Stripped Down (20 page)

Again, I look to the man sitting next to me. I'm afraid that one day I'm going to be silently talking to myself, and someone is going to hear me. Of course it will happen that I won't be saying anything ordinary or harmless like,
What should I have for lunch?
but something more along the lines of,
Remember to pick up the batteries for your vibrator—the new energizer platinums, only they can outlast you.
But he's not looking. His head is rolled back against the seat, eyes half closed and mouth wide open as if he is about to bite someone's nose off, and I don't mind as long as it's not mine. It might even be entertaining, something to take my mind off the dull ache cultivating itself between my legs, increasing in intensity with each moment spent in transit. I pull my bags across my lap and hide my hand beneath them as I press down on my swollen clit—an attempt to ward off the urge.

If this train doesn't stop vibrating I'm going to have to kill someone. I press my knees to the back of the maroon seat in front of me, trace the Connecticut symbols patterned on the walls of the Metro North car with my eyes, and shift around. There's not enough room to stretch, but then what could I expect for fifteen dollars? I think, scanning the train car once more. Harlem 125th Street—almost there. My eyes lock on the imitation wood swinging door of the mobile lavatory that has been taunting me since Bridgeport, with a typed out-of-order sign taped to it. This pisses me off—if someone had the time to type an out-of-order sign and hang it nicely in a little clear plastic sleeve, he probably also had the time to fix the goddamn toilet. I look down at my watch, the silver wristband stretching around my bronzed wrist. Fuck, I'm going to be late for this appointment and I have to piss…
now.

I collect my bags, a khaki-colored messenger bag and a pressed suit still in the dry-cleaning sleeve, as the train enters the tunnel beneath Grand Central and everything goes dark. When I have the time I like to press my face to the window and make out the shadows of the lair, which remind me of the places dragons might sleep, curled into a hulking mass and heaving soft breaths of air through the subway system—just another one of New York City's dirty little secrets. But I have to concentrate to do this; otherwise it's only my reflection I see in the dirty windowpane, and I don't have the time.

I'm late for an audition, uptown, with a promoter who is producing a male impersonator burlesque show. Who knew that cross-dressing could be a profession? As I stand up and wait for the train doors to open, I think about how I used to steal the clip-on ties from my brother's sock drawer when I was nine. I would stand in my parents' mirror-paneled bedroom
and swagger back and forth, a hand on my hip, winking at my image—something I must have seen in a black-and-white cartoon, one of those grayscale human-animal hybrids from the 1950s, who always seemed to get the girl.

The door slides open and I hurry off.
I have to pee. I have to pee,
I think while running a hand through my cropped hair.
Come on people, let's go.
I almost trip over the wheels of an older man's rolling suitcase as I tailgait him on foot past the recycling bins that read
Newspapers Only,
and toss the empty beer can inside.

Inside the station, I dodge groups of men in business suits and a cluster of nuns wearing thick-framed glasses, their cameras snapping away at pissed-off New Yorkers and the ceiling—half an empty shell of a teal Easter egg. This station's so big and yet I feel as if it's the only place where I might happen upon someone I used to know, bump into an old friend, an old lover—our packages colliding and spilling into an uneven mess all over the floor, her lips soft at my ear,
Remember me?
I jog down the stairs and round the corner. FUCK, a line, a goddamn line trailing out of the ladies' room like the back end of a Chinese dragon, and I—I
have
to pee. It almost hurts now, a soreness concentrating just below my abdomen. A tragic welling up of fluids like a beer mug spilling over after last call.

I slip into line behind a middle-aged yuppie and her daughter, whom I estimate to be around nine or ten—the age I was when I first starting slipping socks down my shorts, pleased that the bulge in my pants matched my father's, and got my first BMX, Christmas 1985. What a happy little boy I was.

“The men's room is over there.” The woman in front of me cranes her neck around in my direction and points at the men's room door, which opens and closes briskly; there's no
line. She looks like Linda Blair stretching this way, a large purple shawl draped over her shoulders and dull brown hair hanging loose about her neck. I imagine her fucking a crucifix or even spitting up pea soup all over the front of her shawl, as I fight to keep myself from leaning over and whispering in her ear, “The power of Christ compels you.” Instead I just stare.

I hear a breathy giggle from behind, a female voice—hushed laughter, no amusement. I snap my neck around to deliver a look of disapproval, but before my eyes meet hers I feel two slender fingers nudging at the palm of my hand hanging at my side. This is odd. People just don't do this sort of thing,
this touching, this—what is this
? I shake my head and she shoots a smile at me—a coy, eyes-sweeping-downward, corner-of-mouth-tweaked-up smile—as she twists a finger around a thread of her russet hair. Oh god, oh, oh she's hot. I feel the ache between my legs turning to something else, some pleasure on the verge of release, as my eyes meet the tiled wall with a ripped sign taped to it:
Please do not defecate in any area of the train station other than the restrooms, RULES AND REGULATIONS, SECTION 1085.7—Hygiene.

The line has moved through the door now, and when a stall opens up I dash toward it. My bag, slung over my shoulder, nudges at my left asscheek as I move and rubs the pocket where I keep my wallet, which is now digging into my flesh. I had to leave her, didn't even catch her name, but oh, I have to pee—like some tremendous force gathering up inside of me; the waves, the eddies collecting against a breakwater.

Restrooms always look the same. Regardless of where you might be in the country the stalls will be painted some hideous color—an off-yellow perhaps, that same yellow of a used cigarette filter—and the cracked tiles, various shades of dirty
white. I sling my bag and suit onto the hook on the door, slam my bottle of Evian onto the tampon receptacle, and squat over the toilet, trying to aim as best I can. I am courteous this way—the type of woman who makes an effort not to mess up the seat. I'm good at it too, and this makes me proud, as if I have beat god or nature or whoever, because I can pee standing up—even if it is in reverse—and I think this is the closest we will ever come to equality with men: squatting over a public toilet, peeing.

I hear the woman next to me exit the stall, her red heels clicking against the gritty floor, and another one enters and drops her Gucci bag to the tile. I reach to my left to grab a wad of toilet paper from the locked plastic dispenser and realize—midstream—there
is
no paper. “No toilet fucking paper!” I mutter aloud. I stand, knees bent and hovering over the seat, which is black in contrast with the white toilet and rusted naked plumbing. I look down at my vagina, the hair neatly trimmed in a slender strip, and I wish I were a man—wish I could take the tip of my dick in my palm and just shake it, a simple privilege, but to have a dick right now would be so convenient. I think: what if there were swap meets, a used car dealership—sparkling banners that read “We love America, Used Trade-Ins Welcome”—somewhere I could take my cunt and barter it for something with a vas deferens.

My legs are starting to hurt from squatting, a dull pain traveling up my thighs; my knees buckle and I fall back. Now I'm sitting on the toilet, my head hanging between my shoulders. “I wish I were a man, I wish I were a man, I wish—” I call louder with each phrase and look down at my feet, spit-polished boots instead of ruby red slippers. Fuck.

There's a knock at the door. I look up and as the stall
squeaks open I see standing there, framed in the light like some heavenly gift bestowed upon a nonbeliever, the girl from the line—her arm outstretched and a roll of toilet paper resting on her open palm.

She steps forward, closes the door behind her and smiles. “Thought you could use a little help.” The bottom of her mauve skirt hangs just above her knees and I reach to cup my hand around her bare thigh. I look up at her from where I sit—my pants bunched about my ankles—as she inches forward, and I press my hand higher, brushing against her warm skin; insert two fingers beneath the rim of her panties.

I make as if to get up from where I sit, locked in this quintessential position of womanhood, but she puts a hand on my shoulder, curls her fingers around the back of my neck and steps forward. The smell of her, wet and ready, reaches my nose and I lean into her, lifting her skirt above my head and yanking her panties down to the floor. My head up her skirt, I trace the sides of her labia with quick strikes of the tongue—careful not to reach her clit—as she moans low and breathy, just like her laughter. I push my face deeper into her. My bottom lip is stretched under her opening and my tongue licks, then nibbles, then sucks at her clit as if it were a tiny penis misplaced on such a delicate body. I curve my fingers up against the wall of her vagina—sliding them in and out, first slow and deliberate, then quick and rigorous, fucking her in the midst of Grand Central. Her body bucks backward, and she lets out a howl, slamming into the stall door where my suit hangs ruffled in the plastic sleeve. The door slips the lock and squeaks open as she cums in my palm and I let go of another stream of urine that splashes against the side of the toilet bowl, stained, rusted, and sweating.

Outside the stall, a crowd has gathered. The woman in the purple shawl shields her daughter's eyes and moans in disgust. I stand—my vagina still wet with piss and cum—and pull my boxer shorts and pants up, kiss the girl in the mauve skirt deeply and ferociously before grabbing my bags and exiting the stall.

Striding across the station, I think: Now I know what is better than having a roll of toilet paper, than making it to an appointment on time, than being a man—two women, alone in a bathroom stall.

BÉSAME

Gina Bern

 

 

 

 

If you've never been to Phoenix in the summer or any time between April and even September, take it from me: you're better off anywhere else. I kept thinking about the heat as I made it back to my car, parked in a treeless lot in front of Linens 'N' Things, where my fiancé and mother-in-law-to-be had just tried and failed miserably to get a registry together for our wedding. After spending more than two hours with Abel and his mother debating the value of this dish pattern over that, mostly in English, but also in Spanish, which I don't speak, I actually couldn't think of anything more wonderful than retreating to my sweltering car. While Abel helped his mother with her bags, I walked ahead of them, angry and impatient. When I'd fallen in love with Abel,
I hadn't counted on his mother having so much to do with our lives. I had pulled out my keys and unlocked my car door when Abel called over to me.

“Hey! Where are you headed off to so fast?” Abel wrinkled his forehead, which he only did when he was upset or nervous.

“Sorry,” I said, but I didn't mean it. “I guess I forgot to say good-bye.” Abel leaned in my open window and kissed me. I'd see him later, but I needed to get to work and clear my head. We waved good-bye again, but when I looked in my rearview mirror, he was still talking to his mother and not looking at me.

 

I guess you could say getting married was colliding with my life with the speed and subtlety of a Mack truck. Between dress shopping, RSVPs, showers, fittings, and flowers, I was already exhausted and I still had two months to go. My latest duty was to send thank-you notes to the people who had already sent us wedding gifts, a pretty mundane task—and yet one gift we received would change everything.

In a plain, brown-wrapped package that had come from an aunt of Abel's was a
retablo
from Mexico. I'd seen
retablos
before—folk paintings that commemorate a blessing or an event in a person's life—but this one was particularly beautiful. It depicted a beach scene in the foreground, and a young woman with shoulder-length black hair, whom no one seemed to notice was being swept away to sea. Her eyes were pointed at an image of the Virgin Mary in the corner of the sky. There was writing in Spanish—probably telling the story of the near-drowning and how the woman was saved—but I couldn't read it.

I'm not sure why the
retablo
captivated me so much. There
was something in the young woman's vulnerability—and her being swept out to sea with no one to save her—that seemed more and more like my own situation. I had the sense that I had known her. I'm not much of a detective, but I wanted to find out more—about the artist, about the drowning woman—anything that might help explain the feelings the
retablo
raised in me.

 

A few days went by—work, family, heat—before I was able to find out anything more about the
retablo
. That weekend, Abel's family threw an engagement party for us. My parents were long dead, and I hadn't lived in the Southwest very long, so most of the guests were Abel's friends and family. In spite of my doubts and preoccupation, I snapped to attention when Abel mentioned that his Aunt Consuelo, the one who had sent us the
retablo
, would be there.

“Sera, there's Consuelo—she's the one you wanted to meet.” Abel smiled and pointed to an older woman. “She's my
nina
, my godmother. I'll introduce you.”

We made our way through a crowd of cousins to where Consuelo was standing. “
Nina
, I'd like to introduce you to my fiancé, Sera. She was so impressed by the
retablo
you sent, she wanted to thank you in person.”