There is something embarrassing about admitting this.
I do not remember when I started paying attention to boots.
I remember returning.
That part I remember.
At first they were just a detail hidden among pages, illustrations, and notes.
Nothing important.
Or so I thought.
Then I started checking.
I would finish a chapter and go back.
Not to reread the scene.
To verify whether they had really been mentioned.
In Sade’s literature, boots often appear as something more than clothing. They become a sign of position. An ordinary object that seems to absorb part of the authority of the person wearing them.
What is strange is that the object itself does not disturb me.
The return does.
The need to check why I keep noticing it.
One night I found an old note among my papers.
It contained only one sentence:
“The boots appear again.”
I did not remember writing it.
I stared at it for several seconds.
Then I opened the book once more.
Not to find an answer.
To verify whether the feeling was still there.
It was.
Perhaps that is why boots work so well within the Sadean imagination.
They do not need to do anything extraordinary.
They remain still.
Resting on the floor.
Covered by a thin layer of dust.
And yet they seem to contain the promise of something that has not happened yet.
Or something that happened before I began paying attention.
I keep telling myself it is only curiosity.
What is strange is that I need to verify it more and more often.
I have to move my neck.
I am not moving it.
The strange part is not that.
The strange part is that I was already waiting to return.
It wasn’t the image.
At least that’s what I thought at first.
That it was the leather.
The buckles.
The impossible shape of those boots that looked more like architecture than clothing.
But it wasn’t.
Because I closed the browser window and they were still there.
I got up from my chair to make coffee.
For a few seconds I expected to feel something strange.
As if I had forgotten to remove a weight I had never actually worn.
The cup was cold when I came back.
I couldn’t remember letting that much time pass.
I’d been reading for weeks.
That was all.
Reading.
Articles.
Forums.
Fragments of books.
Old conversations where people seemed to be talking about something else while talking about exactly that.
I kept telling myself it was curiosity.
And it was true.
What was strange was not understanding why the curiosity kept growing after I had already found answers.
Normally questions disappear once they’re answered.
This one didn’t.
Every answer seemed to open another door.
I looked at the photographs again.
Not the extreme ones.
Not the spectacular ones.
The other ones.
The boring ones.
The ones showing someone simply standing still.
Motionless.
Covered from thigh to ankle by a rigid structure that seemed to deny something as simple as bending a knee.
I tried to understand what I was actually looking at.
It wasn’t immobility.
Not exactly.
It wasn’t authority either.
Not even obedience.
It was something harder to name.
The feeling that someone had decided to stop negotiating with every movement.
And I couldn’t understand why that idea kept returning.
I closed the page.
Opened another.
Returned to the first.
Not because I needed more information.
Because I expected to find a different explanation.
As if the meaning had changed while I wasn’t looking.
Was I interested in the object?
Or in the reaction it produced?
I wasn’t sure.
Every time I thought I was getting closer to an answer, a new contradiction appeared.
I said I wanted to understand.
And that was true.
But I was starting to suspect that understanding wasn’t exactly what I was doing.
The room remained silent.
The monitor light was the same.
The cup was still on the desk.
The coffee had gone completely cold.
I checked the time.
More minutes had passed than should have.
I thought about closing everything.
About stopping.
About giving my attention to something else.
I didn’t.
And that was beginning to feel more interesting than the boots themselves.
Because the question was no longer what they meant.
The question was why I kept returning.
I need to move my neck.
I’m not moving it.
I wait to notice the exact moment it begins.
But when it arrives, it has already happened.
Maybe that’s how it always works.
Maybe I’m not trying to discover what I see when I look again.
Maybe I’m trying to discover when what I see stopped being important.
And when returning became the important thing.
I have to move my neck I am not moving it…
