The Birth

Rebecca carefully smoothed her hair against her scalp. Hovering about an inch from her shoulders, it was coated in a thick layer of dye that smelled like ammonia. Rebecca imagined that she looked rather like a spy. A Russian chick, maybe, tall and thin.

She could do it if she wanted. She’d put on a black turtleneck and unwrap Mickey’s handgun. She wanted to duck between houses and leap over fences, unhindered by her perfectly polished four-inch stiletto boots. She’d kill a man, silent and undetected. She’d seduce him and then, when he dared to blink, she’d swoop in like a hawk and dump a tiny vial of cyanide into his vodka. And then she’d wink at him and walk out of the dim restaurant, leaving him to die quickly. There’d be no evidence but a slight scent of almonds on the fat man’s breath and the soft click of her stilettos disappearing into the night.

A drip of hair dye down the back of her neck returned her to her pink bathroom. An empty “Chestnut” dye box rested next to the ceramic seashell sink. She took a quick glance in the mirror to make sure the dye hadn’t gotten onto her plush robe, and stepped towards the toilet, gently lowering the fuzzy lid and taking a seat. She crossed her legs, one thigh peeking out from her baby blue robe. Opening the cabinet in front of her, Rebecca pulled out a small white box. She set the lid on the tile floor with a clink and separated the pile of cotton swaps with a long acrylic fingernail. She removed a white twig much thicker than the other swabs. A cigarette, long and slight, balanced precariously between her fingertips as she turned and dug through the glass dish of potpourri on the back of the toilet.

Rebecca fished out the pack of matches she’d pocketed from the steakhouse on their first real date. Mickey had made the reservation weeks in advance and strutted up to the maître d’ like he owned the place. She’d had a thing for him since he started working at Jax, but almost never ran into him. She quickly memorized his work schedule, coming in to talk to Andy whenever Mickey was working. She felt so deliciously conniving. She got Andy to invite her to the Christmas party so she could talk to him. He needed a real woman anyway.

She set the cigarette between her lips gently; it stuck slightly in her lipstick and made a pink ring around the edge of the filter. She struck a match against the tile’s rough grout. The paper sizzled as the tobacco caught fire and she waved the match through the air until it stopped glowing. A thin stream of smoke shot out from her pursed lips and she leaned against the back of the toilet. The kitchen timer in the corner ticked quietly, nervously. Just twenty-two more minutes.

***

I thought it was my name. Every time I heard it, it sounded like it belonged to someone else. Erika, Erika, Erika. It sounded like a word you say so many times that you start to wonder if it was ever a word at all. In my head, I was Erik. It was better, more abrupt, more honest. But when I started going through puberty, the name change wasn’t comforting anymore. I was so awkward looking, my new breasts looking like pieces from another person’s puzzle. My waist was odd too. It indented too much in the middle, and my hips jutted out too far below. My hands were too small, my shoulders too narrow, my thighs too soft. And the dresses my mother bought me only accentuated these disproportions. My church dress was blue and speckled with tiny white flowers. It was like a snug t-shirt on the top half, but starting at the base of my ribcage, it expanded into a full skirt that floated over thick white tights that made my legs look like pulled vanilla taffy. The ensemble had a lace collar and sleeves that ballooned over my thin shoulders. I hated that dress. However, when the time came to go off to college, I dug deep into the pile of fallen clothes on the floor of my closet, and rescued the wrinkled and faded blue ball that had been my church dress. I ironed it, folded it into a small square, and tucked it between my copies of “Gender Outlaw” and “Crime and Punishment”.

I met Mickey a month later. He lived down the hall and had a thing for “communing with nature,” which as it turns out meant little more than smoking a lot of weed. He always told me how glad he was that I wasn’t a pretty girl. It sounds worse than it was; I think he meant he was glad I wasn’t excessively feminine. He said it made it easier to be near me. I didn’t resent that, though at times I felt like more of a convenience than a girlfriend. We got married shortly after graduation. My salary was pretty good. He didn’t have to work so he spent his time tinkering around the house I bought. New fixtures every couple of months and a stock of paper goods to last us until the apocalypse.

One day we were arguing over something, the dishwasher maybe. Suddenly our tiff about a stupid appliance blew into an in-depth look at his slow and painful emasculation by way of housework. By the end of the week he found himself a man’s job at Jax Body Shop. There was a Christmas party that winter. Mickey came home with a plastic K-Mart bag saying he had a surprise for me. My outstretched hands were instantly filled with a soft material. I opened my eyes and found myself examining a mass of dark blue velvet fabric. A dress with long sleeves, a scoop neck and a hem that landed a few inches above my knees. I burst into tears.

At his insistence, I wore that dress on Christmas, then again on his birthday and Valentine’s Day. I wore it to his mother’s house, to every work party. He took me to the salon to learn to curl my dull brown hair. He brought home pantyhose and a pair of black pumps for me. Fancy underwear, makeup lessons, and painful waxing appointments soon followed. As much as I relished his attention, I hated myself for consenting to all of this dressing up.

But I could never make my brain match my new exterior. For some reason, no matter how much time I spent, curling and brushing and primping, I could barely bring myself to speak. Mickey noticed. He stopped looking at me when we went out, and came home less and less often. He left for a car show last Monday. That night, I opened his desk drawer and pulled out a little orange pair of scissors. Standing in front of his big leather chair, I cut off every last curl, letting each wave fall onto his seat. On Tuesday night, I put on one of his baseball caps and walked to the drug store. I bought two ace bandages and bound my chest in the store’s bathroom. As I walked out, the cashier said, “Thank you sir, come again.”

When I got home, I took that little pair of orange scissors and cut both the velvet dress and the old blue church dress into scraps.
I fell asleep in front of the fireplace. It crackled pleasantly, kept burning for hours with additional logs and an excellent kindling made of dark and light blue bits of fabric.

***

“I am not a bad man,” I repeat softly. The meditation tapes Erika bought me said that repeating mantras like “I am relaxing” or “I am calm” would help me manage the stress. I assume my adopted mantra would work. And why not? If you can calm yourself by repeating, “I AM CALM I AM CALM I AM CALM”, then why can’t I use my own mantra to convince myself that I haven’t done something awful?

I have been nothing but honest with Rebecca. I told her I liked her as she was, I told her I didn’t want her to change for me. But she really seems to enjoy dressing up, spending money on makeup, styling her blonde hair. It was her hair that first got my attention. It was so blonde… so different than what I was accustomed to. It was big and styled and it didn’t move in a strong breeze. It smelled like hairspray and perfume. I later found it that it smelled like perfume because when she put it on, she sprayed it into the air first and then did some weird little dance that covered her entire body in it. She looked like a trained monkey. It really was endearing. Now I can’t help but imagine that stupid hairy monkey. She looks like a goddamn monkey sometimes.
I never understood why people start to look so ugly after you stop liking them. I thought that perhaps I only loved beautiful people. I’m coming to see differently. I don’t want to let it bother me but I can’t help it. There’s a guy named Andy at Jax. He’s a real creep, likes to hit on everyone’s wife. Except mine. She never seemed to notice, and if she did she was probably glad to be left alone. She’s quiet like that, always has been. But her face... unchanging no matter how much she tries to resist wearing makeup and nice clothes. I just want her to know how beautiful she is. That’s why I bought her that dress. She loves it, she really does. She’s so modest, but I love to spoil her.

Jax, those cheap bastards. My hotel room’s about eight steps by fourteen. I tried pacing but it didn’t help. Eight by fourteen... room enough for a creaky bed with a dirty comforter and a bathroom barely big enough to turn around in. I set up camp on the bed, took off my jeans and lay straight like a mummy. I’m trying to meditate but I can’t seem to dam this inundation of thought. I am not a bad man, I am not a bad man, I’m insisting.

With the rate my head is going, I imagine I’d barely flinch at a knock at the door. It’d probably be her anyway. She only shows up when I tell her not to.

***

Rebecca’s hair, now a dark silky brown, had yet to be sprayed into place. It smelled like her perfume, an ugly cheap bottle that sort of smelled like roses.

She pulled the curling iron from under the sink. After giving it a minute to heat, she proceeded to curl her hair into big soft waves. She slipped out of her robe and pulled her new dress out of the k-mart bag, a dark blue velvet number with long sleeves and a hemline that landed just about her knees.

Rebecca just loved surprises.