My Darling Little Wife
I flee Chicago. I’m not sleeping anyway. I might as well experience insomnia in someone else’s home. From my brother’s foldout IKEA couch specifically. My little sister is performing in her last high school theater production. She is playing Mama Bear in Shrek: The Musical. And I promised a month prior that I would attend. I cannot focus during the train ride. I was hoping to read, but I received the test results of my STI panel: Positive. I have both pharyngeal and rectal gonorrhea. I text him. He knew. He tested positive weeks ago, but he never told me. Telling me would mean that he would have had to admit to his infidelity. Instead, he allowed me to become a vector for disease. His betrayals are endless. He offers to pay for an Uber and my antibiotics. I become a hissing and sputtering tea kettle moments before it fills the house with its unbearable wail.
I am disgusted by the idea that such a meager amount of money might offer me any sort of relief. I remember I am in public. I correct my posture; I am sitting like a man with wide, splayed legs. My nail biting habit returns. I chew on my left hand until my cuticles start to bleed. But I pretend nothing has transpired otherwise. I try to journal. Seeing the scenario in my cursive handwriting is odd. The scale and complexity of my emotional state is difficult to translate to the page. The slanted letters seem so small and brief, almost like peering into a neighboring car on the highway for a moment. This is how you will continue to see me: temporary, infinitesimal.
The email offers a directive, please notify all partners within the last 3 months to be screened and treated as well. I must text my new lovers. I worry they will stop talking to me, preferring less complicated, damaged women. Even though I am not accountable for Z’s behavior, his betrayal and secrecy feel like an indictment of my judgment. I was adamant—He would never cheat on me. I held this belief even though Siobhan told me she caught him on Tinder the day after we fought at Metro because another girl groped me on the dance floor. C cancels our date. Oh well. B is understanding and kind. Or he performs kindness and understanding at least. I am tired of being comforted. I often describe myself as a vengeful person, but I never understood what I meant by this descriptor until now. Z used to guilt me for not being prepared whenever he was horny. He wanted to have sex in the morning. I argued. When was I supposed to douche? I no longer feel guilty. Every bit of shit I got on his dick was deserved—predictive justice for the pain he would inflict on me.
I feign happiness at my mom’s house. I hide in the bathroom and read our text messages. Nomi sends me a link to the Dion Lee archive sale, so I window shop. I don’t buy anything. I no longer entertain the fantasy that the right dress, a more feminine dress, might encourage Z to treat me kinder. My mom asks me to login to my HBO account on the TV in her bedroom. I do. She asks, How are you doing? I’m fine. You don’t seem fine, she broaches. I start crying. I am so tired. Three successive cups of coffee failed to rouse me. I explain to her the gist of my previous day. Multiple women. An STI. He knew. She does her best to comfort me, Oh, so he’s a whore. This makes me laugh. You will find someone who treats you better, she says. Hmm, I guess. My imagination falters. The pain feels permanent, scarring. I struggle to conceptualize a future romance, one where I am adored and adore without suspicion.
Annette is the first to address me with honesty, I won’t lie and say it gets better because loving someone does change you, but it will transform with time. I wonder: What will this transformation require of me?
In 1984, Sophie Calle seduced her father’s friend M. She wore a wedding dress the first night of their love affair. She left for a three-month scholarship to Japan. M told Calle that such an absence would be too long for him. She was hopeful. It would be a test of his affection. M sent her a letter during her trip with a single phrase written on it: My darling little wife… The day they were supposed to meet at the Imperial Hotel in New Delhi, India, Calle received a Telegram from M. He had an accident and would not be able to meet her. The note instructed her to call her father, an oncologist, at the hospital. She called him. He knew nothing. She imagined a car crash on the way to the airport. She felt guilty for hours. She finally managed to reach M at 2 am in the morning. He explained he went to the hospital to have his infected finger treated. He was apologetic and said he wished he could hold her in his arms and explain. You met another woman? She asked. Yes. Is it serious? I hope so. Poor me, she said and hung up the red telephone. And her unhappiness began.
In the second half of Exquisite Pain, Calle recounts the story of her affair’s demise to friends and chance encounters, asking them to share when they suffered the most in return. Each retelling adopts different emotional qualities and sharpens its focus on different details. In some, she is angry; he is a coward. He hides behind a three-minute phone call and an infected finger (She later learns such an infection is also known as a “felon,” a detail she finds absurd and amusing.) In others, she feels guilty. She is responsible. She should have stayed. Calle did not transform this experience into art for 15 years because she feared a relapse. I understand her fear. But I am less apprehensive and creatively exploit my experience regardless. Perhaps to transmute this pain into a medium where it feels external and distant. Writing, as Hélène Cixous argues, “is the very possibility of change… the precursory movement of a transformation…”
I asked Z if he would be upset if I went to Mexico to visit Katia and Charleston for work without him. Originally, I invited him to join me for both. He said it would not upset him, but I knew he considered it a betrayal from the coolness in his voice. I called him from the Gulf of Mexico the afternoon I was sunbathing alone and complained about the mounds of sargasso that littered the beachfront. I am jealous, he said and hung up because his lunch break was over. I felt guilty. Would our relationship, or some form of it, have survived if I stayed with him? I wonder. Doubtful. His infidelity long preceded either trip. But he is a coward. And I am one, too. I considered ending things earlier. In June, I wrote in my journal: Something needs to change between Z and I. I think I may be falling out of love. Neither of us changed.
Two weeks after I wrote that I was falling out of love, we had sex. It was the most romantic physical encounter of our relationship, besides perhaps the second time we fucked after ice skating around the Ribbon in Millennium Park. We got drunk on sangria from Target and watched Call Me By Your Name. We moved to my bed before finishing the movie. Z played Sufjan Stevens’ “Mystery of Love” on his phone. He kissed me passionately for once. I was tired and pliable; he fucked me in missionary. The night was one unbroken kiss until I fell asleep in his arms. I was his darling little wife. In the morning, we fucked again. Everything was perfect. Except he tried fucking her this same month. Twice. Though he couldn’t get hard either time. I read my journals, searching for evidence of their encounters in his moments of absence. Our relationship’s golden periods lose their luster like brass jewelry that oxidizes and leaves unpleasant green stains on my neck that are impossible to remove.
This is the second most unhappy period of my life. I am terrified that this will be my life, one unhappy period followed by another followed by another. Although, I know this isn’t entirely accurate. I continue to experience happiness; I watch my sister sing her minute-long solo during the penultimate number of Shrek: The Musical while wearing a bear costume belted with a polka-dot apron. She is undeniably talented. I want to leap to my feet and give her a standing ovation even though the musical hasn’t ended. We pose for a polaroid together afterward. I am momentarily distracted from my predicament. And the following afternoon my three-year-old nephew collects a handful of yellow dandelions and gifts them to me. This is for you, Aunt Riley, he mumbles, You are a fairy. I smile. The sun is setting. It is golden hour. Dandelion sap stains my black dress. I kiss my nephew on his cheek. Thank you.
Image: Sophie Calle, Exquisite Pain, 1985.
My dear friend Gwen asked me to share a fundraiser for their friend Eman, who is raising money to help her family escape from the genocide in Gaza and complete her medical studies in Egypt. Please consider donating: https://www.gofundme.com/f/emans-story-healing-hearts-and-rebuilding-dreams