THE DAY I STOPPED BEING MINE

THE DAY I STOPPED BEING MINE

The first time I saw his profile, I felt nothing. Another display-window master. Another one who promises mountains and disappears when submission becomes real. I passed by.

But he came back. Seven months later. And he didn’t come back with pretty words. He came back with a chained heart. And that image went into me like a knife between the ribs.

I can’t explain it. I’m not one of those people who talk about souls and destinies. I believe in synapses, in neurotransmitters, in circuits that strengthen with every stimulus. But that heart in chains opened a door in my brain that I thought was closed forever.

The dopamine started. That fucking rush every time the phone vibrated. The prefrontal cortex trying to reason: “Don’t get your hopes up, he’s just like the others.” But the limbic system had already decided for me. My body secreted cortisol when he took too long to reply. My stomach tightened. I heard myself checking WhatsApp like a dog waiting for the leash.

And he knew it. Of course he knew it. When I told him I was busy, that I was running late, that I couldn’t be constantly available, he didn’t pity me. He didn’t say, “poor thing.” He looked at me from his silence and waited. And his silence weighed more than all the words of the others.

I began talking to him in my head. Preparing answers before he asked. Imagining his voice, his hand, his fucking authority without ever having felt it on my skin.

And then came the real order: look at yourself in the mirror.

I stood in front of the bathroom glass. White lights. My face. My wrinkles. My eyes. And for the first time in decades, I didn’t see a fully formed man. I didn’t see someone in control. I saw a slave who had been waiting for someone to tell him: “You can drop the mask now.”

Something broke in me. Pride. That shell I built over years of false masters, empty promises, waiting for someone who never arrived. It cracked. And through the crack, he began to seep in.

Now I no longer think the way I used to. Now every decision passes through an invisible filter: “What would he do? What would he order? What would he expect of me?” He isn’t here. I haven’t seen his cock. I don’t know what the back of his neck smells like. But his imagined voice already lives inside my head and has begun to rearrange the furniture.

I want him to break me. Not with violence. With certainty. I want to kneel and have his fingers ruffle my hair while he tells me “good boy.” I want my only reason for waking up to be fulfilling his will.

I want to feel the fear in my stomach when he takes too long to answer me, and the chemical explosion of relief when he does. I want my brain to rot from thinking about him so much. For every neuron to carry his name. For when I close my eyes, all I see are his orders branded into my cerebral cortex.