Silence and the Word
Mary Ann Mohanraj
Published by Lethe Press at Smashwords
Copyright 2004 by Mary Anne Mohanraj
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Cover design by Zak Jarvis.
Lethe Press, 118 Heritage Ave, Maple Shade, NJ 08052
ISBN 1-59021-014-X / 978-1-59021-014-7
for Kevin
Acknowledgements
Grateful thanks to the usual suspects who gave support, encouragement, and critique at various stages, and who did their best to keep me honest: Matt Austern, Kate Bachus, Jed Hartman, Nalo Hopkinson, David Horwich, Dan Percival, Benjamin Rosenbaum, and I’m sure several others whom I will be embarrassed to have forgotten. Hopefully, they love me enough to forgive me the lapse. Particular thanks to Shmuel Ross for extensive (and repeated) proofreading! Any remaining errors are, of course, my own. And extra-special thanks with gold stars to Karen Meisner, who helped me decide what to leave out.
Contents
Sitting Under a Tree, in the Rain
Introduction
As a writer, you have this opportunity, the chance to use a few words—words which cost you nothing—and with those words, you can try to change people’s minds and hearts. It’s a pleasure and a delight, and while I often have a lot of fun with it (as you’ll see in such pieces as “A Jewel of a Woman” and “The Survey”), I also feel a tremendous responsibility. A sense of noblesse oblige—since I was lucky enough to be granted this opportunity, I had better make the most of it.
That’s what pushes me to take on difficult material—and please be aware, some of the pieces in this book are difficult. Stories like “Amanda Means Love,” which deals with child sexuality, and “Mint in Your Throat,” which explores sexual assault and its aftermath, have been more than a little controversial, have come close to starting fist fights (as you’ll see in the story end notes). Most of the stories in this collection aren’t that edgy, of course—many, like “Johnny’s Story” and “Seven Cups of Water” are fairly straightforward erotica. But while social response to erotic fiction has markedly mellowed in the ten years that I’ve been writing and publishing the stuff, I still frequently collect shocked looks when I admit to writing about sex, slight drawings back, as if to avoid guilt by association, contamination. It’s not nice, writing about sex. My mother would much rather I wrote children’s stories instead.
I do love children’s stories, and I’d be happy to write more of them. (I did sneak one into this collection—“The Poet’s Journey.”) I’ve written a fair bit of poetry too, mostly romantic rather than sexual, and there’s lots of it in here. I’ve dabbled in speculative fiction (see “At the Gates of the City” and “Would You Live For Me?”), and certainly my recent dissertation novel-in-stories, Bodies in Motion, is far closer to literary fiction than erotic fiction. There was a strange time, a few years ago, when I was living in Salt Lake City (and perhaps influenced by the overwhelming conservatism). I wondered why I was still writing about sex, why I spent so much time and energy on it. Was it purely for the shock value, the admittedly sometimes fun role of the black sheep?
My sex writing may have started that way, a little, but I believe that there’s more to it—that the real reasons I keep writing about sex are intimately tied to the power of the material. Sex writing, perhaps because of its taboo nature, has the power to reveal aspects of human nature that are otherwise inaccessible. Writing about sex can be scary—when I’m writing revelatory memoir pieces like “Silence and the Word” and “Under the Skin,” it can be downright terrifying. But that only underlines its importance, and its interest.
After ten years, I still find that writing about sex is the most interesting writing I’ve done—not sex as simple titillation, or for shock value, but sex as it relates to and reveals the intricacies of the human heart. In passion, we are stripped bare, we reveal our fragile and vulnerable selves. We can only hope that the world will value us for what we are, will see us clearly and with generous eyes.
Sometimes, when my mother asks me with that wistful tone in her voice, if I’m sure I don’t want to be a doctor, or at least a programmer, instead of an often-broke writer, I’m dumbstruck, not knowing how to answer such an impossible question. I try to explain to her that I have the best job in the world, not the easiest, but at least for me, the most rewarding. All I can do is be grateful to you, my readers, for giving me this job, this opportunity. Especially to those who have been reading me online since the early days of the net, who have stayed with me all this time, thank you. And to all those who have found me since—I hope you like what you find in the following pages.
I hope the stories, poems, essays in this book interest you, that they surprise you, move you. I hope they make you think, draw you into arguments, that some of them trouble you. I hope at least a few bring you pleasure, arousal, delight. Writing the best I can is the only way I can thank you properly for the last ten years, so I hope I’ve done a good job. Enjoy.
Esthely Blue
My toes curl and release. I am lying with my back against his chest, with my ass against his groin and him slowly going limp inside me. I am catching my breath, slowing down, listening to my heartbeat fill the room. I am waiting for the right moment to shift away; though it would be nice to cuddle, I’m dying of the heat. Yes, long enough, and in one movement I slip a little forward and he slides out and only our toes are touching now, way down at the bottom of my bed. And I look down the curve of my body, smiling, down the faint moonlit bed, down my thighs to knees and calves, looking for my toes—they are not there. Ankle, heel, and emptiness.
I can’t feel them, either.
My heart thumps loudly. I blink, and my toes are there, returned, and I am tempted to put it down to a trick of the light, but… . Well. Nothing to be done about it right now.
“You okay?” He seems concerned.
“Mmhmm…how ’bout you?”
“Oh, fine.”
We’ve cooled a little, and shift, so my head rests on his shoulder.
“I can’t stay the night.” He’s apologetic. “I wouldn’t be able to sleep.”
“Shh…that’s okay. Thank you…it was lovely.”
He chuckles. “Thank you!”
I am tempted to ask him, if, during the act, he happened to notice any odd flickering, but decide against it. A little too intimate a question—I’ll save it for Mark or Peter.
“So, you do this often?”
I smile. They always ask. “Not so often. But occasionally, when the mood strikes… .”
“And Mark… .”
“Has his own diversions. And friends.” I don’t mention Peter. Mark is usually enough to explain, the first time round.
“You don’t get jealous? He doesn’t?”
“Hmm…he says he doesn’t. I do, sometimes. But I’m not sure that really matters. It hasn’t been enough to stop me.”
“Interesting.”
The moonlight slides across the floor. We talk, about little nothings. The bed is left entirely in darkness, and now it is my desk that shines palely in the night, doubly illuminated by moon’s light and flickering computer screen. Swirling screensaver, cool blues mixing into greens. Finally, he gets up, peels off the condom, cleans up, gets dressed. He sets my alarm for me: six a.m. Deadline tomorrow—mustn’t oversleep. Then he sits by me until I start falling asleep, kisses my forehead softly, slips out. Sweet boy.
I keep my eyes resolutely closed, until I fall completely asleep.
I won’t be visiting Mark for a few weeks. My flight’s booked for the twenty-second. In the meantime, the work for the new magazine has assumed nightmare proportions. Every hour seems to bring fresh complications. If I had known how much time this would take, would I have started it? A little late to worry about it now—the first issue’s due in three weeks. Sometimes, as I’m typing, my fingers seem to flicker away—but the words keep appearing on the screen, and since I touch-type, I’m not really looking at my fingers anyway. Maybe I need new glasses?
I’m on the phone while I work, talking to Katherine. “Oh, I’m sorry, sweetie. Yes, that’s terrible… .”
Her boyfriend’s causing trouble again. I make appropriate noises—that’s all she needs. This is a recurring theme, and it no longer needs all of my attention. I know my lines. “No, I wouldn’t take that either. You should talk to him.” She starts crying—time for reassurance. “Aw, c’mon. It’ll be okay… .”
While I murmur, I type. She’ll never know. A brief pang of guilt, stifled.
“Dear Mr. Rossiter-Parks, thank you for your kind submission to our new magazine. I’m sorry to have to inform you that… .” I really need to take the time to set up a template and automate part of this. More efficient in the end. Tomorrow. I’ll do it tomorrow. In the meantime, I can do this kind of letter in my sleep. Heh. Now that would be efficient. “Please do feel free to submit to us in the future… .”
Her sobs quiet a little. My cue. “You know he loves you.” Her sobs get louder, making it hard to concentrate. “Look, it can’t be that bad!” Whoops. Not too exasperated. She’ll just get more upset. Soothing. That’s the way to go. “I think you’re great, kiddo, and I’m sure he does too… .”
I’ve been sitting quite a while in one place, and my neck has started to hurt. I reach up to switch the phone from one ear to another…and my hand isn’t there. My forearm ends at the wrist. I freeze, and Katherine weeps on, while I stare at the computer through the space that should have been filled by my hand.
I bite my lip, hard. I draw blood.
Then my hand is back. Just as if it had been there all along, almost as if it had planned this—just a little excursion. A rest, perhaps? Have all of my body parts been doing this all along, behind my back? Ducking out when I wasn’t looking? Maybe I haven’t been paying enough attention to my body lately. Maybe it wants some exercise? I have been skimping on my sit-ups, after all. Just haven’t felt like I had the time for the full workout in the mornings.
I haven’t heard anything Katherine has said for minutes.
“Kiddo, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you back tomorrow, okay? Sorry! Bye.”
I hang up the phone. She was still crying. My lip is still bleeding. I have not taken my eyes off my hand, but it seems pacified. It stays right where it’s supposed to be. My heart is thumping—a few toes were one thing, but I need my hand. I can’t type without it, and if I can’t type, then the magazine will go under, and it’s not just my project, people are counting on me, it’s my responsibility—not to mention that I won’t be able to make my damn rent…was that a flicker?!
Okay, okay. Deep breaths. Calm. Just calm down.
I pledge that I will do my exercises every morning, okay? I wonder if saying this in my head is enough, but it would sound so silly to say it out loud.
I get up and close the door. “I pledge that I will do my full exercises every morning.” I add an “I solemnly swear” just in case. I would have liked to start with “I, Sita Mathuri, being of sound mind and health”…but that seems a bit risky, since I’m not certain of either.
I go sit at the computer again. Eyes fixed rigidly on the keys, which means that I make far more errors than usually, I start typing names again. Everything will be fine.
I call Mark, but he’s neither home nor at the office. He could be anywhere—the boy tends to wander. No voice mail either. I consider sending him e-mail:
Mark. Disappearing rapidly. Send help.
Or maybe:
Sweetie, I regret to inform you that I am losing my mind. Since I know you love me for my mind and not my body, please let me know if you’d like to dissolve this relationship… .
Perhaps something like:
I’m not sure what’s going on, but body parts are going AWOL. Would like to discuss this with you. I know it sounds mad, but maybe it’s just some strange disease. Hopefully not communicable. Come soon!
I settle for the ever-useful:
Call me, please. Soon.
That should worry him nicely; I think that’s what I wrote the last time I broke up with him. Or maybe that was the time before last? In any case, I could use some company in my misery. I log off and go make dinner. I watch my fingers very carefully when I chop. I can’t afford to lose any.
Peter’s here for dinner. He got delayed in traffic, which explains why he wasn’t here to help chop. He’s nothing if not prompt. We have curry and I have wine. A couple of glasses. He doesn’t drink.
“So? Tell me about last night.”
“Last night?” What? Has he guessed? I hadn’t quite worked up the nerve to tell him yet… .
“The one you took home from the reading. Pretty boy—so, how’d it go?”
Oh, him. Right. “Oh, fine. He didn’t stay the night, but we had a nice time.”
“Think you’ll see him again?”
“Don’t you think I have enough on my hands with you two?” A little sharper than I meant.
He looks surprised. “Well, that’s hardly stopped you before, has it? Wasn’t your record five, concurrently?”
“Yes, and I neglected them all. Two of those lasted less than a week as a result… .”
“So, even you have limits. Glad to hear you admit it.” He sounds a little bitter. I haven’t been able to spend much time with him lately—so busy. What does he expect? Besides, it’s not like he has tons of time either… .
“I have plenty of limits. I have as many limits as anyone.” Ridiculous. Why am I snapping at him? “Look, let’s just go to bed. We can do the dishes in the morning.”
Once in the bedroom, I am suddenly shy. Stupid, after all this time, but I don’t know how to tell him, and I don’t want to meet his eyes. I pick up clothes and put them away. I straighten books on the shelves until he comes up behind me and slips his arms around my waist. I stiffen, then relax into his arms.
“You okay?”
“I’m sorry—I’m just kind of cranky. It’s been a long day.” I twist around so I’m facing him, his arms still loosely wrapped around me.
“Anything in particular?”
I kiss him instead of answering. I don’t know what to say. I raise my hands to cup his face, and he pulls me closer, his mouth opening against mine, his fingers starting to dig into my back, soon so hard that it hurts a little, the way I like it.
We stumble towards the bed. We fall onto it. My mouth is now on his cheek, his neck, digging under his shirt, my fingers unbuttoning as fast as they can. It’s one of the best things about sex with him, the way it blazes up out of nowhere, burns me up so I can’t think, can’t slow down even when he wants me to—and does he really want me to? He’s egging me on, his fingers shoving up my skirt, sliding into me, and I’m glad Mark got me out of the habit of wearing underwear years ago ’cause I can’t wait for it, I’m squeezing my thighs around his hand, I’m slamming down as he slams up and rising and rising, with my whitened fingertips digging into the bed, arched and ready to scream…
…and it’s gone.
Not gone the way it is when you get there and fall over the top and down the other side. Definitely not that kind of gone. It’s almost as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice water on me at just the wrong damned moment—except that then I’d have felt the ice at least, I’d be cold and shivering and wet. And I am wet and shivering, but only on my skin, only cooling sweat, ’cause what’s between my thighs is absolutely nothing except for Peter’s hand, wet and slippery and hanging there in air.
Peter’s face is chalk white. He looks like he’s about to have a heart attack. Then everything suddenly goes back to normal and his hand has disappeared between my thighs again, except that I am not on the verge of coming anymore, I am not even close, I am about as far away as you can be, and I am not happy. Peter slowly pulls out his hand; even if he’d wanted to keep going, he could tell that I didn’t. He pulls it out and wipes it on the sheets and then looks up at me.
“Okay. What’s going on?”
“I don’t know.”
That’s not going to satisfy him. It doesn’t. I tell him everything, starting with last night’s toes and proceeding through missing fingers and a disappearing hand and ending with today. And as I do, I get more and more scared—and more and more angry. Toes I could deal with. Even fingers or hands—I can always dictate, right? Voice recognition software gets better every day. But if I can’t have sex anymore ’cause the relevant parts have chosen to wander off at the crucial moments…my fingers are digging into my thighs. They hurt. I am hurting myself. I am hurting my body, which is not behaving at the moment. I am wondering what will happen if I try to actually tear away some skin—will it disappear before I can? Would it come back?
The phone rings.
It’s past midnight. It must be Mark. Peter goes outside to smoke a cigarette and think. I pace back and forth as I tell the story again. It’s easier than I expected. It usually is, talking to him, at least once I get started. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have the answer for me. I try not to let him hear how disappointed I am. I doubt I fool him, but he lets me pretend. It’s been a rough day, after all.
Peter comes back in. I tell Mark I’ll talk to him tomorrow night, and hang up the phone. Peter pulls me into a hug.
“You should go see a doctor.” He’s using that ‘I’m-not-nagging-but-you-know-this-is-a-good-idea’ voice. I hate that.
“What can a doctor do?”
“This might have happened to someone before. I’ll see what I can find on-line, but in the meantime, you should see an expert.”
I consider arguing, but he will be impossible until I give in. He was like that about my wearing seatbelts, and remembering to take my thyroid medicine, and going to the dentist. I think I give in just to get him to stop nagging—but he doesn’t care as long as I do it.
“Drive me?”
“Of course.”
He holds me tight all night. I wake, once or twice, and he is still holding me. It doesn’t really help, but it doesn’t hurt either.
Peter calls the following morning, and somehow gets me an appointment. I think he bribed the secretary. He waits patiently while I do my exercises. I’ve already lost faith in them, but I did swear. I keep my promises.
The doctor is very beautiful, with short black hair and ice blue eyes. I try not to check her out too obviously as she goes through the routine physical, checks my pulse, palpates my breasts… .
“Well, you seem pretty healthy. What seems to be the problem?”
I can’t say it. I just can’t. I stare at her, and she at me. Her cheerful expression grows concerned, but she waits patiently. This room is too big and cold and white. I want a blanket, but you can’t ask a doctor for that. My teeth are chattering. She says nothing, and finally, I have to speak.
“Could I borrow your pad? And a pen?”
I write it down. It’s always easier to write. “Parts of my body keep disappearing.”
She reads it, and her eyes only widen slightly. Good doctor—well-trained.
“Parts of your body keep disappearing? Which parts?”
I tell her, and watch her expression subtly shift. This isn’t going to go well. I can tell.
I argue with Peter in the car going home. He thinks I should do what the doctor says; slow down a little, try to decrease stress, maybe talk to a counselor. Unfortunately, none of my body parts acted up in the office, and I know what the doctor was thinking, with her sharp blue eyes and pointed questions. ‘The poor girl is over-committed, in more ways than one.’ ‘She’s so tired and stressed that she’s imagining things.’ It would have been ridiculous to bring Peter in as witness, and she’d probably just have decided that he was over-committed too. He’s not been sleeping well, and he looks exhausted. Still, there aren’t any bits of him disappearing. I’m getting scared.
Peter drops me off with a hug and makes me promise to call him if anything else blinks out. For a moment, I don’t want to let go…I hang on tight. But I can’t hang on to him forever—besides, I told Mark I’d call him. And I owe Katherine a call, still. I let go, kiss his cheek, and head inside.
It’s easier telling the story the fourth time. I’m not sure why I bother, though. Katherine reacts as expected. She’s been convinced for years that if I just picked one of them, settled down with Mark or Peter, got married, etc. and so on ad nauseum, then I’d live happily ever after. She’s read too many romance novels. She’s fixed up the problems with her boyfriend since we talked yesterday, which means that she’s even more convinced that True Love(tm) will conquer all. If I swear monogamy to Mark (or Peter), then all my problems will be solved. No more disappearing bits.
Even if that were true, it wouldn’t be worth it.
“That’s not an option. I love both of them… . No, Kat, I can’t tell you which one I love more. I don’t know… . Well, I’m not you, am I?”
She eventually gives in on that one, but then shifts her attack. Surely I can at least stop bringing pretty boys and girls home for a night? Sure I could, but why should I? What can that possibly have to do with this? We argue for hours. Usually she’s less persistent than this—after all these years, you’d think she’d have given up entirely. But now she has new ammunition. We argue until I am ready to weep with frustration. Finally, I just hang up. She’ll understand. I’ll call her back next week and apologize; I just can’t cope with any more right now.
There is work waiting for me, but I can’t look at it now, I can’t. I just can’t.
I call Mark.
I meet Mark at the airport; he’s bought a ticket and come out early, two whole weeks before my scheduled trip. I feel better as soon as he arrives; stronger. Solider.
Nothing had disappeared in the few intervening days, but I’d been looking a bit translucent. My housemates had mentioned that I seemed pale; one of them made me dinner last night, out of the blue. She kept trying to get me to drink carrot juice. I’d started staying inside; in bright sunlight, I could see the veins and arteries through my skin, the blood pumping away, the muscles stretching and flexing. It didn’t seem to be dangerous—my hands could still type, my legs could still walk—it’s just unnerving. I’m so glad to have Mark with me.
I slide my arm around him, hold him tight. Definitely better. I don’t mention it until we’re home, until the bus has deposited us down the street and we’ve walked up the last few blocks to the house. Luckily, he travels light. We slip inside, dodging housemates; he’s not the gregarious type, and lately, for all their kindly concern, they weary me.
“I think you should spend more time alone.”
Mark doesn’t usually give advice, even when asked. He must be actually worried.
“I feel better. Now that you’re here.” It sounds appallingly mushy, but he’s used to that from me.
“I can’t fix it for you.”
“Shh…I know.”
We talk for a while, and then go to sleep. No real answers yet. Difficult to have answers when you’re not sure what the question is. Is the doctor right? Is Peter? Am I stretched too thin? And if so, is there anything I can do about it? Is there anything I’m willing to do?
In the morning, I wake to sunlight coming in the window, and tentatively hold a hand up to it. I can’t see through, even a little. Totally solid and normal. Relieved, I turn to wake Mark up, but he looks so peaceful…he hates being woken. At least I can make it a pleasant waking.
I slide further under the sheets, slip down to gently breathe on his hip, his thigh. If I do this just right, I can get him hard without waking him. Once, I even made him come in his sleep; that was satisfying. I’m not particularly interested in trying to repeat that, though—my nipples are sore and my thigh muscles are tight. I want him, and I want him awake. I breathe in deeply; the scent of him always turns me on. I blow gently on his hardening cock, I lick down the length of it, I rub my thighs together as I take the head in my mouth…I rub my cock against his leg…what?!
He’s awake. I’m very awake. We sit up; I yank back the sheets, and there, below my belly, nestled in a little nest of fine blonde hair, is a pale cock just like his, shocking against my dark skin. I can’t help it—I gasp out loud. You might call it a shriek. Not that I haven’t fantasized a little about having a penis—what woman hasn’t?—but to have his… . And it is his, exactly. Our eyes flick back and forth between our groins, comparing. Twins! Mine softens just as his does, it relaxes into exactly the same shape. We don’t say anything; we just sit there, staring. It’s there for at least a minute before it slowly fades out, and my own, more discreet, genitals fade in. I feel a little better, but still…
“Well.” My voice is shaking. I take a deep breath. “Peter has been complaining that I start sounding like you when I’ve been talking to you a lot. Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised.”
“I don’t think being near me is going to be a solution.” He sounds relieved.
“No.” What if it had been my head that faded out, to be replaced by his? Or even my heart… . “Still, if I could figure out how to control this, to do that again, the possibilities… .”
“Do you think you can?” He has an unfortunate predisposition for asking difficult questions.
“Well. No. Probably not.”
“You don’t want to just disappear bit by bit, and you don’t want to turn into me. I think you should at least try going away. Away from everyone.”
“But the project… .”
“Will survive without you for a few days.”
He’s right, of course. Maybe that’s why he so rarely gives advice—so that when he does, he can be right.
I borrow some camping gear from the housemates, send out e-mail to the appropriate people, change the message on the machine: “Gone fishing; back Wednesday”. I take out some money, buy groceries, pack the laptop, try to remember what I’ve forgotten, grab my medicine, and finally head out. Peter drops me off at the trailhead. I promise I’ll call every night and let him know that I’m okay. He’s not much of a woods person; I think he thinks I’ll be eaten by bears. There are no bears around here.
By the time I hike in and wrestle with the tent and gather wood, I’m so exhausted that I don’t even worry about being able to see the fire through my hands. It’s kind of a pretty effect, actually: flickering reds and golds glowing under my brown skin. I feel a little guilty about not having written anything, but console myself with the fact that I only have three two-hour batteries for the laptop. If I don’t type tonight, then I can stay another day. I curl up in my blanket and go to sleep.
Third day. I didn’t type anything yesterday. I didn’t flicker either. Skin’s opaque this morning, and the lake is beautiful, if cold. I swam naked at noon yesterday. I think I’ll go in a little earlier today. I could swim for hours here; days. When I finish, there’s a meadow nearby, and my blanket makes a perfect place to curl up and bask in the sun. I’ve got a lot of bug bites, but it doesn’t seem to matter. I’ve run out of books, too. I could always write my own—when I run out of paper, there’s bark, right? I could learn how to make ink out of something. Bug-blood, maybe, or fish guts. Of course, I’d have to catch a fish for that.
That’s a bit of a problem, actually. I didn’t really bring enough food to stay past tomorrow afternoon. When I hike back out this evening to call Peter, I could ask him to bring more food. Maybe I’ll do that. It’s nice here. Quiet.
Peter looks worried.
“You sure you want to stay longer? Do you have enough batteries?”
“Plenty—don’t worry.” It’s not as if I’m using them.
“This should last you a few more days. You—you do look better. Healthier.”
“Glad to hear it. I’ll see you Saturday, then?”
“Umm…okay. Guess that’s it, then.”
“Yup. Listen, it seems a little silly to call every night. I’m fine out here. I’ll call if there’s a problem, okay?”
“Well, okay.”
“Bye, then.” I heft the now-heavy pack onto my back and turn away. He leans over to kiss my cheek before I’m out of range. I let him, and smile.
“Bye,” he says, as I walk away.
the sun is so warm and the insects buzz above the grass tickles as the breeze blows it against my damp skin the sky is a thousand shades of blue and i will count and name them all before sunfall before night because when night comes then i will have to count the stars and there are so many this is my one two three day of naming blue
icicle blue
Mark’s eyes blue
computer screen blue
atlantic blue
my favorite jeans blue
esthely blue
i made that last one up entirely esthely the color where midnight runs into deep sea lit with sunlight blues esthely esthely esthely
Peter finds me. Peter finds me and cleans me up and takes me home and holds me until I am myself again. He tells me that my skin had turned green. Not transparent or translucent; very there—oh, definitely there. There, like a tree is there, a tree reaching up into the esthely sky, alone in the night but solid and rooted in the earth.
I don’t think I was meant to root quite so deep.
I don’t have an answer to the questions, but I have a plan to keep me whole. This is the plan.
1. Schedule time for Mark and Peter. Schedule time for work. Schedule time for friends. Schedule time for play.
2. When I start feeling a bit translucent, drag someone with me to the woods. Don’t talk to them, or at least not much, but make sure they bring me out again before I take root.
3. Repeat as necessary.
3a. If this doesn’t work: panic.
The first issue is coming out on time, it looks like. Or only a few hours late, at any rate. Katherine is engaged. Huzzah—that should keep things calmer. Tomorrow I go to visit Mark, thank the gods. And my housemates have made dinner for me, which is nice. My toes are tingling a little—that’s the first sign, I’ve learned. It’s okay, though…it’ll be a couple of hours before anything actually disappears, and I’ll have time to take a long walk first and count the stars. That should hold it off for a while. It’s just like remembering to take my meds.
This isn’t quite how I expected things to go. But I don’t know if that matters.
I’m not giving up, not yet.
If I hadn’t come this way, I’d never have found my shade of blue.
And Can This Ever End?
Note: this was written as hypertext for the web; the sections can be read in any sequence, or repeated
Frost
Rosa. Rosa in the afternoon, sitting in the window with her hair falling down, hair so pale, so fair, a white waterfall cascading down and down and he loses himself in it, in this girl sitting in the window, reading a book with her eyes half-closed and her legs pulled up and the light behind her so she is only a shape at dusk, in the town library, a curving shape with white water falling behind.
He opens the door, picks up a book from the cart by the door, a good book, a big, thick book, and walks a long circle of the small room, pausing at each compass point instinctively, despite the lack of arrows. He looks up, he looks down, he looks anywhere but at her, and finally he happens to be beside her, he happens to sit across an expanse of cushions in the broad window nook, he happens to be gazing at his book and not at her, oh no, and he is biting his lip raw. He is biting his lip and staring at the book and the clock is ticking and she has not looked up.
Five o’clock, six o’clock, seven and perhaps he should speak and the library closes at eight on Monday summer nights in August of that year but he has done as much as he is able in walking the room, in coming to this southwest compass point, in sitting here, where the breeze from the quiet vent carries with it her slightly musky scent mixed with the dust of old books. He has done all he can and turns the pages without ever noticing that the book is in Spanish and talks of un corazón that has shattered into a thousand pieces.
Seven fifteen. Thirty. Thirty-eight. Forty-seven, and the dry librarian calls out that it is time to check out books, that the library is closing, that it is over over over. And he does not move, he has stopped turning pages, and his lip is bleeding, just a little. Rosa looks up then, she looks up and smiles and asks, “Café?” and when he only clutches his book harder and stares at her she laughs. “Coffee, then.” He laughs too, only half-comprehending, but they walk out the narrow white library doors together, leaving the books forgotten behind.
Forest
Patrick writes poetry. He does not show it to her, but every word is of her, every touch of pen to paper, every scrap stuffed into pockets as she walks up, lifts on tiptoes, kisses him on the cheek. She doesn’t say hello, she only smiles and loops her arm around his waist, curls a finger into his belt loop and they begin to walk, he with his head tilted down, loving the easy familiarity of her. Patrick whistles and walks and this is what he writes:
the ivy curls around the oak, stretching up into the sun
and her legs are two strong trunks, her arms spreading
branches, a multitude of branches, a multitude of trees
and even in the dark, the tips reach up to the light, they
stretch, and moonlight streaks the green, sunlight
catches the twisting leaves and the ivy reaches up,
though it will never stretch quite as high… .
Patrick takes her to the woods. She had never seen them before him. She had grown up in the city, the big bad city with a moderately middle-class life; she had walked its streets barefoot, heedless of glass, and now she lets go of his waist, she runs in the woods, she disappears among the trees, his heart thumps and for a moment he cannot breathe, he cannot think, and then he sees the white banner of her hair, shouting surrender in the dark woods, shouting come and get me and he chases her, running her down, hunter to the fleet deer, but he catches her, he catches her up against a tree, and then he pauses, uncertain.
He pauses, and it is she who kisses him then, who pulls him down into the slightly dank undergrowth, the soft mosses, who peels their clothes away, like curling apple skins, until they are shivering in the morning woods, until their skin is wet with the remaining dew, until they are shivering with desire, until their skin is wet with touching, burning, rolling and rutting there under the tall trees, under the spreading branches reaching for the growing light.
Cobalt
“Will you make me some tea, dear?”
Kitchen putterings. Kettle whistlings. Pouring just as the water boils, the water that is fresh, filtered. Pouring over the loose tea leaves, swirling them up in the cobalt blue mug, watching them catch the light. Waiting, just staring into the hot water, the tea leaves, not reading the future, just waiting. One minute, two minutes, three and then pouring the tea into a serviceable white mug, straining it carefully, and not a leaf falls through, so carefully is it done. Then poured back again, dark unleafy tea, and one sugar and a little milk and the silver spoon that Patrick found for fifty cents at a city rummage sale and brought home and polished until it shone. And the tea is ready, silver stirring in the deep cobalt blue, and carried over to the table, to the computer humming, whirring, the keys clicking clicking clicking and ah,
reach up,
kiss a thank you,
smile,
and then back to the clicking keys pausing only for long, slow sippings of the hot tea, of the not quite scalding, perfect temperature, perfectly prepared with love and care, dark Ceylon tea.
Rust
Not tonight.
I hurt. You hurt me.
Last night.
Fine, not last night. Two nights ago, then. I still hurt.
Where do you think?
Just leave it alone, dammit!
I don’t want to talk.
I said, I don’t want to talk.
I don’t want to hug, I don’t want to kiss, I definitely don’t want to fuck!
Yeah, sure. I know how your mind works. You were thinking about it.
Don’t even start. I know you.
Look, I’m going to go sleep on the couch.
Fine, you sleep there. Just as long as you let me sleep.
Roses
Can you watch love die? Can you chart its course in the absences? The fewer words spoken. The fewer gentle touches. The shirts unwashed, the dishes undone. The heavy shouting silences. Is it present in the additions? The proliferation of stumbling attempts to make conversation. The sudden passion for sit-ups, for crisp clothes, in the half-formed urges toward self-improvement.
Patrick unlocks their door, fumble-fingered. He walks in, sets down his heavy briefcase, listens for and hears Rosa in the bedroom, chattering. He has time, and so takes his paper-wrapped package into the kitchen. There he pokes and prods, pulls out a few dead leaves, a malformed bud, and shifts until the dark purple roses bloom like bruises from the green heart of ferns. Only then does he take them to her, walks in the bedroom door and sees her there, lying sprawled on their bed with one hand between her thighs, in the dark robe he bought her for their anniversary, the dark silk robe caressing her skin, her hair loose for once and shockingly bright against it, her fingers slipping against the silk, against her skin. She does not see him at first—he slipped off his shoes as he entered, he has learned to move on cat feet. Rosa purrs into the phone for an endless moment, and then looks up, sees him, falls silent. He walks into the room. He offers the flowers. She mouths the words, “Thank you.” She nods towards the kitchen, and he nods in return. Patrick walks out of the room, closing the door behind him, and steps into the kitchen. He pulls down a vase and prepares the fragile blooms for cutting. He carefully does not hear what noises leak through the edges of the door.
Holes
Patrick alone. Patrick alone on the seashore with the sand in his shoes because he will not take them off because that is what she would have done, she would have run barefoot or even naked down the moonlit stretch of sand, she would have dived into the icy water and mocked him for remaining on the shore until he joined her, stripped and ran and dived in, freezing cold and so very happy… .
Patrick crosses the same fifty feet of beach, over and over, with the sand in his shoes and a warm coat buttoned tight and his hands in his pockets. He is warm. He is warm and he does not care. His feet hurt. His fingernails dig into his palms, leaving marks, perhaps even drawing blood, muffled there, deep in his warm pockets.
Patrick remembers. She slept like a cat in the afternoons, curled in the sunlight, naked. He has not slept in the bed since, and the last depression is still there, the pit, the hole where she slept. He remembers the O of her mouth, the shocked opening as he, before he, after he slapped her. Not hard. And she came at him with claws outstretched, she dug into him, she was fierce and pitiless and when she was done he was punctured, pointless. She had shredded him and left nothing but the frame, the stick figure that could only walk, endless on a beach. No room for a heart. Nowhere to put it.
Patrick so very alone.
There are no stars tonight. The sky is dark and empty. The sky is full of black holes, and the stars have fallen through, dying.
Patrick deciding.
Silence and the Word
This is a true story.
In the dark, there’s a woman in bed. Her lover’s hand is between her thighs, and he is rubbing what he thinks is her clit, but in fact he’s almost an inch off, and she doesn’t know what to do. She wants to tell him, somehow, but it’s not an easy thing to communicate. She tries raising her hips a little, hoping that he will figure it out and slide his finger down that crucial inch, but instead he just rubs harder, undoubtedly thinking he is exciting her. She makes little sounds of frustration, but he doesn’t understand what they mean. She knows that she should just say something—even if it’s only “lower,” but the word has gotten caught in her throat; it’s buried down somewhere deep. She can only say it in her head, over and over like a mantra: “lower lower lower lower… . ” She doesn’t know why she’s doing it. It’s not as if he can hear her thoughts, but she wishes he could, because, while it might cause problems, it would be easier than this. Finally, he gives up on getting her off this way and slides his finger inside her instead, gliding over her clit, accidentally, in the process. She gasps, but he thinks it’s because of the finger inside her, and she doesn’t know how to tell him what he’s missing.
That’s me.
At the San Francisco Barnes & Noble store, a woman is reading an erotic short story called “A Jewel of a Woman.” She hasn’t read this story out loud before, and it’s a little more explicit than she remembered. “I once tried that trick you read about, where you stuff a bunch of pearls deep into your pussy and then pull the strand out slowly, one by one. It felt so good, so fucking good as those pearls came out, grinding against my clit one by one… . ” She thinks about dropping her voice a little when she says “pussy” or “fucking” or “clit,” especially since the children’s section is just a few steps away. But the managers must have known what they were letting themselves in for when they scheduled an erotica reading, right? And they gave her a mike anyway. So what the hell! Instead of getting quieter, she gets louder, and sexier; she licks her lips and pauses before the forbidden words; she draws them out— she does her damnedest to seduce the people sitting in the metal folding chairs, seduce them with her voice and swaying body, and by the end of the story people are halted in the aisles across the store, listening, people who hustle away, embarrassed, when she stops. She doesn’t care because she knows that, for a few minutes, she had them. They were hers.
That’s me too.
Forgive the third person—it’s easier than saying “I”. If I had to say “I couldn’t say that” or “I did this,” then I’m not sure I’d be able to write this at all. But maybe I could—that’s what’s so odd. It’s a lot easier to write this stuff down than to say it out loud. I’ve been writing erotica for seven years now, and it still surprises me how easy it is to write, “She wanted to fuck him silly, until his eyes were bugging out… . ” or even “I took his thick cock in my mouth, licking it up and down… .“
Maybe it’s because erotica is fiction. That would be one explanation—that even though there’s a little of myself in all my characters (even the gay men), it’s never quite me. My characters can often say and do things that would terrify me in real life; I can use them to explore all sorts of possibilities. They can have sex with strangers, or with their best friends. They can be blindfolded and beaten. They can do desperate, crazy things for love, or for a really good fuck. They’re just characters.
Even when I’m reading my stories out loud, my audience doesn’t know which ones, which parts are really me. Even if I tell them, “This one is autobiographical,” they can’t really know where autobiography ends and fiction begins.
It’s different at night, in the dark, in bed.
He is kissing her, her cheeks, her neck, her throat. It feels good, but something is bothering her, something is making her more quiet than usual, not as responsive. He notices. He stops and asks, “What’s wrong?” She shakes her head. She wants to answer, to ask for something, a small thing, but she can’t. She is afraid of the words, and doesn’t know why. She is afraid of his answer to her simple request. She is a little reluctant to say anything at first. Then her silence makes this seem more important than it should be, and it becomes even more difficult to talk, to say the words. She feels paralyzed. He has dealt with this before. Silence, and the stillness of her body that signals distress. They have sometimes played twenty questions—him asking the questions, trying to guess what is bothering her. She can manage to nod or shake her head, but, too often, he can’t even come close to asking the right questions. Tonight, though, he has a new idea. He gets up, walks naked to the living room, gets a pencil and paper and brings them back. Turns on the nightstand light, hands her the paper and pencil, turns away while she scribbles a few sentences on the paper. She feels ridiculous, and almost doesn’t have the nerve to give him the paper, but she does. She buries her face in his chest while he reads her request. He doesn’t laugh. He reaches out, shuts off the light, turns back and tilts up her head and starts to kiss her again. This time, on her lips. He kisses her for a long time. He doesn’t say anything, and she is grateful.
See—it’s not just that fiction is easier to write than nonfiction. Writing it down is easier than speaking it. The writing lets me distance myself. The hand moving across the page is further away from the heart of me than the air in my throat, struggling to form words. If you read this, and then we meet some day, you will know these things about me, these things that I have written, that I have told you. Probably I’ll be embarrassed, but it will be an embarrassment I can live with. It will be so much easier than having said the words out loud.
She feels so silly having him get a pencil and paper that she tries to teach him the sign alphabet. It is all she knows of sign language—the shapes of letters, A, B, C—but it is enough to make small sentences, with patience. In bed, in the moonlight, she can spell out: W I L L Y O U G O D O W N O N M E? She usually doesn’t even have to spell out the whole thing; he figures it out around the D and takes her hand in his to still it and then smiles and slides his mouth down her body. What is funniest is that sometimes he forgets what letter a shape means, especially when she hasn’t done this for him in a while. Then she ends up sounding out half the letters as she says them, so that she feels like a grownup talking over the head of a little kid, spelling out the letters of words she doesn’t want her to hear. It’s silly, it’s ridiculous—but it’s working. It’s better than pencil and paper. It’s much better than nothing.
My lovers are always startled when they realize how much trouble I have talking in bed. They’re mostly quiet themselves—I like the quiet types, and so lovemaking tends not to be too talkative. For most things, body language and muffled sounds do well enough. Sometimes we go weeks before they figure it out. When they do, they almost always say the same thing—”But you write this stuff!”
“It’s not the same,” I explain. After a while, they believe me, especially after they see me trying, and failing, to talk. Sometimes they accept it as yet another of my strange quirks. One or two have really wanted to know why. I’ve gotten frustrated enough with the whole business that I’ve tried to figure it out too.
The nearest I can come to figuring it out is that it has to do with being naked. Not just physically naked, though that’s part of it (I have no problems talking about sex while sitting on the couch, fully clothed, using sufficiently dry and clinical terms).
When I talk about sex in bed with a lover, I am physically and emotionally naked, open and vulnerable to someone whom I am inviting past the barriers, the boundaries, someone who has seen and touched all my private spaces. It’s intense, and scary. To put my real desires, my most intimate thoughts, into words, and to say them out loud in a private space where there is no possibility that I can pretend that I was just joking, reciting, performing—that’s just plain terrifying. It’s the most naked act I know.
It’s a lot easier to run away and hide.
She has been with him for years. She knows how to translate his code words; speech doesn’t always come easily to him either. So when he finishes, and asks her, “Are you okay?” she knows that he is really asking if she is satisfied, if that was enough, or if she’d like him to do something else. He is even trying to make it easy for her—all she has to say is, “No,” and he will try to satisfy her. Sometimes when she needs to, she manages to say it, but this time, the thought of the conversation they might get into (as he tries to find out exactly what she wants) exhausts her. So she says “I’m fine,” and pretends to herself that she’s answering another question entirely, because while she’s not really satisfied, not sated, she’s not really thrumming with tension either—she’s okay, she’s fine. It’s true enough, isn’t it?
You see, I was raised to be polite. I’m not someone who swears easily—it takes a real crisis to get “fuck!” or even “dammit!” out of my mouth. When upset, I am more likely to cry or be silent than shout. Being polite means not saying things, a lot of the time. Not saying things that might upset someone else, things that might make someone uncomfortable. I can hide my powerful naked emotions behind a sheltering, softening cloak of politeness; and that’s how I was raised—that’s how most of us are raised. That’s how you get along with people.
If I ask a lover for something, and he doesn’t really want to give it to me, we are both in an awkward position. Does he refuse, and deal with my disappointment? Does he agree, and do something he doesn’t really want to do? If he thinks my request is ridiculous, or disgusting, won’t we both just be embarrassed? It’s easier not to ask.
Yet I’m not sure that silence is ever a real solution. It’s just easier than speaking. But in the end, I don’t want to just be “polite” with my lover.
She has bought a copy of Exhibitionism for the Shy, though she has always distrusted self-help books. She is on the first exercise, where you stand alone in a room and say the forbidden words out loud. Just the words at first, disassociated.
Fuck. Cock. Pussy. Cunt.
Once she has practiced that for a while (it’s not so hard), she moves to the next step—owning the words.
My pussy. My cunt.
I like fucking.
This part is difficult. She almost gives up right here. But she is tired of not being able to say what she wants to say. She is tired of resorting to pieces of paper and letters hand-spelled out in dim light. It would be so much better to just be able to say it. She feels silly, stupid, ridiculous all over again, saying these words to an empty room—but she says them. It does get easier with practice.
I want you to lick me.
I want you to fuck my pussy, my cunt.
So why are those words so particularly difficult? There are lots of things I could ask for, lots of things that a lover might say no to, that might be upsetting or disappointing—yet they’re rarely as difficult to say as “Will you kiss my breasts?” (Try it. Go alone into the bathroom; close the door, and try saying the words out loud. I hope you have an easier time of it than I do.)
Is it because we’re not supposed to like sex? Is that a spectre of my mother, hovering in the background, listening as I say those scary words? Am I hearing the echoes of all those years of “don’t look, don’t touch, don’t do… .“ Whether said or unsaid, the message was clear; just don’t. So that if I do, I do it quietly in secret, in the dark, under the covers, soundlessly. Or, if overcome by passion, I might scream, and there’s an excuse, isn’t there? “I couldn’t help myself… . ” So whimpering and moaning might be okay; that’s just my body taking over.
But when I put the words to it, when I say, “I want you to fuck me, please… . ”, then I can’t pretend that I just happened to fall into this bed, oops!, or that I was simply overwhelmed by my body’s desires, ’cause there’s my mind forming those words, sending the message to my mouth to open up and say them out loud.
I have to admit to my lover and even worse, to myself, that I consciously choose to be here, having sex, and that goes against everything I was ever taught.
I know not all of you have my background, and I do wonder how much of my difficulty comes from the way I was raised (of conservative family, in a culture where sex came always after marriage and a woman’s needs were often subjugated to a man’s). It would be easy to put it all down to that; to being female and Asian and unmarried. That’s undoubtedly a lot of it, for me—but it can’t be all of it. More than a few of my lovers have had similar difficulties, and while they are also unmarried, they are neither female nor Asian. It seems to me that most cultures teach us to deny our sexuality, deny the strength of our desires.