Part VII: Time Warp 2000’s – Cut! #8 (Chapter 110)

I want, I want, I want…

I want to start over.

Be free.

Don’t be fooled by my mobility: just because I work outside the home doesn’t mean I’m allowed to roam at my pleasure.

A silver thread ties me to this house.

I’m allowed to leave at will, of course, but the thread is finite.

I’m not sure what the limit is ‒ I haven’t reached it yet ‒ but I know it exists.

It could wrap itself around the world a dozen times, but sooner or later, the thread will grow tight and cut into my throat. I’m not sure I want to know at what point the thread will choke me because when it does, the pain will be unbearable.

It may even kill me.

Who knows?

That’s the scary thing about prisons without walls: how do I know when I have gone too far? Maybe that’s why I have put off my flight for so long. In any case, love is not powerful enough to keep me here, but, perhaps, fear is.

Fear of what?

I’ve got everything I could ever hope to have, and, yet, I have nothing.

Sheldon would say I’m imagining things, that this is the 1980’s, and that the 80’s woman has all the perks she could ever hope for: job, school, equal opportunity. In fact, too much freedom. He thinks that women of the 60’s and 70’s have effectively ruined modern society by their incessant demands.

He’s right about one thing: the feminists spout too much militant dogma, tell me things I already know, and place expectations and responsibilities on me for which I never bargained. Like getting on the fast track. Why do you think I teach college only part time even though the money stinks?

So, then, Sheldon is wrong about me.

I am not a feminist.

The price is far too steep and the effort too draining. Face it, women will never be totally free.

Sheldon told me this over three years ago, when he was department chair ‒ I had just started my teaching career. I’ll never forget that day: we were sneaking shots of whiskey into our coffee in the faculty lounge. I was already in love with the guy. Who wouldn’t lust after a man who looked as though he had just walked off a Hollywood back lot? He was tall, nicely built, with blond hair styled and not one strand out of place, expensive navy-blue suit with maroon tie, unflawed skin ‒ you know, the golden boy who has never suffered any significant hardship in his life.

He was talking about Karen Horney’s theory of personality, the so-called feminist psychoanalyst, when he stopped and glared at me. He stood up straight and tightened his tie. Then he said, “Ms. Mallory, I’m going to give it to you like it is: women will never achieve equal rights. You know why? Because you haven’t got the guts to grab what you want. You allow men to do your thinking for you.”

I wanted so much to reach up and poke out those blue eyes. I wanted to scream, “As if we have any choice!” I stuffed away the urge: maybe I was too worried about losing my job. Besides, I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to feel anymore ‒ love, hate, love, hate, love, hate ‒ take your pick.

Months later, I was tempted to write him a letter, but, somehow, anything I might have said that day had lost its bang, like an old balloon slowly expelling its air: still inflated, but spongy and flaccid.

He might have taken it the wrong way.

Two years later, Bea, a girlfriend of mine who also teaches at the college, found out Sheldon was divorced and set us up at a Halloween party. By this time, Sheldon had quit teaching and set up his own private practice, specializing in Gestalt therapy and psychodrama seminars. At Bea’s cajoling, Sheldon showed up as the “id,” and I as the “superego.”

We stuck together the entire evening, and when he said ‒

“I want, I want, I want” ‒

I went home with him.

Even now, I have difficulty articulating exactly what I felt that day in the lounge. I feel he was addressing me personally (although he denies it), as if I alone were responsible for a million years of feminine repression and that the future of womanhood rested on my ability to cut free of the silver thread. Perhaps if the man had just been naïve, I might have been able to allow the remark to roll off me, but he was smug, like “Don’t expect me to grant you your rights.”

And he has made good on his word.

George, you need to understand some things about Sheldon. The shrink is the most obnoxious part of him, always quick to give out easy, pat answers. Once, I walked into his office when he was telling an overweight client that losing weight was easy.

He said, “Just cut out all snacks. Simple.” I could tell she was almost in tears, but he couldn’t see it.

He switched gears when I walked in and turned away from her ‒ it was almost as if she had dissolved right out of reality. I wanted to say something to her, anything, but then she slipped away.

Never saw her again.

Afterwards, I thought I might leave Shel.

But when it came right down to it, I didn’t ‒ I guess I couldn’t stand the thought of living in stark poverty all over again.

Besides, the sex is pretty good ‒ sometimes.

At least, he never forgets my birthday or our anniversary, seducing me with wine, flowers, frilly underthings, and jewelry ‒ the latest: a diamond bracelet.

A smooth and methodical lover.

Still, Shel can be the Don Juan who lets me know that my orgasm is not his problem ‒ then he becomes the captor who insinuates that I’m responsible for my own imprisonment.

Does he really believe that all the outer trappings of lovemaking can really fill this void in our lives?

And to think I once admired the man. Now I work very hard at avoiding him.

Just as you are avoiding me now.

*

Wha’s zis?

Baby crib, why am I in baby crib?

I’m big girl.

No, I jus’ baby.

Dark room. Moon shines on something moving beside me.

Baby.

Jus’ like me.

See pretty bracelet?

Pretty bracelet, pretty color. Blue? Kind of like blue, but not blue. Not green, either.

Pretty, Pretty.

I want, I want, I want.

Here. Pretty bracelet

My tummy hurts, I don’t like pretty bracelet.

Hurts?

Gimme pretty bracelet.

Take pretty bracelet.

I take pretty bracelet...ooohhhh, aaahhh.

Pretty bracelet beautiful,

I wear pretty bracelet now.

I wanna sleep, my tum-tum hurts, be quiet, go to sleep.

Other baby, go to sleep, sleep, sleep...

So happy.

Pretty bracelet mine.

Sing, sing, the mermaid song...

Sing, sing, the ding, dong song...

Sing, sing, a double bing...

Sing, sing, a cherry Bing...

Light.

Eyes hurt. Don’ like the light.

Big lady here now.

Crying.

Go away.

Other baby…POOF!

Where are you?

“Go to sleep...”

Big lady mad!

Dark.