It's not that I hated being a woman. It's that I simply never was. When people used words like "feminine" I would think 'What a beautiful word' to describe someone else- not me. Whenever people spoke about me as a woman it filled my ears and mouth with dust, made me want to lose my body, and stare into the world like a blinking blank sheet of paper.
Then I met Mark, and he told me I was beautiful in a way that let me believe it. I liked being seen as a woman by him. I liked being touched as a woman by him. After about a year of being together I began to forget that I had ever been less than at home in this role- at least with Mark. My comfort with him made most of the gender related discomfort in my life temporarily enough that I could ignore it. It was just bad weather. Then one day his attention dried up, like a wave that never returned to shore.
At first it was almost imperceptible. He wasn't rude, just a bit brisk or distant. But then whole evenings would go by without our eyes meeting. I found myself following him with my eyes, waiting for his to join mine, but they never did. He didn't want me in the same way. And as the days piled on I felt empty. Useless. I was just there: going to work and mulling about our apartment. The man who had given my life rhythm had left me, even as he sat next to me.
Eventually, I tried to ask him if something was wrong. He would reply that he was tired. Or had more work to do. Or was just feeling off. Or he gave the answer that hurt me most of all: everything's fine. I tried to convince myself I was being paranoid, but when his friends came over he came alive. When we went out nothing was different except the way he treated me. Nowhere was he different except with me. I kept waiting for him to break up, but he never did. Instead, we spent our time moving about the apartment like magnets that never touched.
In the mornings that followed what I began to think of as 'The Great Retreat' I would hide from the day by pressing closer into him. I wanted to feel his breath melt on the nape of my neck. I wanted to feel him get hard against my ass, turn me over and fuck me until my body felt like jello. I wanted him to need me. Other mornings, I'd turn and face him; then burrow my face into his chest, until I had to back away and gasp for air. But it didn't work. We had stopped having sex. There was no discussion. It just happened, or, rather stopped happening.
Before The Great Retreat, our sex life had been fine and functional. It was... what I expected growing up- not what I had hoped for. But like the looks I collected, it gave me substance and meaning; it made me sure I had a body. Some nights I felt euphoric in the way I used to feel during a choir performance. I was getting everything right. I was dissolving into a greater mass. I was creating something beautiful, to be seen, to be heard, to be felt. But unlike a musical performance, there was no innate drive. I was not communicating something deep within me. I was crafting from air. I was she who did not exist but still shimmered in the dark. I was she who could make him feel like this or that, and I felt a great satisfaction in being her.
So when the sex dried up, and the dark was just dark, I was just eyes, floating in a room, wondering if I was annoying him by always lying so close, breathing in his ear, moving in the night, getting up to pee, getting back into bed with feet cold from the tile. I was miserable, but I couldn't stop waiting for him to come back to me. I decided: he would have to be the one to end things. He would have to break first: either the silence or our bond. But instead he brought her home.
I heard them in the hallway, shoes scuffing backward and forwards at sporadic intervals, walls being used as leverage and then giggles when walls appeared as themselves: things to fall into and slide down. I heard the floor; it must have felt deceptively soft in their passion because they couldn't stop laughing when they fell, or when she fell- I assume.
"Quiet, shhhh," as they came towards the door. It was a command, but I could hear the smile even in his hushing. His seriousness was forced like a kid play-acting on stage. He was delighted to be heard, to have a reason to tell her to shut up, or he was just careless.
As they came closer to our apartment door I made my way to the bedroom. I laid in bed as frozen as a body in a grave. But my eyes wouldn't stop opening. They burned when I blinked. Within minutes, they were fucking on the couch. I heard the sounds of bodies filled with syrup and dripping sweat. I heard the clap of a hand against an ass. That was when they gave up being quiet. She screamed, and I heard her gasp, breath flooding her body. The rhythm of his fucking made her moans warble, like light interrupted by a hand but so much more real. Hearing him slam into her I was sure of the angle at which their bodies met; she was head down ass up. I was sure his palms were filled with her hair, pulled taut between closed fingers as he pushed her head into the pillow, and then pulled her up again to remind her who put her there in the first place. They continued like this for a small forever: wet sounds, thuddy sounds, screams caught in her throat and screams let loose in the room. I couldn't hear his words, but I heard something in them I'd never heard before.
I realized he never fucked me until I screamed. He never slammed into my cunt with the urgency and speed someone could make out a whole hallway and closed door away. For the past few weeks I had been consumed by the worry that he was done with me, but I realized in that moment, I had never even met him, not in the way this woman had, not in the way he wanted to be met. I had always been useless. My performances felt embarrassing. I couldn't believe that I let myself believe that I was the woman he wanted.
As humiliated as I was, I didn't cry. I waited. I wanted to know how their story ended. And eventually it did. I heard zippers in the place of thrusting. I heard whispers, as if only moments ago they hadn't been screaming, as if she hadn't been screaming. And then I heard the sound that broke me: a kiss. A single slow kiss between lips, meeting tenderly, meeting comfortably, meeting not to say "good bye" but simply "until next time."
I held my breath when I heard the door close, and I didn't start breathing until he turned on the shower. 10 minutes. He's never taken a shower shorter than 10 minutes. So for 10 minutes I practiced loosening my muscles and closing my eyes. I willed myself to reach for the glass of water nearly a foot away from the bed. 'You have time. Get it. Just get the fucking water.' So I did. And I set it down just as the water from the shower stopped.
He was naked when he got in the bed. He was warm. He was soft. He was exhausted. He fell asleep, and in the middle of the night his arm flung out and rested on on my body. I pretended some part of him knew he was doing this, and I sunk farther into him and then the night.
In the morning I woke up first and made us breakfast. Scrambled eggs, toast, coffee. Simple. So simple that he would never guess that I knew. It wasn't impressive, and that was the point. When he came out into the kitchen he was reading his phone, checking instagram. He smiled and said "Thanks babe" as his fork reached for the eggs. He showed me a reel of a cat and a dog being friends. It was cute. We laughed. We hadn't laughed like this in so long, it felt like a stretch, both the effort and relief. This was almost how it used to be. And that is how we came to our agreements, to the end of The Great Retreat- not by way of wordy discussions, but simple acts that became permissions. Yes I'll watch this video with you. Yes I'll go on a walk with you. Yes I'll tidy the couch, and when I find the things she left behind I'll place them on your nightstand with care- the nightstand that held things we shared at the start of our relationship: a book he had never finished sat on top, and in the drawer were small trinkets like a drink coaster from the place we had our second date.
The silence that covered us now was a different silence than the one that had proceeded it. I had waited for him to see me, but I quickly realized, I didn't want to be seen. I wanted him to need me. I wanted to be useful. I started small, "No leave your dishes in the sink. I'll get them." Then I did the laundry. I wouldn't take no for an answer. I would make up excuses "I know you had a hard day at work." I had a hard day at work, but it didn't matter. It wasn't joy I felt when I started getting all the groceries alone and cooking all the meals. It was momentum. I was in motion. I was doing something. As long as I was doing something I was confident we wouldn't break up.
He stopped protesting all the things that I started doing alone. He never protested much to begin with. This was better than it was. Therefore, it is getting better. We are getting better. He is coming back to me. I am one dirty dish away from being loved. I am one unfolded laundry basket away from being fucked like my cunt is shaped for his dick. I was exhausted, but I couldn't stop. My exhaustion made me move faster, into a blur. I would get home from work and rub his feet, cook dinner, cleanup dinner while he was eating, wash his clothes, pack his lunch, organize both our closets, and 100 more small tasks. Tasks so small it would have impressive if anyone had noticed.
Within these first few weeks, she came back at least once a week. And every-time I would stay in the bed like the first. And I would wait for them to finish, for him to shower, and I would spend 10 whole minutes telling myself 'now, now is the time to reach for the water and take a sip.' And then he would come to bed, and he would feel softer than he ever had, and I would want him more than I ever had. It was a couple weeks before the exhaustion at home was affecting my work. And it was a couple months before I got fired. When I got fired I cried. When I got home from being fired I cried. When he walked in the door and saw me sitting on the couch I cried.
He asked me what happened, and I told him I lost my job. He told me things would be okay, that his new promotion would help make up for the cost, at least for a while. I apologized to him. I felt useless. After months of incessant motion, I was useless. Everything I had done to make life easier didn't matter compared to this. I couldn't keep up. I couldn't keep this up. I wasn't a real person. I was just a body waiting in a bed. It was at that point I broke, and I told him. I told him I heard everything. I told him I didn't understand. I said that last part over and over again, as if understanding would make anything that had happened better.
He was calm when I told him, and I realized he was expecting it. He was ready for it. This moment had probably already played out in his mind, and he knew exactly what he wanted to do.
"Get on all fours and close your eyes. Hands on the floor. Back Straight. Head facing down." his voice came out flat. I started to say something, but I wasn't really confused, and I didn't want to fake it. Not anymore.
I slid off of the couch slowly, letting my pants drag against the fabric. When I reached the floor I placed my hands flat against the wood and my legs made a sharp 90 degree angle. This posture resulted in a striking resemblance to the coffee table to my left.
