Girl On the Edge

by CD Reiss

  “They don’t call me Major One More for nothing.”

  I took the gel pack off my arm. It had gone lukewarm. I flung it into the microwave and powered it up.

  “Has it occurred to you that I can really hurt you? I wanted to choke you.”

  “Was it erotic asphyxiation, or did you really want to kill me?”

  “You’re pretty blithe about it.”

  “Did you want to engage in risky but pleasurable actions, or did you want to commit murder but stopped?”

  “The former, but that’s not the point.”

  “What’s the point then? Even when you’re deep in it, you don’t want to hurt me any more than is enjoyable. You’re a doctor. You’ll know when to stop.”

  “That’s a shitty rationalization. You’re better than that.”

  He rubbed his eyes for longer than a person usually rubs away tiredness. I pulled his arms down. He looked beaten.

  “What do you have, Greysen? Because I have nothing.”

  “And Ronin’s treatment isn’t going to work?”

  “No.”

  “Did he say that?”

  “In so many words.”

  “When Ronin asked—”

  “Fuck Ronin.”

  I tucked my free hand into his. I couldn’t let disappointment grip me. It was too easy to lapse into depression over ungranted wishes. “He asked if it was a pain thing or a control thing.”

  “And?”

  “And you never answered him.”

  “I don’t know. Both maybe. It’s hard to get a handle on it right after. Give me… at this rate, twelve hours.”

  The microwave dinged. He got up and popped it open before I had a chance to assert myself. Flipping the gel pad from one hand to the other while saying hot-hot-hot, he reminded me of a carnival juggler, starting low and getting more daring. He flipped it, spun it, tossed it from one hand to the other before whirling it like pizza dough until I laughed.

  He lobbed it high, pulled the dish towel off the rack, and caught it with his hand protected by the fabric. I put my wrist on the counter, and he put the warm pad over it, keeping it steady with a firm hand.

  “Ah, that’s nice,” I said.

  “Good.”

  “I was thinking.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “About what Ronin asked, and don’t say—”

  “Fuck Ronin.”

  We smiled together, and he kissed me.

  “Would you be less afraid of hurting me if we tried to focus more on giving you control?”

  He looked at my arm, his mouth twisted with consideration, as if he was holding his thoughts back.

  “Well?” I asked.

  “We could try it. But I’m warning you.” He put an upraised finger between us. “You’d better be controllable, or we’re going back to pain.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  He put his free arm over my shoulder and held me. I buried my face in his chest. I could hear his heart beating, red, warm, alive, and vital, home in its cage.

  * * *

  With my arm in a sling, I had to completely cancel two days’ worth of sessions and truncate a full week to only the most needy patients. The painkillers made it hard to think quickly enough to engage properly, and the orthopedist had recommended a week of elevation and rigidity, which I couldn’t deliver. Two days would have to do.

  I spent the time finishing up my proposal for the Gibson Center. A state-of-the-art mental health facility for post-war trauma. Synergy with VA hospitals in three states. Transportation. Outreach and medication stability for homeless vets. A licensed day care center for children while their parents were in counseling or treatment.

  I put ten weeks’ of research into fifty pages of narrative and a general operating budget that took two weeks to write. I’d listened to the trials of the vets in my office and tried to find solutions. It was the best thing I’d ever done.

  Five days after Caden brought me home from the ER, the sling was an optional annoyance and the proposal was ready. I emailed Tina.

  Dear Director Molino,

  I’ve finished the proposal. Thank you so much for the extension.

  I am on reduced hours for the next two weeks, so I’ll be free to preview it for you ahead of the board of directors meeting.

  I look forward to showing you the project.

  Dr. Greysen Frazier, M.D.

  I tidied the waiting room one-handed. The pain in my wrist had gone from a dull throb to a sharp tremor that ran to my shoulder. The nerve had been damaged when I broke it in basic training. As much as my marriage to Caden was the result of the horrors of war, the best parts of my life were the result of falling on my wrist in my first week as a soldier.

  The army had always been my goal. My father and older brother, Jake, were in the army. Both had commissions and careers that contained adventure and excitement inside an orderly routine. Only Colin had no interest in serving, and Mom still gave him a hard time about it. Meanwhile, she had been surprised when I signed up. She juggled surprise, pride, and an inability to understand my motivations. That was understandable, since I didn’t really understand them either. Not fully.

  I was going to be a medic. There was no war at the time, but that didn’t stop me from fantasizing about scrambling through muddy trenches with my kit, telling wounded men they’d be all right, patching them up to be moved under enemy fire. I would be their rescuing angel.

  Then I smashed my wrist in basic training. I couldn’t put weight on it. Couldn’t hold anything too heavy for too long. There was no way I could manage the physical demands of a combat medic. Nor could I hold a rifle for a long time, nor squeeze a trigger repeatedly. War or no war, I couldn’t train for jobs I’d never be ready to do.

  “You can get an honorable discharge,” the army therapist had said.

  He was in his sixties, and I’d never forget his name. Dr. Matt Darling. I’d been sent to him to see if I wanted to be counseled out.

  “I’m not quitting.” At eighteen, I was stubborn with a side of petulance.

  “But you resist the assignments you’re qualified to do.”

  “I don’t want to push paper. I want to help people. This is what I’m here for.”

  He looked over my file. “You applied for combat medic training.”

  “Yes.”

  He closed the folder. “Have you considered nursing school? You can stay in the service while you finish.” He shrugged. “The army pays. You’d be helping people.”

  Nursing school. Sure. I could do that. My mother had suggested it too, and at the time, I’d been irritated with her for thinking small.

  “Why not med school?” I retorted.

  My answer should have slapped back at Dr. Darling the same way it had her. But it didn’t.

  “Why not?”

  I was surprised he didn’t laugh at me. He folded his hands in front of him and asked me to decide what was possible and what wasn’t. No adult had ever given me that power.

  “Why did you become a psychiatrist?” I asked.

  “Because it’s easy to fix the body. The mind though? Once that’s broken, it’s hard to set right again, but if you do help someone set it back, they can overcome anything.”

  I’d thought about that for a long time. Studying for my MCATs, applying to schools and Armed Forces medical scholarships, I thought about helping soldiers like my dad and brother. Somehow, that first desire had landed me at this desk, with my own practice and a husband I loved more than life itself.

  After laying the magazines in a row, dusting the shelves, and watering the plants, I checked my email.

  Dear Dr. Frazier,

  Congratulations on finishing. I’m excited to see the results.

  Let’s schedule a time to preview the proposal before the board meeting.

  ~Tina

  I gave her a date range and let my hands rest on the desk. I thanked God for the opportunity to make a difference. Success or failure, the attem
pt was a blessing.

  My phone rang. I flipped it open. “Hello?”

  “Greysen.” It was Caden, and his voice was shiny, hard stone.

  So soon. Every time the days between his needs became manifest shortened, I was surprised.

  “Tonight,” he continued. “Now.”

  “The control thing?”

  The flatness became derisive. “The control thing.”

  Pain or control? Some combination of both? We’d gone over the possibilities in fine detail, set ground rules, and waited for the presence of the Thing he now called Damon to become unbearable.

  He had no Damon in his past. When he was at work, I’d gone through the list of casualties in Fallujah. No Damon. The name was a mystery to me, but personality bifurcation was a mystery to everyone. It had no real rules.

  The stack of papers bent in my fingers. I loosened my grip on them and laid the stack flat.

  “You know what I want?” I said. “A celebratory fuck.”

  “I can’t deliver that right now. Not in a way you’d find honest.”

  “And I can’t let you control me right now. Not in a way I’d find honest.”

  Not waiting for his reaction, I left the office and went upstairs.

  It wasn’t him. This was a single dimension of the multi-dimensional human I loved. Neither one of us had control over this situation. I couldn’t be mad at Caden any more than I could be mad at a bird for shitting on my shoulder.

  * * *

  Colin met me for a movie. It was loud and fast. The sensory overload pushed my sadness and anxiety into a corner but didn’t eradicate it.

  “Wasn’t that better than the depressing French thing?” Colin asked outside the theater as he wrapped his scarf around his neck.

  “Sure.”

  “So,” he said, hands in his pockets, looking up the street for a free cab. “What’s going on with the man of the house?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “You called me for a spur-of-the-moment movie. You don’t do that. If I want to see you, I have to make plans a month in advance.”

  I bounced on the balls of my feet, trying to find the happiness I’d earned. “The proposal I told you about? For Mt. Sinai? I finished it.”

  “All right! Congratulations! Are we getting a drink?”

  A drink was so much more appealing than dealing with Doctor Robot.

  * * *

  The lighting was minimal and the patrons were all in the hippest years of their twenties. Colin had unbuttoned his coat, exposing his neck. The bartender, a young woman with the flattest, smoothest stomach I’d seen on anyone since treating Iraqi refugees, couldn’t keep her eyes off it. I held my credit card out for her, but my brother pushed my hand away and held out his card. The bartender pursed her lips and eyed his hand, then his face, holding back a smile.

  “Oh, for Chrissakes.” My grumble was drowned out by the music.

  When she took his card, she touched his hand.

  “Remember when I had to be your prom date?” I asked. “You asked three girls and they all said yes?”

  “You were a fun date.”

  “And you made out with all three of them anyway.”

  “You were dancing with… what’s his name?”

  “Everyone.”

  “Mom hasn’t seen you since you came back.”

  I sipped my drink. Not bad. They didn’t have wine, so I’d ended up with a whiskey and mint concoction, and Colin had gotten something with a vanilla bean sticking out of it. The bartender dropped the check in front of us with his card on top.

  “I’m waiting for Dad to get back. She knows that.”

  Dad was in Japan, and Mom was doing what she did—wait for him to come back. It was the gender-reversed version of the life I’d avoided by retiring with Caden.

  “Well, she’s not telling you, but she’s talking about coming here.” He signed the receipt before showing me that his copy had her number on it.

  “Jake was in North Carolina for how long before he saw them? Was she chewing off your ear then?”

  “You’re the baby girl. You weren’t supposed to be in the military at all.”

  “I wasn’t supposed to have my own life at all.”

  “And she’s wound up about you guys being in Medical Corps. From what Dad says, the surge is still going and they’re deploying doctors and nurses whether they like it or not. He said you guys dodged a bullet leaving when you did. Anyone with a medical license and a pair of boots is getting stop-lossed.”

  “I’m not going back. Neither is Caden. We’re both done.” I slapped my hands together to illustrate the done-ness of our service obligations.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah. Why?”

  “You loved the army. I thought you wouldn’t be able to adjust to having your own life.”

  I couldn’t tell him that my life wasn’t my own or who it belonged to. I knew what the warning signs of abuse were, which was why I’d lied to the hospital staff about my wrist. Isolating the victim. Mercurial personality changes. Sexual demands. A rising tide of injuries.

  No one would understand what was going on in my house, especially not my little brother.

  “It’s hard,” I said. “I’m used to knowing what I’m doing every day and having this huge support system.”

  “That fails constantly?”

  “At least when the pipes broke on base, Mom knew who to call. I don’t know where the boundaries are out here.”

  “Is something going on I should know about?”

  “No. Everything’s fine. But like with the bartender here? I promise you she was eyefucking you before you handed her your card. And that’s not even the thing. Sure, it happens in the service, but it doesn’t feel so strange because I understand the context. Multiply that by a billion little things.”

  Colin finished his drink and pushed the glass to the back edge of the bar. “Sister, dear, you are the most competent person I know. That’s the only reason you’re doubting your competence. We doubt what we’re gifted with.”

  “And what do you doubt?”

  He smirked. “I doubt you could walk a straight line. You’re swaying like a boat. Should I get you a cab?”

  I finished my drink and plopped it on the bar, flicking two fingers against the bottom to slide it over to Colin’s. They clinked together. “Let’s blow this shithole.”

  “We have to talk about Mom,” he said when we were outside. “If she comes, she’s staying with you.”

  With me? Where Caden did violent, painful, intense things to my body?

  I agreed to talk about it, but no more.

  * * *

  The house was empty and quiet. Caden’s coat was gone. A note sat on the counter.

  Major -

  I got a call. I’ll be at the hospital. Come by the theater some time if you feel like watching.

  - Captain

  Short, businesslike, to the point.

  “Roger,” I said with a little slur on the edges, tossing the note on the counter.

  Fine. It was fine. I needed to get to sleep anyway. I could worry about my husband tomorrow. I trudged up the stairs, hanging on to the banister. Colin had been right. I couldn’t walk a straight line to save my life.

  The empty bed was made; an accusatory rectangle with military corners and sheets so tight a quarter would bounce twice on it.

  You failed him.

  Having let in the first thought I’d been avoiding, the next ones came without being invited.

  He needed you and you failed him.

  You’re the healthy one. You need to step up.

  I stripped down, leaving my clothes on the floor, and put on a big army T-shirt.

  You enjoy it anyway.

  You need to just let go.

  “I do enjoy it,” I grumbled, getting off the toilet. “But not today. Not today.”

  I saw myself in the bathroom mirror.

  “You,” I said with all the authority the whiskey-and-
mint drink let me muster, “you are awesome. You did a great job.”

  I opened the medicine cabinet, retrieved the toothbrush and toothpaste, and snapped it closed to see my face again. “No. Really. No arguments.”

  I squeezed toothpaste on my brush and got to work. Despite my mouth being occupied with daily hygiene, the woman in the mirror wasn’t finished talking.

  “Ou can ‘ake a ‘ight ‘or-ooself. Ou did-a’ight ‘hing. ‘Oor no ‘ood ‘oo him ‘essed uhp.”

  The woman in the mirror was right. I was useless to Caden if my resources were depleted. We’d worked out sexual boundaries and needs, but we hadn’t talked about the toll his condition, or whatever it was, was taking on me.

  I spit the toothpaste.

  I could call the shots too. The man I’d married was going to have to live with that. The man he became in the weeks—no, days—between demanding, painful, orgasmic, boundary-pushing sex was going to have to live with it too.

  Chapter Seventeen

  caden

  The lubricated slope that slid into the pit of cool detachment got wider and easier to find. I felt relief sliding down it and worried about how easy it was. Was I making a choice anymore, or was I like an addict telling myself the story of a decision I never made?

  I didn’t leave her alone out of consideration but practicality. Considering her earlier refusal, I wasn’t sad or guilty. I couldn’t register her needs as important outside my own because Damon was shouting in the desperate corners of my perception. But I knew they existed and I knew what they were. I knew feelings inside me would return and that I’d be glad they were there. Maintaining complete detachment wasn’t hard, yet the consequences were exhausting.

  It got worse every time.

  I didn’t wonder if I loved her; I wondered what love was at all.

  It was getting harder to pull back.

  I had control over what I did to her, but without love to set boundaries or guilt to govern my impulses, when would I start to ask myself what I could get away with?