F WORD VOL. VII

RE: Sexy Underwear I don’t know, you said go put on something sexy, some sexy underwear, and when I said no that’s okay, I don’t have any, you said yes you do, put on something sexy for me. I thought to myself, why, why why why, and then I asked, what would be the point, you’re already here and I’m already down to my underwear? Come on, you said, come on, it’ll be really hot. I was wearing big underwear. The kind that reach up to my belly button and cradle my entire bladder and make me feel like an egg in my finely curved shell. That’s silly, I said. No, I said.

I don’t know how to be sexy, I said. Fine, you said. I’m disappointed, you said. Do you have your period? Because there’s blood, you said. I looked down but I didn’t show you my sputtering heart. Oh yeah, I said. I had it last week and I guess I forgot. It’s nothing to be scared of, I said. I slid them down over my ankles and kicked them into the corner, clean side up.

No underwear tonight then? Maybe just a bra or something? I know you have one. Come on, come on. Please, and you kissed my cheek. You have really soft skin, you told me, and kissed my cheek again. If you did that, I would take your photograph and it would be really sexy.

How about another time, I said. It’s not happening tonight, I said. You can still take a picture, just not like that, am I still pretty enough for you to take my photo? I’m really really sorry.

Come on, I promise. Next time, I said. You said okay, fine, another time. I laughed but I don’t think you could tell that I was scared, because I’ve never fit that well into sexy underwear and the closest I ever got was wearing my mom’s old emerald bra when I was a teenager and my breasts were full. And then it would poke me in the back and the lace left its print on my skin. You didn’t know that I threw out all my thongs weeks ago, because they hurt. You didn’t know that nobody ever taught me how to be sexy so I just never learned. And that my mom always wore full style underwear and she was the most beautiful person I knew, so so did I, at the end of the day. You didn’t know that you scared me when you said that, because I didn’t know how to give you what you wanted. I thought you would leave if you knew that it wasn’t that I was too lazy, that I didn’t want to, but that I couldn’t. I knew that even if I had what you wanted, I wouldn’t know what to do, that I would put it on and stand there, against all your expectations and would wilt like a stem under your eyes as my petals fell to the floor.

You don’t know that here I am a year later, still thinking about it, seething with anger like a thousand pricking needles. You don’t know that I would have rather told you to get lost, that I was sexy the way I was. That my white underwear was period stained safe and full of my secrets, of the way that my body moves at night and the warmth I sleep in and the flesh I’m proud of. I would have told you that you made me feel bad. I would have said that you made me feel like I had to try, like my skin wasn’t enough. I would have pushed you off and I would have told you afterwards that my heart wasn’t in it. I would have explained to you you couldn’t tell if I was in or out of my body, and that you shouldn’t call me baby, unless I was. I would have said don’t say that to the next girl. I would have rolled my eyes and raised my eyebrows. I would have said you’re pressuring me, you’re making me feel insignificant, you’re making me feel compared. I would have said I don’t care if you go, I don’t care if you’re not turned on. It was never my job to flip the switch.