Raw Edges: A Memoir

Iron Maiden Cracks

: : 134 : : My husband touched the small of my back. He caressed my hips while I tried to cling to the world of sleep. Suddenly I pulled myself to the edge of the bed. We’d been married for thirteen years, and I was crawling away from him, inching away, a bit at a time. Love. What was love? And sex, what was that? It meant too many things. It could be a place for abandon and recklessness and giving up your mind. Yet all I could think about when he touched me was that I didn’t want to give in to that touch. I didn’t want him arousing me anymore. I’d given over one too many times. I rolled out of the covers and ran to the bathroom for air. He followed me. He stood behind me and cupped his hand around my breast. “You want me. Don’t try to run away.” My autonomic responses were waking, my genetic impulse to procreate being aroused. I found myself trembling at the touch of his fingers on my nipple. “It’s a lie between you and me,” I forced myself to say. I rested the palms of my hands on the sink tile. “Things dried up a while ago. You want other women, so go take them. Go have what you want, but don’t drag me along just so you can have everything you started with. I don’t want you. I don’t want your body. Leave me alone.” He pressed his maleness against my back side. I felt gooseflesh on my arms. “Just because I’m attracted to other women doesn’t mean I don’t love you.” :: The Iron Maiden Cracks :: The Iron Maiden Cracks : : 135 Why couldn’t I be calm? Why couldn’t I be cool? Why couldn’t I tell him to go away and leave me alone? Too much excitement rising in my body, that sap, that juice, whatever it was that was the source of all fluids. “Go find someone else. Things are too messy between us. Too many botched attempts.” I wanted to say that we didn’t have a big enough heavyduty pink eraser, that no matter how hard we rubbed, we could still see the pencil lines. He bit into my neck and planted three tiny kisses on the lobe of my ear. “I want you,” he said. “I’ve always wanted you.” “That’s not enough anymore.” I reached for my bathrobe on the hook of the bathroom door. “Like I said, things are too messy. We’ve blown it too many times. I just want a clean slate.” I broke free of his hold and directed my arms through the purple sleeves of my robe. Tied the sash in front. Hoisted myself up to the bathroom counter. Let my legs hang over the edge, swinging them, and humming a nondescript tune. “There’s not a clean slate anywhere in this world,” he said. He wrapped his hand around my shoulder. “All the air’s been breathed before. All the water’s recycled.” “It’s too messy.” I moved away from the province of his hand. “But isn’t there such a thing as forgiveness?” He examined the shadow of his beard in the morning light. “For a woman who talks about faith, you don’t have much.” He looked small in his nakedness, his penis at rest, unengorged, hanging quietly. He was a man. No more. No less. A simple man with a testicles , pelvis, a hairy chest, arms, legs, and a head and whatever else. “Actually, the way I figure it,” I said from my perch on the counter, “if you cling to the bad things that happen, you’ll have something to talk about. Something dramatic. People love a shocking story. A whispered, closely told shocker. They try to hide their fascination with your bad luck or judgment while secretly congratulating themselves on their lot in life being better than yours. Or they feel hip and privileged being around someone who’s been there, done that, and knows all about bad luck. Don’t you think?” 136 : : r a w e d g e s “You’ll never be happy. You don’t want to be happy. You’re too attached to the sad, cynical story of it all.” He took a T-shirt out of a bathroom drawer and...