What follows is an account of a visit from the crazy lady... I wish I was still menstruating, I could use it as an excuse...
As I return to this, reread it to see if I want to share it… it occurs to me that it sounds like this seems a bigger issue than it probably truly is. I know it is a recurrent thing, a rut we fall into. And when my mood is sour and wanders into the dark side, when all the glasses are half empty instead of half full, when all things are measured in terms of what they lack rather than what they have… it is then that the little things, the occasional things seem bigger, seem constant, and seem unbearable.
Looking at this now, with different vision I can see how the madness had consumed me once again. I can see how the crazy lady had gotten out of her cage…
“Let’s take a shower.”
And the sense of predictable inevitability of my life made me sigh… a deep, long breath of sadness, frustration, suppressed rage that literally shook me. I did not want to take a shower, did not want the same, the routine, the predictability, the mechanical… I wondered if I could just endure it or if I had to force it… to somehow, hope against hope, dredge up some kind of sexual response to this weekly Saturday morning hygiene fuck… I toy with the temptation to fake an orgasm but I have promised to stop this devious behavior.
I cannot help myself and as we stand side by side, brushing our teeth, the first step in dance that has become so entrenched that I could choreograph it… the sense of unbearable routine, the endless cycle of life, the mind numbing treadmill… that I cannot help but ask, “Does it ever feel like this is just one more thing to get through, something that must be done, like taking vitamins or brushing your teeth… something we have to do because we know it is good for us… even if it is not particularly enjoyable?”
He gives me a look, the “shit, she is starting to bitch about stuff” kind of look… and he grabs my nipple and pinches it hard, making my face squinch up and my eyes water.
“You are being a brat.”
“I am telling you how I feel. It feels like brushing teeth… something that must be done in order for your mouth to feel good and avoid cavities.”
Again he hurts me and says the word brat.
I get the message and stop talking. But it is too late… he knows of the bitter brew that has filled me up. He talks as we wash, “I want to have sex on week nights too… but it always ends up with one or both of us falling asleep… but we could take a shower on a work night too sometimes…”
And the idea of somehow just moving the same predictable dance to a Thursday or Wednesday night nearly crushes my soul and I start a kind of drunken, defeated giggling. He gives me a sharp look and grips me again, pinching and pulling again and again the word “brat” rings in my ears.
I blurt out, almost like the pressure on my flesh has squeezed the words out, “That is like someone saying, “I don’t like meatloaf.” And the response being well we could try eating meatloaf somewhere else, like in the car or on the deck.”
And it is sadly true… I don’t like meatloaf… I mean shower sex. It may have had its attraction, its moments of erotic fun once… but when it is the only thing on the menu… it is hard to work up any kind of response beyond fatigue and boredom. There is no foreplay, unless of course you include tooth brushing or the one or two perfunctory swats one receives as one is getting in under the water… I enjoy sucking cock, but it does not arouse me sexually… and once he bends me over the position is strenuous and angled to almost systematically avoid contact with any of the “good places”. And the water runs down into my nose and eyes and ears. I could not come like this if I tried and I have long since stopped trying.
He does not even let go of me now, but I am reckless, brave and foolish. I give him a dark, challenging look, ready to lose my nipple rather than give ground on this. I grimly assert… “I don’t like it in the shower.”
And he does this thing… says this thing he has said many times before… a gross, humiliating thing… “I am not going to fuck you without a shower, not when you smell like ass.” He says that… makes those disgusted comments about me smelling. I know I am not dirty… in fact, after years of those kinds of words, I think I perhaps wash my crotch and butt more obsessively than any other person. I will scrub at myself till I bleed sometimes. I wash myself and rub with baby wipes… every time I pee or poop. I will wipe until there is streaks of red on the paper. I sniff at my hands and the paper… paranoid… disgusted with myself.
I think our respective crazy ladies have secret cell phones, and have been co-ordinating their break for it. I understand that "crushed" feeling.
ReplyDeletePlease know that this is intended to amuse you, I'm not making fun, I'm just weird like that. While I was reading “I don’t like meatloaf.” And the response being well we could try eating meatloaf somewhere else, like in the car or on the deck.” my mind went into the who Dr. Suess cadence. I half expected, "or in the dungeon, off my neck. I do not like meatloaf, Master man, on the porch or in a can"...
sorry.
Hugs.
quack.
i admit to thinking Dr. Suess too. My apologies.
ReplyDeletei understand Da Man has germophobe type issues. i do the baby wipe thing myself as i translated "always be ready for sex" into "always be clean and have shaved legs."
What i wonder is if he realizes how he is equating sex with self disgust....the antithesis of a passionate woman he would seem to want.
Passion does not care if it has been an hour since you washed.
Passion enjoys reckless abandon. Sort of like our crazy ladies, but *different.*
Perhaps when reckless abandon cannot be enjoyed sexually it asserts itself in other ways, a la crazy lady.
i wonder *who* he would rather share his bed with...???
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