And every single choice
We've made along the way
Is a twist of fate
Our plans, they may as well
Be just coincidence
[Plans Are Just Coincidence] by [The Limousines]
There's no such thing as coincidence. I've tallied 35 instances of this phrase in the words sent between me and my Danish lover in the weeks leading up to my first trip to Denmark a long, long time ago. The heartache that starved me and which lead me to him, our simultaneous messages of adoration and shared songs, the way my dreams pointed the way to money that made the trip possible – so that I could take my rightful place in Daniel's arms – to all of those things we would say, "There's no such thing as coincidence".
Even now, when the shape of wet stone buildings in this strange country remind me of my home, of downtown Portland, Oregon, I am reminded that we humans connect things to make meaning out of life and love. I laugh at those who say life has no meaning, is [pointless]. The very act of declaring this lack of fate, an absence of meaning, that life is merely a string of coincidence creates meaning in labeling it as such. Nothing becomes something once it's been identified.
My memories of that first night Daniel and I slept together are like fragmented, ill-timed [jump cuts] joined crudely by a novice filmmaker trying to impress classmates with forced artiness. I see myself laying on the bed, on my side and fully clothed, with one long, knit-stockinged leg bent at the knee over the other. Only my boots are off. My hip is pushed into a feminine curve, my stomach fluttering. The lights embedded in the headboard are off. I kept my face blank as my mind forever etches my lover, using chemical desire and the backlight from the bathroom to sketch his disrobing figure.
First Daniel took off his sports coat and hung it up in the space next to the bathroom for such things. Then he unscrewed his mother-of-pearl cuff links and put them on the small bedside table next to me. He didn't look at me. Or, if he did, his glances were discreet and reticent. His gorgeous, midnight blue suede boots were unzipped and placed under the table attached to the wall. Magically Daniel's sweater-vest and dress shirt [fold up like a piece of paper] in his hands, and were draped over the back of the chair. Then, curiously, he let his ripped jeans fall, and left them belted and confused in collapsed columns at the foot of the bed.
He stood there in our hotel room in his white Hugo Boss [boxer-briefs], the seams outlining and cupping his coiled cock. His long, smooth torso was nearly hairless; only a soft pyramid of black curls trailing from his navel and escaping into his waistband was visible. I longed to run my fingers through his pubic hair, softly raking it – just as he'd written to me countless times before that he loved to imagine me doing. Now I could. Now I would. He only had to let me do it. After all the waiting, all the torturous imagining, he stood there looking like my perfect man, a chiseled, beautiful Eros set in cold stone, gazing at me – my eyes, my lips, my hips, my bent knee – in our real-life [dreamland], without any expression at all.
I lay there on our bed and returned his emotionless regard. But inside I was swatting at simultaneous, unsettled, lingering feelings about the current state of my body, and my perception of how Daniel was choosing to show his love for me. I was uncomfortable with the way my breasts still hung like under-inflated balloons. I was still too skinny. In the weeks leading up to this moment, I had actively tried to gain weight, eating three solid meals, plus snacks, and working to puff up my muscles and re-tone my skin – skin which was still sagging in the anxious aftermath of all that had passed (and, more importantly, not passed) between myself and Jake.
Daniel knew that my weight bothered me, knew how I had taken pains to send only realistically-sexy photos of my too-thin body. I wanted to be honest. Our relationship was, to me, meant to mirror the offline version of our true selves. And, although I had wrapped myself in the words that Daniel had previously typed and sent to me – words about how he would never judge me, how he would accept me and love me no matter what – I was jarred by the subdued fever which he greeted me with once I was finally in his time zone, when I thought we'd be so eager to spend our days caressing and giggling each other in person as we had already done virtually so many times before.
Daniel broke my churning thought-processes when he laid down next to me, facing me, his head on my pillow. We spent moments probing each others' faces with all-seeing eyes. I put my hand on his chest to feel his shallow intake and outtake of breath, to feel his heart beating quickly. Encouraged, I too put my head on the pillow and we kissed. I touched the places where our mouths joined. I touched his bearded skin, the soft fur on his face, and then I moved my hand down his chest, circling his nipple with my cold fingers, then trickling them down the keys of his rib cage until I was running them through the soft curls above his cock. Sweet, soft kisses became more urgent.
My sweater, my shirt, and my skirt peeled off. My stockings and underwear stayed on. Daniel squeezed and kneaded my breasts, suckled my nipples, and we made love, almost silently. His cock was larger than seemed proportional to his 6'5" frame, and he could have easily – accidentally – pushed in too far, pounding into my cervix. But he didn't. Gentle. As he slid in and out of me in delicious slow strokes, interspersed with unexpected and rapid thrusts, I wrapped my two, stacked hands around the the part of his penis that didn't fit inside me, stroking, squeezing.
When Daniel orgasmed, his whole being shook in spasms, and his cum filled my panties. This became our routine – Daniel pulling aside the crotch of my panties, which acted as a catch-all for his volumes of cum, eliminating any arguments over who would have to sleep in the wet spot. But our bodies hardly touched during sex because of the length of his penis. It was only afterward that we held each other. Always it was me that held him from behind, spooning him with my body, kissing and nuzzling the soft, nearly invisible fuzz at the base of his neck, my always-cold fingers tucked under his side, laced through his, or raking the hair below his navel.
The next morning before we left our warm bed, I told Daniel the story of how I'd lost the tip of my finger. He listened nonchalantly, almost disinterested, as if to show how unimportant its shortened state was to him.
"Tell me what happened after it happened, after you were left standing there on the porch bleeding," he said. "Did that asshole come out and see what he'd done?"
"Yes, and it wasn't the asshole who'd shut the door," I sighed, and put my head on his chest so I could tell the story without looking at him. It was hard to tell Daniel this story, but I didn't want him to know that. "I said all kinds of evil shit on my way out the door. It was a roommate who'd kicked the door shut. His brother, in fact. Oh my god, was his brother mortified. So upset about it. But I wanted nothing to do with him, or anyone else in the house, least of all Ryan's dad. I was enraged."
"You do have a temper," he interrupted, speaking matter-of-factly. I considered this statement calmly. He was right, but the anger I had then was a blind, seething rage at everything. When I had gotten mad at Daniel – and he seemed to enjoy it sometimes when I did – it was to defend my honor and call him on his bullshit. But right then was not the time to point this out. Right then I was explaining the catalyst to my transformation. I went on.
"A friend of mine had come with me to get my things. She heard my screams from the car, and she ran up to me and saw me standing there holding my hand up in the air by the wrist, blood pooling beneath my hand and seeping through the cracks in the wooden porch. She immediately looked for the finger tip, and found it right outside the door. It had fallen out of the door jam when the housemates heard my screeching and opened the door. It must have been a terrible sound for them to open the door after all my carrying on.
"She grabbed me and my finger and pulled me into the car. I'm starting to hurt, but all I can think about is the series of events that lead up to this moment. The choices I'd made that brought that man into my life, how I'd let attention and promises trap me into thinking I'd deserved nothing better, that I could have nothing better. Many times he'd left me – kicked me out – to hooked up with trashy girls, until he was tired of them and wanted me back. And I'd always go back, once he'd figured out the right combination of words to trigger a belief that this next time would be different.
"My friend and I were about to pull away when Ryan's father – when the asshole – suddenly jumped in front of the car and demanded to come with us. I fucking laughed. Was he serious? Yes, he was serious. I was carrying his child and he was worried about us both. My laughter turned manic, my finger pumped out blood and remorse that I had ever met him. My friend looked at me for answers. I told him to get in, because I wanted another chance to tell him what I thought about him. If he cared to shut up and listen to my rant, he could come. He got in the car.
"All the way to the hospital I let loose a tirade of vile words. I censored none of my feelings about the things he'd done and my stupidity in letting it happen – for years! The ride was over before I knew it, and I was still yelling and howling. The dam crumbed and I flooded hate. But I refused to let him into the curtained emergency room – only my friend was allowed. I had someone call Pops; took him quite a while to get there. I was 6 months [pregnant], I had lost my job two months earlier, and I had no health insurance. I qualified for welfare but hadn't gotten the paperwork done yet. And my baby wasn't moving very much. We were both in shock.
"I lost my mind if anyone even asked me a question, and there were a lot of questions. The police came, and there were forms that had to be filled out for emergency medical welfare benefits before I could have surgery. I remember the lights were dimmed in my curtained rectangle, but that did nothing to sooth my insanity. Very soon after arriving, my friend and I were told that the fingertip (which she was holding for me – a good inch's worth of finger) had been mangled beyond use. There was no question in the minds of the medical personnel that I should be treated for amputation. Not reattachment.
"The pain from my finger and the realization of what was happening to me – that it boiled down to being my fault – began to increase to a white hot intensity. The doctors wouldn't give me a straight IV of morphine, only a milder anti-inflammatory pain killer, and they put the needle in my arm below a blood pressure cuff. We were waiting for a specialist to come in from another hospital, to examine me, to perform surgery, and everyone was worried about Ryan. But I wasn't. Right then I hated Ryan. Ryan would forever connect me to the asshole I'd chosen to have a baby with. The asshole with whom I'd actively tried, for a few months, to get pregnant with. How stupid I felt. And how very evil. What kind of mother was I? I didn't deserve to raise a child. I didn't want to raise this child. My heart and soul seared with [kerosene].
"The specialist came about the same time as Pops did. Oh, his face was filled with such sadness. I cried fresh tears looking at his sorrow. I was cleared for stronger pain killers, but they didn't completely cease the pain from my broken finger or the slash of reality I was facing. Ryan's father had left the hospital long ago but he kept calling and insisting that I be asked if I wanted to talk to him. Fuck no, I didn't want to talk to him. All I wanted to do was cut off his cock and shove it up his ass, I screamed. No one dared ask me to quiet down, no one dared to ask me to reconsider.
"We'd arrived at the hospital around 5pm but it wasn't until 3am that they wheeled me down the corridor to surgery. I was silent, then, as I lay there, every turn of the wheels hurting me, every molecule of air hurting me. And then the nurse at my side, pushing my battered body and soul into the operating room – where the jagged, exposed bone of my finger would be shortened, where the finger's tissue would be sterilize, where the skin would be stretched tight over the open wound – this nurse looked down at me kindly and smiled. 'It's July 6th,' she said. 'Happy birthday!' I looked back at her for a few seconds, not understanding what her words meant. And then I replied quietly and calmly, mimicking her sweet gregarious smile: 'Fuck you.' And then I vomited and lost consciousness.
"I woke up to a circle of nurses trying to find Ryan's heartbeat. I learned that the surgery had gone well for me, but Ryan had had trouble. His movements were sluggish and his pulse irregular, and after they'd wheeled me into recovery they hadn't been able to find his heartbeat. They had been trying for a couple of hours. But once I woke up, so did Ryan. He started moving around inside me, my belly a warbling pouch of baby legs and arms. And a heartbeat. The nurses tried to hide their relief, but it was obvious they thought the shock of my accident had killed him. Maybe it did, and he came back to life. But I was still mad at him for being the link to his father, so after the nurses left me alone I didn't thank heaven that he was okay, that he was alive – I thought instead about this terrible situation and about my part in it. Something had to change. I was still too fucked up to see what had to change – that would happen years later, after I'd let more boys use me, and after I'd used more boys for myself. But I did know at the time that this painful alteration was a punishment – for not loving myself, and for letting others have their way with my life.
"And then, when I woke up the next morning with my newly-disfigured hand, something else happened. And, Daniel, I've not told anyone about this before. This is a secret I've held for many years. I want to share this with you, because you are my special love. Are you ready?"
Daniel looked thoughtful, his eyes wet, his face stoic. "Of course. What is it?"
"I remember once, when I was a kid – maybe 11 or so – and I was on the school bus. We lived in a rough part of town and the bus was loud and scary. Full of opportunities for someone to pick some random person, me for example, to have a good time with. So I sat there in the very first seat opposite the driver's side and tried, as usual, to be very little. To be inconspicuous. This was impossible, of course. I was already almost 6 feet tall with big boobs. A white, freckled face in a sea of shades of brown. Who was I kidding? Only myself. I hated my difference, hated the tallness and the whiteness that made me stick out, that made me a target. I stared at my hands, clasped in my lap. I stared at my finger, the very finger that years later would be ripped from me. I hated that finger even then. You know why? Because even then, when I was a kid, it was different. From the last joint from the end it veered to the left at an angle. A 45 degree angle. It was a deformity, since birth. And on the morning after my surgery I remembered that bus ride, and I remembered imagining that it would be better if the tip wasn't there at all. It would be less embarrassing if the finger tip had been cut off.
"Then, years later, there I am lying there in recovery, now an amputee and a homeless single mother on welfare. Right then I realized, profoundly, that I had fulfilled my childhood wish. And later, when I went to my follow-up appointment to check the progress of my healing, I told my doctor about the crooked finger tip. And she was surprised. She said that there was a small chance, a very small chance, that had she known that she might have been able to reattach the finger tip. The x-ray taken of the break and of the severed body part didn't fit correctly. Now she knew why."
"So here, in this case, the old saying is true: Be careful what you wish for," Daniel said.
"Yes, exactly. Be careful what you wish for. But not all wishes are so sinister, are they? I wished for you and I to be together," I said. "To really be together. And now, here we are." I searched his frozen mask for warming emotion.
"But, there's no such thing as coincidence either, right baby?" Daniel asked, solemnly. "Your accident woke you up, built you up, brought you eventually here."
"Also true," I said, kissing his cheekbone. "But now I am very careful what [I wish] for. And I wished for you."
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The Miracle in July is the work of author Michelle Anderson.
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