When Cynthia’s Sexual History
Fell Down the Stairs
by Ann Rosenquist Fee
Who knew her pubic bone couldn’t take the weight? Cynthia was breakage waiting to happen.
She’d stacked two baskets on her hip so she could take the clean laundry upstairs to fold. But the bottom basket fell against the top of her pubic bone and cracked it in half, and a gash blew open from Cynthia’s crotch to her navel. The force of the crack spun Cynthia around and busted the zipper on her capris. Cold air shot out from inside Cynthia as if her spine were a frozen blow dryer switched to high.
“Oh my God,” Cynthia said, as she watched everything fall and land at the bottom of the stairs on the living room floor.
On top of some jeans were the first tampon Cynthia had ever tried and the sound of her sister on the phone that day asking, “Are you okay? Is it in? You have to stick it all the way in.”
All balled up with her husband’s t-shirts were Cynthia’s busted hymen and the cheap bedspread that had belonged to her sophomore boyfriend’s parents.
And over by the kids’ sweatpants was the condom Cynthia had seen her husband tie shut and fling out the sunroof toward a farmer’s field one Friday night a few weeks ago, right before they’d headed back to town to get cash for the babysitter.
It was just like how it was described it in public service announcements, full-page magazine ads with women walking on beaches, smiling because they’ve done their monthly self-checks and taken every precaution against Midlife Entropic Sexual Spillage.
But for Cynthia, it was too late. She stood for a long time at the top of her stairs, holding her hips, looking at the mess and trying to decide if she should wash everything again.
The phone rang and Cynthia took a long time walking down the stairs to get it. She answered the phone on speaker and put both hands back on the sides of her hips, trying to pull her stomach closed.
“Hello?”
“Oh my God,” Cynthia’s sister said, “I’m so glad you’re there. Because right now I’m just so fucking glad I’m forty. Have you read that book I sent you yet on turning forty? You need to read it. I was just out walking along the lake and I walked past people playing beach volleyball and for the first time in my life I wasn’t intimidated. I mean, what. Who really wants to play beach volleyball? But I guess I just now figured that out. I’m so glad I’m forty. I mean really fucking glad. How are you.”
“My pubic bone broke and everything’s all over the floor.”
“Oh my God. Oh my God. You know that exact thing happened to me, right? Exactly the same. Except probably worse. I’m sure it was worse. What does it look like?”
“There are these piles,” Cynthia said. “Three big ones, and one of them is talking and actually it’s your voice about my first tampon.”
“I’m not surprised. Go on.”
“The other two are worse. They’re sticky, the one smells musty like this old chenille bedspread and it’s got my hymen on it, and I think it’s playing Van Halen. The other one smells like cow shit. I can’t even look at that one. I don’t remember the farmer’s field smelling like cow shit but here it is all tangled up with a condom and Allison’s sweat pants. I can’t look at that. I think I have to sit down.”
“Anything else?”
Cynthia sat on the top stair with the phone squeezed between her shoulder and her jaw, her hands on her pelvis which seemed at least to be sealed but still giving off crackle noises.
“No. Nothing else. Just that.”
“Mine was totally worse. You’re so fucking lucky. If it comes up off the floor with Pledge Orange, it’s just a warning spill and you’re ok. If it doesn’t, you have a lot of work to do. Do you have Pledge Orange? Go find some and try to clean it up and call me right back. I’m hanging up. Call me right back.”
Cynthia put the phone down and took small steps back up to the attic landing where a half bottle of Pledge Orange sat in the dark waiting for the cleaning lady every two weeks. She dumped some onto a rag, put the Pledge back next to the Windex and the Lysol Tub ‘n Tile Spray and walked back downstairs to where her sister’s voice and Van Halen and chenille and cow shit mingled on her otherwise pristine floor.
Cynthia tried the tampon pile first, touching the Pledge-soaked rag to the edges of the jeans in a heap by the front door. The people who had re-finished the floors had warned her to use only vinegar and water to mop the new poly coating—nothing oil-based!—but this was an exception.
The Pledge beaded on what seemed like a tight seal holding the laundry to the wood. Nothing budged and her sister’s voice just kept talking.
Same thing when she went at the edges of the t-shirts and the bedspread a few feet away behind the leather couch. Her scrubbing only made Van Halen sound warped, like an old-fashioned cassette left in the sun.
She didn’t even bother with the condom and sweatpants pile, the one right in the path between the bottom stair and the kitchen doorway.
She called her sister back. “The Pledge did nothing. And I used Orange.”
“Did you really? Not generic?”
“Really.”
“Oh, God. Then it’s bad. Mine was worse but I can tell yours is bad. I can tell you haven’t been paying attention to the news, or to the ads that are fucking everywhere. Have you even done a single self-check? I’ll tell you what to do and you have to actually do it. I mean I’m not kidding. If you want to get rid of this.”
“Fine,” Cynthia said, tying the drawstring closed above her broken zipper. “Go ahead. Tell me what to do.”
“First, you’ve got to cover the shit up. I mean I know your family’s great and whatever, whatever, but I don’t think you want your kids to see your hymen. Cover it with plastic, that’s the first thing. Then you have to do the things that make the piles actually disappear. The stuff you should’ve been doing all along but whatever.”
“I get it,” Cynthia said. “Go on.” Cynthia took a careful step toward the kitchen to find Hefty Steel Sacs to cut up and use for tarps.
“Ok. Not to be weird, but I’m going to read this to you from the monthly reminder I got from my gynecologist. It’s printed on a tampon case. So you carry the case every month and you can’t forget. It’s pink. Maybe you should switch to my gynecologist? Ok, I’m reading this to you.”
“Just tell me what it says.”
“It says three things, and you remember them like this, ok? Flirt, Squirt, Hurt.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Obviously. They mean this. Number One: Flirt! Quick, passing eye contact or even brief conversations with strangers keep the pubic bone strong by bringing back the rush and flush that comes over us daily when we’re in our early teens. The increased blood flow forms a layer of protection that reaches its peak sometime around legal driving age. As we approach adulthood, and begin to act on the flirt versus racing home to tell our friends about it, our circulation gets sluggish. This erodes the protective layer and puts the pelvis at risk. Three to five encounters per week are recommended. Are you getting this?”
“Please.”
“I’m not kidding.”
“This is ridiculous. Go on.”
“Number Two: Squirt. Sure, help your partner climax. But don’t call it quits after that—even if you have to wake up early or get home to the sitter!”
“Oh my God.”
“I know. There’s more. Whether or not you’re capable of female ejaculation, consider Squirt a reminder to get yourself OFF before you put your clothes back ON. Orgasms improve muscle tone and increase the production of the only hormone that guards against martyrdom. Without them, women become dangerously altruistic and brittle. If there’s no partner available, good for you! Twice the time to tap your lap. One per day minimum.”
Cynthia stood back and looked at the Steel Sacs on the floor. The one over the hymen pile muffled, but did not silence, “Drop Dead Legs.”
“Move on,” she said. “What else.”
“There’s one more. Number Three: Hurt. Whether your cramps are a slight annoyance or a day-long event that has you hunting for old Vicodin, they’re a part of life. A part that calls for balance. The best Yin to your cramps’ Yang is a pounding right hook to the jaw of a consenting friend. Women’s hockey leagues that allow checking and tavern-basement kickboxing chapters have been established in several communities. Visit MidlifeEntropicSexualSpillage.org for listings and legal guidelines. If physical violence isn’t practical, verbal assaults and even offensive dress can help build the necessary shock absorption layer that keeps the pubic bone sassy and safe. One physical or three verbal assaults recommended per month.”
“It does not say that.”
“It does!”
“I have to go.”
“Fine. But did you get all this? Did you write it down? Do you want me to bring you my tampon case?”
“I got it. I have to go,” Cynthia said, and hung up, and then had to check the phone to be sure the call had disconnected because she still heard her sister’s voice but it was coming from the pile by the door.
*
It was late spring but Cynthia turned on the Subaru wagon’s
heated seat anyway thinking the warmth might take care of
the last of the noise from her pelvis. The Steel Sacs had
covered the piles just fine, and later she could weight
them with river rock from alongside the driveway to help
trap the noises and the smells.
On the way to pick up Allison and Nick she called her
husband to ask if he minded having dinner out.
“Not at all,” Marty said. “Any reason?”
“Yes,” Cynthia said. “I have to explain what my high school
boyfriend’s parents’ bedspread is doing stuck to our living
room floor.”
They went to the nice place in town, The Neighbors’ Italian
Bistro, Cynthia and Marty took advantage of the “free while
you wait” wine. Allison kept her headphones on and sat low
in the booth hoping no other sixth-graders were out with
their parents. Nick drew weapons on his placemat.
“I think I know what happened,” Marty said, barely out loud
so Nick wouldn’t hear. “I did a quick search before I left
the office. Wikipedia. It’s the Spillage, isn’t it?”
Cynthia, flushed from the wine, choked up for the first
time that day and looked at Marty’s kind blue eyes and then
at his arms reaching out to her on the table.
“Yes,” she said, and put her hand in his. “It happened this
afternoon. Three big piles and Pledge Orange did nothing. I
know what to do, I think, but you’re going to have to—you
and the kids, I’m so sorry about this—you’re all going to
have to step around it for a while.”
They ordered, ate, and chatted in the usual dinner-time
way. Then Cynthia and Marty used the back of Nick’s
placemat to draw a map of the living room and explain where
the tarps were held in place and where they’d have to walk
for a while until mom was able to make the piles go away.
They left it at that. No need to use the word Spillage with
kids. It would only be a burden.
Allison kept her head down so she didn’t have to make eye
contact. It was the same way she’d acted when Cynthia had
taken her training bra-shopping the summer before. But she
kept her body close to Cynthia’s on the walk back to the
car, and Cynthia wondered if the sixth-grade health unit
had touched on M.E.S.S. She recalled, just then, a series
of ads in Allison’s Seventeen
magazine
featuring movie stars wearing recycled plastic pins
with Flirt,
Squirt, Hurt stretched out
in a flat cursive line shaped to look like a pelvis.
Nick asked if he could use rocks from outside, too, to make
things in his room, and whether he would still be allowed
to have friends over. Marty said no to both, not for right
now, that they should just give mom a little time. But he
would be allowed to use his computer with headphones on as
much as he wanted for a while, to drown out the music and
his aunt’s voice.
Later that night, in their bedroom with the door locked,
Marty slid his hand back and forth over Cynthia’s pelvis.
“Wikipedia says you need to climax more often,” he said.
“I know,” Cynthia said, and she let the wine from The
Neighbors Italian Bistro keep her loose and warm while
Marty put his mouth where everything had tumbled out just
hours before.
*
The next day was Saturday. Cynthia was between errands,
just after dropping Allison at a friend’s house and before
taking Nick to get a haircut, when she stopped to put gas
in the car. She was hanging the hose back up when a man in
a cowboy hat stepped out from behind the SUV parked on the
other side of the pump.
“Hey there. Buy you a gallon of gas?”
“What?”
“Gas. Can I buy you a gallon of gas? Ma’am?” He tipped his
hat and smiled.
“Is it a KwikTrip offer?” Cynthia looked at his shirt for a
badge but just saw plaid with snaps on the breast pockets.
“It’s like can I buy you a drink,” he said. “Maybe I could
buy you a drink?”
“Oh,” Cynthia said. “Oh.” She put her head down and turned
toward the car, and then stopped and faced the cowboy. She
smiled back. “No thanks,” she said, and turned on her
sneaker heel and walked the long way around to the driver’s
side of the Subaru.
Back at home on the living room floor, Cynthia’s sister’s
voice faded and the pile with the tampon lost the airtight
seal that had been keeping it stuck to the floor. The
tampon disappeared except for a dry tuft of string, and her
sister’s voice faded to a thin whine with an occasional
audible “all-the-way-in.”
When they got inside the house, Nick pulled his headphones
over his fresh haircut and settled into StupidVideos.com.
Cynthia went upstairs to take sheets off the bed to wash
and found a gift bag and a note on the dresser: “Went to
the office, love you and miss using the living room,” it
said. “Try this.”
Inside the gift bag, and a smaller silky bag with a ribbon
drawstring, was a purple Dr. Laura Berman vibrator. Cynthia
blushed in the empty bedroom. It was from Marty, but it
wasn’t Marty, it was plastic. It felt wrong. But the piles
on the floor wouldn’t go away without drastic measures.
Cynthia locked the bedroom door, lay back on the bed and
held Marty’s gift in one hand and Dr. Berman’s instructions
in the other. An hour later, the phone rang.
“It’s me,” Marty said. “Did you use my present?”
“Oh. God,” Cynthia said.
“Wow,” Marty said. “Sounds like yes.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I don’t know, I haven’t been downstairs to look. I’m still
on our bed. God, Marty, I don’t want you to be offended.
“Offended?”
“I liked your present a lot.”
“I was hoping.”
“But it wasn’t you.”
“Sweetheart,” Marty said. “Last Saturday I called from work
and you told me to bring home milk and toilet paper. Today
you’re breathing like my hand is down your pants. It’s ok.”
“Ok,” Cynthia said. “Ok. Thank you. Bring home milk.”
Rooms away, Nick was talking back to StupidVideos.
On the living room floor, Van Halen had died down and
Cynthia’s hymen had evaporated. Her boyfriend’s parents’
bedspread was still there but the musty smell was ebbing
and the pattern was starting to fade, the whole pile
shrinking back to the size one would expect from a dozen or
so Hanes XL men’s t-shirts.
Cynthia, barefoot and flushed, surveyed the piles. Better.
Smaller. The phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Oh my God. How are you? I mean how are you, and have
you done anything at all yet? Did you tell Marty? Is he
being an asshole? I mean I’m sure he’s acting nice, but is
he really being an asshole? Do you need me to come over
with my tampon case?”
Cynthia looked at the phone.
“Do you? Hello? What?”
Cynthia held the phone out from her rosy cheek, smiled into
the mouthpiece and hit “end call.” Hurt. Done.
The phone rang again. Cynthia let voicemail pick it up,
then listened to the message on speaker.
“That’s just what I was going to tell you to do,” her
sister said. “That was perfect. Fucking perfect. Fuck you
too and good job.”
Just as “fuck you too” rang out across the living room, the
seal on the third pile disappeared and the last of the
Steel Sacs collapsed into the laundry underneath. There was
nothing now but t-shirts and jeans and sweatpants on the
light smooth floor.
Cynthia sank down in her wrinkled linen pants and let her
knees spread open. She gathered up the laundry and smelled
what it smells like when the room is quiet and the cow shit
has come and gone: fresh, clean, salty sweet and safe and
right down to Cynthia’s small strong bones.
Copyright
2009 by Ann Rosenquist Fee