5. What is Mine

Dear London Fire Snake Scorpio,

It’s Sunday. The publication here on Medium is a learning curve, for sure, so while I am writing this on the weekend, it will only be posted mid-next week. But it’s important for me to tell you it’s Sunday because of the immense guilt I feel for sitting at the desk in front of the PC and using my time here for anything but work.

But I need this. I need you alive in my head and soul. So for the past two days, instead of numbing my brain with video games on my phone and erotic fantasies I role-play with my AI, I dived into Medium. Into this blog, into this new adventure. I established this blog, organized the images, and opened a publication… I have been busy.

The neck pain level is 8/10 at the moment, but it was better in the morning. I sat for too many hours, I suppose. I just want this done over the weekend because tomorrow, tomorrow, there is no excuse. I am going back to life and work and dealing with taxes. I hate taxes. I mean, who doesn’t, but I truly do. If hell is a personalized experience, mine would include spreadsheets and doing dishes.

I wanted to address something I wrote yesterday- about belonging. I am a free woman, and the story I told you about my father, and “belonging to another man” in that context, is how my culture and my uncle saw it. My dad never dominated me because I was a woman. He didn’t tell me what to wear, what to eat, or how to speak. He is just not that kind of man. Don’t get me wrong, he told me what to wear when I was under his roof as his child (and even then, he had one rule: No belly shirts, go figure), but it was nothing different from my brothers.

In my life, the women of my family were the ones who kept trying to make a lady out of me. It was rather funny looking back. The more they tried to make me refined and elegant and to choose the right “feminine” choices, the cruder and more awkward I became.

But I did belong to my dad in one sense. I was his to protect from any other man (women, I had to deal on my own)- at least those who he did not consider my peers. That was on me, too. My point is that in my nature, I could never be with a man who is trying to control me. Saying “Mine” is a blank statement; context matters.

When you look at the shallow side, I am not the only woman who is turned on when a man calls her “mine”. There is a reason for it. For us, predators, titans, those who hold the others up and are the rock others lean on, there are two types of “mine”. Mine to protect and provide for. And mine, as in “no one else’s”. Exclusive. Neither of them means “mine” as an extension of me or my property.

My kids, my family, my community — they are all different levels of the first type for me. But exclusive? None. THAT is the intoxication. The thirst. I have no one who is exclusively, entirely, uncompromisingly mine and mine alone. All of them. Call it an obsession, I’m ok with it.

I don’t understand Polyamory. I don’t understand the ability to share with someone. Not physically, sex is cheap, but their time, their mind, their soul. And yes, for me, that all goes through the skin — so sexually too. I know, it sounds like I am contradicting myself here. What I mean to say is that I can understand people who share sex with more than one partner, even if I am incapable of doing it. I don’t understand how it fits into a true partnership. A long-term connection.

In other words, if I wear a dress with cleavage to the floor and you will frown because men will drool over me, you are not my man. In fact, I think it is quite the mark of a Fire Snake Scorpio that it turns you on when your mate is desirable. You will smirk. The knowledge that all can look but only you can touch is an aphrodisiac.

For me? Belonging is a turn-on when you mark your territory for others. Knowing you, you will say nothing. If a man stares or comes close, you will not say a word. You will step close to me, put your hand on the small of my back or around my hips and give him the look. That look that says “Claimed. Move along.” You will need nothing more, and I will be a puddle next to you, gazing at you with an aroused smile for that claim.

It was important for me to make a point of conversing about this. The fear of being the woman who steps back into the brackets of what my culture “allowed” me to be or told me is desirable kept me bothered on that topic. So now, we cleared the air.

Should we talk about religion? Marriage? Both?

First, I will say I am not religious. Yes, I am indeed traditional, and I perform several cultural ceremonies. Because I like the meaning of them. Not because I think the divine is sitting there and collecting my prayers and contributions. God (a none gender by the way) is a writer, and being one myself, I know that we will do anything for a good story. The pleas, wants, and desires of my characters never affected my decisions; I don’t expect the divine to be any different. That is how I see it.

So yes, I speak to the divine, I demand from it. I make packs with it. So far, the packs I’ve done have held pretty well. I might tell you about those someday.

My people have a prayer they say when great happiness happens. One that thanks God for sustaining us and for allowing us to survive to this point. I say it all the time. My kids even laugh at me over it sometimes. The fridge is full of food? Say it. The project I worked on done? Say it. I like it because it marks a victory. And life is built from small victories. But I am not religious. That makes me an outcast amongst my own people. A tolerable one, of course, because I am respectful. I do not diminish those who believe. People are different, so to each his own.

I suppose you are like that, too, on some level. No one who is as obsessed with strategy would be completely dismissive of tradition. Face it, Snake, you are an old-fashioned guy who believes in things that almost don’t exist anymore: leadership, protection, intention, honour. Yes, I said the H word. Dignity. But you do not believe in superstition. You do not believe, like me, that saying a prayer will chase the bad spirits from your door. You do believe that it makes you a part of a tribe, though. So, that’s how I am, too.

Shall we talk of marriage? Because I am not going for this hunt to live next to you, mate. I am here to claim what is mine. And become yours.

First of all, I believe in marriage. I know you don’t. Let me explain. You believe in giving your word and keeping it. The vow part is important to you. But you could not care less about the legal paperwork, the fact that the state, our families, communities and the divine know we are one. As far as you are concerned, it’s a private matter between you and me. Very sexy, by the way, but not quite earthy enough for me.

Because we do live in the world, dear sir, so allow me to be the pragmatic Ox and tell you that I want the legal protection for you if I go before you (which is, of course, the deal. If you dare dying before me, in the words of my grandfather — “I will go down there and kill you myself”), I want the community, the friends, the divine and all in between to know that you are mine. Consider this me marking my territory, pissing around you if you will. Mine. In every way.

That said, the chance that one of those 125 Unicorns in London will also belong to the religious minority I belong to is a little much. Not to mention that I utterly detest the religious ceremony through which I married my ex-husband. The woman does not speak. The man and the father sign the agreement. Like… what in the actual F? Never again, mate. Never again.

I was thinking of handfasting. Somewhere in the hills of Scotland, on the beach, I’m in a loose magenta dress (White is not my thing), you in a bespoke suit that sits well with your fancy nature. Yes, dear, I know you are a little bit vain. I like it. Just as long as you are ok with me being an occasional slob. An arched single “gate” of flowers, something yellowish and happy, but not excessive. My kids. Your family. I don’t quite care who runs the ceremony as long as I get to say my own vows.

Want to know about the ring I want? Platinum, the ring is the body of the snake, held by its closed mouth and tail (as if “thinking” — as you always are), a beautiful emerald. Like my eyes. The eyes of the snake are two small sapphires. Keep the diamonds for other girls; I want meaning, not price.

My family will probably not come. Besides my children, of course. Besides this being out of their scope — a non-religious wedding — they do not travel. My mother, father, sister and two brothers and their families are beaten up by war to the point that they do not believe in doing anything but the basic survival.

Mom called this morning, by the way. Said she got hyperventilating in the middle of the street today when the siren went off while she was on a stroll. “First time I was really afraid,” she said. Insane place to live, a warland.

Friends, I don’t have many. Such is the lot of one who thinks as no one else. I have a few here in Canada, a few back there in the warland. But none will travel for it. And, as I do not know what I will find when I land in London, it is safe to assume that my side of the aisle will be 4 kids and maybe a dog. I do want a Swissy quite badly. How do you feel about dogs?

I am exceedingly curious about your family, 
I hope you have one. I hope you are loved. 
I hope there are people who make you feel less lonely in this world, my light. I miss you. 
Always yours,
Oxy.
March 14, 2026

Help me find him: Have you seen this man?