There are moments in a young woman’s life when she becomes very aware of the fact that she is a woman. Sometimes this moment can be self-affirming and powerful; more often than not, these moments are laced with shame and guilt. As she lay beside her husband she felt that keen sense of shame once again. Naked and used she rolled over onto her side and listened to his heavy snoring.
After a year of anticipation waiting for the wedding, waiting for this night, she had been sorely disappointed. The warning signs had been there before the wedding. Long before. She had ignored them, as young women with empty wombs often do—she only wanted to be married and to start a family… but now she wondered what price she would have to pay for that dream.
She wrapped her arms around her naked body and tried desperately to love herself because she knew that he would never love her. She was an object, another one of his possessions and he had made that abundantly clear. Perched on his knees, refusing to kiss or caress here body, he had thrust wildly at her until he was finished… and then it was over.
She had expected that night to make her a woman in the best sense of the word, but it had only left her ashamed and feeling worthless. But, she thought, if he could give her nothing else, he could at least give her a child. A child would make her a woman in the fullest sense. At least he could give her that.
* * * * *
Two and a half years later he was gone. He had grown bored with his possession… it had been too unruly, too independent, too outspoken… He had been unable to manipulate it as he wanted, so he tried to break it. When it resisted his efforts to destroy it, he abandoned it.
He never gave her a child. He used her until there was nothing more left to be used, and then he walked away, leaving her empty. He, once again, made her a woman in the most deplorable sense.
Barren.
* * * * *
He haunted her still. It had been two years since he had left, and yet she could not shake the feelings of filth and disgust he had left on her. His side of the bed still had his stench on it, so she slept on the couch… that also smelled like him, but he had never entered her there. He hung over the house like the smell of cigar smoke long after the cigar had been extinguished. She was unable to purge the house, so she stopped trying. It did not take long for the filth she felt on her body to manifest itself in the house.
Everywhere she turned there was filth and decay. It was as though the world around her had died and was rotting away… just waiting for that final spark in her to be snuffed out.
* * * * *
She went to a dentist almost as soon as he left. He had told her he wanted her to, but he had never allowed her access to the money to do it. And, in all honest, she didn’t care. She was only waiting for the rot that had taken over her mouth to take over the rest of her body so that the pain of being his would finally end.
But one he was gone, that flickering ember that was almost dead began to glow again. It didn’t ignite anything… but it began to glow. So she went to the dentist.
Two years of shame—two years of not being able to eat without becoming sick—two years of wasting away and fading away had taken its toll on her body. She was skinny and pale. Her teeth were crumbling and there were large black under her eyes.
The dentist pulled her teeth one by one. It was the first time she had ever had teeth pulled, and it was not so bad. She could hear the grinding in her mouth as he loosened her fragile teeth… and then there was pressure, but not pain—and then a rotted tooth hit the metal tray that was hovering just above her chest.
clink.
clink. clink.
She had once had a beautiful smile. The dentist told her that later as he was fitting her for dentures.
She had never known it… not when the smile was still there. She had never been told… except for one time when a dental hygienist was cleaning her teeth and the young woman said, “Your teeth have a beautiful color.”
She had not understood what that meant. And aside from that, no one had ever told her she had a lovely smile. It had not been until she found her old high school pictures that she realized what it had once been. Compared to the snaggle-toothed grimace she had after he had his way with her, her smile had once been breathtaking.
