Losing It (6 page)

There was a sheet of instructions.

Bob looked at the diagrams. They showed, in stages, two detached hands, large, but with longish, almost female nails, wrapping the straps around the hips and under the pubic area, then fastening them behind with discreet metal hooks. Another pair of detached hands tucked the penis and testicles into a pouch that rested behind the vagina. An insert showed how a man, properly fitted, could pee while sitting down using the latex vagina.

Bob looked at his watch, peered at the instructions again, and half stood, to get a better sense of how the thing would fit. The pouch for his male organs felt firm and secure, and the straps had just enough elastic to pull it all comfortably, but not so much that his circulation was at risk. The hooks were not so easy. He fiddled, got them the wrong way round several times before it finally felt right. When it was all in order, thin, smooth latex flaps neatly folded over to hide the hooks. The skin colour was remarkable, and Bob liked having lighter pubic hair – it looked younger.

But oh my, to glance down at a beautifully discreet vagina, to feel so tucked-up and transformed! It was wonderful. He looked at himself in the ugly, dully lit mirror of the airplane washroom. Or rather, he looked at the vagina, fine as it was, perfectly passable, and with a trick of the mind didn’t focus on the trousers and underpants wrapped at his knees, at the hairy belly button, the ponderous suit, the tops of his shaggy legs.

He sat again. It felt … remarkable. A little cramped. He couldn’t push his thighs together too harshly. My new toy, he thought, and chuckled to himself in the safety of the little washroom thirty thousand feet above the ground. Every vibration of the airplane was magnified in the tiny chamber and the smell of disinfectant and other people’s waste products should have been nauseating, he thought. But this was a bubble of magic, a pause outside the normal, like sex or a compelling dream.

He had a pee. It was extraordinary. It took the longest time to allow himself to release, then when he did there was a moment of horror as the urine went … well, somewhere, but not out his new urethral outlet. It seemed to get caught up in the tubing of the mechanism. But after a pause there it was, gushing out in a series of fine streams, exactly with a feminine peeing noise:
wshhh! wshhh!
He had to be careful to tilt his pelvis downward and direct the stream, and to keep his thighs apart so that he wouldn’t make a mess. He dutifully wiped the latex and artificial hair with toilet paper. It didn’t feel at all like his own tissue – it was rubbery and dead. But the illusion was striking.

Someone tried the door then and Bob froze. But the door was locked, of course it was, and right away he could hear the sound of the adjacent door opening and then the lock being rattled shut. The shock startled him enough, however, to make him remember that Sienna would wonder why he’d been gone so long. He stood up then and reached around to fiddle with the clasps at the back of the PVII®. Just as he managed to unhook one of them, the pouch holding back his penis and testicles released, and with it a shocking amount of urine fell onto his trousers and underpants. He was too surprised to curse, right away. Then he did curse, and reached down to stop the last drips, but brushed the contraption instead and released a last rain of pee. He almost ripped the hooks, then, trying to get the thing off, and the tension of his last tug sent the creature whirling crazily and spraying a mist around the cubicle, on the mirror and door, his trousers and shoes and jacket.

“Oh, for God’s sake!” he said, and flung the vagina into the sink. His trousers were soaked at the crotch almost as badly as if he’d peed himself without any artificial help. He pulled up his shorts and pants but realized it was no good, there was a dark, wet, smelly stain down his front. He took off his shoes then -
the floor of the cubicle was wet and he shivered with revulsion – and stepped out of his trousers and underpants. At that moment the airplane tilted and Bob was thrown against the wall and bonked his knee hard on the handrail. The airplane levelled and Bob picked up his trousers, which now had grit stains on both legs to go with the urine and water marks. He took a deep, calming breath, then said
“Shit!”
seven times in succession.

The seatbelt light began strobing and there was a gentle knock at the door. A flight attendant said, “We will be landing soon. Could you please return to your seat and buckle in when you’re ready?”

“Certainly,” Bob said, his voice somehow sounding calm and deep and unconcerned. Landing
soon
did not mean
right away
. He looked at his watch. He would have at least fifteen, maybe even twenty minutes, he thought. No need to panic. Though he could feel the tilt of the plane, had to adjust his balance as he washed off the portable vagina and dried it carefully on paper towelling. He reinserted it in the bubble wrap and then spent a bit too long trying to fit it back into the torn envelope. He forced himself to focus and prevail. Finally, when the package was safely back in his briefcase he allowed himself to check his watch again. My God! It didn’t seem possible. Nearly six minutes had passed already. He picked up his urine-stained trousers and ran tap water over the crotch, briskly rubbed in liquid hand soap and rinsed. He tried to wet just the worst-stained section but the plane dipped and much of the rest of the trousers got soaked. Little bounces of turbulence followed and Bob fought to keep from ending up in the toilet himself. He barked his shin against the seat, stepped back and tripped over his shoes, then sat hard on his opened briefcase. One of the supports snapped and a clasp bit him on the buttocks like a rat.

“Jesus!”
he shrieked.

“Are you all right, sir?” the attendant asked outside the door, her voice superficially calm but infused with concern. Bob didn’t answer right away and the attendant pressed,
“Do you want us to come in?”

“No! No! I’m fine!”
Bob asserted, trying hard to sound fine. He clambered back to his feet, grasped the door handle firmly in case they tried to open it. Of course they could unlock it from the outside if they wanted, he thought.

“You should return to your seat immediately, sir. The landing light is on.”

“Yes. Thank you. I’ll be finished in a minute,” Bob said.

He picked up his drenched underwear then, stuffed it in the waste bin and wrung out his trousers in the sink. They were almost entirely wet now, besides being stained and badly wrinkled. He looked around for a hot-air hand dryer but there wasn’t one, there were just paper towels from the bin. Useless, practically, but he pulled out several, spread them along the legs of his trousers, then rolled the trousers and pressed down to squeeze out the moisture. He could feel the precious minutes sprinting away.

He quickly unrolled his trousers, withdrew the damp paper towelling, stuffed it in the waste bin, then brushed at the many wet flecks of brown residue left by the paper. Five minutes left, perhaps seven. He took the last of the dry paper towels and repeated the process, rolling and squeezing. His ears popped as the plane headed earthward. He swallowed hard three times, furiously unrolled and brushed at his trousers. Awful, sodden disaster. He twisted one last time, harvested a few more grudging drops. Trapped, he thought. There was nothing else he could do. Reluctantly he stepped into the sorry pants, pulled them up. The plane began rattling as if the wings were going
to fall off. He zipped and buckled himself, then shoved his wet socked feet into his shoes and tied the laces. His briefcase was ruined. He could force the top down but then the back left corner would spring out.

“Excuse me, sir. Please take your seat
now!”
came the flight attendant’s voice outside the door. “Are you okay?”

“Yes! Yes!” he said. He unlocked the door so that the occupancy light would go off. But he took an extra moment to examine himself in the mirror: he was dishevelled, filthy, pale with panic. He splashed water on his face, ran his fingers through his hair, smiled bravely. Then he propped his broken briefcase on the tiny sink and pressed the various corners in a final effort to make things right. He was still fiddling with it when the plane touched down on the runway, bounced once before all wheels smoothed onto the tarmac. Bob was thrown in the air and jammed his hand against the light fixture on the ceiling before he came slamming back down. He felt his back wrench and then when the engine thrusters reversed to slow the plane he caromed off the toilet and into the far wall.
“Hnnn
,” he said, like a hockey player slammed against the boards, but too dopey by now to react any more sharply. Despite himself he laughed.

Finally the plane stopped. He could hear people gathering their belongings. He picked up his injured briefcase, clasped it under his arm to keep the contents from spilling out, looked at his reflection one last time.

There was nothing else for it. He pulled open the door, stepped out cautiously.

A young flight attendant was upon him at once. “Are you all right, sir?” she asked. She was tall and slightly heavy, had dark red hair pulled back severely and overly anxious make-up.

Bob held his briefcase in front of his trousers, pressed it closed in the corners with his hands. “It’s okay,” he muttered, then he brightened, gave her a clear-eyed smile. “I’m fine,” he said.

The aisle was jammed with people waiting to deplane. Sienna stood, looked at him with concern. Bob gave her a hurried wave, then began wedging his way back to his seat. He was full of the oddity of the moment, a precarious sense of how the next step might change everything, take him over the precipice he’d been walking so long he’d almost forgotten it was there. He should have been terrified, but he had an oddly detached thought. In my shoes, right now, he thought, a twenty-five year-old would flee in panic; a fifteen year-old would kill himself! But I’m fifty-four.

And there she was, gorgeous, confused, twenty-one, looking at him with such a questioning gaze. “It’s just madness,” he imagined saying to her. Calmly, soothingly. “It’s just a little madness.”

“There you are!” she said. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” And really he was. “It was awful!” he said. “You wouldn’t believe it. I turned on the tap -”

“My God, you’re all wet!” she said.

“– and water started spraying everywhere. It was ridiculous. And the door was jammed so I couldn’t open it.”

She started laughing. She was magnificent. Her teeth looked as if they’d been stolen from a toothpaste commercial and her eyes shone dark as a northern lake in August under a wild moon. Stop it, he thought. Stop being so damned irresistible.

“I’ve
never
-” he started to say, but he had, of course, and he would again. And he didn’t need to finish, either, because the line was moving now, he just had to put one foot in front of the other and keep his face composed.

4

I
t’s hard to know where you are or what you’re supposed to do. If only they’d tell you! But they don’t. They put things in the food. It’s the brown stuff. And the drunken man with the puffy lips takes your food. Reaches right over. Doesn’t speak English. Why do they let these people in? They drool and his hands shake like … like nothing will ever stay still for ever and ever amen.

This is what they do: they put you in the bad place. When you make a mistake. Over just stupid things. It isn’t fair. She could take the stitches out and try again. She had the book. And Mary Hoderstrom would help her because she never makes mistakes.

“I want Julia,” Lenore said. The Italian man laughed at her, reached again for her brown thing. She took her fork and poked it at his fingers. All because of one silly. She put the stitches in the wrong way but there were things you did to make it right. She could tell you in a minute. She had to get the book.

“Are you finished, Lenore?” the fat woman asked her. Everyone was brown or Italian or smelly or fat. This girl was all of them at once.

“Yes!” Lenore said. “I’m finished!”

“Then I’ll take your plate. How did you like your breakfast?”

Lenore was already up and started to say but then stopped, because if you make a mistake, that’s it.

“Did you like your sausages, Lenore?”

If you don’t answer then they can’t take points off.