Hot come dripped onto our rich violet sheets and I looked over at him: his body limp, naked, and snoring, I wondered if I could take any more pain. I was ready for release.
It was the day after Father’s Day and a thick slab of grass-fed beef sat bleeding in the fridge. Despite being vegan for over a decade, I promised James I would prepare him a steak to celebrate. A corresponding Father’s Day card sat on the bureau, unopened, untouched. The envelope read: To Daddy, with Love. Your Little Girl, Maddie.
Daddy and I had a tradition of celebrating our Daddy/Little Girl relationship on Father’s Day, but this Father’s Day my Daddy was gone.
I hadn’t heard from him since our bleak anniversary. Five days without texts or calls. I heard he barricaded himself into his office, solitary in the vastness of the Armory, and that he wasn’t capable of having company (at least with me).
My body was like a limp noodle, lying in a lukewarm tub of water. Reaching for my Ativan, I shook a small handful into my fist and shoved them down my throat. My head was full of white noise. I pushed my hands to the bottom of the white porcelain bathtub and stared at them.
I slid slowly under water, my long red hair swishing back and forth. Through a small window leaked a cool breeze, the smell of pot, and the sound of Radiohead from our upstairs neighbor’s apartment. The front page of a weekly newspaper hung framed on the bathroom wall. The headline read “Submission Possible” in big bold lettering, a rope clad pinup girl in an aerial suspension gracing the cover. Long red curls spilled down her back and her eyes were framed in dark lashes, with a twinkling of youthful, mischievous innocence. I didn’t even recognize that girl, anymore.
Do I know who I am anymore? Do I know anyone in the world that knows or cares about Tina Butcher? Is there any part of me that isn’t available for public consumption? Perhaps I had made my contribution to culture and achieved what I was meant to achieve. Maybe it was time to fade away.
My phone rang, and the display read “Dad.” Not now.
I collapsed onto the bed surrounded by an assemblage of memories: photos, objects, clothing, sex toys, cluttering the floor, spilling out of the dresser and the closet. I had texted a few close friends in a discreet attempt to seek the help I vaguely knew I needed. I needed direction and support, I couldn’t make it through this situation on my own. Like good friends should in times of need, they appeared with food, compassion, and many episodes of bad television. Mev still worked as my assistant on an as-needed basis and had become a trusted friend. She sat by my side and offered a Tupperware of hot tortilla soup.
She handed me a spoon and smiled, pushing her coke-bottle glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Go on, now. You need to keep your energy up,” she said, and her Texas drawl showed itself. It felt warm and comforting with the soup and the friendly company.
I swallowed each spoonful gently. It felt like the colors seeped out, like the life around me was moving in slow motion, hollow and empty. “I’m supposed to be in Chicago tomorrow, Wisconsin the next day. They’re expecting Madison Young. I can’t. I can’t do it. I can’t be her right now,” I pleaded. I couldn’t fathom boarding a plane, waiting in lines at the airport, and addressing a crowd of couples out on date night about how to add depth and connection to their relationship while demonstrating kinky sexual technique. I had no inspiration to share.
Maxine, Femina Potens’ marketing director, and I had also grown close. She crawled to the center of the bed to hold my hand, giving me a little squeeze when I needed it to remind me I was still there.
Mev jotted down some notes. “Don’t you worry about that. I’ll take care of everything.”
I smiled. Mev was magic, the best assistant I could hope for. She helped me with everything from video editing to red carpet costume design, from designing the gallery interior to keeping me fed. Mev is my unicorn, a one in a million girl.
I closed my eyes, trying to rest. Mev whispered a soft “Shhhhh,” but all I could see was red.
“Why would he do this to me? I bought meat! A steak! It’s disgusting, and just sitting in there.” I sat up abruptly in the bed, fists tight around my pillow, my adrenaline pumping.
Storm, an eager volunteer at the gallery, a budding fetish model at KINK, and a new friend, leaned against the wall, texting. “He’s a jerk, Madison. He doesn’t deserve you. Quite frankly he’s a cheat and a liar with a pretty fierce coke habit and I don’t know why you haven’t seen that before.” I felt suddenly choked with fear. Daddy doesn’t have a problem! Is there a problem? There is a problem, isn’t there? I couldn’t believe that he was an addict or an alcoholic, which seemed like something altogether different. Calling Daddy an alcoholic or addict seemed like a judgment of me, for being his partner and not recognizing it, not stopping it, not healing him. Her words were difficult to hear. It wasn’t that the thought hadn’t crossed my mind in the previous months, I just couldn’t bring myself to listen.
“Don’t say that, Storm. Are you crazy? She doesn’t need to hear that right now.” Maxine spoke up for the first time that afternoon with a firm voice and motherly tone.
“Well, I think she needs to know,” Storm said, shooting Maxine a sharp gaze. “Anyway, I’ve got a client. Madison, drop James, he’s bad news and he’s just going to bring you down with him.” Her words chilled the air even after she left the room. I feared prediction, What if she’s right? The room went quiet as I stared blankly at the doorway Storm had vacated.
“He’s got allergies. He’s allergic to dust, that’s why he’s always sniffling. He didn’t fuck anyone. He would have told me. He would have told me, right, Maxine?” I nervously ripped apart my cuticles, spitting them out onto the dingy, stained white comforter.
Maxine looked up at me with a reassuring response, but in her eyes I saw a glimpse of doubt, “Of course he would have, Madison. He loves you.” Her words were kind, but I found it hard to believe her.
“Forget about him, just for this moment, and let’s do something for you,” Mev softly pleaded.
From her canvas bag she revealed a velvet maroon sack full of tarot cards. Shuffling through the deck of cards, she handed them to me.
“Shuffle them and then pick a card and turn it over. What do you love, Madison?” Mev asked. I held the cards to my chest and closed my eyes, wishing for an answer.
“Work. I love what I do for work but I just can’t...” I shuffled the cards back and forth in my hands, opening my eyes.
“No. Something that isn’t work.” Mev interjected and I turned over my chosen card. The Sun card. My mind drifted off to my father. During warm, humid Cincinnati summers I used to dig my fingers deep in steamy mulch to spread the moist bark chips across our flowerbeds, covering the top soil and improving the fertility of the earth. My dad dug holes deep in the ground to plant saplings and flowering bushes. We seemed to be surrounded by life during those summers. The life of simplicity, inhaling the smells and sounds of nature, was one of the feelings that had first aroused my interest in the fibrous organic rope I now cinch tightly around my body
“A garden,” I shared, and with a small, hopeful smile I turned the card around to show Mev.
“There you go! A garden. Now don’t tweet about it, don’t Facebook about it, don’t blog about it. Plant a garden, Tina, and let it just be for you.”
With the sun peeking out beneath the San Francisco fog, I knelt in reverence on my bare knees on the stone patio that made up our Lower Haight backyard. To my right was a large pile of top soil—rich, dark, moist earth—and to my left, trays upon trays of flowers, herbs and vegetables waiting to be planted in their respective homes among my raised flower boxes. I took Mev’s suggestion and decided to plant something that was mine. I needed to be surrounded by growth and life. I needed to tend to something that wasn’t for public consumption, something separate from my Madison Young identity.
I drove my hands into the soil and felt the cool
earth sift through my fingers. A peek at my fingers revealed chipped red fingernail polish and cuticles that need tending, signs of my personal neglect. I felt soft and vulnerable, like a crustacean without its shell. There had been no word from James for nearly two weeks, and I didn’t know if there ever would be, again. Slowly burrowing small holes, I placed sage, basil, mint, and thyme in the flowerbed, filling in the indentations and covering the roots with fresh new soil. With each plant I said a small prayer, a mantra, an affirmation, a wish. To me, this wasn’t just a garden, it was a hope chest for the future.
“Thank you, basil. I have hope and faith in you. I know you will thrive; that you will grow; that you have life. I will nurture that life and care for you. I will mother you. Your life is worth nurturing. Sink your roots and breathe deeply. This is your home.” I placed my hands around the earth that surrounded the basil and closed my eyes, inhaling deeply and exhaling the grief and toxic pain that had been filling my body. I held my hands to the earth, feeling the pulse of the plants, tears falling into the soil.
I plucked the tomato plants from their trays and sunk them into the holes I had dug for them. While covering their small, stringy roots with nutrient rich earth, my mind wandered to my father. I hadn’t spoken with him in months. On weekends, as a teenager, I often found myself in the same position, kneeling and bowing to gardens full of rich earthy soil, while I assisted my dad with landscaping jobs. During this activity, I found myself at absolute peace, with earth beneath my fingernails and the warm scent of moist mulch in my nose.
Small strawberry plants stood short and sturdy, one after another, as I scooped soil and patted the earth around them slowly and intentionally. Only three weeks before, Daddy and I had eaten the sweet red fruits from one another’s hands while we tasted the sweetness of each other’s bodies. We devoured one another with lust and appetite. I found a glimmer of hope thinking of Daddy in that moment and wishing—no, trusting—that we would both survive this dark period of our lives.
“Hello everyone, my name is Madison Young and I am a Sex Positive Tasmanian Devil. I travel all around the world advocating for healthy sexual relationships through workshops, by documenting authentic sexual pleasure on film, and through fierce feminist performance art. Tonight, I’m here to discuss with you the topics of deep throating and oral sex.”
About seventy people crowded into the small basement of an adult store in Denver. It was hot and stuffy, home of the store’s administrative offices with plenty of boxes of inventory.
I felt lost in the sea of audience members who had gathered in the basement. They filled the folding chairs and the aisles, and some camped out on the steps of the stairwell to catch a glimpse. I could recite this presentation in my sleep. I was on autopilot, slightly less focused than usual, my mental and emotional capabilities handicapped by the new information I had received only twenty hours ago. I was pregnant.
It was quiet and still in my San Francisco apartment. Mr. Mogul was gone. He hadn’t answered his phone in a week. Calls went unanswered, voice messages stayed unheard. My garden was taking root in its new bed of soil but I felt utterly misplaced in our bed with his body so far from mine.
I went to the bathroom to pack my toiletries when I glanced over at my tampons and menstrual cup and realized, I couldn’t remember my last period. When was my last period? I pulled out my phone and checked my period tracker app. I was seven days late. It may have felt like an eternity since we’d been together, but we had fucked several times that month.
In a panic, I slipped on ballet slippers and headed to the corner store for a pregnancy test. It was cold and there was a light rain. I pulled the hood of my green sweatshirt over my head and hurried.
When I arrived, I roamed around throwing assorted goods in the red grocery basket—vegan chocolate chip cookies, sparkling lemonade, a douche, vaginal wipes, enemas, another tube of red lipstick, a box of chai, and two pregnancy tests.
The store owner, Fahah, was a Syrian man in his mid-forties with an enchanting accent, warm smile, and round, loving face. Pictures of his wife and children were taped to the register and a small gray kitten lived in the store, wandering the aisles while customers filled their grocery baskets. It was about 10:00 p.m., but Fahah was still hard at work, stocking soy milk and beer for the flow of customers that poured through his market.
I held my basket close to my hips, hoping to make my transaction quick and discreet. A couple, man and woman, stood in front of me in line. Her dark brown hair was wet and kept falling in her eyes, causing her mascara to drip. The boy, tall and lanky, with an awkward mustache above his upper lip that seemed unfit for his youthful appearance, wore his chestnut colored hair swept to the side, and wrapped his arms around his giggling girlfriend.
I dropped my basket on the counter, and Fahah smiles at me, “Young love, eh?”.
“Huh? Oh...yeah. Young love.” Avoiding eye contact, I fidgeted with the display of herbal supplements at the checkout counter. Fahah sensed my nervousness, and kindly put my items in a plastic bag. “Good luck, Maddie.” He said, with a warm smile.
After a few minutes I was standing in disbelief in my small, white tiled bathroom, pink satin panties at my ankles, jeans and ruby slippers discarded in the long hallway. One pregnancy test between my thumb and forefinger screamed at me: “PREGNANT.’’ Another sitting on the bathroom sink read the same: “PREGNANT.’’
I can’t be pregnant! I needed to pack for my trip. It was near midnight and I was going to be picked up at 4:00 a.m. to be shuttled to SFO.
Now in Denver, standing before the large crowd on top of a chair, I proclaimed: “Wow! What a pleasure it is to be here in Denver! Now, the first thing that I’d like us all to do is get into our body. We need to warm up our muscles and relax the muscles that we are going to be using for our oral sex techniques.”
I picked up a realistic anatomical dildo that sat on the propped table and glanced down at my phone. Daddy still hadn’t returned my voicemails or text messages.
“This is a cock. In order to pleasure the cock to the best of our abilities, we need to first learn the anatomy of the cock. Specifically, I will be pointing out to you the areas of the cock which are the most sensitive and pleasurable for stimulation.” I projected my voice over the crowd, holding up the silicone object. Ivy, my assistant for the evening, strapped on the dildo and I paraded her up and down the crowded aisle, pointing out the anatomy of the cock. We’d only met that day, but she seemed giddy with the prospect of being paraded around by Madison Young.
My voice was enthusiastic, sultry, and humorous, but my mind was in the midst of a breakdown. Can I do this? Can I be a mother? Do I want to be a mother?
I relaxed my throat muscles, submerging the cock in my throat while making a mental list of my heroes and noting which of them were parents.
“Now, this technique is called the lollipop.” I wrapped my lips around the head of the cock, then made a popping noise when I removed it from my mouth.
Going through my list of my heroes, I pondered. Annie Sprinkle: she didn’t have children. Emma Goldman: she never had children either. Carol Queen: childless. Is it possible to be immersed in sexual culture or be a radical activist and also be a mother? I drew a blank.
“Now, if you notice here, on the underside of the cock toward the head, there is a little sensitive bit called the frenulum. Get to know it. Get to love it. It’s similar to a woman’s clitoris. This is where the tongue circles you were practicing earlier come in handy.”
Daddy didn’t want to be a father. I knew that. He had expressed his disinterest in marriage and children in the past, but as for me, I was not so sure. If I was going to become a parent, I would have to be completely okay with knowing I would most likely be doing it on my own. I came from a long line of single mothers, four generations in fact. Four generations of strong-willed, independent women. I can do this on my own. But do I want to? I thought abo
ut the way I felt when I nurtured the plants in my garden, or when I mentored a young queer artist just starting out on their own path. Perhaps now was the perfect time to nurture something inside me, something greater than me. This child would be a change, that was for certain. And change was something that I needed, more than ever. I was growing a personal revolution in my uterus, in my body.
“Enthusiasm, my friends. Don’t forget enthusiasm, communication, and eye contact. You want to be enthusiastically connected with your partner. You want to devour their cock like it’s cotton candy and diamonds.”
I kept going with the list: Susie Bright…Yoko Ono…Shar Rednour…Thea Hillman…Catherine Opie. All mothers. I can do this. I had recently completed a documentary-porn on pregnancy and sexuality. The mothers I met were some of the strongest and most amazing people I had met in my career.
Yes. Yes, I wanted to be a mother. I wanted to be a mother to this child. I could do it. I would do this!
I watched as the audience awkwardly slid their mouths around the bananas that Ivy passed out to them. I was nauseated, but unsure if it was the morning sickness or anxiety. This wasn’t going to be easy.
“Great job, class. I will be around the store for about an hour so feel free to come up to me afterward and ask questions or have a DVD signed.”
A young woman and her partner walked up to me and handed me a cupcake with pink frosting. “Thank you! That was a great class and we are just awestruck. You have been such an inspiration to us. Especially your work on The Training of O. We’ve never seen porn that was also a love story before. We would love to take you out tomorrow if you have time to chat?”
I graciously accepted, I needed a little kindness right now. I needed to believe that I could be my own hero, that I could be my child’s hero. I needed to have someone take me out for ice cream and fill me with affirmations and tell me that my journey had made an imprint in the world. I wanted to believe that my journey was only just beginning.
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