Everyone knows how people who are together a long time can get tired of their partners and bored of the whole idea of having sex and they'd really just rather watch TV. Well, I'd been with myself forever and had never even found myself particularly attractive in the first place. I began to wonder if there might be a Law and Order rerun on.
Except I'd I never become a tigress if I didn't masturbate. So I steeled myself up to rise to the challenge, lay face down on the bed, and tried to relax. And closed my eyes. And started to try to stimulate myself with my fingers. And started to get a headache.
That's pretty insulting to get a headache when you're trying to have sex with yourself. But the whole thing just seemed ridiculous. To touch myself so intimately. I felt like I didn't know myself well enough to be so intimate with myself. Right in front of myself. I'd have to know myself better. Or not at all. Or something!
I got out of bed and put on some pajamas and told myself that after a long day commuting on the subway and working at my word processing job it was hard to get in the mood and I shouldn't take my rejection of myself personally. Maybe, I reassured myself, I'll be in the mood tomorrow night (dear). And then I snuggled under the covers and dozed off.
Come to think of it, I did accomplish my original goal. What a relief, to fall asleep and stop worrying about how I was ever going to become a full-fledged sexual person.
Chapter 2
Auditions for Til Death Do Us Part couldn't be at the theater itself because the management of Peter's building claimed it involved letting too many strangers in. So Peter rented a room in an old building near Columbus Circle called Shetler Studios. I arrived full of hopeful anticipation on a sunny Saturday morning and walked up two flights of creaky wooden steps. Searching for our room, I passed a belly-dancing class and another theater group auditioning male actors in their 60s.
And then, down at the end of the hall, I saw five or six young actresses studying their lines (my lines!) and whispering to themselves like madwomen.
I love auditions. Some playwrights hate them, especially at the Off Off Broadway level, where you can get dozens of horrible wannabe actresses doing horrible renditions of your lines over and over and over again. But for me, it's a fascinating chance to see other people suffer exposure anxiety, rejection, and humiliation while I sit in a safe bubble of anonymity.
That probably sounds cruel and sadistic. But I mean it in a respectful way. I'm very in awe of actors. They're so willing to expose themselves in public. Writers may suffer a lot of humiliation, but it's mostly in the privacy of their own homes. Compared to actors, writers are total cowards.
Admittedly, I went inside feeling a bit full of myself. Peter was there with Carol, a chubby woman in her 50s who was going to be our stage manager, and they were already setting up a folding table and some chairs. A huge stack of head-shots sat on the table.
Carol called in the first pair of actresses—a short-haired brunette in a baggy sweater and a fleshy redhead with a belly ring.
The scene we were using came towards the end of the play. Peter chose it because the two sisters are really going at each other. He told the brunette to read Melanie, the younger sister, and the redhead to read Julia.
Melanie: "I was trying to get you to reassure me. To give me your encouragement to go ahead with the wedding. But you wouldn't do that, would you."
Julia: "If you had that many doubts about the man you were going to marry—"
Melanie: "Not him, you! Because you seemed so upset. I even played him down because I didn't want you to be jealous. And you took advantage of that and twisted me all up inside, and I just couldn't be happy knowing that if I got married it would make you unhappy."
Julia: "So you sacrificed yourself and then you blamed me for your entire life. Because it's so much easier than taking responsibility for yourself."
Melanie: "You think it's easy? Going through life like some kind of deformed hunchback, always trying to stay lower, stay lower, so I never overtake you—so I always let you win?"
Julia: "Let me win?! You don't even compete. Because you know you'd always lose. And it's so much easier to wallow around in self-pity than to pull your own weight, isn't it."
I couldn't help but wonder, as we sat there, if everyone else wondered if this was based on something that really happened, which it wasn't, though it felt like it was.
Most of the actresses were totally wrong for both parts, and we could see it the moment they walked in. And then we'd have to go through the whole audition knowing it was hopeless. They could be twenty years older than their head-shot, or attractive in a TV kind of way that looked plastic, or unattractive in a real life way that looked depressing, or they spoke in a brogue or a Staten Island accent or lisped. One after another came in, exchanged pleasantries, and murdered the scene.
But we did, by the end of the day, find one actress who seemed like she'd be good for the younger sister. Annie, who looked very adorable in blue jean overalls and had a somewhat boyish voice and shoulder-length curly hair, gave a good reading and then practically ran out of the room saying, "That scene was so intense!"
I love to see an actress get affected by what I write, even if she's just doing it to get the part.
But we didn't find a single actress who seemed even close to being able to carry off the part of the older sister.
When we were done, and Peter and Carol were packing up the room, I went to the bathroom. As I suspected, a spot of blood was on the crotch of my underwear. My period had come early. That was annoying. Luckily, I had one mushed mini-pad at the bottom of my purse. I put it on and joined Peter as he made his way out of the building.
"I'm surprised," I said, as we rode down the elevator. "You'd think there'd be a ton of sexy, aggressive actresses out there."
"It's not so easy. First of all, she has to put across a difficult personality and a quick temper. But we also have to feel her vulnerability. That takes a really good actress."
"Plus she should be gorgeous," I added.
"If we don't find someone tomorrow, we'll have to put another ad in Backstage."
"That would be a drag," I said as the elevator doors opened. But I was pretending. I could listen to my lines over and over again and not get bored.
Peter held open the glass door. "You want to go out for a bite to eat?"
I did. But I was worried about that pad. If my flow came on heavy I could start leaking. "Thanks, but, I have to get home."
"Oh. Okay. See you tomorrow then."
"Bye." I hoped he could see I was wistful. As soon as he turned the corner, I hailed a cab.
I always seemed to get my period on the most inconvenient days. Days when important things were happening and the last thing I wanted was my period. Opening night for Reality Check, I got my period. The day I took my SATS, I got my period. If I were an ice-skater in the Olympics, I would definitely get my period the day of the long program.
But the worst day of all that I ever got my period was the very first time it came. I was thirteen years old, and it arrived in the early morning before school. Even though it was not unexpected, it still seemed like an uninvited guest and I was not prepared to look at it or smell it or acknowledge its existence, much less entertain. I felt lucky to be able to dip into my sister's Stayfrees. Diana and I shared a bathroom, and I knew the box well, with its picture of a woman walking carefree on the beach (as opposed to running desperately to the toilet). As I pulled the adhesive off the back of the pad, I did feel proud of my body for doing what it was supposed to. But there had to be a better way.
When I headed downstairs, it felt like a diaper was stuffed up into my crotch. I couldn't believe the world expected me to go around like this. I headed towards the kitchen but paused outside the swinging door. Diana, who was fifteen that year, was screaming. I braced myself. Not that this was anything unusual. But still, her eruptions had a way of jump-starting my adrenaline.
That morning she was unhappy about this boy Nathan who was in o
ur theater group, Rising Stars. (I know the name sounds hokey. But they put on real productions in a small theater on Main Street and god knows there wasn't much else to do during the winter in suburban Connecticut.) Diana's shrink was the one who suggested she try acting so she could "have an outlet for her emotions." After she started going, I wanted to go too. I loved hanging out backstage and working crew. Diana seemed okay about having me tag along—maybe because I was always telling her how good she was. She was cast as Juliet at the time, and this boy Nathan was playing Romeo. His latest crime was telling her she should've been playing the nurse because her breasts (she wore a D cup) had so much milk.
"I'm going to kill him! And then I'm going to kill myself!"
"Calm down," my mother said. "Teenage boys are immature, you know that. Just ignore him."
"Ignore him? Are you stupid? I have to kiss him!"
"Do you want me to talk to Mr. Brillstein about it?"
"No! God! You don't understand a fucking thing!"
"I'm just trying to help."
"I shouldn't have told you."
"What do you want from me?"
"Nothing! Forget it! I hate you!" she screamed. Then she caught sight of me watching. "I hate everyone in this house!"
Before exiting, she grabbed a glass that was sitting on the counter and threw it across the room. Then she stormed out of the kitchen and upstairs. She slammed her bedroom door so hard one of the paintings in the hall fell off its hook and crashed to the floor.
I wondered why I was included in her slur of the entire household. (Even if I did feel smug that my breasts were a more manageable size C.) As a matter of fact, we'd been getting along pretty well recently. Just that weekend we'd gone, just the two of us, to a movie version of Taming of the Shrew with Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks that was playing all the way in New Haven. I'd let myself think that she did actually have some affection for me.
But now I guessed she didn't. That's how it was with her. Some days she was so depressed, she didn't make it out of bed. Some days she was so high she never made it into bed. Up, down, friendly, mean. You never knew what was coming next.
"Mom? There's something I need to talk about."
She didn't answer. She was picking up the bits of broken glass.
"Mom?"
"Can't it wait?" she snapped.
I clenched my teeth, turned and left the room.
The day got worse. I didn't think the flow would be so heavy. I was sitting in Mr. Carter's geometry class and someone told a joke. When I laughed, it gushed out. I felt it all wet and warm in my white cotton underwear and knew that pad couldn't be absorbing all that blood. I feared it had leaked through to the crotch of my jeans, and I had to wait for class to end to find out. Then I raced (as well as I could) to the school bathroom. The pad was saturated, so I layered some of the rough, scratchy squares of toilet paper on top of it. The rest of the day, I walked around in a state of terror that the entire school could smell my blood and see the blotch of red on the crotch of my pants.
After school I went straight home, intent on taking care of the disaster occurring in my underwear. I went up the stairs to the bathroom.
That's when I found my mother on the floor. Sobbing on the bathroom floor. Cleaning a smear of blood off the white tile floor.
"What happened?"
I thought this must be my mess. I had bled all over the floor and not realized it. But how could I have bled all over the floor and not noticed? And why would my mother be crying? And why wasn't she answering me? Maybe Diana was having her period too. Maybe she was the one who had leaked.
"Where's Diana?" I asked.
My mother stopped wiping the floor long enough to wipe some tears off her face. It seemed like it took forever for her to answer. I broke out into a sweat. It had to be something bad. Really bad. And I was dying to go into the cupboard and get one of those pads.
"She's in the hospital," she finally said.
"The hospital?" My stomach was cramping really bad.
"She'll be fine," my mother said. "She'll be fine. She's fine."
"What's wrong with her?"
My mother looked at me. "You should know... your sister... She tried to kill herself." She nodded towards the sink, where there was more blood and a razor blade.
My stomach cramped up even worse and I suddenly needed to double over. I went into my room and sat down on my bed (which made another warm flow of blood gush out) and leaned my chin down to my knees. I hated the way it wouldn't stop coming.
My mother came to the doorway of my room. There was a moment of silence. She was staring into space. I sensed this was my chance. Right then. To tell her. About me. Get it over with. Now. I took a deep breath, about to speak.
She looked at me. There was panic in her eyes.
I let my breath out.
She returned to the bathroom.
I couldn't tell her about my blood. There was too much blood already.
I stood back up to see if it had seeped through to my white bedspread. It hadn't, but I was afraid to sit back down. So I didn't sit again until she finished cleaning the bathroom. Then I went in for a fresh pad and put it on a fresh pair of underwear. Luckily, she still had half a box.
Diana never did get to perform Romeo and Juliet. She had to go somewhere called Four Winds to "get some rest." That's how my parents put it. As if she'd been getting too much exercise.
I had no idea (though she would tell me about it later) that they put her on lithium and made her talk to a shrink, who lusted after her, as every shrink would down the line. All I knew was that everything was very peaceful now that she was out of the house. It felt so nice, not having to worry about how Diana felt. I couldn't help but wish she wouldn't come home again.
The next month, when my period came, Diana's box was empty and there was no way I was going to go into the Woolworth's and buy my own. I geared up to tell my mother. But I couldn't decide if I should admit I'd stolen Diana's napkins the last month or pretend this was the first time. I didn't want to lie. But I didn't want to tell the truth. So I decided to write a note.
This is what I wrote:
Me: Mom, I have some exciting news.
Mom: What is it?
Me: I just got my period.
Mom: Oh! That's wonderful!
Me: Thanks.
Mom: Congratulations. You’re now officially a woman.
Me: Yay for me.
Mom: I'll tell your father.
Me: Don't you dare!
It was the first scene of dialogue I ever wrote. I was rather proud of it. I watched my mother read it, and enjoyed seeing her smile as she got to the end. She bought it hook, line, and sinker. Or should I say mini, maxi, and super. She went right out and bought me my very own box of Stayfrees.
The second day of auditions for Til Death Do Us Part, I came armed with three super-size tampons. I didn't want anything to interfere with my good time. Unfortunately, it seemed that I was the only one having one.
After we made our way down about half the remaining pile of head-shots, Carol started ranting, "I can't listen to another one! This is a waste of time! Don't you know anyone who could do this part?"
"If I did," Peter hissed back, "I wouldn't have subjected us to this!"
"It just seems surprising that we can't find anyone," I said, standing up and stretching my legs, trying to appear like I was suffering too.
"We will find someone," he said. "This is a part that any actress would die for. When we see her, we'll know."
"Then can I ask you one favor?" Carol pleaded. "Do you think you can cut them off quicker? I can't stand listening to this scene over and over!" She looked at me guiltily. "No offense."
"I understand," I said. "Even I am getting a bit tired of my own words." (Not really.)
But when we got down to the last three actresses and no one stood out, even I was worried. We found three potential Melanies, and we all agreed that Annie was our favorite. But not a single Julia.
There was a skinny redhead with freckles who looked like she should be in an orange juice commercial. A chunky brunette who would've made a good prison guard at Auschwitz. And a dark-haired woman who looked perfect—to play Julia's mother.
I could see. We weren't going to find our Julia.
If only my sister could rise from the dead. No. I had to get rid of that thought. Even in desperate circumstances I wouldn't have cast her. And then she'd have one more reason to be angry with me. (So it was just as well she was dead?) Of course, if she were still alive, I wouldn't have written the play.
I went into the bathroom thinking how ridiculous this was, because there had to be a million Julias out there! Like... like... this woman who was right here, in the bathroom, looking in the mirror and applying makeup. This gorgeous pale-skinned dirty blonde. Voluptuous, with a real body with real curves and cleavage and I saw immediately she could be Julia. Even though I'd always imagined Julia as dark haired, like my real sister, I knew this woman could be her. If she could act. If she was an actress.
Even though I knew she couldn't be there to audition for my play because we only had three women left and they were already accounted for in the hallway, I hoped against hope. Maybe she was one of the women who hadn't shown up for an earlier slot, and she was here now, ready for her chance to show us what she could do.
I flushed and joined her at the sink. And washed my hands. And debated whether to ask her if she was there to audition for my play. And dried my hands on a paper towel. And tossed it in the garbage. And walked to the door. And turned around.
Thoughts While Having Sex Page 2