I’m already most of the way drunk when the bartender puts the full, heavy-bottomed glass down in front of me. I like the quiet noise it makes, a muted resonant thud, more tactile than aural. Glass and wood impacting each other. I like things like this, solid things, physical things. Real things. They help get me out of my head.

I take a heavy belt of the drink. Too heavy. The alcohol burns as it races down my throat. It hurts, searing down into my chest like coiling flame and razor ice. I cough, twice, and wipe my eyes. I'm not sure what the drink is. I just pointed to the bottle on the wall behind the bar, wanting to switch from beer to something with more muscle, something with vitriol. It was brown in a thick glass bottle, imposingly squat and dark, with a heavy gloss black cap. That appealed. I don't drink things like that, serious liquor for serious drinkers. I'll have a beer when I have to be sociable, or something fruity and mostly-juice to try and have fun. I think this is whiskey or bourbon, and I realize I'm not sure of the difference. Is there one? There must be. I decide to intentionally not learn any more about it. This is just about feeling, not knowledge.

The bartender obliged my order without asking any questions, though I could see something like concern in his eyes. Probably he could read the intensity in my expression somehow. Something in my posture or my breathing that gave away how badly I'm doing. I hate that people can see there's something wrong in my head. It shouldn't be obvious. Physically I'm fine. There's nothing visible that should alarm anyone. But sometimes people look and they can just tell that there's black rot chewing away at my interior, and that doesn't feel fair. I'm mortified at the thought of someone seeing the termites in my framing, the cracks in my foundation. Can't I just collapse in peace, secretly and quietly? I take another swig of the drink, fast and deliberate.

A Sensation of Note: the way the burn is different the second time. I didn't give any time between swigs, and so my throat is still raw and hot. Applying another layer of sear to that is bracing, eye-watering. It's a feeling to remember. 

I’ve been making note of those. Feelings, experiences in my body. Sensory moments to remember. Like a catalog of things I taste or hear or touch that feel noteworthy. I can’t really explain why. I know they aren’t going to last forever, I guess, and so I want to have as many as possible for when that happens. A neatly organized museum of experiences, behind glass with their little museum labels, perfectly preserved. Held ready for the floodwaters to rise up and flush them into the void.

I am aroused tonight. I suppose that's why I decided to come out. To get out of my apartment, where I'd be subject to the urge to sit around and look at porn and idly rub myself. An urge that might be fine if it stopped there, but that so easily leads to more. Indulging too deep, going too far. Pushing myself over the edge. I can't mess around like that anymore. Can't risk it. Not since he put this thing in my head, this fucking time bomb. 

I’ve only got so long left, you see, before my brain is swallowed into darkness. And how long that takes is completely up to me.

Which means I’m pretty utterly fucked.

* * *

I met him online. That's the only place I met him, in fact. I've never even seen his face, and certainly not in person. We happened upon each other through one of those randomized cam-chat websites, where lonely shut-in weirdos like me are connected with other lonely shut-in weirdos from around the world. My site of preference isn't explicitly a kink thing, but everybody who uses it knows that's what it's for. A place for the isolated, the socially anxious, the remote and unreachable and housebound. A place for us to explore and get off. It's not the most satisfying thing on earth but a few nights a week, it's what I've got.

When I met him, I'd been on for an hour or so, unable to find anyone interesting. He was immediately intriguing. He used a filter to hide his face, which plenty of people did. Personally, I didn't, but that was because I found the exposure exciting. I'd never met anyone I knew on the site, and I was frightened of the possibility of it, but that fear lent a clarifying edge to the whole experience. Every new random face I cycled through, I'd feel a twinge in my gut, fearing and wanting and hoping and dreading. Imagining somebody's eyes widening with shocked recognition. I daydreamed, mentally debating who the very worst person to discover me would be. I imagined the things I'd say, the filthy confessions about my compulsive kinks and masturbation addiction that I'd be unable to stop myself from divulging.

But yes: he hid his face. It was a nice filter, a custom one, a simple grainy black blur that made him look like he was wreathed in pixelated smoke. He didn't alter his voice at all, which made him even more fascinating. Usually people who go to such lengths as hi-res custom anonymity filters are also quick to disguise their speaking voice. Not him. He had a nice voice, a little high but warm and fluid. He spoke with a steady pace, never rushing ahead or hesitating long. He had a nervous energy to the way he moved his hands, but his voice was always steady, his speech always deliberate.

I was already rubbing when he joined the chat, but idly and without any specific heat. Nothing I was doing was on camera but it wasn't hard to tell - my bare knee visible in frame, my arm draped downwards below the bottom of the screen, moving rhythmic and subtly. I wanted him to notice right away, and I think he did. He didn't say anything about it, and I liked that too.

I told him about my kinks - the desire to be seen, the feeling of addiction and compulsion, the lust towards being out of control. Self-destructive impulses that I knew were bad for me, and the knowing only honed them into more powerful weapons against my own resistance. He told me about his kinks - conditioning, hypnosis, corruption. All very heady and mental and introspective. What I knew of hypnokink was cheesy and campy and frankly embarrassing, but I didn't say so. Even when somebody's kinks were stupid, I always liked hearing about them. The passion they brought out in a person was sexy, even if the content of them was silly.

"I can show you what I mean," he said at one point, and I nodded. 

"Sure," I said, "I'd love to try it out." I knew this routine. He wanted to act out his weird little fantasy, and I would bring it to life a little. He'd cum to the feeling of kinda-sorta living out his endlessly rehearsed erotic dream. I'd cum to the sensation of performing and being seen and being wanted like that. Everybody leaves happy. The hypno stuff would be silly, but he seemed like a thoughtful and clever guy - hopefully his particular version of this wouldn't be too painfully cheesy.

Then he started talking.

* * *

I'm playing with the glass, debating about ordering another of these when I finish this one. I know I'm going to. I want to get blackout drunk tonight, escape into that lesser void for a while. I decide to nurse this for a bit, though. If I play at taking my time, hopefully the bartender doesn't cut me off earlier than I want.

Letting my drink linger, I sit back on my barstool and look around the room. It's a pretty crummy little place. Not quite ragged enough to be a real dive, but too poorly maintained to be nice. The booths along the walls have velvet-looking blue upholstering that looks purple in the muddy reddish light here. It's cracked and fraying in many places, giving the whole place the sensation of slowly coming apart at the seams. I know how it feels.

There's a guy in one of those booths, slouching in a manner that's either very drunk or performatively insouciant. He's got a battered old leather jacket on despite the warmth of the room, and his dark hair's damp with sweat from it. Several days’ worth of stubble lines his chin and jaw. Everything about him looks half-warmed, gnawed-on, road-bitten. He's not at all unhandsome, in a tattered, unvarnished kind of way. I can see him making a similar assessment of me, and I bet he's coming to similar conclusions. I don't look my best today, I know. My hair's stringy and my eyes are sunken and my skin's ashen. I'm drunk enough to barely be on this barstool and I'm past the point of being able to hide it. My lips are chapped and my outfit - well, these are my comfiest jeans, which means they're threadbare within an inch of the garbage. 

But I don’t believe he came here tonight looking for someone put-together and polished. Just like I didn’t come here tonight for anybody charming and debonair. I’m a trainwreck and he doesn’t know why, and he doesn’t have to care. I don’t have to care about what’s wrong with him, either. We can just be a couple of condemned buildings together, sag into rubble against each other for an hour or two.

He grins at me, showing crooked teeth. I hold a long look, breathing deep. "Fuck it," I mutter aloud, and I knock back the last of my drink. Again the glass thumps onto the bar. A Sensation of Note: the difference in tone. The sound was satisfying before and it's satisfying now, but it's different. Full glass versus hollow glass. I like how it's changed.

I get up from the barstool, taking an extra second or two to calibrate the arrangement of my legs. Untangling myself, fending off vertigo. Then, once I'm confident in my balance, I saunter my way over to my new friend's booth.

* * *

"...but the more I speak, the more you listen. And the more you listen, the more you feel my words. The more you feel my words, the more they weigh on you, pulling you deeper. Isn't that right?"

"Yeah," I grunted softly. I was slumped back in my chair, both feet on the floor and splayed clumsily apart. My hand was between my legs and working out a steady, lazy rhythm across my pussy. I wasn't actively trying to make myself cum, so much as I was just keeping up a low, rolling head of steam on my arousal. As I'd expected, the hypno stuff was cheesy as hell, but it was pretty hot in its way. The aesthetics helped. With his face hidden in a gauzy black smear, it became easier to allow for the idea of my mind being similarly blurred.

“You’re doing so well for me,” he said, and a small ember of pride smoldered in my chest, glowing dimly. Silly, to be proud of something like that. It wasn’t like I was actually doing anything. Just sitting there and playing with myself while I listened to him. But still, it was nice. That helped, too. The feeling like I was doing something right. That made it easier still to let go and allow the sensations to wash over me.

“Your mind is getting so still now. And your body feels so good. Doesn’t your body feel good?”

“Yeah,” I grunted again. It was true. It did. I enjoyed how I could just relax like this. I could let myself go. I could just drop down into a dulled, vacant state, letting my mind wander, and just enjoy my body. My loose, warm, limp, aroused body.

“You’ve been doing such a nice job touching yourself. You’ve been making yourself so warm and turned on from my words. You’re nearly ready to cum, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.” Again, just a grunt. This was so easy. So nice. I was beginning to see the appeal of this hypno stuff. It was silly, of course. Obviously I wasn’t actually hypnotized. But lying back and acting like it and letting my thoughts fade into nothingness? That still felt really wonderful.

“You’re going to cum for me soon. And when you do, you’re going to go blank. Do you understand?”

“Yeah.”

“Totally blank. Not a thought in your head. Do you understand?”

“Yeah.”

“Like sleeping, but deeper. Just a void. Just empty. No mind, no consciousness, nothing. Totally blank. Say that for me, would you?”

“Totally blank.” My voice sounded nice. Flat and sort of monotone, but with a lilting tremor to it. God, I really was close to the edge. My thighs twitched inward a bit as I rubbed, my fingers slick.

“You’ll stay that way for one minute. One minute of total blankness. Do you understand?”

“Yeah.” One minute. That actually sounded wonderful. Cocooned in blankness. I shivered, thinking about it. Cumming so hard that everything else just disappeared into blissful annihilation. My breath was coming quickly now, I noticed. I realized distantly that I was about to cum.

“You can cum now,” he said, and everything in me tensed for a moment, and then I did.

* * *

The cheap metal of the bathroom stall creaks as my back thumps up against it. The guy in the leather jacket is running his thumb over my cheek as he kisses me, and his hand is softer than I expected. He's got a rough look to him but I don't feel callouses or cracked dryness in his touch. Maybe I judged him incorrectly? It doesn't matter. He’s not going to exist for me after tonight, and vice versa. We're not here to get to know each other. I punctuate that point by biting at his upper lip, quick and hard. 

He inhales sharply through his nose, pulling back from me. He touches his lip with two fingers, looking at the little smear of blood he finds there. I give him my most feral grin, peeling my lips back to show my teeth, and I think I see a flicker of anger in his eyes. Then he grins back at me, the caressing thumb gone. Now he's gripping the back of my neck, pulling me closer. "Are you going to behave?" he asks, in a tone that's mostly joking, but not entirely.

"No," I say, husky with arrogant defiance, and I push my body against his. I'm parting my legs so I can straddle up against his hip. He barks a little laugh and shoves me back against the stall wall again, hard this time. The back of my head strikes the metal, not very hard. I want it to be harder. I could get him to do it, I bet. I bet I could be that much of an unruly, teasing, vicious little brat. I could get him fired up enough to shove me through the wall, not caring which parts of me got damaged. He'd appreciate it. He doesn't want to worry about those things, not really. He knows he should, and so he does, but he'd be happy to shed all that. He could use that release. So could I. Don't we both deserve that? Freedom to hurt and be hurt. Freedom to cause damage and to feel it. Freedom of destruction, given and taken, dealt and absorbed.

I bet I could piss him off that much. I bet he'd love it.

For now, though, he's kissing me again. Not on my lips anymore - not giving me a chance to really draw blood this time. Shame. No, he's snaked his hand into my hair and he's tugging my head back. Exposing my throat. He presses his weight against my body and kisses my neck. The hot, boozy stink of his breath wreathes around me, winding with the alcohol in my own blood already, and I feel dizzy. I stab a foot forward, between his legs, so now he's the one straddled against my hip. I'm pushing my own body up and out against his, encouraging him to crush me harder against the bathroom stall. A Sensation of Note: the sound of metal groaning as our weight presses to it. I picture him fucking me against that wall hard enough to collapse it, and I yearn.

Instead, he spins me around. It's a clumsy dance, our legs tangling, his ring caught in my hair. Wedding ring? I can't tell. I'm guessing no, but I don't care. A little bit of nausea surges up through my guts as we rotate drunkenly, but I quash the feeling as he presses my face to the stall wall. The metal surface is cool on my cheek. His hands are hot, so hot, searing enough to throw steam as they grope possessively across my stomach. He's under my shirt, pawing at me almost aimlessly, like he's fumbling in the dark and touching everything he can reach. His hands are big and he holds them to me tight, trying to dig his way into me. Eventually one hand presses into my jeans. Two of his fingers make their way into my panties, two others caught on the outside. It's a fucking mess, inelegant and sloppy, with all the dexterity of a toppling oak tree. I brace my palms against the metal wall and angle my ass back and up, giving myself the space to both grind on his crotch and hump forward against that hand.

"You're fucking wet," he murmurs in my ear, a little too close and a little too loud. His breath holds a second, like he's going to say more, but he doesn't. Good. I don't want to talk right now. I want to be in this moment. If we talk, I'll start thinking, and if I think-

-if I think, I'll realize this is a bad idea.

Because he's not wrong. I'm very wet. Soaking, really. That low flutter kicks up in my stomach, like a beast in a cave stirring from hibernation. I can feel the orgasm rising towards the surface. Dredged up from the dark where I tried to sink it, lose track of it, absorb it back into the tarry black depths of my psyche.

I can’t cum. I can’t. I can’t let it happen.

Those are the thoughts I don’t want to be thinking. I don’t want to remember how bad of an idea this is. I don’t want to know I’m being stupid, weak, indulgent. I don’t want to think, I want to want. I want. I want. I want.

My shoes squeak on the damp tile floor of this grim, pathetic bathroom, and this stranger’s fingers curl inside me. I can smell him, dust and dirt, spilled booze and leather. A Sensation of Note: the kinetic heft of his body against mine, my balance skewed by drink, making me feel like I’m falling forward endlessly as he fingers me against the bathroom stall. Plummeting. Crashing in through the atmosphere, burning up on re-entry. My orbit’s been decaying for weeks and now it’s time for impact.

I could stop this. I could pull away. I could push him off of me and end this stupid fucking game I’m playing.

I don’t.

He grunts in my ear without words. Just a stupid, drunken mush of lust and want. It’s so dumb. I’m so dumb. Being here, letting this happen, not bothering to fight it more. So dumb. So pointless.

I tense, and I hear the whining cry start to escape my throat.

I cum.

* * *

When I came back to myself, my fingers were still half-inside me, curled and twitching gently. I was slumped in my desk chair, having slid down as the wild spasms of orgasm tossed my body around. I wasn’t completely limp, though. Hadn’t spilled onto the floor like a ragdoll. So even though I’d been completely gone, mentally, I apparently wasn’t out of control physically. I was unconscious but still able to manage tasks like ‘sitting up’.

I couldn’t really understand what he was saying. My headphones had gone askew, one ear on and one ear off. Jesus, I was a mess. When I got them straightened out on my head, he was chuckling a little.

“Right on time. You’re back, huh? How did that feel?”

My tongue was dry in my mouth, and I realized I’d been slackjawed for the last minute. Probably drooled on myself. The humiliation of it burned me, but the heat of that fire warmed me to the core, too. My fingers flexed inside and my wetness surprised me. I’d been touching for the past minute but had no awareness of it, and waking up into that still-thrumming arousal was gorgeously confusing.

I barely had time to marvel over the fact that his silly hypnosis game had apparently worked.

“Really good,” I said, and my voice wasn’t right. I sounded sluggish and stupid. Hearing my voice that way felt like weights were strapped to the back of my head. It pulled me backwards and down, falling into a place of dull, dazed simplicity. A clear thought played in my mind like a brilliant marquee – He put me in a trance. I’m still in a trance. – and then it glitched and blurred and dissipated. It was very hard to think about much else.

“Do you want to do it again?” he asked, and I couldn’t see his facial expression through the pixel-smoke filter, but I could hear his smile.

“Yeah,” I responded, one dense word, saturated with need. My hips pumped involuntarily, pressing up to my hand, and it unbalanced me and made me slide further down my chair. Falling and falling and falling.

“It’s going to be more this time. Do you understand?”

“Yeah.” I didn’t. More how? More what? But asking questions felt difficult. Agreeing felt easy. Touching myself felt easy. Being entranced felt easy.

“Five minutes this time,” he said, and my whole body shivered at the thought. Five minutes of that bliss-blank darkness. That sounded so gorgeous, so delicious. “Can you do that?”

“Yeahhhh,” I intoned, air leaving my lungs in a rush.

“And after that,” he said, “it’ll be until I bring you out of it. You’ll stay in that space until I say the trigger word to wake you. Do you understand?”

His voice was a live wire, crackling with excitement, and I could feel it too. That sounded incredible. The loss of control compounded with the inability to know when it’d end. Held in the void until he pulled me out.

I know I should have worried about whether I could trust him. Whether it was safe, wise, prudent. All those things I know I’m supposed to be and have never been able to perform correctly. I know that I need to be careful and protect myself, but the urge for self-preservation never gestated correctly inside of me. It’s a misshapen and malformed thing, not strong enough to do what it was made for. I’ve never stood at a ledge without feeling my toes flex with readiness.

“Yeah,” I said, and I told myself I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t resist. I was hypnotized, wasn’t I? I didn’t have a choice. I don’t know if that was true or not, but it felt comforting. Nothing I could do to save myself. No way to abandon ship. I was lashed to the mast and the whirlpool loomed ahead.

“Tell me. Tell me what’s going to happen. So I know you understand.” Couldn’t see his face but his shoulders lifted and fell like a man on the edge of hyperventilating. I wound my fingers deeper into myself and let the throbbing there carry me closer to the edge. Closer to cumming. Closer to five minutes of delicious oblivion.

“Going to cum,” I said. My voice was dull and sluggish, but it shook with an itchy need. “Go blank. Five minutes.” I had to pause, my body vibrating with the current of that thought. “And. N-next time. Next time I cum after that,” I whimpered softly. “Going to go blank. Until. Ahhhhh. Until you pull me out.”

Plunging under the dark waters, no way to find the surface without a rope to cling to. Having to let go that fully. It was overwhelming. The idea alone almost pushed me over the edge.

“Go on,” he said. “Tell me.”

I blinked, shivering. I… I had. Hadn’t I? I was confused. Did he want to hear it again?

“Are you there?” he asked.

“Y-yeah?” I stammered. What was going on?

“Fuck,” he said, frustrated. “Fucking – did this freeze again? Can you-“

His image stuttered on the screen, then froze. The audio hissed briefly and then cut out.

His screen went black.

[DISCONNECTED], the status box blinked at me.

Fuck.

Oh. Oh fuck.

* * *

I’m on the floor. Last thing I knew I was standing, pressed against the wall of the bathroom stall, so the repositioning gives me vertigo. I’ve been spun around, twisted into a new position, and it feels like the room has lurched around me.

I’m kneeling. A Sensation of Note: the grit on the floor biting into my knees, a dozen ragged pinpricks that scrape audibly on the tile as I shift positions.

My mouth is open. My tongue is out. There’s a mess on my chin, my chest. My shirt is still on but it’s tugged up to expose my breasts, which are similarly messy. Befouled with my own drooled spittle and what I have to assume is my new friend’s cum.

His cock is semi-hard but deflating. I can feel that happening, because he’s smearing it on my face at the moment. There are sticky tendrils and matted hair in the edges of my vision, so I know he’s cum there as well. My face? In my hair? It’s too disorienting to be sure. With a detached curiosity I wonder if he came once, all over me, or if my tits and face are two separate messes. Two separate instances of him using my oblivious body to get off.

I’ll never know. Those five minutes won’t ever be mine.

He isn’t showing any signs that he even knows anything unusual happened. He pulls away and goes to the sink, grabbing some paper towels to wipe his cock clean. Washing his hands. Tidying up as though this stupid little adventure didn’t just eat five minutes of my life, my mind. As though it didn’t just take me one move closer to oblivion.

“I gotta go,” he says, running warm water over a half-dozen stacked paper towels. “Here.” He sets them down on the bathroom counter, presumably for me to wipe myself off with. So chivalrous.

He’s out the door without another word, without another look. He doesn’t ask for my number or if he can see me again. I’d refuse if he did, obviously, but the lack of it still bites at me. He’s already working away to obliterate me from his memory. Not the experience, surely, but the identity attached to it. Just some girl in some bar. Just a slut pressed against the bathroom wall.

Nobody, really.

* * *

I spend hours at night cycling through that fucking cam chat site. Hoping I’ll find him again, the hypnotist with the face of digital smoke. He’s the one who put this in me, he can take it out. He can fix me.

He can put me under. Put me in the void.

I don’t need him for that, though. That’s going to happen anyway. That’s coming for me eventually no matter what. What I need is for him to reach into my brain and pull out this trap he set. I need to have some agency back. Because right now I’m careening, skidding around without control, and it’s only getting worse.

He could put me under for a while. Just a while. Let me savor it for some unspecified amount of time. Some span that I’d never really be able to feel the bounds of. Something that’d feel like forever without having to be forever. That’s not so much to ask. Right?

The smartest thing would be not to go under at all, of course. Not to cum.

Never again.

Oh jesus. It’s clear how insane that is, right? Never. Never again. There’s just no way.

I click through dozens of people an hour. I have to stumble across him again eventually. Right? I found him once and I’ll find him again. That smoky filter is so sharp in my memory, I’d know him instantly. I just have to find him.

I wonder if he realizes what happened. That he left me like this, the psychic equivalent of slowly bleeding out.

I click through to the next person, waiting, watching for him. And the next. Next. Next. Next.

* * *

I look at things online. Devices. Harnesses and belts and… god. All sorts of equipment that I only obliquely knew existed. Things that are probably incredibly fun in a kinky context, with a smirking partner who’s in charge of when you need to put it on and when you’re allowed to take it off. Someone who… but no. I can’t think about those kinds of things. I get too distracted. It makes it worse.

The point is, these things would be fun if things were very different. I’m not looking for fun, though. I’m looking for life preservers. Armor.

I ask around on hypnokink subreddits. I describe my problem, what happened to me. Ask for advice. I get the most nauseating DMs from men who – I hope – assume I’m engaging in some kind of kinky roleplay. I guess I don’t blame them. I hardly can believe this is happening, either.

I consider going to back to the psychiatrist I was seeing a few years ago. Not that I think he can help with this – couldn’t help me when I was just depressed and anxious, nevermind now. No, I imagine going back and getting on SSRIs again. That fucked with my ability to cum pretty badly at the time. Maybe there’s a way out with that? Something to dull the sensations, push things back under the surface. Take away the temptation, the option.

I know all of these things won’t work, though. Might buy a little time, might distract me from the real problem. The howling hole at the center of my brain. Every day the slope around it gets a little steeper, and the hole gets a little blacker, and that’s not something you can put a bandage on.

* * *

I can’t wait to see you

I text to the guy I met on one of the dating apps. I can’t remember which app. I can barely remember which guy this is. They all blend together so badly.

I shouldn’t say this, but I’ve been thinking about you all day. I can’t wait to touch you.

He texts back, way too quickly.

I can't wait either.

That’s a level of enthusiasm I would have found unappealing before, when I was actually looking for someone to connect with or hook up with. Now it’s exactly what I need. That focus and attention. Undivided, for me alone. I know if I told him to come over right now, he’d do it.

maybe… we could skip the drinks? just come over to my place and get to know each other that way

omg i'm sorry thats way too forward i am making you uncomfortable Im sure

just… it’s been a while and you’re really hot. ughhhhhh cant believe i said that!!

It’s humiliating to throw myself at him like this. Whoever he is. Cruel, really, but I need to feel it. I need to feel how close it is.

Fuck yes. Yes, absolutely. Don’t be embarrassed. You’re so hot, too, I’d love to meet up intimately like that and just have some time together.

I can be there whenever you want.

Why don’t you send me your address? What time should I be there?

Fuck.

Perfect.

The dark pulse of it radiates from my belly. I could make it happen right now. I could have him here, and he’d be on me as fast as I let him. I wouldn’t last ten seconds, no matter how clumsy he might end up being in bed. I’m shaky all day lately. I can’t stop thinking about it. About how it would feel. It’s never more than a few seconds from my mind. Letting some man – any man – put his hands on me, his mouth on my skin, his cock inside me? I’d cum so fast. So hard. It’d be over.

And this anonymous guy, he’s ready to do that for me. He’d be thrilled. All I have to do is say yes. All I have to do is tell him where I am.

I block him and delete his number.

The heat in me doesn’t subside, it never does anymore. But it ebbs, a little bit. Instead of filling all of me, it recedes into the low places, holding there. The little damp grottos and crevasses of my heart and head. It’ll stay that way for a while, like a low tide. I can wait. Now isn’t the time. I’ve held it back for a bit.

I don’t know how long I can keep doing this for, though.

I go to the next guy in my messages. 

I can’t wait to see you.

* * *

Some Sensations of Note: the literal pain in my knuckles when I pull my fingers away from my cunt. I’m fighting myself so hard that it absolutely aches.

The thick, oozy consistency of the warm drool that leaks between my legs when I stop touching. I didn’t know I could be this wet.

The temperature of my bedroom, so much hotter than it was fifteen minutes ago. It’s still cooler than my twitching folds, so the contact there makes the humid air feel cool, almost tingly.

The stickiness of my bedsheets, drenched with my desperate sweat, adhering to my back and calves.

The smell. The smell of me. Sweat and need and ache. It’s in the walls now, infected the very framework of any place I spend time. I’m awash in it, wafting and weak, leaching and dripping out pungent maddening want at every minute of every day.

The pain in my jaw from clenching my teeth as I exert my splintering will and force myself to stop.

The pit in my stomach.

I hold all of these sensations close, categorizing and examining, letting them fill my attention. Letting them stay present and real. They ground me, just a little. It helps. Just a little.

* * *

I’m not counting the days anymore. That didn’t help. I know that it’s been weeks since the night in the bar. More specific than that doesn’t benefit me. I just get a little frenzied, a little frantic. How long can I possibly keep this up, after all?

Imagine checking off each day as it goes by. A little X on the calendar, filling the box. Another day without failing and falling and disappearing – check. Another day without losing myself to the need – check. Another day. Another. Another. Check. Check. Check.

Over and over. Forever?

I picture the calendar like a grid laid out before me, an endless expanse of white space and sharp black perpendicular lines arrayed like trip wires. They rush at me, day after day after day after day, daring me to fuck up and falter. It’s not bad at first. It’s not that hard. Just have to focus. Just have to stay alert. Don’t let your guard down, don’t let the bad thoughts in, don’t let your mind wander, don’t let your body need too sharply, don’t let your desire to sabotage yourself gain the upper hand. Don’t fuck up. Don’t ever fuck up. Don’t fuck up because there’s no coming back.

Keep moving through the grid. Keep your knees up. Keep on your toes.

Don’t fuck up.

I can do it for a while. I can make it. Can I do it forever?

How long before exhaustion sets in? How long before I have a moment of boredom and I set my feet down wrong? The grid doesn’t slow down. It doesn’t permit mistakes. It just keeps coming, endlessly, and I have to keep up the pace. I have to never, ever, ever admit that it’d be nice to just lay down and let it rip through me.

* * *

I want to cum so fucking bad. It’s all I can think about. I can’t take this. I can’t.

* * *

I think of the dumbest ways for it to happen.

I think of lying in bed in the middle of the night and waking up halfway. My mind still snagged on some semi-coherent erotic dream, and my body lazily pawing at itself. Not recognizing fast enough, and pushing just a little too far. Just like that, I never really wake up.

I think of slipping in the shower. It’s already fraught – wet, warm, naked. Hands on myself as I lather and wash. I’m so deep in the throes of this period that I’m awash with arousal at the slightest touch. If I was to shift wrong, to fall a bit. Catch myself, maybe, or perhaps not. Perhaps I slip to the ground, hip thudding on the porcelain, and in the attempt to untangle my limbs there’s just the right combination of pressure and friction and – I’m gone. Down the drain.

It would take so little. I’m so primed, so taut.

I think of incidental touches. A man squeezing past me on the bus, pressing me against someone else in the crowd, and that being just a little too much. Vibrations of the subway, being squeezed against the pole by the oncoming passengers. A moment of stupid silly weakness and my focus slips. A passing touch from an acquaintance, a coworker, an ex. My doctor prodding me somewhere to check if I’m healthy and me being months into need and that being enough to push me over.

It’ll have to reach that point, won’t it? It’s not getting better. The pressure has nowhere to go. It’ll become unbearable eventually. Untenable. Inevitable.

* * *

I fucking love touching myself.

Is that stupid to say? Is it an obvious truth, banal to put words to? Is it like saying “I really enjoy music” or “it’s nice to see color”? I feel like it might be, because my enjoyment of this kind of pleasure is so deep, so warm and filling, it feels quintessential. Fundamental. It’s tautological; masturbation is pleasure and pleasure feels good. A priori truth. It’s the sine qua non of satisfaction and enjoyment. The first building block in the foundation of joy is built on. Can’t love others if you don’t first love yourself. I’ve always loved loving myself.

Even now, when I know that I’m toying with obliteration, it feels amazing.

Who am I kidding? It feels better because of that. That’s what I’ve always loved most, after all. The moments of purity. Escape. The moment where the bliss of my own touch is enough to hush the world. Like freshly-blanketed snow muting everything outside. That perfect application of a finger to the self that makes the world stop and hang, crystalline and immobile, for a perfect fragile moment.

Nothing but me. Nothing but my body. Nothing but the feeling, the sensation.

A Sensation of Note: me, touching myself.

Two fingers, cunt-slick, on my clit. Pressing at just the right angle. Legs apart and tangled in a bedsheet. Nude, nipples hard enough to hurt. Hair sweat-stuck to my cheek. Eyes unfocused, gazing at a spot through my ceiling, a mile away.

The only sensation I’ve ever cared about. The one I spend all my time chasing, trying and failing to improve upon.

I want this. Only this. This is what I’m afraid of losing. I want to feel this good forever. That’s why I’ve been frightened, holding back. I can never have enough of this. I’m always greedy for more. Desperate. I’m an addict and my drug is my own touch. My own body. I am supplicant and deity all wrapped into one, and so I can never escape my obsession.

I hear a sound coming from my throat, mewling, rhythmic. Gasping squeals in pace with my pulse, in pace with my twitching fingers. Every muscle in my body throbs in time, all set to the beat of my insatiable fingers. My cunt thrums and it’s the heartbeat of the universe. The very center of the universe, right here in my bed, between my legs.

The root of all suffering is desire. I thought maybe I could be an ascetic, not need so much. Let my wanting self wither and pass away, allow something else to take its place. That didn’t happen. It can’t. Wanting to forgo desire is itself just another desire, after all. The only way to escape is to fully absorb into it. The only way out is in. Immerse and subsume.

Everything trembles, and my stomach flutters, and I know I’m close. I know I need to pull back now. This is the last chance.

I don’t.

I have held back. I’ve resisted. Once I came that last time, that would be the end. The end of pleasure. I couldn’t bear that.

But there’s more. I know there’ll be more. I won’t feel it, not consciously, not the me that is thinking and feeling now. But the pleasure won’t end. It’ll continue through me, through my body. I can feel it cresting now and oh god oh god yes I want more. More of it, forever, drown me in this moment and fill my lungs with this, this is all I want it’s all I’ve ever wanted, I’m suspended in it crushed under it falling forever through it. And there’s more. There’s always more. It’s an endless void I’m right at the precipice and I’m going to fall I can’t stop it now if I wanted to the gravity has me. The hole in my brain. My orbit decayed and I fell I’m falling I fall I fall I fall. In I go into pleasure and there’s more, there’s more, there’ll always be more, it hits me from the center and it explodes out and it fills me, there’s more, there’s so much now and it all goes blank and there’s so much pleasure and there’s still so much more to come.