I do not remember the first time I read about it.
I try to find that moment.
I always end up finding an earlier one.
That is what unsettles me.
Not the strap.
The feeling that I arrived late to my own curiosity.
In the literature of the Marquis de Sade, the most persistent objects are rarely the most complex. Sometimes a rough surface is enough, a texture that refuses to disappear completely. Abrasive straps function as a metaphor for that persistence. They do not transform the body through a spectacular event. They do so through the repeated friction of something that continues demanding attention.
Perhaps that is why I keep thinking about them.
Because they do not create interruption.
They create verification.
The skin is still there.
The memory is too.
A few days ago I rested my forearm on an old wooden table.
Nothing remarkable.
Just a rough surface.
Yet I remained there for several seconds longer than necessary.
Not because it felt pleasant.
Not because it felt unpleasant.
Because I wanted to check something.
I still do not know what.
In the Sadean imagination, friction often becomes a form of record. It does not necessarily leave a visible mark. It leaves a reference point. A place to which attention keeps returning.
That is what I find strange.
The texture disappears.
The table disappears.
The reading ends.
But the need to check remains.
I keep telling myself that I am interested only in the symbol.
What is strange is that it becomes harder and harder to remember when I started returning to verify it.
My sleeve brushed against me as I stood up.
It was only a brief contact.
So brief that it should not have meant anything.
And yet I waited.
I remained motionless for a few seconds.
As if my body were expecting a continuation.
A second friction.
A repetition.
Something that would confirm a sensation that was no longer happening.
I looked at the fabric.
Then at my arm.
Then at the wall.
I found nothing.
Yet a strange impression remained.
Not pain.
Not even discomfort.
The impression that something had been left open.
Like a question that never fully formed.
The lime room remained unchanged.
The same cracks.
The same dust.
The same accumulation of mineral silence clinging to the corners.
But I had the feeling that the room was returning something to me.
Not an answer.
A trace.
I went back through old folders.
Notes.
Screenshots.
Forgotten photographs.
Not because I was looking for information.
Because I expected to find a different explanation.
As if the meaning had changed while I wasn’t looking.
I found a saved image.
I do not remember downloading it.
The strange thing was not finding it.
The strange thing was recognizing it immediately.
I knew exactly why it was there.
I knew exactly what had caught my attention.
I even knew what sensation it had produced.
But I could not remember deciding to keep it.
I kept staring at it.
Waiting.
I did not know what I was waiting for.
Perhaps proof that I was mistaken.
Perhaps a date.
Perhaps a simple explanation.
None appeared.
Only another question.
Then another.
Then a third.
Why do I keep returning?
When did I start returning?
How many times have I returned without remembering that I already had?
The rough surface stopped being important a long time ago.
Then the friction stopped being important.
Then the sensation.
Then even the mechanism itself.
The only thing that remained was repetition.
The strange accumulation of traces.
The suspicion that attention continues working during my absence.
At first it was curiosity.
Then it became research.
Then a question.
Then I no longer knew what to call it.
Normally questions disappear once they are answered.
This one doesn’t.
Every answer seems to generate another layer.
Another sediment.
Another mark.
Another piece of evidence that the story began before the point where I remember entering it.
I found a sentence underlined in an old note.
I do not remember writing it.
It said:
“The contact was never the center.”
Nothing else.
No context.
No explanation.
I read it several times.
I still do not know whether it was describing something.
Or trying to warn me about something.
Because perhaps it was never the friction.
Nor the surface.
Nor the sensation.
Perhaps it was always this return.
This need to check again.
This persistent suspicion that something changes when I stop looking.
I have to move my neck.
I am not moving it.
I wait to find the exact instant when it begins.
But whenever I think I see it, it has already happened.
Sometimes I think the same thing happens with memories.
And with questions.
And with photographs.
And with notes I do not remember writing.
I keep saying that I am only trying to understand it.
My neck I am not moving it the pressure in the inguinal folds…
