There is something I never talk about.
Not even when I’m writing for myself.
Because it seems too small.
Almost ridiculous.
After I orgasm, I always check the time.
I don’t know when that habit started.
It just happens.
Breathing still uneven.
The room completely still.
And me staring at my phone screen.
As if I were waiting for confirmation.
A few weeks ago something strange happened.
I finished.
Picked up my phone.
Checked the time.
11:17 PM.
Nothing unusual.
I left it on the nightstand.
Went to the bathroom.
Drank some water.
Came back.
The screen was still on.
11:17 PM.
I remember thinking the device had frozen.
I touched the screen.
The time changed immediately.
11:24 PM.
Seven minutes.
I don’t know why I keep thinking about that.
It means nothing.
I know it means nothing.
And yet I keep returning to it.
There are stranger things.
The silence, for example.
Nobody talks about that.
Everyone talks about desire.
Arousal.
The buildup.
The moment before.
Nobody talks about the silence afterward.
That silence has weight.
Not metaphorical weight.
Actual weight.
I feel it physically.
As if something leaves the room.
Or as if something arrives once everything else has gone.
I still don’t know which possibility disturbs me more.
When I first started reading about dominance and submission, I told myself I was looking for intensity.
It sounded reasonable.
Comforting, even.
I repeated it for months.
I like intensity.
I like exploration.
I like understanding things.
A lie.
Or not the whole truth.
Because the more I read, the less interested I became in pleasure.
And the more interested I became in something I was embarrassed to name.
Anticipation.
Not the act.
The waiting.
That moment when nothing has happened yet.
But you can no longer pretend it won’t.
I remember one particular night.
Open window.
A distant car passing outside.
Blue laptop light.
I was reading something harmless.
An essay.
A reflection.
Nothing explicit.
And suddenly I had to close the screen.
Not because I was aroused.
Because I recognized myself.
The feeling was so brief it almost vanished.
But I caught it.
Like a shadow crossing a room.
I remember thinking:
I’ve known this before.
That thought frightened me more than any fantasy.
Because it didn’t feel like discovery.
It felt like memory.
Since then one sentence keeps returning.
I don’t know where I read it.
Maybe I never did.
Maybe I invented it.
The sentence goes:
“Nothing appears for the first time.
There is only the moment you recognize it.”
I try to ignore it.
It doesn’t work.
It appears while I’m working.
Walking.
Waiting in line.
Always at the wrong moment.
Three days ago I found a note inside one of my books.
The handwriting was mine.
That was the first thing I checked.
My handwriting.
My notebook.
My page.
And yet I couldn’t remember writing it.
Only one sentence.
Nothing else.
“Stop asking why you’re interested.
Ask why you’re trying not to be.”
I stared at those words for several minutes.
Not because they were profound.
Because they seemed addressed precisely to the person I am now.
As if someone had arrived earlier.
As if someone knew I would end up here.
Since then I’ve reread the note too many times.
More times than I would admit.
More times than make sense.
Yesterday I even took a photograph of it.
I didn’t want to lose it.
This morning I looked at the picture again.
The photo was there.
The sentence was there.
But I had completely forgotten taking the picture.
Not the day.
Not the week.
The moment.
A perfect gap.
A clean absence.
And I’ve been thinking about that all day.
Not the sentence.
The gap.
The missing piece.
Because I’m starting to suspect the problem was never desire.
Or orgasm.
Or curiosity.
The problem is that I keep finding evidence that some part of me arrived before I did.
And I don’t know how long it has been waiting.
The note is still on the desk.
I’ve moved it three times.
At least I think I have.
Right now it’s beside the laptop.
Although I could swear I left it near the window.
It doesn’t matter.
It probably doesn’t matter.
What worries me is that I’m no longer sure I want to check.
The door is still open.
And for the first time I don’t know whether I want to walk through it or find out who opened it.
I have to move my neck…
