Frances Lane
I knew him as a mutual friend of my partner, who first introduced me a few years back. His outdated 80s curls and forgettable fashion left me completely unimpressed by his awkward boyishness. It took me a few tries to recall his name, not because it was particularly common but because it was somewhat difficult to pronounce. I thought nothing more of him than my partner’s college companion, so I was unaware that, at some point, he would serve as the most terrible and inopportune distraction.
My partner dined with him a year ago and described it as an exclusive gentleman’s affair equipped with fine suits and rich laughter. But as he recalled his experience to me, he dropped what had utterly shocked and quaked my inner world, which took an eternity to recover from, in a simplistic, nonchalant manner. He informed me that his friend of his had undoubtedly lost his chastity. When his friend asked my partner if he, too, had come of age, my partner answered, “My girlfriend is devoutly religious.”
Oh, what shame! Chin tucking, sleeve gripping, lips pursing, ears burning, vision blurring shame! The immense dishonor had shot my chest and rose to my cheeks in feverish flames. The humiliation that should have been his missed him entirely and, instead, ricocheted back into my own pride as if I was the sole obstacle to what I thought was an unsubstantial ambition.
I thought it was natural that my partner chose me for my pious disposition. But for some inexplicable reason, I had to endure being the bearer of his faults instead.
But shame needs two participants. Ultimately, I didn’t have to suffer the condemnation if I simply rejected it, but looking back, I took pleasure in my torment. The crisis forced me to question whether my mind was sound and to scrutinize my physical being — I am not a man, so why am I engaging the expectations of a man’s role? Why was my reflex to blush, and stammer, and tolerate this boulder of shame in my instant reaction? For I am not a man, but a religious non-man at that — devoutly, as my partner put it.
A male friend once told me that losing your chastity triggers a phase of reckless indulgence, which every young man undergoes. I asked if this was a universal truth.
He repeated, “Franny, I said playerish, not whorish. When you do so, you level up in a way.” Level up, I thought. What an interesting way of wording it!
I was unsure what to make of this so-called “evolution,” but as my run-ins with my partner’s friend continued to increase, I started to notice the symptoms of the disease. The man learned to style his hair delicately, keep a well-trimmed jaw, dress darkly and dance panther-like, enter a room with a brooding and overwhelming presence, and leave it cloaked in suffocating cologne. Not to mention, his chest and back had exploded in size.
After the first couple of encounters with him, an aching question took root in my brain, wedging between the crevices. The question crooned at me when I’d see him bantering, teasing, and lapping for some of our mutual circle’s attention. I would twist the fabric of my sleeve, blink, glance sideways, glance again, pout, then wonder — Franny, how would you hide a body?
Not that I would kill the poor man! — though, it tempts me so. I find it so strange — so odd — that people let other people inside their skin, into their inner space, into their inner world, without knowing how terribly awful and damaging that is!
What if I were to wear your skin as a cloak? You would be terrified, too, wouldn’t you? But it humors me to see it that way!
Initially, I felt contrite with my partner as I wondered whether someone like this man could engage in some sort of jesting courtship with me. This was already such a heartbreaking and wretched thing for me to ask, as I am already with a faithful and loving companion. However, no matter how hard I prayed, distracted myself with trivial or substantial things, or thanked my partner for being perfect, a relentless, ever-growing tidepool of doubt swirled within me.
Would someone extraordinary ever find me extraordinary?
Of course, this question isn’t without complications: What even makes my partner’s friend extraordinary? That he is a “fornicator”? That he now carries himself with some elusive air of allure? How does that not fall into the realm of mere s*xual deviancy? And if he’s extraordinary, what does that make me? Am I the deviant?
I doubt my stance falls as low as moral depravity. Aside from my religious beliefs, I’d like to believe that my character just isn’t easily categorized. As this tsunami of thoughts clashed and pounded into each other, I speculated that if I were like him — that is, if I were a man — if I performed the same ritual, would I, too, be ordained this consecration? Because in my current condition, there is no leveling up, you see — leveling up in the world’s eyes, that is.
My male friend took me by the shoulder once, as he often does when he squints and blends my rather plain face and boyishly short hair, and declared that anything above five bodies was roughly too much for him.
“Franny!” he’d exclaimed, digging his fingers. “If we were already on the bed engaging in pre-fun and she were to disclose an egregious amount of previous intimate encounters, I might as well have just paid for her time upfront right then and there and left–pants off, buttocks out!” he had declared with great certainty. I supposed it made sense to him, though the logic wavered if I thought about it too long.
During those kinds of chumpish moments, I would feel rather proud (though I was in no position to because I had no right to earn it) that my male friend looked and bonded with me as the same species. There were no unsettling intervals of silence in which my feminine features were highlighted or my effeminate social cues were out of place. Such periods of self-consciousness made me awfully aware, rather degradingly, that I was a non-man.
However, during this coltish episode, in which I felt almost completely assimilated and one with his kind, I soon messed it all up! I was fascinated to see whether such societal measures also applied to him. Isn’t that fair of me to ask because wasn’t I just as he was a moment ago? But the kind of aching I typically get was just pounding in my head! I had to ask! I let the question slip, carefully, measured — like stepping onto a frozen pond. “And you?” I enunciated the last part of the word for far too long. “How many?
He casually pulled his hand back before letting out a scoff and wrinkling his nose, “Franny, that’s a bit much for someone like you to ask, don’t you think?” His words peeled something from me like he pinched my skin and unzipped me.
I have been relentlessly questioning myself as if to endure my punishment in advance — though in private, of course — about what that man could possibly think of me. I am not particularly princess-like or of the fairy kind, and even if I was exotic in looks and nature, I don’t quite fit a siren or an elf. Though I have grown into my features, I am but pixie-ish, lacking any potential for lustrous allure. At this moment, I am struggling to avoid describing myself as the opposite of what typically attracts men, something most non-men try to embody unless they naturally possess a fuller, more complete figure. The default ambition then is to have ghastly voids in between thighs, a bee-wasp waist, and a pokiness and jaggedness in the ribs and collarbones. I’m unsure why this aesthetic has appealed to those rejected, but I consider it a rebellion. I have certainly labored in starving or excessively exercising, but alas, I am neither beautiful nor ugly because, ultimately, both categories are noticed.
So, in my futile efforts, I can’t embody the appeal of the maiden in despair, with a look of unspoiled, unblemished, and ripe. If one were to slide their hands from my waist to my hips, they would find nothing cinched or ample. And it is a fruitless endeavor to hide behind my religion because even if in the hope of appearing brimming with grace, I am too prideful in my ability to introspect (very different from intelligence), so I am of the uninitiated, inexperienced, and defective. To him, I am untouchable. If there is a caste, it seems that I’ve exiled myself outside of it.
So, how does one describe the state that I’m in?
I constantly dress well and pamper myself with minimal and natural makeup (because a beat face is a mask I can’t sustain), and I keep to my hygiene (I love smelling like cocoa). But because of my backward nature to avoid femininity and my sanctimonious intentions to deny any sort of flirtation, I instead feed my (often slow-processing and overwrought) self-awareness and metacognition.
I wouldn’t call it intellect, but I wouldn’t call it anti-intellect, either! I recognize that I am constantly inviting my own suffering, and I have an awful habit of bathing in my misery–that I turn my feelings over and over again until they become sentient. But what else would I do with them? Naturally, I have an addiction to feeling some sort of feeling at all times, but I really can’t seem to stay in one lane.
I find it challenging to live up to the expectations of non-men. What could be more mortifying than surrendering to girlish whims? A ridiculous and revolting nature. Doing so would be some kind of self-betrayal, I believe — some sort of self-harm. Though this has never bothered me before, I’m unsure why, despite being exposed to fornicators in the past, my value attributed to my partner’s friend has exposed my humiliating nature. I suppose that’s the true problem: I was perfectly — perfectly! — fine being untouchable, but there’s the possibility that someone like him would step right over me to get to someone...touchable.
The whore! Oh, how I recall the pursuits where I would fall onto my knees and beg, my hands clasped so tightly the bones would ache. Not because my faith demanded it–my faith only ever asked for trust, not torment–but because I had decided suffering was the only proof of my worth. My Father made no mistakes; this, I know. And yet, I can’t shake the belief that He looked at me, once complete, and turned His face, wondering if he should try again.
I have reassured myself that though His thought process may have been calculating, that doesn’t mean He is without hesitation. My s*x appeal is unnoticeable, easy to ignore — but my God has not forgotten. He has withheld, not my right, but my option to have a s*xuality at all! At least, I’d like to believe. Such disposition writhed within me in my earliest youth, but I have meticulously plucked it out for the grace of God and the goodness of myself!
I absolutely hate not being in control. Though I acknowledge that my Father is the only rigid substance in this universe, I abhor temptation. With temptation comes a guilty conscience, and with a guilty conscience comes vulnerability to awful, terrible things! And what is even more dreadful, to the point where I’d scream bloody murder, is the possibility that one is not immune after all.
So, in my intentional ignorance, I take pride in knowing nothing of my anatomy. I cannot describe it; to define is to know. All I know is its most straightforward functions: to exist, relieve, and bleed. Though I could be wrong–I haven’t seen it in the mirror. Despite my college education, I only recently learned that there are apparently four functions. But not that it matters. Not that anyone’s ever come looking for it. Only the police ever come looking for people.
Is it so wrong that I feel a strange glee in not knowing how to pleasure myself? Physically, of course. Ha! It isn’t just a matter of what my Father says I ought to do or not to do, but it means so much to me that I don’t need to know. I’ve lived well enough without it, and I can’t feel the aches down there, for I have thrown it out! What I enjoy instead is the throbbing in my head.
Such throbbing comes from exerting my brain on the most random but pleasant things, but sometimes, a loose cog causes the whole machine to suffer! Like this awful man! But! Returning to my initial subject, the less you know, the better. What you don’t know, you can’t miss.
I can’t refrain from holding my face and comforting my bosom that despite being susceptible to any other kind of temptation, I find it challenging, really challenging, to have wild fantasies at all! Instead, I indulge, channel, and redirect, knowingly and unknowingly, as a defense mechanism or a haughty pastime to intense daydreams. Dreams in which, in some absurd and preposterous manner, I could charm this man through my indulgent prudishness and metacognitive abilities.
I may lack knowledge of my physicality, but my mind is satisfied through these dreams. In these visions, he would find my tendency to tumble into rabbit holes — lost in wonder, analysis, deconstruction, and deciphering — utterly alluring. He would call after me, and his voice would echo in my falling, Alice, alice, alice! Maybe not falling per se, but rising. But see, I am not entirely different in my imaginings — I am not irresistibly witty or cunning, but I am still me!
I am me: modest, chaste, conservative, but not shy or introverted, and I can talk, and talk, and talk — perhaps too much, though I’d like to think I make people think rather than tire them out! I am simple and plain but naturally pleasant and have a great sense of humor. I hate touching and being touched, but I can compensate through my ability to entertain, teach, chat, and bond with!
This is not a plea to engage in some short-lived romance or to elevate me above it all. All I’d want is for some peace of categorization and security, that I am not separated from the rest. So please do not characterize me as irrational, as a self-effacing supplicant, an approval-seeker, or a coquette. For I am not in any category to separate myself from. So, please don’t grab my shoulders, yank my hair, or refer to me as delusional; I am serious.
“How did such a thing happen?” I asked my partner for the umpteenth time, though I had to hide any sense of desperation or overt curiosity at every point. I habitually asked him to recall the experience like a child grabbing his mother’s shirt for a bedtime story.
Recently, my partner received new information about the origin of his friend’s affair. My partner clarified that their fling was rather business-like and inorganic because both of them were chaste and met on the agreement that they would experience this evolution together. What I had constantly dreamed of was a story of a traditional romance and the possibility of visiting their wedding. Conversely, my partner intruded and said they hadn’t regarded each other since.
What was meant to be a declaration of love was instead a one-time occurrence as an everyday sort of ordeal like hailing the taxi or calling the plumber over. Can it really be that simple and transactional? Can such a first-time incident be as reduced as using a credit card?
“Who was she?” I stammered. Perhaps she was some kind of roguish vixen who had ensnared him unknowingly, or she could have intoxicated him before the ordeal to leave him in tears! The heartbreaker! The unyielding temptress! I can see it! A petite figure, voluptuous and full, with a romantic and melodious voice, dark-haired and fair-skinned.
At that moment, my head started to pulse like a pimple ready to be popped–oh, this stupid aching! Ever since my partner described this newly transitioned traitor, my heart fell, and my head started to hurt and hurt! I held the crown of my head on either side, clamping the damned throbbing from beneath, as I felt the skin beneath my cheeks flare with feverish heat. What was initially against my better judgment broke the mental dam and came rushing in. I gripped my inflamed face by extending my hands like a net, anchoring it down as if my face — my face! — was melting away! It took a couple of tongue bites, cheek pinches, and head wacks to mobilize the swelling and disengage it, until the scene came to me! Like the bullet that struck me exploded.
Oh, how it must have happened!
She must have softened up for him, the way non-men do when they give in (in total submission and terrible defeat), her breath hitching just enough to confirm everything was happening as it should — apparently, so! Her legs must have shifted, parted with a practiced ease, like curtains drawing themselves open to welcome the supposed inevitable. And he — he must have let out something small! Yes, something involuntary, something that could not be taken back. He must have called out in the crescendo, unaware of the betrayal in his own voice, and in its rising, a cry that marked the very moment he was dead to himself. He must have said:
Alice.
Alice, Alice, Alice.
What a pitiful thing.
Had he known he was saying it? Had it slipped out partially, half-in, and half-out? I wonder, I really do, if he felt it surging in his throat, forming on his tongue, and still — still — he spilled it out. Did she hear it? Did she think it was meant for her? Did she smile against his skin, head tucked and eyelashes splayed, pleased, thinking she had won?
Or had she known — just as I did now — that it wasn’t really for her at all! She must have taken him in, let him move against her, let him press into the very heart of their undoing. And he — he must have trembled with it! His body going taught, his breath lagging, caught between pleasure and grief.
Maybe it struck him then — that when he closed his eyes to surrender the final triumph to her, it was not her face that lingered behind his lids. Like a fingertip grazing the surface of a pond, the reflection did not ripple with her face, but revealed the shadow beneath — mine. And perhaps he yelled out, his hands flying to his face, only to glance down and find his own corpse lying there.
Oh, how he must have wanted to roll onto his side! To press his forehead against the pillow, to bury himself from the thing he could not escape, to hold his face and sob! How he must have felt it sink in, low and dreadful, the knowing that he had done it — he had done it, and it was done, and he could never again say otherwise! And in that rising panic, he must have pushed himself — desperately, blindly, yes! — from the bed, his hands sinking into the mattress as if through wet earth, only to see the dark stain of what his body had become.
And me?
Me, where I was, wherever I had been that night? I must have been kneeling at the edge of my bed, hands clasped like they were married, my breath steady, speaking softly to Father, feeling the lightness of my own discipline and virtue settling over me like a veil.
Wherever I was, whatever I had been doing — I had not been touched. I had not been undone.
I was beyond this — beyond him, and oh, how I must have shined! How my image must have hovered behind his eyes — like an apparition just beyond the foot of the bed. I can hear him now, the poor thing! His voice, raw and unraveling, reaching for something just out of reach — something he cannot grasp but cannot define. It wasn’t my name he called, but I heard it all the same. The name tumbles from him — weak, instinctual. I can feel it now, circling just above my head like a halo spun from threadbare sound. I can almost touch it! His voice, worn thin with effort, drifts down, winding around my neck like a silk noose.
Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice, Alice.
“Franny…” A ghoulish and haunting man’s voice screamed through my head as I continued to speculate and torment myself. “Remember…er…er… playerish…ish…ish…not, oh absolutely not!... WHORISH…ish…ish…ish…ish…” Oh, stop with the -ishes!
“Franny?” My partner’s voice reached me from somewhere far away, like a voice heard through a thin wall. His hand rested lightly on mine, the warmth of it unfamiliar, as if I were feeling it through someone else’s skin. “Franny, are you alright?”
The remnants of my fantasizing lingered, like a TV episode fading to the next scene. But all that pressure that almost started building up in my loins, I felt instead in my head. The burning palpitation rocked like a pendulum, knocking each edge of my mind with an inconsistent rhythm. But the relentless hammering began to unravel when I opened my eyes and saw I was here — not there or anywhere — and that I was me.
My head loosened like a clenched fist opening at last, and the rocking dissipated. A deep, trembling sigh spilled from my mouth, and my chest rose and fell in slow, unburdened waves in a realization.
This man, who has become the object of obsession and uncontrollable agony, whom I have let slip through the cracks of my consciousness, pressing into me, choking me with the image of him — he has undeniably fallen, and I. I have eclipsed him.
I have not surrendered myself to this empty, unsubstantial ascension, this brittle illusion of prestige he now wears like a new, borrowed skin. A transformation built on the fragile legs of vanity and lust. Earned not by effort, not by merit, but by surrender. Once suffocating, he is now just another man — indistinguishable in conquest, forgettable in indulgence.
It takes perseverance to hold a moral character. Indulgence and temptation require neither talent nor restraint; they take whom they will, bestowing their favors indiscriminately, blind to worth or virtue. A leveling force that’s cheap in its generosity. Pathetic!
I turned to my partner. “Well, we’re faithfully together…” I chirp. “Though you don’t have a religious faith, we are both chaste! Innocently so! I think it sets us apart. Much better off than those fiends! Oh, I’d have to pray a thousand times in the confessional if I had even considered something as trivial as a passionate kiss! I thoroughly appreciate you respecting my boundaries, but I wonder — I really wonder if you felt terrible about him trying to rope you into his rotten habit. Do you feel sorry for him? You must feel sorry about him! I mean, would you do the same awful thing if you hadn’t met me? You wouldn’t, right? You have me!”
“Of course, I would. Isn’t it natural?”
CLAMOR 