by Shannon Brazil

Contortion

Shannon Brazil | Jan 2025 | Issue 41

I.

The first thing to know is I didn’t want to ruin the moment. You were inside of me and I wasn’t in pain so much as needing tenderness. One word, “gentle.” I whispered into your good ear, once, twice, quietly, then louder, and you listened, once, twice, but only briefly. “Gentle,” into your other ear. “Gentle” a word without meaning, and I found myself, under the thrash and quick of you, going Away.

Away is a silent conversation with myself, stop nagging, this is his version of gentle, he loves you, he’s one of the good guys, your pleasure is his pleasure. Your is an act of dissociation. He takes pleasure in my pleasure, make pleasure from this, where is my pleasure?

Away, I tell myself this is not the same as Before.

Before, years ago, when, ignoring my pleases for “slow,” once, twice, I resorted to palming myself, Do Not Enter, determined to draw back my hand only when my body was ready to receive you. “Not yet,” I said. But you slipped past my guard and slicked a finger along the wet of me, saying, “But you are ready.”

How my vulva looked to my brain for reassurance, and my brain just shrugged.

All of this happened while your hips rocked and rocked against me, while my single word, soft from my lips, went undone.

This is not that. We got past that. In therapy.

Away is a timestamp of images. The blue shag carpet imprinted on my skin. Desire muddled with fear. A friendly game of not-so-friendly hand-to-hand combat, always with boys. Only with boys. Advance. Recede. Hold. Palm. Block. These memories contort themselves, stretching and pulling me Away. I am my teenage body on the blue shag carpet of my childhood home, of a friend’s home, of a car, of an attic, of a time, of every boy I kissed, every teacher I wanted, every grope, every note, every clumsy, youthful orgasm, and he is fucking me, and I am fucking him, by choice by choice by choice.

I come.

You’re pleased.

We keep going.

I try to kickstart the contortion, but it doesn’t turn over again.

II.

The second thing is when we were done, you said, “I’m sorry for being so rough with you,” (so you did hear me), your voice lacking sobriety. The tiny gleam in your eye not an apology but a brag, as if my body were so delicious, you just couldn’t help yourself. You may have said as much. You may have said how hot I was, how beautiful. You may have seen the reddening of me, the surge of heat across my chest, when I tried to speak what happened. But you apologized again, quickly, as if words might erase the experience. As if sorry could heal a body.

You rose to dress.

I lay in your bed arguing myself Away. He’s one of the good guys, he regrets not listening to you, me, he’s doing the work, what more do you, I, want? It doesn’t matter. Let it go. My body looked to my brain, and my brain just shrugged. Later, when you listed the evening’s happy successes, love-making sandwiched between appetizers and bookstore, you wheedled next to me and asked after my pussy. I built a wall around myself with pillows. You acquiesced with a sigh. Sick, sad, confused I might’ve said, but settled on, “reluctant,” because I couldn’t bear to speak what you couldn’t bear to hear: violated.

Shannon Brazil is a Gen X feminist writer-woman and performer whose work centers around sex and sexuality, domestic anarchy, grief, motherhood, and other entanglements. Her prose and performances are google-able. She’s a houseplant enthusiast who carries on with two partners, four kids, and a couple of hilarious dogs. Chaos is her baseline.