A rush of blood to the head

I try to write up my experiences as soon as possible after they have happened - memory, especially sense memory fades so fast and gets replaced quickly with inference and assumption in a mental equivalent of filling-in-the-blanks. Cliches substitute for descriptions, and I try to avoid that. But reflection is important and sometimes, particularly with an intense scene it takes me a while to process what happened as my brain needs time to come back to itself, to reconnect with language and thought. Especially with this.

"Are you OK?" asks The Photographer. I'm staring at the ceiling, but not precisely looking at it, I nod. Speaking is not something I feel able to do, there is literally nothing I can express: I have that closed-down feeling you get upon just waking, limbs have yet to come to and my mind is a heavy swirl of impressions and impulses. Primordial soup for thought patterns. I am not OK. I am so much better, and so much worse than that.

It's Friday. I'm pinned under him, my arms by my sides, staring up at him. He dragged me on all fours into the bedroom and threw me on the bed, pulling off my trousers and pants, to fuck me. He holds me by the shoulders and stares at me, blank faced, hardened with a calm, focused look. He pauses, then slaps me in the face. The pain is shocking, up-close and personal it is literally in my face. The first blow hurts, absolutely, but the pain brings with it a rush of adrenaline, and excitement, anticipation: I feel playful, exhilarated and excited. It is the next, and the next and the next that hammer these feelings down. The slaps don't stop, the pain rises and the excitement is replaced with something else.

It really starts to hurt, properly, a stinging, unforgiving, bullying force. Hard against an extremely sensitive area, physically and emotionally. My arms are just by my shoulders, fists clenched as I begin to cry. At any moment I could bring them up and protect my face. But I don't. I cry harder; he doesn't stop. I don't stop him. There is a part of me that does want to run and hide, I can see myself getting up off the bed and locking myself in the bathroom. I can almost feel the relief of being by myself, of putting cool water on my tender cheeks. After the longest time, he stops, picks me up and moves me into a better position to use. He starts to talk to me as he fucks, accusing me in a coldly aggressive tone of letting him down, of messing him about and not behaving as I should have done, not being the slave that I should have been. He keeps asking why and I can't answer him: I'm crying too hard. After many false starts I can speak, barely. I plead with him, promising to do better, but it doesn't make a difference. There is a pain in my throat, and my stomach is churning: he starts slapping me again and the combination of the two wipes my mind clear of any possibility of response. I am incoherent, shouting "I don't know" through the tears, feeling totally trapped and unable to express to him how hard I am trying, how much I want to please him and how I just don't understand what he wants.

Eventually he is quiet and so am I. He fucks me, pressing me down until he orgasms. I lie very still for a while, mute and numb. He opens his arms and I tuck myself in around him, he starts to stroke my hair, comforting me. My face hurts - my ears ringing and the muscles and bones in my jaw and cheek are especially sore. That's the first distinct thing I remember as I start to come back together after being shattered. I'm sensing the feeling of my skin, it's very hot to the touch, streaked with tears, prickly against the hair on his chest. Then come the emotions, slowly, drip fed. I'm not panicked or upset, but I was very recently so I'm loitering in a very peculiar head space. I am on the surface safe, comforted and calm. But not quite. It's a close cousin of those sensations: I feel held down and happy for it. I hesitate to use the phrase "properly submissive", however I feel very real in my experience. I'm not in a scene or hedonistic playing through of emotions. I am here, deeply connected to him. Thinking backwards, working through what happened as already it starts to slip through my fingers. I don't want to let it go.