I barely slept last night.
Not because I was nervous.
Not because I was afraid.
Not even because I was aroused.
It was something worse.
I stayed awake trying to understand.
I do not like being submissive.
The sentence still feels true.
When I say it, I believe it.
When I think it, I believe it.
When I repeat it over and over while staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night, it still feels true.
I do not like being submissive.
And then the problem appears.
Because the more true that sentence feels, the less I understand everything else.
The less I understand the hours.
The less I understand the waiting.
The less I understand why I keep returning there.
I try to reconstruct the session as if it were an investigation.
As if there were some detail I had missed.
Something that would explain everything.
But every reconstruction produces the opposite effect.
Nothing becomes clearer.
The obsession simply grows.
I return to the first blows.
I do not remember which one was stronger.
I do not remember the exact intensity.
I could not reproduce it.
But I remember the intervals perfectly.
The first four.
The distance between them.
The pause.
The next pause.
The Master’s breathing.
The way the air entered and left his lungs.
The way that rhythm seemed to organize everything else.
I remained motionless.
Already adjusted.
Already placed exactly where I was supposed to be.
I had no task.
I had no decision.
I had no function.
I only had to wait.
And the more I analyze that memory, the more unbearable one question becomes.
Why do I remember it more clearly than things that should matter far more?
I do not remember entire conversations from last week.
I do not remember what I ate three days ago.
I do not remember many things that should be important.
But I remember that breathing.
I remember the intervals between the first four blows.
I remember the sensation of waiting for the next one.
I remember the stillness.
I remember the waiting.
And that feels deeply depressing.
Because it does not feel like a choice.
Sometimes I tell myself that all of this will disappear.
That I will stop thinking about it.
That distance will do its work.
But the opposite happens.
Every day adds definition.
Every day removes noise.
Every day leaves fewer things behind.
Until sometimes I feel as if my memory is performing a selection process.
Discarding entire fragments of my life.
Preserving only that.
The breathing.
The waiting.
The stillness.
The sensation of being completely adjusted.
And then the thought appears that I try hardest to avoid.
Perhaps I am not trying to understand the session.
Perhaps I have spent weeks trying to return.
And I call understanding something that is actually longing.
That would explain many things.
It would explain why no answer ever feels sufficient.
It would explain why every analysis ends in exactly the same place.
It would explain why I am still awake.
Staring at the ceiling.
Repeating that I do not like being submissive.
While part of me continues listening to a breathing that is no longer there.
Waiting for blows that have already ended.
Waiting inside a room that no longer exists.
I have to move the neck I am not moving it the neck has locked I should…
