The Woman Who Tried to Be Normal Read online

  “I don’t.”

  “I saw how you looked at that German lady, Helen! You liked her! But you don’t like me. But that’s fine because, you know what, I don’t like me either! So I totally get why anyone would not like me!”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Like was just about the last thing that would ever cross my mind in the presence of that German lady. “I did not like her.”

  “Yeah you did. I saw it. You felt something when you saw her! Something you never feel with me! Because I’m a shitty person. I’ve done nothing, I’ve been nowhere, I get it. I totally get it!”

  “You are not a shitty person—”

  “Stop lying to me!” She jumped from the bed and suddenly looked every bit as wild as she had been when she threw watermelon margarita at Charlie’s chest. “I know what I am, Helen! I’m just a weird, good-for-nothing drunk who resents her own husband and children, who Violet couldn’t love forever, who you will never love! I! Get! It!”

  I had no idea what to say. I had never seen a person rage against herself in the presence of another person before so I had no clue how a normal person was supposed to react to that. I had no choice but to do what Lilly taught me to do—think what she would have done. What would Lilly say in a situation similar to this?

  “I think you’re beautiful, Ethel.”

  I thought saying so would turn her back into a normal colour but it only got her colouring more vibrant. Those shimmering, interchanging gold and pink sparkles appeared all around her eyes again and saxophones joined them in my ears.

  “Kiss me.”

  “I can’t. I’m married—”

  She laughed then burst into tears and turned completely blue. She then stared at the ceiling with a look so blank, she looked no different from a dead person.

  Not what Baker would approve of at all.

  What now? I had no answer. To decide, I calculated the probabilities of a positive outcome if I went back out without cheering Ethel up then calculated the probabilities of a positive outcome if I went back out after cheering Ethel up by cheating on Baker.

  If I took into account the bad outcomes that would come from Baker finding out I cheated on him, I concluded not cheering her up would be the choice with the most positives. But, if I deducted the bad outcomes that would come from Baker finding out, cheering her up would be the option with the most positives. Cheering her up without Baker finding out how I did it was thus the most positive of all probable options and as a result became what I decided to do.

  I went to Ethel, took her cheeks into my hands, let my hair fall like black silk against her chest and leaned towards her lips the way Violet had done many times before. Violet was taller than I was so the angle of her lean in wasn’t something I could achieve easily but I did my best to look as similar to her as was physically possible.

  To me, the kiss I gave her was simply a kiss. Human flesh on human flesh, purely physical, purely to serve the function of cheering her up. I hadn’t been lying when I told her I’d never kissed a woman before and I certainly didn’t feel for her the way a woman was supposed to feel for a husband. To Ethel, however, the kiss was an elixir of life. Her dead eyes gleamed and suddenly seemed as if a living soul had gone back into them. The pallor of her cheeks and lips turned ruddy and healthy. Very abruptly, there were soft harps playing in my ears again.

  “Happy now?”

  The answer was obvious. Ethel put her tongue into my mouth and pulled down the zip at the back of my dress. Saxophones appeared in my ears, loud as they used to be whenever the women I used to live with ended up in the mood for sex. Gravity tugged at my dress and pulled it down towards the floor but I managed to grab on to it just seconds before it fell off the front of my body.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked after yanking my mouth away from hers.

  She laughed. Smiled. Sounded like harps, scrubbing brushes and saxophones and snatched my hands away from my dress.

  A chill crashed onto my exposed flesh and made me curl my arms around myself to stop myself from shivering further. Ethel straightened herself like a wilted plant would after a drink of water and pulled me by the arm towards the edge of the bed. Once there, she sat herself down and stared forward—right at my crotch.

  A taste of soap appeared in my mouth, and extremely sour lemons. My way of feeling embarrassment, and nervousness. I was glad I had my knickers on but Ethel didn’t let me remain glad for long.

  She pulled my knickers down and put her tongue on my most vulnerable areas, right as the sound of scrubbing brushes became deafening in my ears.

  All at once, I began tasting paper—what I always tasted whenever I was feeling the slightest bit excited. The more her tongue moved across my flesh, the more peach-coloured the hotel room became. It felt, frankly, quite pleasant, but since I didn’t want her to know—I didn’t want anyone from Northridge knowing any of my weaknesses—I kept my face blank and my mouth shut. I would have liked to remain that way for the remainder of the task but Ethel wouldn’t let me. She quickened the pace of her tongue and I was soon tasting apples in a room that was starting to look downright orange. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut or stay in control of my breath. My heart was beginning to race and I even had to reach for Ethel’s shoulders for support because I was starting to feel a little weak in the knees.

  The orange I had been seeing grew thicker, then blood-red, then started looking increasingly like a fog—a big, fuzzy blood-red orange fog that was floating everywhere I looked. I knew what that meant and it made me gulp.

  “Did you like that?” Ethel whispered when she left my crotch to get a glimpse of my face. She had blood-orange sparkles all around her face now which told me she was feeling exactly the same way I was.

  “Yeah. Are we done?”

  Ethel laughed again, kicked off her shoes and stood on the bed, bringing her crotch to my face. She caressed me gently on both cheeks with both thumbs and whispered, while saxophones blared in my ears, “I’m all yours.”

  This time, I didn’t bother taking the time to calculate the probabilities of good outcomes. There was an icy chill between my legs where her tongue had been and the room was still absolutely foggy and orangish. All of a sudden, all I wanted most of all was to get right to the end, to be done with what we started, as quickly as was possible. I pushed up her skirt, pulled aside her knickers and began doing to her what I had seen the women I used to live with do to each other so many times before.

  I rubbed her till she shuddered, grabbed at my head for support and began moaning in a low, sensuous tone.

  Bright red fireworks exploded around her. I knew what that meant. Her genitals had been sufficiently stimulated, her brain had gotten the message and was now sending signals down to the other parts of her body to get her on the path to orgasm. Her vagina was starting to lubricate itself. Her breathing had gotten faster which meant blood was already beginning to pump faster around her body and pool around her crotch. All I had to do now was continue, till the fireworks got bigger and became large opaque splotches over her face. Once that happened, it wouldn’t be long before they burst and left Ethel screaming with orgasm. I knew this not because I myself had ever slept with a woman but because I had seen it happen, many times, to the women I used to live with. The synaesthetic patterns of arousal were always the same, even though the triggers differed due to every person’s individual preferences.

  To get Ethel to the end, I simply had to figure out which triggers she preferred the most. And to do that, I thought of Violet.

  What did Violet do most often?

  Oh. Right. That.

  I took a deep breath and inserted a finger into her. Then, another. Then, two more. When four of my fingers were inside her, I added my thumb and turned my hand into the shape of a beak. I then went deeper, and deeper, and deeper. Extremely slowly, the way Violet always did, pushing around her tissues till I could curl my hand into a fist.


  It took me ten minutes to go all the way in. The exact same amount of time it always took Violet to do. When my fist was completely submerged, Ethel began to pant. Her thighs became all sweaty. “How did you know?” she whispered, right before she moaned.

  “Shh.”

  The tendrils of the red fireworks around her person had become thicker. They were combining to form a thin version of an opaque splotch.

  I knew it wouldn’t be long. All I had to do was keep on moving my hand the way Violet always moved hers.

  “God! Oh God! God!”

  I kept my eyes on the fireworks around her as I fumbled within her depths. Her moans went up a pitch and the sweat around the sides of her head became visible. When the fireworks became obvious splotches, I began rotating my fist, pressing my knuckles hard against her tissues...

  Ethel screamed. Or moaned. I couldn’t really tell. The opaque red splotches around her body grew thicker and thicker and very abruptly, without warning, exploded into tiny little pieces, right as the whole of her body began shuddering violently.

  “Oh Goddd!!!!!”

  In an instant, Ethel turned into an animal—making noises she would never normally make and praising God in a way she would never normally do. Bright glowing golden beams began coming out of her mouth as bright pink and gold sparkles exploded around the sides of her head.

  I could tell she was thoroughly consumed by sensation, devoid of the pesky emotions that tortured her for so long, in a place where she knew neither pain nor disappointment.

  She arched backwards and screamed one final time, and we began looking no different from an ‘r’.

  An ‘r’ surrounded by glowing beams of gold and pretty, shiny pinkish sparkles against an orangish-greenish-beige-ish backdrop that was my perception of the hotel room.

  I thought it all a beautiful sight to behold.

  Chapter 20

  16 July 1975, Wednesday

  The next morning, I woke next to a mound tucked under the hotel’s pale green quilt, with sunlight in my eyes. The room’s gaudy greenish-reddish-brownish floral curtains had been left open so I could see the blue skies, fluffy white clouds and swaying palm trees on the outside. I could hear the chirping of birds too, and the meowing of kittens and the bells of the cathedral next door, chiming. The entire room around me was bright and cheery. It looked like the day ahead was going to be very lovely indeed.

  The mound stirred. I scooted over to it, mainly because I knew that was what I was supposed to be doing. Under the scratchy quilt, my naked palms ran over a naked back that wasn’t mine. I pulled my naked chest close to it and remained there, mainly because I knew it was expected of me.

  The mound moved, flattened out, and I soon received a sleepy peck on my lips.

  “Morning, honey.”

  I smiled and pecked back as I always did. “Morning, Hank.”

  Baker yawned like a cat and stretched out like a starfish. His breath smelled like drain sewage and his body reeked of stale alcohol, male sweat, spices and vegetable oil. He wasn’t wearing any clothes on any part of his body so it was obvious he had come to bed the night before without bothering to wash up or put on the fresh pyjamas I’d laid out for him on the armchair next to the window. “Sorry I got back so late,” he said as he scooped me into his arms and snuggled me close. Pink and gold sparkles burst out from his eyes and bedazzled me for a bit. “How’d it go with Ethel?”

  To reply, I had to release the breath I had been holding and the smell of him quickly floated back into my nostrils. “Good. She wasn’t breaking things no more when I sat her down for room service.”

  “That’s my girl. I don’t know what I’d do without you, honey, you know that?” He beamed and leaned closer to give me a peck on my forehead so I cut my inhalation of air short and stopped breathing once again.

  “I do,” I said in that Marilyn Monroe voice he liked. “I know you’d be crushed if you didn’t have me cheering you up all the time.”

  Our eyes met. Today, his grey ones had taken on the green of the green bedsheets and looked more green than grey. They smiled and made me hear saxophones.

  My eyes smiled back. Genuinely so. I found it hard to believe I had managed to make a man love me. Me. The doctors who saw me as a child never considered that a possibility. My mother, who loved me despite everything everybody else told her about me, never considered this a possibility. Even Lilly, who always said anything was possible, thought a normal man loving me would be unlikely to happen in the next hundred years. And I proved them all wrong.

  Baker jumped out of bed, gave me instructions on the clothes he wanted to have laid out on the bed ready for him to wear when he got all cleaned up then jumped into the bathroom. I nodded and listened as he turned the tap in the shower on but I didn’t move. On any other day, I would have jumped up when he did, made the bed at once and followed his instructions without hesitation, but on that day, I simply didn’t feel like it.

  I was tired of being normal. The warmth and softness of the bed was more appealing than social acceptance was in that moment and my mind was eager to be going for a walk in the memories of yesterday…

  Apples. Blood-red orange fog that had become an opaque blood-red orange wall and… burst. Glowing ring-like structures everywhere. Lots of soap in my mouth, and more apples. Way too many apples. Fading yellowish, pinkish ring-like structures. And Ethel. Looking up at me, smiling. Proud of herself, I suppose. Happy with what she had done for me, that’s what the expression she wore sounded like to me.

  That orgasm turned out way more pleasant than I anticipated. Having experienced it, I began to understand why the women I used to live with enjoyed sleeping with other women so much. Why Lilly, who had a woman in her bed for three hundred nights a year at the very minimum, couldn’t do without it.

  It felt good. That’s all I know how to say about it. It felt really good and was beautiful for the eyes. I felt like I was melting into all that colour and shapes at the end of it. I felt then neither normal nor abnormal but a mere organism of contentment in itself.

  “Honey, could you pass me my shaver? It’s on the sink.”

  My mind, having been interrupted, jumped back to the present. Without hesitation, I jumped out of bed and went to get for my husband an object that had been nearer to him in the shower than it had been to me, outside the bathroom. When that was done, I made the bed and laid out Baker’s clothes on it as he asked, just so he wouldn’t get suspicious.

  I hadn’t forgotten why I married him in the first place of course. And I certainly didn’t want him knowing how much I enjoyed my time alone with my thoughts.

  Frankly, I didn’t want him knowing all that much about me at all.

  Ethel was smiling to the chiming of harps when she walked into the hotel’s lobby with her husband two hours later. As they dropped their room key with the desk clerk like we had done, Baker asked if she was feeling any better and she gushed that she most certainly was, with many, many pink bubbles of varying sizes spurting out of her mouth, turning all the furniture she stood near pink.

  When she smiled at me, gold and pink sparkles floated about her eyes and saxophones played happy tunes in my ears.

  I couldn’t help but smile back. Her cheeks were ruddy so she looked as if she’d only just come out of a spa. I was rather proud of having contributed to getting her that way. Proud that I had actually managed to get a thoroughly depressed woman out of the dumps. Me, who everyone used to say would never bring happiness to any other person. Me, who so many people avoided, criticised and tried to keep hidden under lock and key.

  Me, who doctors used to describe as life unworthy of life.

  The four of us spent the rest of the day on a Panga—a local fishing boat—which took us out to sea, to a sea lion colony on a rock an hour away from La Paz. On the boat, the men sat with the local guides at the front because, they said, they needed to ‘help navigate’ while Ethel and I sat only at the back because
that was our rightful place in life at that point in time. It was a man’s world back then. Women belonged in the home or were mere hitchhikers, never drivers. That was what was normal then.

  Regardless, Ethel and I had a great time. She snuck pink, sparkly smiles over at me whenever nobody was looking, and took every opportunity to touch me whenever possible, wherever possible. She announced that she hadn’t drunk all that much that morning and because she did smell better than normal and looked just as alive and alert as she had been on that trekking expedition we did together, I believed her.

  I thought her, strangely, suddenly, a little pretty. The wrinkles I had regarded as a mark of lousy physical maintenance before suddenly took on the charm of wisdom. They seemed to suggest a great deal of life experience that intrigued me and made me want to talk to her more to find out what she knew that I didn’t. Her skin and eyes had taken in the glow of the sun and were starting to shine and sparkle with a healthy brown. Somehow, she no longer looked like the sulky, run-of-the-mill middle-aged lady I always regarded her as but an outdoorsy, exceptionally happy adventurer brimming with life. You could hardly tell she had once been sad and crazy. In fact, she had become everything a positive-thinking risk-taker was.

  When we arrived at the sea lion colony and were stripping off our clothes to jump in the water with our husbands and one of the three local guides, she rubbed a dollop of sunscreen all over my pale body and touched me in places only a husband ever would, right in front of their eyes. I was horrified, certain Baker and Charlie would be able to tell we were now so much more than just mere neighbours, but, to my surprise, they were more interested in the horde of barking sea lions around the boat than they were in us. They seemed to be happy seeing Ethel happy doing whatever she was doing and dived into the water without even noticing her lips were just inches away from mine or that her hand, rubbing a smudge of sunscreen out of my cheek, was moving with the same motion and rhythm a hand would move when stimulating a woman to orgasm.