This is the last part of my story. I want to thank you for indulging my catharsis, and hope you at least enjoyed it as well.
Part 5
They say that chronic pain can actually rewire the brain, that it reroutes neural pathways as the brain tries to adapt to the incessant sensation. My brain, however, has not been able to adapt to the pain of my broken heart. The heart I broke all on my own, all in a moment of petty jealousy.
I spend most of my Saturday languishing in bed. My tears have dried and my anger has fizzled into this hatred of myself. Hatred for the part of me that became the green monster, for listening to those insecurities and destroying what had hardly even begun. Worst of all is I think I have done this on purpose. Something in me cowers away from the deep end of my feelings, it flits on the surface looking for pleasure when I'm dying for more. Starved of the life-saving element I need most.
Sex is one thing, love is another. I know I want sex, I want bodily fulfillment. Then I knew I wanted to have sex with Damian, and only him. Which therefore means I only want to be with him; i.e. monogamy, commitment, living together. Consolidating lives, marriage. Why wouldn't I want that? Don't I want that?
Supposedly, unexpected results occur when you don't truly ask the right question of the study. If you asked why is the sky blue, only to be answered by the statement that the earth orbits the sun, you clearly got sidelined. And that is what I've done. I began an experiment that addressed what I thought was the problem, only to realize I was pursuing the solution to something else. Except my solution became a new problem that I don't really want to face.
The world is oblivious to my sulking that lasts through the rest of the weekend and into my workweek. My pride won't let me text Damian, it can hardly stand to glance at his name in the Contacts of my phone. There are fleeting moments where the green monster tries to muster up some indignity that he has not contacted me, but it won't hold. I know I was wrong and it cuts deeper than any wound I could self-inflict.
As each day passes, the more I wallow. On Wednesday, my supervisor introduces the lab to a new employee: a man close to my age, fairly attractive, sociable. After the obligatory handshake and name drop, he hovers around my work station, trying to keep a conversation going until I make an excuse to walk away. My senior coworker sees me skulk away and she gives me a sympathetic look; she knows I'm missing my motorcycle rider. I leave work thinking perhaps I should try to capitalize on the new coworker's interest, to accept that my experiment is over and try to forget Damian. But every night my sleep is fractured and filled with dreams of him. Dreams where I am forgiven and he returns to my bed, alternating with nightmares where I futilely beg him to come back.
The next day, my new male coworker is pleasantly friendly and I'm cordial in return. But I don't feel anything that resembles attraction or desire, and I won't pretend. If the experiment taught me anything, it proved that feelings cannot be imitated. I can fake an orgasm all I like, but I can't fake desire for someone.
Later that night around 10:00 pm, I get a call from an unknown number. I don't answer it, assuming it's probably spam, and they leave a voicemail. I listen to the message: ten seconds of silence until the very end. Just before the caller disconnects there is the sound of something clicking or snapping. Like the sound of a lighter flicking perhaps, or some other small item that snaps closed. I listen a few more times, certain my mind is playing tricks on me when I think I can hear the slightest exhale of someone's breath, just before the snapping sound. My mind even imagines that the snap sounds like the little gold pocket watch that Damian wore, the one he'd snap closed at the end of our sessions. Except, I can't justify why he would call from an unknown number, and why wouldn't he say anything. It's false hope grasping at phantom straws.
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Friday returns with a crushing reminder that it has been seven days since I last saw him. Seven days since he angrily held me, his fingers threatening to sink into my flesh, to find my weak and hungry spaces and fill them with his rage. Part of me wishes he had done just that, to take out his rightful anger by hurting me. But that's not who he is. I have underestimated him, underestimated what he felt. I can still recall the wounded look in his eyes before he stormed out of my building, and I can't fathom how to face him again. Not that it matters when he hasn't contacted me and I don't expect he will. A silent punishment for my penitence.
I go home from work and ignore the glittering blue helmet as I hang up my jacket inside my hall closet, tucked up on the shelf like a pair of shoes I won't wear but can't dare return. To distract from my miserable Friday evening, I scroll through an uncaring internet full of nothing, a voyeur in the virtual lives of my superficial friends. I have nothing to share and nothing to say about myself other than my pitiful state of unhappiness.
As the hours progress, my fingers itch to go somewhere I shouldn't go. But I can't help myself. I eventually sneak onto the website for the Dungeon, knowing it won't help, knowing it will only tempt me to be pathetic. For a moment, I consider starting this experiment over. Maybe I should try this with another Dom. My body didn't respond to Eric's feeble attempts because I'd already had lackluster results with him. Maybe a new Dom would be able to stimulate me?
Sure, Siena. That sounds like a great idea. A great fucking way to get even more screwed up.
I shake my head and bleakly laugh at myself. No, another Dom isn't going to fix this. Nobody else can replace Damian. I know this, my body knows this. I could watch volumes of porn and nothing would get me off faster than the memories of what he did to me. How he did things to me... From this moment forward, anytime I touch myself, I'll remember how his fingers made me feel. I'll remember how he grinned when he knew I was dying to come, how he teased me with every kiss and caress.
Sleep comes agonizingly to reinforce my heartache when I dream of him again. We are standing in his room of pain, I'm naked and still bound in ropes that he is slowly untying. Round and round his hands unbind me, graceful strokes across my skin. His fingers uncoil the constrictive pleasure that I don't want escape from, a bondage that holds regardless of the restraints. The last measure of rope falls to the ground and he pauses. Just as before, he curls one hand around my hip, simply holding me. I feel him lean in, I feel his lips brush against mine. And suddenly, he disappears.
I wake up just as devastated as I was the day he ran off after our kiss. The memory is so potent, a sweet drink of his affection swiftly swallowed up by the grief of his rejection. But the memory reminds me of another powerful feeling that sustained me even back then. He kissed me. He wanted me. Until that fateful session, there were no other words between us, no confession of what I felt other than the agreement that I trusted him to punish my body. To give me something that no one else could because he knew I could find pleasure inside myself.
Shuddering, I take a breath and squeeze my eyes shut. I refuse to cry anymore when I remember that he kissed me first. Somewhere, that truth remains. Even after I destroyed what we had.
Eventually I crawl out of bed and shuffle around my apartment doing chores. I finally throw out the last of his wilting flowers, a rugged pair of carnations. I was amazed by how long they lasted, as long as I refilled their water daily. The rest of my apartment is haunted by memories of him wherever I look: his handsome ghost cooking in my kitchen, grinning at me from my dining table, teasing me as I stand at my kitchen sink.
I remember how my mother wanted to sell our house after my brother died, and my dad argued against the impracticality of it and the cost of moving. I sort of understood why it bothered her, but today I fully grasp the painful echoes of a person who once existed so vibrantly in your life.
As I'm berating my emotional insecurity and the inability to control myself, I continue to think of my mother. I think of how many times she lectured me about being responsible and taking care of myself. Things like keeping track of your bank account and paying your bills. She never told me that I needed to keep track of the people I cared about, that I needed to tend to what they required.
In a strange and masochistic mood, I call her. I rarely call my mom, so I know this will spark some surprise. She answers right away, asking what's wrong. We don't typically just chat, so this is a fair assumption. I tell her I'm fine, just checking in to reassure her I didn't drown in the bay. It's kind of a mean joke, a way to tell her that she could also call me to check in. But that's not how my mom is.
