Chapter 1: Bloodguilt
“You’re done with your period, right?” Elijah asked as he lit the candle on the nightstand beside his bed. It was already burnt down from use, but I knew better than to ask why.
I wasn’t sure how to answer him at first. I had seen some spotting that morning, but I hadn’t used a tampon in days.
I was pretty sure my period was more or less over, though, so I started to turn over the possible outcomes in my mind. But I didn’t get too far. After all, he was trying to be romantic. I knew he didn’t like fucking me when I was on my period, and he was in a good mood, so I met his inquiry with a hollow yet confident “Yes.”
I was a supreme liar in moments of crisis, and I was often in crisis. I tried to sound convincing—on some level, I knew life depended on it. I didn’t believe my own words, but he did. He got the answer he wanted, and that was good enough for him.
I sat down on the bed. My feet splayed out before me; I had long legs, and his mattress was on the floor. I tucked my legs in under me and tried to act coy. I knew that was what he wanted.
Tonight, he was tender and attentive; he was my sweet and adoring boyfriend who lit a candle before he was about to fuck me. And he was in a good mood. I was relieved.
It took him a few tries to light the candle. It reminded me of the first time we hooked up. We had left work together late at night and gone to a nearby hotel; he fumbled and dropped the key card when we got to our room. His blundering seemed much more disarming that time.
He finally succeeded in getting the candle lit and stood up. He turned to face me and started to take off his T-shirt. He wanted me to see him and remind me that he was built, desirable—and had choices.
I didn’t care how naturally sculpted he was. That’s not why I was here. But I took my cue and began to undress.
“I want you to fuck me,” I murmured, trying to sound sultry. Let’s get this over with.
“Yeah, baby, I’m gonna fuck you real good, baby.”
He came up to me and guided my head toward his dick. I put it in my mouth and started moving up and down, but he pushed my head down until he was so deep into my throat that I couldn’t breathe. I made a motion that he was being too forceful, but it didn’t faze him, and I didn’t push the issue so I powered through and tried to time my inhalations according to when he let up before pushing my head down again.
It didn’t register then, but I eventually learned that most guys don’t do that, not even close, and not even the guys I saw when I was moonlighting as a prostitute. I later realized it was a terrible sign of something bad within and would, from there on out, be a sign that something was askew in a new lover and that I best steer clear. It was also a prime indicator that a man was capable of much, much worse.
I can’t even think of anyone else who did that to me. Of course, no one else ever threatened to take my life.
I wanted to breathe without fear, so to make it stop, I pretended I was eager to fuck. I was fully nude now; I laid down on my back and pulled myself up toward the top of the bed, resting my head on the pillow, and spreading my legs. On hands and knees, he came up to meet me, stopping to hover over my supine body. He balanced himself between my legs, using his arms to brace his torso inches above mine.
The moment he put it inside me, his eyes crossed as if he were overcome by the sensation. I gyrated a little at first and moaned as if to indicate my pleasure, but I had already left. He had gone in and out just a couple of times before I crawled way into the back of my mind and summoned a silent and desperate prayer.
Oh-God-please-let-my-period-be-gone.
With Elijah’s and my bodies connected at that one spot, he stared into my face with those crooked eyes, moving in and out. Mostly I just closed my eyes and groaned and tried not to move too much. But I knew I needed to remind him I was still there, so I’d open them sometimes with courage, trying to meet his unfocused gaze until I couldn’t look anymore at the horror that was the man on top of me.
He kept pumping, but I was already gone.
I knew how he’d react if I didn’t come and had by now discovered new recesses of my mind that I could visit to make sure I did. As he pumped with a steady, uninspired rhythm, looking through my face, I slithered away into my darkest places. If I didn’t climax, I knew he would make sure I knew it was my fault. He would tear into me. He would make sure I knew that there was something fucking wrong with me. So I dug deep, ultimately landing somewhere intrinsically foul, to something that hearkened back to my youth and was the worst possible thing I could think of.
In my late 30s, I started to have a recurrent dream—my family was there, my mother and paternal grandmother were definitely there, and Father was taunting me. He was naked and standing before me, and his words were imprecise, but he was clearly beckoning me. Not gently, not slyly, not in a whisper, but with aggressiveness and even amusement, and I sensed there would be a penalty if I didn’t concede. I looked around desperately and shouted to the small crowd of women around me.
Look, look, look at what he’s doing! I fucking TOLD you!
But everyone looked away. My voice gave out. I was motioning wildly to no one, my mouth was wide open, but nothing came out, and no one noticed so I gave up and put it on his dick. That’s when I woke up suddenly, sitting upward in my bed, clutching the sheets and screaming. But no one heard me.
After Elijah, it would take effort to stay present when I was with a man. And this is where it started—once devised purely as a tool for preempting Elijah’s assault, the fantasy would become compulsive, close to impossible to shake—and would permeate my every waking and unconscious sexual act.
But I had barely begun my journey into the more perilous recesses of my mind when I was suddenly dragged back to reality. Elijah had looked down at himself going in and out when he saw it–the menstrual blood on his dick. He jumped off me and sprang into a standing position at the end of the bed.
“What the FUCK? I thought you said you were done with your period??”
“Oh, I thought it was gone. I’m sorry!” I cursed my insides and braced myself, and tried not to sound frightened. I was apologetic, even suspecting somewhere deep inside me that I probably shouldn’t be. But I figured if I apologized, it would calm him down.
“Jesus FUCK, it’s going to stain the fucking mattress!” This was a little too familiar.
He stomped away and into the bathroom, I heard the water running as he cleaned himself off, and he brought back a damp towel and chucked it at me.
The towel smacked me in the face, but that was a kind of pain I could make sense of.
“I’m sorry, it won’t stain. I’ll get it out. It’s OK, baby!”
I crouched on the bed and started to scrub out the bloody spot where our bodies had met. I was naked and exposed and not proud of my body, but urgency superseded my self-consciousness; I had to get it out. I had to calm him down. I scrubbed and rubbed with effort, again running through a silent prayer.
Oh-please-God-let-me-get-this-out.
“Don’t you fucking DOUCHE?” He hurled at me. His eyes had come into focus, but still, I tried not to look at them, afraid it would feed into his escalating venom, afraid to see the anger that brought his eyes back to life.
On some level, I must have known this man was human garbage, that this was an aberrance and not the norm; but at that moment, I was intent on smoothing things over.
“Sorry baby, no, I don’t; I thought it was gone. I’m sorry.”
“You’re supposed to fucking DOUCHE so it gets it all out, so I don’t have to deal with this shit!”
Squatting, scrubbing the mattress, no time to get dressed. I wished I could fit on the head of a pin.
“I’ll get it out. I’ll get it out. It’s OK.”
Elijah threw on shorts and stomped out to the living room. I paused.
Did I exist solely to bring a man pleasure, was the sole utility of my body to cater to his sexual needs? Logically it didn’t seem quite right to me, but my inner compass was skewed, and all I knew was I didn’t want him to be mad at me anymore. My heart raced, and I kept seizing with dread. Maybe I should have left, but I felt lower than dirt, and anyway, he was right—I’d never do better than him.
Then I heard his angry stomp getting louder; he was restless and aggravated and headed back to the bedroom.
I turned back to the stain and started scrubbing; my eyes turned down to the mattress beneath me.
Photo by JEFERSON GOMES on Unsplash
DB Maddox
I was a clueless kid back then but I always followed my heart; I knew I wanted to be a Writer but I didn't know what that meant, or what my options were. So I became an Editor--it was something that just came naturally to me. Twenty-plus years later, I'm still an Editor. It has served me well, at least in the day-to-day; and when you're in survival mode, just getting through the day is enough. But at roughly the midway mark of my career, and looking up from the precipice of what must have been my 17th relapse, I thought that maybe this was just my destiny, and if so, there simply had to be value in chronicling it. And while my reasons for writing a memoir may have been tenuous and ever-evolving, it was never about catharsis. Instead, by reliving the trauma of my upbringing and the desperation of my youth, I discovered that I had had agency all along, in my own twisted way; and I felt compelled to share that revelation and have spent years searching for a platform to do just that--until I found the Feminine Collective. I invite you to engage therein with this ongoing series of excerpts from my debut memoir, "Constellation of Pleasure: Only the Stars Can Hear Me," a tale unduly tragic, but through which I expect readers will perceive a reflection of themselves to whatever degree, and be empowered.
