Feeling the paddle before it lands is what unsettles me the most. Not the impact yet. It’s that one second before it, that absurd pause where I already know what is going to happen and still do nothing to stop it.
I find myself waiting.
And that is what I don’t understand.
Because it started as curiosity. Just curiosity. Reading, looking, going back again. Telling myself it was “just information.” But every time I return to it, the curiosity doesn’t stay still. It moves. It grows. It takes more space than it should.
And now it’s no longer just curiosity.
It’s physical tension.
As if the body is learning before I do.
When the strike comes, I don’t register it as pain at first. It’s more like a collision with reality. A “there it is.” A precise point where everything that was floating in my mind drops straight into the body.
The heat afterward is what traps me.
Not the impact.
The after.
That residue vibrating under the skin, as if the body is still reading something my mind can no longer fully interpret. I stay there, still, noticing how that area becomes too present, too aware.
And the worst part is that I don’t want to move away.
That is the contradiction.
One part of me should want to step back, close everything, return to before. But another part keeps looking closer. As if it needs to verify something. As if understanding depends on repeating it.
And in that clash, arousal appears, but not cleanly. It’s uncomfortable. Mixed with shame. With doubt. With the sense of “I shouldn’t be paying this much attention to this”… while I keep paying attention.
After the strike, I try to think clearly, but thought breaks apart.
“It was just an impact.”
But the body doesn’t write it that way.
The body writes it as a map. As a temporary mark. As something that still exists even when it is no longer happening.
And then the strange part comes:
the more I try to step away mentally, the more space curiosity takes.
It doesn’t shrink.
It expands.
And each return to the idea changes the shape of arousal. It doesn’t increase in a straight line. It becomes more complex. Harder to name. As if I no longer know whether I am remembering, imagining, or repeating.
And still, I continue.
I have to move the neck I am not moving it I should…
