Originally published in Semper Floreat, 2006
It
all began with a regular honoring of the goddess of sluttiness (imagine
Courtenay Love on a bad day crossed with Paris Hilton in that video).
The
ritual was beautiful; the vodka flowed freely and my legs looked
fantastic. I didn't pay for one drop of the sacred intoxication fluid.
I
was the whore, the temptress, the seductress, the tease. I parted my
tiny thighs wide and laughed with my head thrown backwards. I played the
game, and played it well. The goddess was well pleased.
Little
did I know that another god had plans for me that night... not even the
next morning, when I awoke with a headache and a young male friend in
my bed. I swore, but we did it again in an attempt to remember what it
actually may have felt like during the night. Neither of us remembered,
even after much prompting.
Time
passed, and due to my actions that night I lost the respect of the love
of my life - a saucy and charismatic slightly older woman who made feel
like I was making love to the goddess herself, and who I love as
unselfishly as is humanly possible. We cried together, took various
mind-altering substances to numb the pain for awhile, said hurtful and
unkind things, and loved each other all the same.
Then the vomiting began...
Everything
I ate tasted foul, and made me retch. If I did not eat, I spewed until
there was nothing left in my gut, and then gagged until my muscles ached
and my throat was raw. I tried different foods until I found I could
eat small quantities of potato and drink malted milk, and lived on these
for a few weeks until I began to feel better. Despite enjoying a smoke
in the past, the smell of cigarettes made me violently ill, and when I
(stupidly) tried to smoke one, I was left with a severe case of
diarrhoea. I had to quit. It took a small amount of screaming and
wanting to kill people in a violent fashion, but eventually I did manage
to stop completely and to rid myself of the urge. Despite digesting
almost nothing, I was bloated and had put on weight.
I
became very tired, and could not last dancing until morning any more,
only till about eleven, which is quite pitiful, really... The
transitioning process was difficult already, to say the least, but the
worst was yet to come...
I
have never known the burden of carrying such huge breasts. My neat
little handfuls had become DD/E cup swinging udders, and it was then
that I really, truly, realized what had become of me. I was a breeder, a
feeder, a host for the most effective parasite on earth - a human
fetus. It sucks the calcium from my bones, the oxygen from my blood, and
the protein (from wherever it wants to) to build millions of cells each
day. I grows more rapidly that the most voracious of tumors, and the
skin on my hips and stomach stretches more every day to accommodate its
growth. I am pregnant, and in the second trimester, during which I am
supposed to feel "blissful", "ecstatic", and "serene". Thats a lot of
B.S.
Before,
I was a rebel, a free spirited fairy who did and said whatever I
wanted. I lived happily on mostly coffee, nicotine, fruit juice, and
lentils. People looked at me in the street because they desired me,
admired me, envied me, or simply wanted to possess me. I was beginning
to understand myself, where I fit in the world, and where I wanted to
fit.
But
things have changed. My whole idea of self has been altered now beyond
recognition. I am burdened, responsible, sedate, and traditionally,
stereotypically, all that I never wanted to be. Everyone assumes I
am owned by another, by a man. I want to scream "I am not what you
think! I am not 'another woman in this world'. I am gender free. I chose
it. I am nobody's vessel!" I want to scream with frustration and rage
at this 'woman' I have become. But I dont. I eat, sleep, study and
survive day by day. My compliance, my passive weight gain, and my own,
unfamiliar body, disgust me.
And then I realize something...
My
body is making another person, as complex, intense, and fragile and you
and I. This smaller person is relying on me to keep it alive, love it,
and not screw it up too much. This person kicks, cries, yawns, and gets
the hiccups. This person is soon to make its way into the big, dirty,
messed up world in which we live, and I am its guide. I cry when I think
of the enormity of my task. I am not just a breeder, a feeder, a
vessel, but a mother. And whether or not I embrace the label 'woman' that has been assigned to me, I will be someone's mother all the same.
