As I walked down the upstairs hallway of my parents' home, I heard a noise from the guest bedroom--a sound I recognized--a feminine gasp of pain.
Turning, I saw that the guest bedroom door was slightly ajar. It was Frederika's room--the foreign exchange student who'd been staying with my folks, attending school and working on her English.
I stepped closer, and saw her--a slender young blonde, sitting topless on the edge of her bed. She held what appeared to be a pants hanger up in front of her, and she'd just clenched one of the clips over her left nipple.
Taking up the other clip, she squeezed it open and fed it her other nipple, her pretty face twisting in agony as the teeth came together. She released another little groan of pain, then reached down and took up a string, using it to tug lightly on the makeshift apparatus. She glanced down, biting her lip, at the table beside the bed, and I realized she was recording herself. How interesting.
I stepped quietly into her room, closing the door behind me. She looked up in alarm, her eyes wide, but I made an easing motion, gestured toward the camera, then leaned casually against the door jamb, nodding for her to continue.
Glancing back down at the table, she gave the string another little tug, whimpering with the pain, but released the pressure almost immediately, biting her lip and giving the camera a frustrated glance.
She looked back up at me. With an almost pleading expression, and said, "I do this thing for my friend."
Carefully keeping my posture non-threatening, I took one step toward her and said, "Your friend?"
"My friend boy."
"Your boyfriend," I said, and shifted a half step, not quite directly toward her. "Your boyfriend likes it when you feel pain?"
She nodded, then looked back at the camera and said, "The pain. We like it, yes."
"You both like it?" I asked.
She looked back up at me, her brown eyes connecting with mine, and said, "I like it."
I nodded and said, "You like it, but your boyfriend usually does it to you...you don't do it to yourself...."
"Yes, this is..." she glanced back at the camera "...problem...."
"Would you like some help?"
Biting her lip, she said, "Yes, please."
I stepped closer, and she held the string--dental floss, I saw--out to me. Ignoring it, I took hold of the hanger's hook and pulled up sharply, bringing Frederika to her feet with an agonized yelp of surprise. With my other hand, I adjusted the camera to keep her in-frame.