Posts tagged "Fiction":
0012
I close the chapel door behind me. It is already dark. During Saturday evening worship it began snowing again. I am glad I took the time to first fold then slip the fringed end of my scarf through the makeshift loop, tightening the extra material around my neck. I pulled my hood up over my fleece ear band. It will be a very cold walk home.
The wind blasts up Main Street as my guide dog and I come around the corner of the old stone church. Head down, shoulders hunched, I urge Latham forward, confident in his sure-footedness and unerring sense of direction. I cannot feel the pavement beneath the snow. I have no idea where sidewalk ends and street begins. Latham knows. Latham always knows. I imagine the wind blowing his ears back, his tail stretched out, his long golden fur streaming. Naked to the elements, he seems unperturbed by cold, wind or snow.
As we walk, isolated from the world at large, private from all the people who pass us warm in their cars, I reflect on the service: It is strange, I think, how I can attend this service every week, dressed in boots, pullover and jeans, and no one knows. I say or chant the responses, stand or sit at the proper times, extend my hands for Communion and return to my seat, and no one knows. Other parishioners greet me before or after the service, exchange the peace with me and still no one knows. They say all the usual things: “It’s good to see you here tonight.” “What’s your dog’s name?” Even “Peace be with you.” No doubt, they assume many things about me, but no one knows. It will not change in the summer either. I’I'll trade my boots in for running shoes. I'll wear loose-fitting shirts instead of sweaters. I'll keep wearing my jeans. No one will know. 'm still amazed at this. Worshipers are very remote one from another. I come with my own conversion experience, my own fear and doubt, my own desire for heart-felt gratitude and praise. I come with my own needs, my own prayers, my own longings for intimacy, my own expectations of both God and church. I appear to be just another worshiper except for my blindness and Latham. The thing which genuinely separates me from all the others no one knows.
I was one of the first volunteers. The government investigations focused on the ones who were enrolled forcibly. That happened later, when there were not enough subjects for the tests. The researchers needed a large enough sample group. When volunteers were insufficient, boards of correction found it expedient to unload their sexual predators. Bounty hunters went out in search of addicts who would do anything for a fix. When there still were not enough of us, the developmentally challenged and the mentally ill were rounded up to fill out the list of participants for the Great Experiment.
Why did I volunteer? It was a combination of fear and idealism. I was afraid of my own sexuality. I certainly was afraid of everybody elseÂ’s sexuality. I thought undergoing the surgery, receiving the shots, taking the pills, engaging in the counseling sessions would alleviate my anxiety. I would become a new person. I could leave the old fearful me behind in the hospital bed, the lab and the psychiatristÂ’s office. I would emerge a free person, a beautiful butterfly from its chrysalis. I would be admired. I would be famous. All my energy would flow into my creative work. I would be recognized for my courage and vision. I would be counted among the first. I would be commemorated and remembered by all generations to come. I thought the procedure would change society for the better. I thought by becoming androgynous, by everyone becoming androgynous, we would abolish all the inequities of gender and sexual orientation. The distinction between men and women would be eliminated. We would all be a single sex, loving whoever we wanted without repercussions.
Whether I started life as male or female is unimportant. I still hold onto that part of the dream. Initially, giving up my gender-specific organs frightened me. I would be unable to reverse what the surgeon's scalpel did. I wondered how dependent I was on my gendered viewpoint to interpret the world around me. Gender defined me at the depth of my being. Gender was what terrified me and hindered my growth as a complete human being.
Some of the drugs had nasty side effects. One in particular sent me tripping for days. I thought I was underwater and unable to take a breath for fear of drowning. I clamped my hands over my mouth so I wouldn't open it. When the team assigned to me pulled my hands away, I both screamed on and on while I gasped for air and coughed and gurgled as if I had swallowed half the ocean. It was so dreadful and, oh, so real.
And if you are wondering—and people always wonder even if they will not say so—my pleasure center is still in tact. We are not sexless. We are single sex people.
I do not carry a card. I am not micro-chipped. Being stripped would tell any emergency medical technician what I am. They can check with the national database. I am listed as Subject 0012.
Walking in this snowstorm with Latham is so liberating. I can follow where he leads. My body is completely hidden, away from prying and judgmental eyes. We are safe here in the storm, my dog and me.
Did I have a lover? Yes. I remember making love the night before we were permanently separated. We were equally tender and passionate, rough and gentle, sweet and strong, dominant and submissive. I woke up the next morning alone in our bed, the sheets next to me cold and empty. The prison authorities had come so that my lover could resume serving a life sentence for molesting, murdering and dismembering a five-year-old child. A government investigator told me this with sadistic satisfaction. I was sick afterwards. My lover never mentioned the past, but then, neither did I.
Was I blind when I volunteered? No. That came later when we received the news the project was being dismantled. We were glued to our screens then, watching the protests, hearing all the lies. We were denounced as perverts, branded as scientific freaks, condemned for having unnatural sex. I couldn't watch anymore. I couldn't listen anymore. I couldn't speak anymore. Security found me stabbing myself with stones—my eyes, my ears, my mouth.
I am officially listed as quiescent, that is, IÂ’m deemed to be adjusting to a normal life. Adjusting? To a normal life? How do I fit myself into a bifurcated world of males and females without sacrificing my essential self? Single sex is what I am. I will not go back. I cannot.
That is why I go to church. For that space of time I can be shamelessly myself, wrapped in mystery, totally immersed in the other who is God. Gender has no meaning. God is neither male nor female. God is both male and female simultaneously. I can see God. I can hear God. I can speak to God. My physical self is neither an impediment nor a conduit. I am present. God is present. That is all that I need.
IÂ’m relieved Latham has turned in at our apartment. The illusion of the stormÂ’s protective covering would have seduced me to keep on walking until I succumbed to fatigue and hypothermia. Gratefully, I would have lain down, letting the snow envelop my body. I wonder if you really do feel warmer when you freeze to death.
I take off LathamÂ’s harness when we get inside the apartment. He wriggles all over as I rub him down with a large towel. ItÂ’s important to him to do his face. He snorts. Do it again. ItÂ’s a game. Drying his feet, his tail, his belly–he tolerates me. His face, however, is a joy to be rubbed.
I strip off all my clothes. IÂ’m cold and wet. I curl my toes. My feet feel numb. I run a hot bath. I add several capfuls of what the label calls a Milk Soak into the tub. The sales woman told me it would help me sleep. I slip into the aromatic water, run my puff between my legs and over my abdomen. I sigh. I dip the puff into the hot water again splashing my shoulders and chest. I breathe in the essence of lavender and chamomile. I sigh, more deeply this time and stretch, arching my back, bending my knees, satisfying myself.
Perhaps tonight I will dream, nestled under my blankets, hearing my lover whisper to me, “One times twelve is Twelve … Two times six is Twelve …Three times four is Twelve … Four times three is Twelve … Six times two is Twelve … Twelve times one is Twelve.”