Delia would sometimes masturbate four or five times in a row. Not out of pleasure or pain, but pure necessity. All day she would feel this pulling inside her, or like she was constantly being tapped on the shoulder. This was the only way she knew how to relieve herself, to be rid of that incessant tapping, and it would take multiple tries to fulfill the deed, to exhaust herself, to get to the place where she could take no more and all would quiet within her.
She was unlike the women in pornographies. Her orgasms were of a guttural quality, never
pretty, never any hint of a performance behind her moans and groans. She only
made the sounds that were a natural reaction to the feelings inside her of
ecstasy and agony.
Afterward she would every so often inexplicably feel like
crying, like something had been taken from her. She could not make sense of
these feelings of violation—like
she had broken upon something very private within herself that wasn’t ever
supposed to be revealed.
It was on one of these nights that she flung her vibrator
behind the bed and got up to open a bottle of rose wine. She drank the amber liquid
graciously. She needed something to calm her nerves, the nerves that should
have been taken care of by the masturbating, but had only been plucked by it.
She felt a reverberating sense of anxiety and withdrawal within her. She
wondered if this was what depression felt like. It didn’t resemble heartbreak.
She was something beyond that, like a harp without strings.
She
leaned her back against the counter as she drank her wine. She had a curvaceous
figure and was strong like wood. Her features were simple and without
ornamentation. There was nothing in her face to draw someone in except her look
of severe honesty. One could look at her face and feel not a sense of warmth
exactly…but truth. But it was this truth that one wanted to grab on to and
would realize the beauty alone in her form.
She
decided she wasn’t getting anywhere with this abstract wallowing. She had enough
thinking without knowing, enough aimlessly grasping. Her body and mind felt
drained. She sipped her wine again. She could hear every part of it enter her
mouth.
It
came to her attention that it was needlessly quiet—the kind of
silence that’s irksome and makes one feel like if it stayed quiet for any
longer it would attract unwanted spirits into the house. She got on her
computer to play her music, loud enough so that she could hear it in all the rooms.
She
flipped the switch to her electric fireplace. It was what attracted her most
about this house even if it was a long commute to the advertising agency she
worked at. The flames danced to the dubstep. It wasn’t the sort of electronic
music that was mass-produced for dancers on E. This music had soul, somber
undertones, and a steady rhythm. Her wine shook in her hands and she couldn’t
tell if it was because of her own movements or the heavy bass that resounded
all throughout the walls. When she finished one glass, she poured herself
another.
After
enough coaxing of warmth and drink her mind finally got to the place where it
was ready for sleep. She turned off everything in the house and went to bed.
Delia
arrived late to her office the next day.
Her slight hangover made dealing with the daily inundation of ads on her
table all the more unbearable to sort through. Her job was to proofread, to
make sure the advertisements were aesthetically pleasing, and met the criteria
of the client. Many of her employees envied her job; all she had to do was do
the final approving of things.
They
didn’t understand how hard it was for her to approve each and every ad. Every
time she sent another big-breasted girl off to print it made her stomach
squirm. She was in the business of artificiality, of deception. There was no
gratification to be had from the endless ads of tanning salons, nail salons,
hair salons, salon salons. They were all the same to her, each with a pretty
but budgeted model. The fake smiles, promises, she tried not to think about it
as much as she could.
Delia had been single a long time and the only thing she
missed about it was the sex. She hated the expectations of relationships. She
felt like she was constantly being judged. One wrong move and that’d be the end
of things. She could go to dinner without wearing makeup and suddenly that
meant she wasn’t putting enough effort into things—that she was
letting the romance die. Romance was exhausting. It was looking someone in the
face and trying to put on the perfect face that would best make them fall in
love with you. It was spending lots of money on weekend getaways that would end
in fighting. It was rose petals, and perfumed bathwater, and a dozen other
things that were supposed to make her want to have sex when she needed no
convincing.
Her vibrator was a good enough substitute. She craved
physical company but it was so much headache, so much nakedness, so much
pageantry.
As she sorted through the lingerie and makeup ads, she
began to feel that tapping, that sudden anxiety within to relieve herself. It
infuriated her because she wasn’t aroused by these women, not in any way. She
tried to ignore it, but that tapping became a knocking, and then a pounding, and
then a lurching in her stomach. She started to feel ill. It was all too much
for her. She felt hot, and she could feel sweat collect itself all over her
tawny skin. She longed for that buzzing, that at first calming buzzing that
would eventually take the demons out of her.
At that moment she got a knock on her door—a new batch of
advertisements. She looked at the one on top. It was a young blonde woman with
lots of black eyeliner around the eyes and breasts that were very hard looking
and very large. Above her in big bold letters it read, “BUILT-IN BEAUTY,” and beneath that in smaller print, “Beauty
is not born. It’s made.”
She couldn’t take it anymore. She felt outraged. It was
so ass-backwards, so destructive, so vicious. No amount of money justified
putting this out in the world. She did nothing but sit at her desk and continue
to stare at it. She didn’t feel like masturbating anymore. It wouldn’t be able
to help her now. She just felt dead reading
those words over and over again.
Her boss entered her office. He was tall,
broad-shouldered, and had a hard face. Delia had never liked him but knew how
to be on his good side.
“How’s everything. Did we run into any problems?”
“I can’t approve this,” she said flatly.
He picked up the advertisement she had lying on top. He
brought it to the light and then brought it back down.
“Why not? Looks good to me.”
“Look what it says.”
“What’s the problem?”
“What it says is the problem,” she said louder.
“What it says is the problem,” she said louder.
“It’s a bit edgy,
but I think it will do.”
“It’s
horrid.”
He
looked at her in anger and confusion before exclaiming, “I’m not paying you to
be a feminist!”
“I just can’t-“
“What the hell has gotten into you Delia? Do we need to
put someone else in your place?”
She stated those words again in her head: Do we need to put someone else in your place?
Was it worth sucking it up? Couldn’t she just do her job as always, remove
herself and do what was asked? And then Beauty
is not born. It’s made, came into her head again. She wondered if she could live with herself any longer.
She stared at his dark stern brown eyes and wanted to say
she quit. She wanted to say it so badly but she couldn’t. It was as if those
eyes pulled from her lips the words, “I’m sorry, you’re right. I don’t know
what got into my head.”
“You should go home for the day.” He took the
advertisement and exited the room.
When she got home she reached behind her bed to take out
her vibrator. She took off her pants, rolled down her underwear, and held it desperately
between her legs. It wouldn’t calm her down. She couldn’t feel anything. She
could feel it vibrating, but there was no sensation. She pressed it harder
against herself and made sure it was on the highest speed. It was.
She took it off and breathed deeply before putting it
back on to find the same result. It was as if her nerves were dead. She began
to cry in frustration.
“Why won’t you fucking work?” she screamed at it.
She was determined. She held it there again with even
more resolve. She felt herself go numb.
She threw her vibrator down on the floor and began to
sob, not even bothering to turn it off. It moved around on its own slowly like
a snake. She cried, throwing the pillow over her face.
She did not go back to work the next day. She never came
back.
0 comments :
Post a Comment