3 AMELIA RISES TO THE ABYSS (Sex Toy)

“It is your clothes,” I said when I gave Omar the plastic bag at the door. 

“Do you think it is my problem now?” he said while staring at me, as I insulted him. 

“I am sorry!” I said, and looked at the wall trying to avoid his eyes. 

“You do not need to apologize for your cruelty. No one has apologized to you for all these traumas that they created inside you,” he said, continuing to stare at me for a while before abruptly leaving.

The walls turned around me in a circle after circle, faster and faster, and they did not stop. I got dizzy and stumbled toward the closest seat where I dropped myself. The walls did not stop spinning. They just turned into images from my past going through a gallery. I was too weak to resist.  

What do you expect from a woman who was bitten by Dracula? Should she not be a vampire? There is no monster in this world. There are only wounded people who have not healed yet, and if you do not heal your wounds, you will bleed on people who did not cut you. Isn't it better to be empathetic instead of being judgmental? Why do men think they know everything? How can they understand a woman if they are not in touch with their own emotions? How do they talk about what they cannot understand? No man can understand rape unless he got raped in prison by another man, not a woman. Rape is the worst thing a woman can imagine. It parts the spirit from the body, like death. After a woman has been sexually assaulted, she hates her body. She feels like she cannot live in this body anymore, not only because the rapist saw her body as a sex toy, but also because she feels like it is a body without a spirit. That is why some raped women commit suicide. 

The first time I had sex was with a drug dealer. I was a senior in high school, and he was five years older than me, but he was the handsomest boy in my neighborhood in Omaha. All the girls had a crush on him, but I won him. He opened the magic door for me to the world of pleasures and introduced me to smoking, alcohol, marijuana and kinky lifestyles. He made a fake ID for me so I could go with him to bars and nightclubs to dance. I lived life just following my mood. He had enough money to do whatever we desired. There was neither pressure nor responsibility. It was fun to try a new thing every day. He helped me to explore what was unknown for me. I do not know why I cannot enjoy what I have. If I were on the beach, I would not enjoy the sun, water or sand. I would just look at the other side of the ocean. I am interested in exploring the unknown until someday I can explore death. 

Of course, I had issues with my parents, in spite of them not knowing where I used to go or with whom. After they went to sleep, I used to jump from my bedroom window to go to his apartment, until my parents and I came to a conclusion which was not to affect my school. My parents were working so hard to make a living. They did not have a college degree so their dream for me was to have a higher education. I tried very hard to have good grades so they would not complain. Also, I applied for colleges outside Nebraska, so I could be completely free from their control.  

 

At the University of Missouri, I felt the boys were too young for me. I mean less experienced. I treated them like a mother who does not take her kids seriously, until one of them raped me! 

I could not believe that another person had complete control over my body, to move me as if I were his baby. I could not even move my arms. I hated my body. It spasmed and did not respond to me. I felt like it didn’t belong to me anymore. It was like a prison I wanted to get out of. All the other students were watching and laughing like I was nothing. I was drunk. So, the images were hazy and foggy like a nightmare. I wish it was just a nightmare. The only thing that was very clear for me, was my breath, cry and screams: “Stop! Stop!” I am not sure if they heard it, but for me, it was louder than their laughs. I can still hear it now. When he left me, I was shaking and sweating. I vomited and my vomit mixed up with my sweat and tears. The fury made me powerful enough to peel the curtain off its rod to cover my body and I ran out of the room crying, shaking, unable to think straight. I felt like a commander who left the battlefield after his last soldier fell, covered in blood, without being able to save him, running from a hell to a hell where there is no safe place.

I ran downstairs to my room suffering from vertigo like someone looking out to the emptiness from the summit of a tall mountain. Inside my room, I pushed the door with my back and all the senses of shame, defeat, fear, and inability to confront myself, not only others. The thing that insulted me most was that I used to control others. It started early in my childhood when I was playing with other children in our neighborhood in Omaha, I was always the boss. So, I felt like a wolf that was stabbed in his cunning. I was shocked and I did not know who to blame. Why did this boy dare to control me like that? Was I raped because I was drunk at the college party? Or because men are animals and they are only interested in ejaculating, not even in sex?     

I consider myself as a strong girl. So, after I had gotten raped, I tried something different than suicide. I thought about how ancient Egyptians used to mummify the bodies of the dead until their spirit comes back to recognize their bodies. Instead of waiting for the spirit to reach out to my body, I looked for my spirit in many different ways, and instead of mummifying my body, I had lips and breast augmentation. Also, I started to take care of my body. I decided to be vegan, and I found a job at a gym. At the gym, I met Mike and he asked me to marry him. 

I thought marriage, commitment and family would build a healthy environment for the spirit to rest, but I chose divorce when he tried to convince me to quit my education. A man destroyed my past and I wouldn't let another man destroy my future. He affected my future enough when I left his house pregnant. A couple of months later, I had a baby girl ... Laura, and later I regretted that I did not have an abortion. My parents moved to Kansas City to be with their only granddaughter. It was good for me to find someone to take care of Laura. I really did not have any time for her between my school and work. I moved to live with them to reduce my bills. Laura was my burden. I felt like I was stuck in the Midwest for her. I hate the Midwest where closed-minded people live a boring life, as if they just left cowboys’ ranches. I hoped to work in a big city on the east or west coast after graduation, but I was not cruel enough to deprive my daughter of her father and his family in Missouri.   

When you live a quiet life, you do not have anything to distract your thoughts. You will think too much until you find no meaning in this monotonous life. It is just repetition for no purpose. In big cities, at least, life runs too fast to think. There is a new thing every day to occupy your mind.   

Meaning and purpose?! Does life have a meaning or purpose? Science does not say anything about that. I might miss the spiritual side in my life. That is why I started to go to church and Bible study with my parents after the divorce.   

In a church camp, the weather was very nice that evening in August and the moon was full. I sat outside with an old couple and their dog that licked my legs several times before he jumped on my lap. The old couple were telling me about their kids who did not contact them once they left for college. They believed that the new generation were less spiritual and not family oriented. They praised me for staying with my parents and being involved with the church. The old man mentioned more than one time that their dog loved me, and his wife agreed. Around 10 o'clock, the wife started yawning. They stood up to leave and tried to take the dog, but he refused. I told them I would keep him until tomorrow. They went to sleep, and I stayed with the dog. I opened my Bible and read the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew. After an hour, the old man came back. I thought he would take the dog, but he came behind me and put his right hand around my neck, patted it and then moved it slowly to my back. I turned my face and looked at him disgustedly. His smiley face had turned to a shamed face, before he went back to his wife without saying any word.  

I changed my religion from Christianity to Islam and then to Buddhism. I went to the Sufi dance to practice the circle dance. Maybe I could find my spirit in the middle of that circle.   

Freud described men with the Madonna–whore complex as “where they love, they have no desire and where they desire, they cannot love", because they see women as either saintly Madonna or debased prostitutes. How masculinist was Freud to think it is just a men's complex, not a humans' complex? As a pharmacy student, I could not have a relationship with a drug dealer anymore, but I was still interested in kinky lifestyles. 

I lived with the Madonna–whore complex until I met my ideal man. He was kinky in his personal life but decent and straight in his professional life. He was my professor. He taught us “Applied Skills Lab: Pharmacotherapy”. It was his first-time teaching and my last year at the university. After his first lecture, I had written my phone number on a piece of paper and went to his office to ask him to explain something he said in his lecture.  It took him twenty minutes to answer my stupid question. His face was very serious and he used his hands passionately to explain his point, while I was just shaking my head as "I understood now, so please stop." I was worried he would start another lecture. When he finally finished, he asked me: “Does it make sense now?”

“Oh yes, thank you. How do you like Kansas City?” I asked him, but he scowled and moved his pupils left, like he did not understand my question or did not expect, and then he took his head back. 

“I am still discovering it.” He said it, stretching out the words as he was thinking about them.  

I put the piece of paper with my phone number on his desk, and said: “You can contact me if you would like to have a guide in KC!”

“Oh, thank you!” He said while he was looking at me and shaking his head as he finally understood, but he was too cautious to call or text me until I finished that semester, and he was sure he would not teach me the following semester. 

I loved him and his love warmed my cold body. I left my daughter with my family and lived with him. I was very happy when I cleaned his house, did his laundry and cooked for him. My spirit came back to visit me, but it was just a very fast visit. He was interested in rope bondage. Almost every night, we tried a new rope play until I got pregnant. I was so happy, and I thought he would be happy too, but he blamed me for deciding to have a baby without taking his opinion first. Also, he accused me of planning this pregnancy to keep him. He was very firm when he said: “Me or this baby!”

I had the first abortion in my life to keep him, but he was bored of me already. He told me that he couldn't trust me anymore. 

I tried to take it easy and keep my emotions away. I thought I would be able to control them, but I could not. I felt very weak. I thought I was stronger than that, but I guess there is no one stronger than love. I thought I was more rational than emotional, but I guess love is like a flood that breaks all the dams of our thoughts. I hated this weakness even though I considered my time with him to be the best time in my life and I have never regretted it. Actually, if I have the choice to have it again, I will choose it. I just tried to get over this weakness. I never thought I needed counseling like this time. I tried to chase him and blackmail him emotionally, but that alienated him more. I did not know how to get over my emotions or go forward in my life and focus on my school and work. I did not know how to be normal with my family and colleagues. I felt numbness. Nothing could excite me or have a taste for me. I had trouble drawing breath. I could not resist my tears. I thought I would not be able to have another relationship after him. I was confused.  Should I take revenge on all men I met after him, even those who loved me? Or should I feel pity for them because I could not love them? I still see him in every man I meet, but every other man disgusts me. Sometimes, I wonder: Did I really love him? Or I just imagined that because he is the only one who chose to leave me before I would leave him?  

However, I discovered that your spirit comes when you are in love. As for all the men after my ideal man, I didn't love them but I loved their love for me. I tried to love them, but it seems that love is not a choice. I tried to love men... different men ... especially foreigners. What can a man from the Midwest add to me? Every foreign man is a door of a new world... different culture, language, religion, food, thought and lifestyle. Plus, they do not have a community to expose me when we break up. I have a different Facebook account for every relationship. I am not sure if I am trying to find my spirit or to escape from myself.

No, I am not interested in serial sexuality. No woman wants to start over with a new guy, telling secrets, giving her body away, falling all over again. It’s too much. I was sincerely searching for love. Maybe love is just an ideal so it can never be found, and that is why I got disappointed again and again. This disappointment propels me from a man to another man. I thought I could fake it until I made it, but you cannot fake forever. You will lose yourself. I thought I went beyond my ideal man when I date other men, but not every man is replaceable. There is a man, if you lost him, you would never find one like him. You will spend the rest of your life collecting his image from thousands of men, but you will not be able to collect it to compensate for his absence. He was invoked every time I went to bed with another man. Also, my body no longer enjoys sex without sadistic practices, as if I am raped again.  

I succeeded in my school and then built a great career, but this achievement did not bring my spirit back. I just became full outside but empty inside. I bought a big house… three floors, five bedrooms and four bathrooms, for me with my daughter and cat. The night when I got raped was the last night I drank, and even I do not miss any alcohol, but I miss marijuana. If they do not test drugs for my career, I will smoke it again. It helped me a lot to relax. 

I tried very hard to love, and then realized that I cannot connect with anyone when I am not connected to myself. I had a different man in every season. A man for the winter and another man for the spring, and … etc. Sometimes, I fell into the clutches of crooked men. One of them claimed to be a businessman and swindled me for five thousand dollars. Another one lived with me for three months while he was married. Asking a man to leave is not as easy as getting him. At the beginning of every relationship, I feel excited, and I can see the man's emotions. He seems perfect and I try to be different. In the end, I cannot imagine continuing my whole life with this man. I feel disgusted when he touches me and choked in the prison of this relationship. At this point, I can see his morals, because the perfection mask has fallen off his face. When his mask falls, I feel a combination of disappointment, enjoyment and victory. I love a man as if I will never leave him, and I leave him as if I never loved him. Even I cannot imagine he is still alive. I do not know if I am an unstable, possessed, cursed, or it is just my hormones. I see my problem, but I cannot change, exactly like the Greek epics’ heroes who knew their destinies from the beginning, but they never tried to change their ways. Rather they walked to their destinies in tragic endings; because they believed that they bow to the mysterious power of fate. The example of Sisyphus scares me, because I roll the boulder of a relationship up the hill only for it to roll down every time it nears the top, repeating this action for eternity.

Most of these fast relationships ended with abortion. I thought maybe if I had a baby with a man, it would change the sexual relationship into a spiritual relationship, but it got worse. In the beginning of every pregnancy, I get very excited. I shop for the baby's clothes, and I even buy the diapers. Couple of months later, I feel bored. It is my body, and no one can control it. It takes me time, exercise and vegan diet to build a healthy body for me, not a desirable body for men. Yes, I used to care about being desirable when I was in my twenties when I had my surgeries. However, I do not bring men to my bed now to enjoy my body. Rather, to decide whether I give them life or take it from them. 

After every abortion, I hate myself. I cannot stop thinking of how I murdered my own child ... something living inside me. I see myself as a hypocrite. I hit my head on the bathroom walls, and I wish I were brave enough to kill myself. I wish I could curl up in a ball and hide in my closet forever. However, this pain is not deep. It takes just a few days before I start a new relationship. Honestly, my remorse is like an oil drop over the boredom page. 

My cat jumped on my lap and meowed softly. I looked at her eyes. I felt like she was trying to tell me “Calm down! It is ok. Quit thinking too much. Stop hurting yourself. Do not whip yourself by thinking about your past. You cannot change it”. I took her up to my chest between my arms. I hugged her and patted her head and back slowly to thank her for her empathy. How unfair it is to describe men as animals! Only with animals, you find unconditional love. I wanted to tell her: “Do not worry! I already disbelieved in personal love. I think when people talk about the power of love, they mean the unlimited love for everything, not the love between a man and a woman.” 

I took her and I went upstairs to my bedroom. I laid down on the bed. My cellphone was on the nightstand. I held it and texted my ex-husband: “I am sorry! I will not be able to pick up Laura today. Please, let her sleep at your house tonight, and I will pick her up in the morning.” I returned the cell phone to the nightstand and opened the drawer. I took out the sleeping pills and the sex toy. I put the sex toy beside me on the bed and I took two of the sleeping pills 

I cannot sleep without my sleeping pills. I feel pain when I look back and worry when I look forward. So, I decided to escape from past and future and try to enjoy my current moment. Isn't it nice to have amnesia and to be reborn again every morning?

I returned the bottle to the drawer and closed it. I looked at the sex toy which was on the bed beside me. Nothing calms my stressed body except it. Only with it, I get the moment of deification, dissolution, incandescence, combustion, and liberation from consciousness, scramble and any burden. At this moment, the history ends, earthly paradise is fulfilled now and here, and I lose all my dimensions and return to the embrace of nature, like a child found his family finally after he was lost in a big city.

Before I used my sex toy, I had thought about my journey to look for my spirit. It started when someone looked at me as a sex toy, and I ended it with my sex toy. 

Ayman Refaat