Day 4: Pain

Here I lie, on my back. My eyes are staring into the ceiling, my mouth is tightly shut, my breathing is shallow and laborious.

"How much?"

"Eight more minutes."

Only two minutes of pain have passed and I have eight more to go. The pain keeps changing. At first it feels like being cut with a dull knife. At the same time, my chest is so tight that it's difficult to breeze. I don't feel like I am drowning, not quite. But, it's close. A minute passes. The muscle are stretching and elongating, the knots are relaxing, the pain is getting slightly more bearable.

"Yvonne, more vacuum?" it's difficult to speak since breathing is hard.

Yvonne starts pumping. I can feel my muscles getting sucked deeper and deeper into the cups. I make small controlled breaths and try to imagine that I am somewhere far away. My chest is burning now.

"How much?"

"Five more minutes."

"Tell me something..."

"Ughh, it looks disgusting! There are droplets of liquid forming and blood is dribbling into the cups. Ugghh. It's spreading."

"Shut up!"

"You asked me to talk..."

"Now I ask you to shut up. How much?"

"Three more minutes," pouting.

I am counting seconds with every breath. The chest is burning, tearing, being squeezed and pulled apart.

"Time."

Yvonne starts releasing the vacuum and taking the cups off one by one. Extra spikes of pain, a little bonus, accompany every removed cup. Finally all cups are off and I lie there in a happy bliss of almost no pain. That's what happiness is - almost no pain.

Part two starts. Yvonne is happily digging her small hard fingers into my muscle knots.
I writhe, scream, and try to crawl away from her.

Life is so much fun!