Weekend Trip to the Inscrutable

How long has it been? One hour? Two hours? Three hours maybe? After she had tied me up, the blonde girl had leaned down and whispered: »Good night, bitch. Enjoy your anguish.« She had switched off the lights and closed the bedroom door behind her. How much time had passed since? I have no idea. I hope three hours have already gone by, but I fear it’s only one. Maybe even less. I know how the internal time stretches the more I want it to pass quickly.

We measure time in units of periodic recurrent processes. The rotation of the earth. The swing of a pendulum. The only such level process in the room is Andy’s breathing. But my breathing is fitful and strained. It drowns out the calm breathing from the bed. The other noises in the quiet bedroom are erratic. There are my sighs when I try to find a more comfortable position. Then there are the louder grunts of frustration and pain. They happen less often than the sighs, but I can’t hold them back altogether.

Finally, there’s the clatter of the chain links that bind my ankles to a ring at back of the belt around my waist. My elbows are pulled together behind my back. They are not touching, but the gap between them is not wide and my shoulders had taken a lot of strain today already. My wrists are fastened to the sides of the belt around my waist. I squirm like a fish out of water to find a slightly less uncomfortable position. Clack. Clack. Laying on the side is not less uncomfortable, so I return to laying on my stomach. Clack. Clack. Maybe it’s better to lay on my back? Clickety-clack. It’s not better. Clack, clack, clack, clack. I grunt loudly. I’m holding my breath but the breathing from the bed continues, apparently unaffected by my misery.

Being »allowed« to share a room like that is not a privilege, but only additional torture. I need to sigh, I need to grunt, I need to move around. But at the same time, I’m afraid to do either of it. Not because I’m afraid of the punishment Andy had heralded if I disrupted his sleep. I don’t want to disturb my torturer. His comfort, his undisturbed sleep is important to me. My agony is inconsequential. I get angry at myself for not being able to control myself.

Again, I’m wondering why, when and how I had developed this propensity for suffering. I remember a story my mum had read to me. It must have been at an early age, preschool at least. I don’t remember the details. It was one of those »dragon captures girl, prince rescues girl, and they live happily ever after« fairytales. I was disappointed when I learnt that the dragon kept the girl imprisoned in a cozy tower room. A girl should be kept chained up in the deepest cell in the dungeon, immured if necessary. That’s how it’s done. Every child knows that. I started playing captured girl in my parent’s basement.

»Stop making noise, fuckhead!«

I must admit, my last grunt had been loud. Every muscle in my body hurts. Even worse, in this bondage my tortured tits are being pushed against the ground. The »ground« in this case is a bedside rug. But what sounds comfy and cozy is just the opposite. The rug looks like an oversized crochet blanket. It’s made from some hard and sharp-edged plastic. Who has ever stepped onto an interlocking plastic brick your kid had left on the floor gets an idea of how laying on that bedside rug felt. I’m sure that thing was not there for any aesthetic reason but as a torture device in disguise.

How much time had passed since the blonde girl had switched off the light and left the victim in her agony? When does Andy wake up on Saturdays? I know he can’t sleep in often because of work, but he’s not a natural early bird either. What if he wanted to get a full night’s sleep? I can’t take this for another couple of hours. I yelp constantly now; I just can’t stop it. The chains clang.

»Okay, that’s it, you rude uppity piece of cunt trash!«

Andy jumps out of the bed and storms out of the bedroom. No, he just opens the door, grabs my hair with one hand and the bedside rug with the other. He yanks me and the rug towards the door. I scream in pain.

»I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!«

»Oh, shut the fuck up!«

Andy drags me across the floor like a heavy sack, completely unfazed by my hysterical screaming. Finally, he lets go of my hair, turns toward the bedroom, kicks me hard against the upper body, just under the rib cage, and slams the door shut behind him. I’m alone. I sob uncontrollably. I’m in so much pain. I’m broken. I’m so disappointed by myself. It takes quite a while before I calm down a little, before my sobbing peters out and I return to sighing and grunting. At least I can do this more carefree now.

After my divorce I dated a few »normal« men. I was lonely after I moved to Europe. Most men don’t date single mums. Those that do are kind and compassionate. At least that my experience, based on a rather small sample size. Unfortunately, that’s just the opposite of what I need. It felt just wrong. The sex was unbearably boring to me. One of the guys truly adored me. The more he tried to make me happy the more I drifted away. Finally, I decided to talk about my needs for submission, degradation, and pain. He listened carefully, nodded, smiled, said I shouldn’t worry. He always wanted a woman like that he said. But what he meant was a little slap on the bum. What he meant was calling me ›his sweet little slut‹ teasingly. When I told him what *I* meant he was shocked and dismayed. »You mean you seriously want me to hurt you? I can’t do that. I love you too much to do that!«

That seemed strange to me at first. That guy was prepared to do almost anything to make me happy. Except for the one thing I felt I really needed. He couldn’t do that because he loved me too much. But then I realized it was not strange at all. Our ideas were irreconcilable. I wasn’t asking for kindness or compassion. I wasn’t asking for happiness. I wasn’t asking for love. I wasn’t asking for roleplay. I was asking for somebody to seriously hurt me. I wasn’t asking for make pretend. I was asking for abuse. Somebody who truly loved me really couldn’t do that.

Andy had kicked me hard. He had lost control and hurt me in a fit of rage. That’s abusive, right? Can anybody understand that I’m happy about that? I’m not here to get to know Andy. I’m not here for a relationship. I’m here to get a need fulfilled. I’m taking advantage of Andy. He makes me feel he genuinely likes to torture and degrade people. He makes me feel he genuinely doesn’t care about me beyond the body that experiences physical pain and the mind that experiences psychological pain. We take advantage of each other. We are both broken in compatible ways. We’re psychopaths in the eyes of everybody else but a perfect match for each other.

I’m smiling as I type these sentences, almost two years after the events. I’m smiling as the Japanese nipple clamps bite into my sensitive nipples. It wasn’t easy and we had our crisis moments. But I remember the feeling I had in this moment, laying naked and bound on a torturous surface, absolutely helpless, in severe pain: This is what I always wanted. I found somebody who was able to give me what I need because he doesn’t give a fuck about me. That’s not entirely true. Andy cares just enough to do what’s necessary to minimize the risk of permanent damage. That’s enough for me.

I slip into blissful agony and agonizing bliss. I scream from pain and happiness. I cry from pain and happiness. Time passes and the pain gets worse, and the happiness explodes. I want it to stop because I can’t take it for a single moment longer. Yet I don’t want it to end, ever. My words are incapable to express what I feel. In fact, I’m losing my words. I’m losing the ability to think. I’m just a body in pain. Just meat. Wincing in agony. Helplessly restrained. But what’s left of me feels liberated and free like never before.

The euphoria wears off a little bit. I’m excited and exhausted at the same time. There’s no window in the hallway and it’s pitch-dark. I have no indication at all of the passing of time. Is it dawning yet? I finally drift of into a very light sleep and back to semi-lucidity. Even if time moves slowly, it can only move into one direction. This night of suffering will end at some point. But the suffering will not, and I’m looking forward to the days and nights to come.