Silence and the Word (2 page)

I get up and close the door. “I pledge that I
will do my full exercises every morning.” I add an “I solemnly
swear” just in case. I would have liked to start with “I, Sita
Mathuri, being of sound mind and health”…but that seems a bit
risky, since I’m not certain of either.

I go sit at the computer again. Eyes fixed
rigidly on the keys, which means that I make far more errors than
usually, I start typing names again. Everything will be fine.

I call Mark, but he’s neither home nor at the
office. He could be anywhere—the boy tends to wander. No voice mail
either. I consider sending him e-mail:

Mark. Disappearing rapidly. Send help.

Or maybe:

Sweetie, I regret to inform you that I am
losing my mind. Since I know you love me for my mind and not my
body, please let me know if you’d like to dissolve this
relationship… .

Perhaps something like:

I’m not sure what’s going on, but body parts
are going AWOL. Would like to discuss this with you. I know it
sounds mad, but maybe it’s just some strange disease. Hopefully not
communicable. Come soon!

I settle for the ever-useful:

Call me, please. Soon.

That should worry him nicely; I think that’s
what I wrote the last time I broke up with him. Or maybe that was
the time before last? In any case, I could use some company in my
misery. I log off and go make dinner. I watch my fingers very
carefully when I chop. I can’t afford to lose any.

Peter’s here for dinner. He got delayed in
traffic, which explains why he wasn’t here to help chop. He’s
nothing if not prompt. We have curry and I have wine. A couple of
glasses. He doesn’t drink.

“So? Tell me about last night.”

“Last night?” What? Has he guessed? I hadn’t
quite worked up the nerve to tell him yet… .

“The one you took home from the reading.
Pretty boy—so, how’d it go?”

Oh, him. Right. “Oh, fine. He didn’t stay the
night, but we had a nice time.”

“Think you’ll see him again?”

“Don’t you think I have enough on my hands
with you two?” A little sharper than I meant.

He looks surprised. “Well, that’s hardly
stopped you before, has it? Wasn’t your record five,
concurrently?”

“Yes, and I neglected them all. Two of those
lasted less than a week as a result… .”

“So, even you have limits. Glad to hear you
admit it.” He sounds a little bitter. I haven’t been able to spend
much time with him lately—so busy. What does he expect? Besides,
it’s not like he has tons of time either… .

“I have plenty of limits. I have as many
limits as anyone.” Ridiculous. Why am I snapping at him? “Look,
let’s just go to bed. We can do the dishes in the morning.”

Once in the bedroom, I am suddenly shy.
Stupid, after all this time, but I don’t know how to tell him, and
I don’t want to meet his eyes. I pick up clothes and put them away.
I straighten books on the shelves until he comes up behind me and
slips his arms around my waist. I stiffen, then relax into his
arms.

“You okay?”

“I’m sorry—I’m just kind of cranky. It’s been
a long day.” I twist around so I’m facing him, his arms still
loosely wrapped around me.

“Anything in particular?”

I kiss him instead of answering. I don’t know
what to say. I raise my hands to cup his face, and he pulls me
closer, his mouth opening against mine, his fingers starting to dig
into my back, soon so hard that it hurts a little, the way I like
it.

We stumble towards the bed. We fall onto it.
My mouth is now on his cheek, his neck, digging under his shirt, my
fingers unbuttoning as fast as they can. It’s one of the best
things about sex with him, the way it blazes up out of nowhere,
burns me up so I can’t think, can’t slow down even when he wants me
to—and does he really want me to? He’s egging me on, his fingers
shoving up my skirt, sliding into me, and I’m glad Mark got me out
of the habit of wearing underwear years ago ’cause I can’t wait for
it, I’m squeezing my thighs around his hand, I’m slamming down as
he slams up and rising and rising, with my whitened fingertips
digging into the bed, arched and ready to scream…

…and it’s gone.

Not gone the way it is when you get there and
fall over the top and down the other side. Definitely not that kind
of gone. It’s almost as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice water
on me at just the wrong damned moment—except that then I’d have
felt the ice at least, I’d be cold and shivering and wet. And I am
wet and shivering, but only on my skin, only cooling sweat, ’cause
what’s between my thighs is absolutely nothing except for Peter’s
hand, wet and slippery and hanging there in air.

Peter’s face is chalk white. He looks like
he’s about to have a heart attack. Then everything suddenly goes
back to normal and his hand has disappeared between my thighs
again, except that I am not on the verge of coming anymore, I am
not even close, I am about as far away as you can be, and I am not
happy. Peter slowly pulls out his hand; even if he’d wanted to keep
going, he could tell that I didn’t. He pulls it out and wipes it on
the sheets and then looks up at me.

“Okay. What’s going on?”

“I don’t know.”

That’s not going to satisfy him. It doesn’t.
I tell him everything, starting with last night’s toes and
proceeding through missing fingers and a disappearing hand and
ending with today. And as I do, I get more and more scared—and more
and more angry. Toes I could deal with. Even fingers or hands—I can
always dictate, right? Voice recognition software gets better every
day. But if I can’t have sex anymore ’cause the relevant parts have
chosen to wander off at the crucial moments…my fingers are digging
into my thighs. They hurt. I am hurting myself. I am hurting my
body, which is not behaving at the moment. I am wondering what will
happen if I try to actually tear away some skin—will it disappear
before I can? Would it come back?

The phone rings.

It’s past midnight. It must be Mark. Peter
goes outside to smoke a cigarette and think. I pace back and forth
as I tell the story again. It’s easier than I expected. It usually
is, talking to him, at least once I get started. Unfortunately, he
doesn’t have the answer for me. I try not to let him hear how
disappointed I am. I doubt I fool him, but he lets me pretend. It’s
been a rough day, after all.

Peter comes back in. I tell Mark I’ll talk to
him tomorrow night, and hang up the phone. Peter pulls me into a
hug.

“You should go see a doctor.” He’s using that
‘I’m-not-nagging-but-you-know-this-is-a-good-idea’ voice. I hate
that.

“What can a doctor do?”

“This might have happened to someone before.
I’ll see what I can find on-line, but in the meantime, you should
see an expert.”

I consider arguing, but he will be impossible
until I give in. He was like that about my wearing seatbelts, and
remembering to take my thyroid medicine, and going to the dentist.
I think I give in just to get him to stop nagging—but he doesn’t
care as long as I do it.

“Drive me?”

“Of course.”

He holds me tight all night. I wake, once or
twice, and he is still holding me. It doesn’t really help, but it
doesn’t hurt either.

Peter calls the following morning, and
somehow gets me an appointment. I think he bribed the secretary. He
waits patiently while I do my exercises. I’ve already lost faith in
them, but I did swear. I keep my promises.

The doctor is very beautiful, with short
black hair and ice blue eyes. I try not to check her out too
obviously as she goes through the routine physical, checks my
pulse, palpates my breasts… .

“Well, you seem pretty healthy. What seems to
be the problem?”

I can’t say it. I just can’t. I stare at her,
and she at me. Her cheerful expression grows concerned, but she
waits patiently. This room is too big and cold and white. I want a
blanket, but you can’t ask a doctor for that. My teeth are
chattering. She says nothing, and finally, I have to speak.

“Could I borrow your pad? And a pen?”

I write it down. It’s always easier to write.
“Parts of my body keep disappearing.”

She reads it, and her eyes only widen
slightly. Good doctor—well-trained.

“Parts of your body keep disappearing? Which
parts?”

I tell her, and watch her expression subtly
shift. This isn’t going to go well. I can tell.

I argue with Peter in the car going home. He
thinks I should do what the doctor says; slow down a little, try to
decrease stress, maybe talk to a counselor. Unfortunately, none of
my body parts acted up in the office, and I know what the doctor
was thinking, with her sharp blue eyes and pointed questions. ‘The
poor girl is over-committed, in more ways than one.’ ‘She’s so
tired and stressed that she’s imagining things.’ It would have been
ridiculous to bring Peter in as witness, and she’d probably just
have decided that he was over-committed too. He’s not been sleeping
well, and he looks exhausted. Still, there aren’t any bits of
him
disappearing. I’m getting scared.

Peter drops me off with a hug and makes me
promise to call him if anything else blinks out. For a moment, I
don’t want to let go…I hang on tight. But I can’t hang on to him
forever—besides, I told Mark I’d call him. And I owe Katherine a
call, still. I let go, kiss his cheek, and head inside.

It’s easier telling the story the fourth
time. I’m not sure why I bother, though. Katherine reacts as
expected. She’s been convinced for years that if I just picked one
of them, settled down with Mark or Peter, got married, etc. and so
on ad nauseum, then I’d live happily ever after. She’s read too
many romance novels. She’s fixed up the problems with her boyfriend
since we talked yesterday, which means that she’s even more
convinced that True Love(tm) will conquer all. If I swear monogamy
to Mark (or Peter), then all my problems will be solved. No more
disappearing bits.

Even if that were true, it wouldn’t be worth
it.

“That’s not an option. I love both of them… .
No, Kat, I can’t tell you which one I love more. I don’t know… .
Well, I’m not you, am I?”

She eventually gives in on that one, but then
shifts her attack. Surely I can at least stop bringing pretty boys
and girls home for a night? Sure I could, but why should I? What
can that possibly have to do with this? We argue for hours. Usually
she’s less persistent than this—after all these years, you’d think
she’d have given up entirely. But now she has new ammunition. We
argue until I am ready to weep with frustration. Finally, I just
hang up. She’ll understand. I’ll call her back next week and
apologize; I just can’t cope with any more right now.

There is work waiting for me, but I can’t
look at it now, I can’t. I just can’t.

I call Mark.

I meet Mark at the airport; he’s bought a
ticket and come out early, two whole weeks before my scheduled
trip. I feel better as soon as he arrives; stronger. Solider.

Nothing had disappeared in the few
intervening days, but I’d been looking a bit translucent. My
housemates had mentioned that I seemed pale; one of them made me
dinner last night, out of the blue. She kept trying to get me to
drink carrot juice. I’d started staying inside; in bright sunlight,
I could see the veins and arteries through my skin, the blood
pumping away, the muscles stretching and flexing. It didn’t seem to
be dangerous—my hands could still type, my legs could still
walk—it’s just unnerving. I’m so glad to have Mark with me.

I slide my arm around him, hold him tight.
Definitely better. I don’t mention it until we’re home, until the
bus has deposited us down the street and we’ve walked up the last
few blocks to the house. Luckily, he travels light. We slip inside,
dodging housemates; he’s not the gregarious type, and lately, for
all their kindly concern, they weary me.

“I think you should spend more time
alone.”

Mark doesn’t usually give advice, even when
asked. He must be actually worried.

“I feel better. Now that you’re here.” It
sounds appallingly mushy, but he’s used to that from me.

“I can’t fix it for you.”

“Shh…I know.”

We talk for a while, and then go to sleep. No
real answers yet. Difficult to have answers when you’re not sure
what the question is. Is the doctor right? Is Peter? Am I stretched
too thin? And if so, is there anything I can do about it? Is there
anything I’m willing to do?

In the morning, I wake to sunlight coming in
the window, and tentatively hold a hand up to it. I can’t see
through, even a little. Totally solid and normal. Relieved, I turn
to wake Mark up, but he looks so peaceful…he hates being woken. At
least I can make it a pleasant waking.

I slide further under the sheets, slip down
to gently breathe on his hip, his thigh. If I do this just right, I
can get him hard without waking him. Once, I even made him come in
his sleep; that was satisfying. I’m not particularly interested in
trying to repeat that, though—my nipples are sore and my thigh
muscles are tight. I want him, and I want him awake. I breathe in
deeply; the scent of him always turns me on. I blow gently on his
hardening cock, I lick down the length of it, I rub my thighs
together as I take the head in my mouth…I rub my cock against his
leg…what?!

He’s awake. I’m very awake. We sit up; I yank
back the sheets, and there, below my belly, nestled in a little
nest of fine blonde hair, is a pale cock just like his, shocking
against my dark skin. I can’t help it—I gasp out loud. You might
call it a shriek. Not that I haven’t fantasized a little about
having a penis—what woman hasn’t?—but to have his… . And it is his,
exactly. Our eyes flick back and forth between our groins,
comparing. Twins! Mine softens just as his does, it relaxes into
exactly the same shape. We don’t say anything; we just sit there,
staring. It’s there for at least a minute before it slowly fades
out, and my own, more discreet, genitals fade in. I feel a little
better, but still…