The Daily Journal

The Beginning

You get up every morning. It's natural of you to have a specific routine, but yesterday someone had mistakenly left you their journal. The book was at first had no context to it, so you stopped trying to read it altogether. Then, a co-worker of yours mentions the mysterious journal, saying they have a copy of it too. When they talk about it, saying it's from a female's point of view, you invite that co-worker to your home. Have a couple drinks, discuss some personal matter then straight to why you invited them over. You ask the co-worker to see the book you got. The co-worker looks at the first few pages, he squints at the page at first then nods.

"You need to have this translated, lucky for you, I know the language. Same language as the book I got." they smile to you, you really like the way they smile. You find you have a small crush on them.

"You know what language it's in?" you inquire. The co-worker nods but does not continue the conversation, instead, they continue to flip through the pages of the journal.

"I think this is the male's point of view," they say nothing more of the matter. They stand abruptly and head to the door. Before they do, they turn to you, they realize how close you've stood and jump a little. You both let out a little nervous chuckle. You lean forward before you both realize: you kiss them. You stand up straight and you feel yourself become stiff and tense from such an action.

"I, I, I'm so sorry!" you stammer and they wave you off. They think it was just a natural habit of yours. There's no hint of them thinking it was more than that.

"I'll bring it to you maybe, next week."

The next week comes and as promised: the book and the translated copy of the book is on your desk, in your cubicle, far away from the co-worker's. You spy a post-it on the notebooks and you lift up. I'd like for us to go out for drinks sometime if you'd like. It's about the books. You look around for the co-worker, you don't see them however. By the end of the day, you have many things causing stress onto your back, the laptop you need for work that hold your slides for the big meeting coming up fast, the journal, and a couple things you bought for later. You hop on the train and open to the first page of the translated copy of the book.

Day one:

I walk into the room, it's dark and I can just barely see anyone. I struggle to even the girl in front of me. She's bent over, her arms are tied to a pole, her legs are fairly spread apart. The room itself looked like this: it had velvet curtains covering the windows on each side, the light dangled from the rusting chain above us, the floor was covered in a dirty rug which was coming apart from probably years of abuse, and most of all: the room only had the girl and the pole she was tied to. I walk to her. I know I find it queer that the room is set up this way but I cannot get over the feeling I get from it.

It doesn't sink in just yet. What is the author talking about?

I unzip my pants. Before I do that, I undo her pants, she doesn't struggle, and it seems she's done this for a long time. She doesn't tense up when I have my hands on her butt nor feeling her breasts. They were a bit smaller than my palms. Somehow just doing that turned me on. Whore houses usually ran differently in -----------. Everything they did here was always to whatever the customer wanted. Which was something I always liked about here. The downside is that I've been coming to this specific house for one girl, I've been loyal to her and she's satisfied me. When the manager told me that she left it angered me. As the manager told me they have someone better than her I knew it wasn't going to be the same. I'm glad she's gone now.

You notice a pattern is coming up: names, dates, and places here are taken out. It was like reading something the government planned secret and you were doing the illegal thing and reading it. Well, the somewhat edited version. Why would the co-worker do that? Was the journal like that too? Before you know it, your stop comes up. You run out of the train before the doors close, you get angry people yelling behind you as you jet down the stairs into the cold, rainy, streets. Once you get to your apartment, you set your bag down searching for the book, no longer is your job important. Just the book. You call the co-worker, they pick up after two rings and you ask, "Why are names taken out?" you have both books beside each other at this point. You're seeing that the he only was trying to copy its contents exactly. They tell you they're not sure why the things were taken out. You both talk about who else could've known about the books, when you both admit that no one knows after asking during the week the co-worker translated the book. You kinda feel...stumped somehow. "Well, I have to go," they hang up before you could say goodbye.