Moments with Sir – Pushing Through
“I can’t write…”
“Okay.”
“I need to!”
“Then do it.”
“I can’t!”
I can see the muscles twitch in Sir’s jaw. “Write, or don’t write, those are the choices.”
“Everything is choices that both kill me! Fuck you!”
I almost don’t care at the flicker of anger on his face, except I do, somewhere deep. The ice storm of anxiety already raging in my belly ramps itself higher. It’s getting hard to breathe. I turn my back to him to hide the tears rising in my eyes. To hide the panic that is threatening to consume me. Rationality is cool water, seeping between my fingers, more quickly the tighter I close my grip on it.
“Go upstairs, get a journal or blank paper, something. Get a pen. Get back down here. You have five minutes.”
I spin on him, momentarily seizing on outrage to push back the fear. “Do you not listen to anything I say? I. Can’t. WRITE!”
“Get something and be back down here in five minutes or I’ll spank you.”
I literally feel my jaw go slack. “What?”
He glances at his watch.
A new type of fear seizes me, or an old one I haven’t felt for a while. It is more immediate and more concrete than anxiety; it is focused. Motivated. I turn and rush up the stairs.
By the top step the new fear is mingling with anger. I’m not usually angry at Sir. I don’t usually feel he is being unfair, but tonight I do. It feels unfair. A spanking for something so stupid and insignificant? Out of the blue. Granted, I did curse at him, but he didn’t threaten to punish me for that. He didn’t even address that. If he was angry about that, he should have addressed it, not threatened me over this writing bullshit. And I am having fucking anxiety right now! This is not defiance or laziness or even just losing track of time. I’m having a panic attack and he thinks he can force me to do what he wants with threats… during a panic attack! Fucking bastard!
I’ve already searched the bookshelf in our bedroom, no journals. I check my backpack in my closet. I’d had a journal, but haven’t been able to find it for months – and that’s another source of anxiety. I had a journal I was writing in. I need THAT journal, not a new one, and certainly not a blank piece of paper!
I can feel the pressure of time trickling away. I imagine I’ve used two minutes already and hurry down the hallway to the office. Sir doesn’t call out any time warnings from downstairs. He might when I’m down to a minute. Or he might not. I might not know until I’m back in front of him whether I’ve failed his task.
Another journal (not the right one) is sitting on the filing cabinet. I grab it and quickly tear out the first few pages (notes from a project I’ve been done with for over a year). I turn to go, then turn back to the computer desk and grab a pen.
I trot down the stairs, mindful of controlling my breathing, my asthma has been rocky lately. Pen and journal in hand, I drop down from the last stair and turn to face Sir who is looking down at his watch.
My heartbeat quickens as he looks down for another moment in silence, then slowly raises his head. I realize my anger has evaporated, my breath catches in shallow gasps as I wait and squirm slightly.
He looks at the journal and pen in my hand. “Write or type?”
“What?” My brain isn’t completely sure that my ass is safe, yet, but my gut seems to have decided that writing has re-emerged as the greater threat and the ice rises again.
“Do you want to hand write or type? Choose.”
“I can’t…” my diaphragm is shuddering, making my breath come in and out in jerky fits.
He opens my laptop on the table; it lights; my blog still on the screen.
“Write this. Us. You have twenty minutes from that chair to this one, ” he gestures from the arm chair where I was perched when I started the conversation to the wooden dining chair pulled out in front of my computer. “You can hand write it or type it, but leave nothing out. Twenty minutes.”
“Sir… I can’t…” I shake my head, feeling real tears rise in my eyes. The terror is overwhelming. I don’t even know what I’m afraid of, it is just a seething black mass of dread at the thought of writing… Anything…
“Twenty minutes. From ‘I can’t write,’ to ‘Leave nothing out,’ or I will spank you.”
Fuck you rises to my lips again but dies. I don’t have the anger to sustain it. The terror is too strong. I bite my lip and sink down into the chair, shaking my head. Tears trickle off my jaw and down my neck. I set the notebook down and pull the keyboard towards me. Looking at the blank screen, I am seized by a sob that becomes a cough for a moment.
“Please… Sir…”
He takes a step closer. He leans forward. “I can’t write.”  He taps the screen. “Okay.” He taps it again then snaps his fingers near my face. “I need to. Then do it.”
I put my fingers on the keys.
“I can’t write.”
“Okay.”
“I need to.”
“Then do it.”
…
