I shouldn’t be readingA this again.
That was the first thing I thought when I opened the page.
The same page.
The same photograph.
The same discussion of people talking about dominance and submission as if they were describing something completely ordinary.
I closed it.
I remember closing it.
I got up to make coffee.
When I came back to my desk, it was open again.
I probably left it open without noticing.
That’s what I told myself.
The strange part wasn’t finding it.
The strange part was feeling relieved.
As if some part of me had expected it to be there.
I started reading again.
Not all of it.
Just a few paragraphs.
Then I checked the time.
Then my history.
Then the photograph.
Then the photograph again.
Not because it had changed.
Because I needed to make sure it hadn’t.
There’s something embarrassing about that.
Not the content.
The checking.
Two weeks ago I barely knew anything about this world.
Now I find terms that feel familiar before I can remember where I learned them.
Words I somehow recognize.
Scenes that feel like memories even though I know they aren’t.
Sometimes I open an article convinced I’ve never read it before.
Then halfway down the second page a sentence appears.
And suddenly I know exactly what the next one will be.
Not because I’m reading it.
Because I’ve already been waiting for it.
That’s the part I don’t like writing down.
Curiosity was easy to explain.
Curiosity is clean.
You discover something new.
You want to know more.
This doesn’t feel like that.
Last night I opened a tab to search for one specific thing.
I ended up with seventeen tabs open.
I counted them.
Then counted them again because seventeen sounded ridiculous.
There were still seventeen.
I don’t remember opening half of them.
There’s a gap between the original search and the moment I realized I was reading strangers’ experiences at two in the morning.
I don’t know when it happened.
I can’t find the exact moment.
The sequence has a crack in it.
All I know is that every time I think I’ve reached the limit of my interest, another question appears.
And the question is never about them.
It’s about me.
Why I keep reading.
Why I keep checking.
Why part of me seems disappointed whenever I find a rational explanation.
Today I tried not to open anything.
I left my phone face down.
I shut off my computer.
I went for a walk.
Everything perfectly normal.
But during the walk I kept thinking about a sentence I’d read that morning.
It wasn’t even an important sentence.
Just an ordinary one.
Still, it came back once.
Then again.
Then again.
By the time I got home I already knew I was going to look for it.
I knew before I sat down.
I knew before the screen lit up.
And I think that’s what embarrasses me most.
Not the curiosity.
Not the arousal.
Not even the contradiction.
But the feeling that something inside me had already made the decision several minutes earlier.
As if I always arrive late.
I just closed the last tab.
I’ve checked three times to make sure it’s closed.
I’m trying not to check a fourth.
My neck I should…
