionally handsome, but sweet in an awkwardly weird way. He broke my heart, but we'll get there.
We dated for around a year or so, and make no mistake, he was very good to me. He was just very...I suppose 'uppity' would be the word, but not in an elitist, entitled sense, more of a "I've read a lot of self-help books and am therefore wiser than you in the ways of life" way. I think almost everyone has met this type, and they can be incredibly ingratiating.  I remember he didn't have a car when we were dating, and it was awkward that I drove him everywhere. I've always kind of been into gender roles.

He was a few years older than I was, and I really did adore him. I looked up to him, and thought that one day we'd be married. He was sent to Iraq with the first waves of troops we were sending over after 9/11 happened, and I missed him terribly. I wrote to him all the time and he wrote back often.
I went to visit my sister in another state when he called me one evening. He said he'd met another girl online, and that he'd never really seen himself marrying me, anyway. This girl, though, this K, she was something. Her brother died in Iraq. She'd lost a leg in a horseback riding injury. She was interesting in a way I was not. He was dumping me. I got dumped from another country (oddly, this was not the last time this would happen).

After that, I was completely devastated for a while. A very long while.
I decided to stay at my sister's place a while longer, and while I was there I met someone. We ended up moving in together and I got a job, and thought maybe I'd work things out. E2 was much older than I was at the time. I was around 20 when E and I broke up, E2 was 34. I don't honestly know what I saw in him when I look back, he was a raging alcoholic and drank so often and so much that he would wet the bed. Every. Night.

The breaking point with E2 was when he got incredibly drunk one night, and hid upstairs because he thought I was cheating on him.  In his stupor, he pushed me down a flight of stairs. The next day I moved out and went over to a friend's house. I stayed with her until I met a charming young lesbian and we went back to her home state together. Things didn't really work out there, so I eventually went back to my home state. That was my first actual lesbian relationship. I'd fooled around with other women before, sure, but never actually dated one. She was insane. Incredibly jealous, demanding, needy. I honestly felt like writing an apology to men after dating her, and I do like to think it helped make me a bit more understand in my hetero relationships.


After I got back home, I kind of ended up in a polygamous relationship. I met a guy, he was in a relationship, we three would hang out quite often, and he kind of brought up it one night. Everyone was comfortable with the situation, and we were a trio for around a year or so. Eventually I outgrew the relationship and moved on, but I do still remember them fondly. My life sometimes takes very weird turns, but I regret very little.

Anyway, B eventually found me on the internet and we began talking again. We did a lot of catching up, and found out we had both changed considerably. Still got on quite well, though, all things considered. I had just moved out of the polygamy house and into my own quiet little place. She had gotten back into the area and was staying with some work friends with whom she really wasn't getting along, so I offered her my spare room. She moved in and we got along quite well, for a while anyway. We would often go and visit E, who was also back in town and newly divorced. It turned out that K, the girl he was so in love with and dumped me for all those years ago was a pathological liar. She never had a brother. She did not lose her leg in a horseback riding injury. While they were married though, she did pack her leg in dry ice so it would have to be amputated. She thought if she lost a limb, E would never leave her. He didn't. She ended up dumping him for a migrant worker. I only wish I was making all this up right now.

So that is pretty much what happened up to the time B and I started working "the job", as we called it.
I know this was a lengthy read and probably not sexy at all, but it will help you understand the things to come.