On the outside, she was perfectly normal; perhaps well on the positive side of normal. She was a loving daughter, sister and friend. She was loyal and honest in her relationships. She had a steady part time job waiting tables at a restaurant and she also attended college, taking as many credits as possible. She always paid her bills on time and kept her promises. She was fiercely independent. She had a strong work ethic and strong morals and values. Everywhere she went people liked her and wanted to be her friend. She was always happy to oblige.
Really the only odd or seemingly abnormal thing about her, aside from her occasional urge to dress in full gothic attire, was that she had often jumped from bed to bed, never keeping a steady boyfriend. She had enjoyed herself, yes, but she always felt there was something missing; something more that she could be experiencing, but it was always just beyond her reach. Her adventurous nature made her fun and exciting to be around, for she was always willing to try new things. She spent a lot of her time seeking thrills and new experiences, from new roller coasters to bungee jumping, traveling and meeting new people. She had a deep-seated, primal affinity for danger and taking risks. This probably had to do with the fact that every sexual relationship she'd ever had had some elements of danger and risk involved. On a subconscious level, she probably associated those elements with sex. And after all, was thrill seeking not just a search for sexual feelings outside of the act itself?
Sex aside, she always made a point to face her fears head on, by doing things that scared her for no apparent reason – except she privately told herself it was to make her a better, stronger person. Strength was probably the most important thing to her. However, it was a quiet, indirect power that she craved.
One night, she got into one of her famous verbal sparring wars with one of her friends. It turned into a physical, pushing and pinching match, ending with several bites and slaps. It was fairly normal for her to play fight with her friends like that, but this particular one ended a bit more roughly than usual. When she got home and stripped down in the bathroom, she saw the light bruises blushing her skin. She examined them and lightly ran her fingers over them, just enough to coax a little pain out of her nerves. The surge of power she felt as the pain reminded her of the strength she had shown shot a wave of pleasure through her limbs, making her knees tremble. She ran her hands over the marks again and again, sighing with what even she would have described as a disturbing mix of pleasure and pain.
Her hands drifted to other parts of her body later as she lay between the cool sheets, and as she peaked she made the first all-encompassing connection between pain and pleasure. She continued this for the next couple of nights, until the pain faded with the bruises. Eventually she began to associate orgasm with small doses of pain; not just physical pain. Emotional anguish was also exciting to her, and she would unconsciously think about painful things more than was necessary, to inflict this different type of discomfort onto herself. Discomfort, she believed, was the key to expanding your own personal comfort zone, and therefore gaining strength.
She had never really thought about the term "masochist" until her uncle made a comment one day, over a bowl of his famously spicy chili. "They say that people who love spicy food and eat it all the time are expressing masochistic tendencies. They say they like the pain of it." That comment really hit home to her, and she began to look at other aspects of her life in a new light. She thought about how when she was a child, in karate lessons, she would look forward to board breaking because of how it proved your strength. She also liked the sting of the skin after breaking one with her bare hand. After working out at the gym she would experience the same type of muscle soreness as everyone else. What she hadn't realized was that most people do something about it. They take a little medicine, soak in a hot tub, take Epsom salt baths, etc. But she would just endure the dull pain, sometimes pushing herself even harder when she was sore. Even when she had a perfectly legitimate reason, she would shy away from painkillers and drugs that dulled physical and emotional feeling. However, she had somewhat of a weakness for the types that heightened these sensations.
She had a definite thing for spicy foods, and her threshold of heat rivaled those of most men. She could handle the hottest peppers, the most robust Indian and Thai cuisine. As with everything in her life, she would push herself past her limits, knowing that the more she pushed, the more she would be able to handle next time around. As far as sex was concerned, she liked to postpone her orgasms as long as possible, almost finding more pleasure in the feeling of build up and suppression than with actual orgasm.
She focused on wanting things just beyond her reach, and this concentration undoubtedly made her aim higher and forge ahead towards her goals, but were all these things just ways of expressing her masochistic tendencies? And if so, what did this mean? Was she a freak? Did she need therapy? Could she indulge herself without harming her everyday life? The one thing that excited her about the fact that she could be a masochist was the idea that if she craved pain, then she was free of one of the most paralyzing fears in humankind. This, in her mind, gave her even more power.
