Six Weeks

It’s not that I didn’t like sex. Or that I didn’t love it. My sexual palate had dwindled to something worse than a watered down plain vanilla. The tingling desire to thrust my body on top of my husband simply wasn’t there.

I mean everyone is like that, aren’t they? Same old same old. One unremarkable routine twisting into another normal routine. The mid-life crisis of nothing turning into emptiness. What is nothing? A dark void of acceptance that you are a wife and a mother. Your fiendish teenagers or your absentminded uninformed partner command your every wish. Well, at least that is what it has felt like for the past twenty years.

Twenty years. The number twenty pounded in my brain. My heart raced, and my body turned into Last Night of the Proms. I wanted to stay calm, to counter my inner storm muttering. Stay calm, stay calm, Helen. Acutely aware that talking to myself was borderline, but who else was there to tell? No one apart from myself would understand my emotions or what my body was struggling to embrace; rage, anger, stress, love, hurt, more love, and stupidity rolled into one.

The idea of twenty years in an awful marriage left me aghast. The furry un-waxed parts of my body hair erect, my heart pumped faster and louder than a steam train. I was drunk and yet, so sober. I looked around for the ferry boat as I rocked from the sink to stove, but there wasn’t one. It was just me, swaying backwards, looking for the comfort of something to support me. Empty. Warmth trickled down my cheek, and I let it. Too indifferent to wipe it away. I felt it drop onto my bare-skinned shoulder. The tear left an imprint on my face as it fell.

The tear, lonely and warmer than other tears but atypical of my crazy crying tantrums. No floods, just slow and scarring tears. I faltered further back, still swaying on my imaginary ferry. The tide was low. Silence.

The silence was overpowering. I closed my eyes, letting the two drops carve tattoos into my skin. As one left my face, the other melted into my mouth. I savoured the bitter, salty aftertaste. I was now at my destination, the breakfast bar. The Ikea bar stool that I had proudly bought a few years ago was behind me. I felt the broken and faded leather on my hips as I positioned myself to rest. The leather was symbolic of my fatigued marriage. Beautiful at the start and over the years frayed and shabby without the chic. The sunlight blinded me as I sat.

What on earth had happened? Where did the time go? I stepped over the rain soaked clothes from last night’s storm and my bottom encompassed the stool. I felt envelopes of fat melt around the chair swallowing the seat. Crushed in between the juxtaposition of resting my feet with the horror of how gargantuan my bottom had become. My nakedness now blatantly obvious as every ripple of skin, fat, and flesh squashed onto the decaying stool. The scratchy broken leather ate into my behind, and I knew there were marks on my pink posterior.

I sunk. My reflection bullied me in the kitchen window. I didn’t want to stare at my naked body, but there was nowhere else to look until I saw the fly.

Flies disgusted me, but this one looked quite lost. I gazed at it, engrossed in its helplessness. It buzzed, slave-like against the window. The fly knew it couldn’t get out, but it carried on, rallying. Buzzing from left to right and then up and down. Both desperate and lonely, able to see the wondrous world and the glorious gardens but unable to embrace any of it. I was that fly. On a collision course with the window. Jockeying to get out of a desperate situation, but content with the fact that life had it by the jugular.

My hands instinctively caressed my neck. Waves of coldness engulfed my body. My last sexual encounter unraveled in my mind. It was awkward. The detachment of my body from my mind as my ex-Edward penetrated me. I knew it would be the last time. Knowing the fumbling would be over as would the sterile intimacy, which always stopped at the bra line. His inability to kiss or do anything resembling foreplay had been amiss for a long time. Glumly, my head twitched with a nodding realisation. My back rested on the cold wall and my bum sunk further into the thorny seat.

In the window’s reflection, the fly was now also hovering around my mouth. Still trying to fight its way out of the kitchen. I felt like a frog in control of the fly’s life, wary of its every move; I start opening and closing my mouth. Childishly chuckling at the thought of eating the fly and putting it out of its misery. I wanted to jump up and instantly let the fly out of the window; I didn’t. Unnatural forces stopped me. I couldn’t. The fly attacking the window was the most exciting thing I had seen all day. It deflected from the sharp alien pains in my bottom devouring deeper into my flesh. The sturdy leather ravished me. The torment from underneath coupled with the buzzing felt strangely satisfying. I was miserable. So was my bottom, so was the chair and so was the fly.

I made a mental list of all the things that had happened the past year.

·Fantastic promotion at work.

·Propositioned by Bulgarian IT man for a quickie in the office car park.

·Threw husband out.

Focusing was hard as the beating percussion from my organs continued to clang in my ears. I needed a better list, something shorter, crisper to highlight my pain. So much had happened to me, my thoughts chaotic; I tried again.

1.Work life amazing.

2.Found out husband was a wanker.

No. As soon as I thought it, I knew that it was not what I wanted. Who was to blame in a rubbish marriage, the man for being a wanker or the woman for letting him be? The grinding of my teeth accompanied the noises in my body. I shifted my bottom on the chair to try and forget the percussion.

The movement was a mistake, little edges of leather penetrated my intimates. I enjoyed the pain. The suffering made me feel alive. I turned my bum again just for the hell of it. My naked flesh on the seat made a satiated happy noise like the symbols at the end of a parade. The sound terrified the fly as it crashed to the bottom of the window sill. It didn’t take long before it collected its thoughts and hammered the window again. Still, no inclination on my side to save it though. I was enjoying its misery. I was miserable too.

I was in a box, buried deep. The mental list of my predicament continued to starve the oxygen to my brain. But instead of thinking about the past, thoughts of the future, the next second, minute, day, hour and six weeks escalated and then encroached on me.

What if I would never have sex again?

Would I be a spinster?

Do I have any friends and who would support me?

I mean, men like large butts, they are in fashion. But would they like mine? Is my bum just big?

Is it sexy?

Will anyone even want me?

Will my hymen grow again?

Could that happen?

Could you become a virgin all over again?

Will I ever need a bikini wax again?

Am I good enough for anyone else?

I looked at my unroasted marshmallow complexion in the window, then felt the blackness of the box closing-down on me. There was pressure all around; the air strangled me and enjoyed it. The air entwined around me and with every squeeze, my joints compressed.

The pain in my bottom was real, but the starvation of air started to scare me. The strangulation started in my head and then moved down to my body. My eyes fought to stay open and glare at my white flesh. The shock of the nakedness stopped the pain and noises and everything else that was going on in my body. I soaked in my complexion, my body, eying every part, bit, shape and roll of me. After seconds that felt like years, a flicker of hope.

I looked down at my skin and then up again at the reflection. At first, I thought I was looking at my whole body, but wasn’t. My breasts filled most of the window. I whispered to myself.

“My boobs looked great.” I paused, and then I muttered. “Damn, my boobs were in good shape.” The reflection smiled at me, and suddenly through the fog, I saw a glimmer of hope.

Were breasts popular? The flicker of hope in fear of being destroyed? I wouldn’t let it. I had a good part! My enormous breasts could win competitions; they were bigger than watermelons. They masked my muffin top and made me look curvy. No, curvaceous. The Marilyn Monroe figure, the XL version, with slightly bigger melons on top, that was me.

I made a mental note to myself to buy cleavage-showing bras to make sure any assets would be on display. Tight clothes would be the best now. Spanx. Spanx just made their way to the top of my must-buy list. I remembered to breathe, inhaling from the stomach. As I did, my breast lifted. “Yes, they lifted!”

A wicked grin escaped from my woe. The breasts were firm too! That was it. For the first time in ages, something positive. I had real breasts. I saw myself crawling out of the box, up through the earth and pushing my arm into the air. There was something good on my body and in my life, and I wanted to sing it from the rooftops. But I didn’t move. I just sat.

Hope didn’t last too long as my mind took me back to the list. The blanket of fear enveloped me again, and my eyes flicked on and off like a light switch. What had happened to me? How did I get here?

Husband was a fool.

Husband was a complete idiot, so should have shagged Bulgarian man.

Threw husband out.

Why was I miserable?

I could feel the wood at the lower part of the leather. I was in deep. The pain sent spears throughout my body and woke me. As did the first spurts of blood, seeping from my posterior onto the broken leather. Even then I did not move. But the last question kept ringing in my ears and brain. Why was I miserable? WHY WAS I MISERABLE?

The world was my oyster, everything I had asked for was in front of me. The furniture might be old, but the house was mine. The house was crumbling around me. The furniture was more than old. More like, destroyed. The windows were dirty, and it was a surprise that there was any reflection at all. The place was a mess. A mess filled with twenty years of dirt left by my lazy ex. He couldn’t be bothered to do anything. A mess was his middle name, but I mentally punched the other hand out of the dirt. My fantastic job meant I could re-build my life how I wanted it. I wished that I was Cinderella and my fairy Godmother had clicked her fingers and transformed my house.

I pictured a house in a magazine. White furniture, white walls, a minimalistic look. A comfortable red sofa and a fireplace. Avant-garde pictures on the walls, bits of a brick showing for contrast; a new kitchen with plush stools that didn’t make my bottom bleed. The thought of something lovely and pretty made my mouth twitch; slowly the twitch turned into a smirk. I loved smiling. Or at least it felt like that. The tears had completely dried up by now. I looked from left to right. There was no one there, but I lifted my chest, cleared my throat and whispered, “I am all cried out.”

The crackling in my voice sounded awkward and strained. Chest open and voice raised. “I am ALL cried out!!” That sounded better! I inhaled again, my boobs rose to my cheeks then I bellowed.

“I AM ALL CRIED OUT!” The words rang through the house and the kitchen. My breast and chest tore up out of the earth, the remains of the box at the bottom of my feet.

Like a two-year-old having a tantrum, I untied my long hair and let it dance across my neckline. Now I was a sixteen year-old head-banger, and without a care in the world. I propelled myself off the stool. The flesh savaging burn in my posterior reminded me that it might not have been the most sensible thing to do. But even with a bleeding bottom, I continued to move and head-bang next to the chair.

Shaking everything and letting my body jitter around like a headless chicken. Attempting and failing a sexy dance for myself in the reflection. I felt a sense of freedom. Naked! Naked in the kitchen and shaking my booty like a crazy woman!

I spun, jerked and jiggled; I felt the air around me get colder and colder. No! My body was getting hotter and hotter. Even though I was on my own, I imagined strobe lights and wild music. The first song that came into my head was “Insomnia” by Faithless. The urge to rave savaged me. I waved my hands and jumped. My boobs quivered and collided in ways they had never done before.

I remembered Reading Festival in 1992 and adjusted my memory. My boobs hadn’t tremored like this for years. At least they had not been on display and in the public domain since 1992. I felt emancipated, and I shouted freedom now dancing on the top of Mount Kilimanjaro with Nelson Mandela. Then a few minutes later my mood changed. The All Blacks had nothing on me. The Haka was my next move, and I started pulling faces, shaking my bits and sticking my tongue out at the reflection. Squatting up and down, frenzied, evil and scary. Adding voodoo, by shaking my imaginary grass skirt around. I beat and rubbed my breasts and screamed at myself. Feeling my mental shackles falling off my body.

Twenty years of rubbish. Six weeks of crying. Painful tears and images of worthlessness were now falling off my body. I felt lighter every second. Every spin, move, thought or anything. Emotions, feelings, fear fell off me.

Time had tortured me. My heartbeat and my veins pulsed. My white skin was now crimson red. Hot, sweaty, out of breath and loving every single moment.

Tiny smatterings of red all over the floor. The blood from my bottom had decorated the room with the floor enjoying the most attention. The trickling of blood didn’t destroy my elation. It heightened my emotions and feelings. I felt all pagan and thought this was my awakening ceremony. Blood was the ingredient I needed to awake. Slowly I spread the blood over my bum, lower back and round to my belly. I enjoyed the rush of feeling the blood and feeling naughty. Pacing towards the reflection in the mirror, I glared at myself. Then catapulted straight forward, still head-banging. Letting the blood run through my hands and into my hair as well. Then I spoke harrowingly.

To the father, son, and the holy ghost. To anyone listening anywhere in the world or universe. Today is my pagan blood ritual. This ceremony signifies my new start. As of today, I am reborn. As of today, I am everything that I want to be.

Shudders passed through me, and a prism appeared in the window. I had just won the gold medal in the pagan Olympics, and I could see the witches and wizards cheering my name and singing Ole, Ole. The podium was awaiting me and there, cradling my medal was my guardian angel.

Proud of my achievements in the pagan Olympics, I arose, bowing to my reflection. This time I deliberately viewed my whole body, soaking in the image. Vagina, fat bits and every part of me. My arms flew around me and moved up and down, gliding and taking pride in hugging every inch of my body. Eyes wide, I let my arms drop and then fingered my belly, scars and knobbly knees. White skin unnoticeable, smeared red/pink with blood, and my mind pulled my whole body out of the ground. My dark brown hair was matted and tangled as I tried to tame it.

Lightning had struck! I knew what I had to do! New me, new look, and without giving myself an opportunity to waiver, I Haka-danced to the PC. Provisionally coming back to my senses, I stood. Not wanting to have to clean the bloody mess from the stool and PC. Then bending like a woman on a mission, I searched Groupon for the best hair deals. I was serious about a new me. About a new start, a better life and I would prove it. If not to anyone else, then at least to myself.