Permanence Read Free

from my guilt. The destruction of my guilt is what I expect to receive from doctor. The destruction of my guilt is why I need to be with doctor.
    My stomach constricts, twists itself in knots.
    We could not save the now nameless papers that belonged to my file. But I am still me.
    “The files,” says doctor, “can be replaced.”
    Perhaps doctor can reshape my past. He can fill out new papers. He can transcribe his notes from memory. But can he erase the memory of baby? Can he eliminate the memory of my husband, Jamie? Can he write a new life for me? A new past? A new life is all I want, safe from the memory of baby and Jamie.
    The past is permanent.
    I am holding doctor to my body, tightly. I do this with passion. Doctor’s familiar gray suit and underwear are neatly folded and resting against a black captain’s chair with the name of doctor’s college printed upon the backrest in gold lettering. PROVIDENCE COLLEGE is barely discernible against the black background, the letters nearly worn away with age and use. My miniskirt is pulled up over my hips. My underwear is tangled around my ankles. My bra is pulled up over my breasts, loose around my neck.
    This is the way doctor likes it when we touch. I know this is the way doctor wants it to happen. He is my saving grace. I trust doctor. I have no choice but to believe in him. I need him.
    The cool air in doctor’s office surrounds my bare breasts. My nipples rise and stiffen, become tender. The cold is neither a good nor a bad feeling. It is feeling, pure and simple. It is awareness and sensation.
    “Listen to the rain,” insists doctor, from where he is kneeling on the floor, his hands poised against the leather patient’s couch, his face hidden entirely between my thighs.
    “Isn’t the rain romantic?” he asks, raising his face so that I might see it and so that he might see me. I know this: he wants me to feel good. And I do.
    “Concentrate,” he says. His voice is not like doctor’s normal voice at all.
    This is a voice I can feel inside of me, with the motion of doctor’s mouth and tongue.
    I feel that I cannot possibly spread my legs any farther. I can feel the slow, patient motion of doctor’s mouth—the fluttering, moist, lapping motion of his tongue.
    I concentrate while I tightly grip two small throw pillows, one in each hand, my fingernails digging into the fabric. I try to forget that doctor is the person performing this operation. I close my eyes, lay my head back against the couch, arch my back, and release a breath.
    I think about Jamie.
    I see Jamie’s face in imagination.
    I want to remember it—the thick lips, the short brow, the thick black hair cut well above the ears, the day-old beard. And then it happens between my legs, below my belly, into my thighs. I close my legs but my legs will not close completely with doctor’s head between them. I feel my body tremble—convulse—until the intensity stops. I try to push doctor away. I can’t take the feeling anymore. But he only moves his face farther into me. I breathe exaggerated breaths.
    I open my eyes and stare up at the hospital-white ceiling.
    “I am listening to the rain,” I tell doctor. But this is a lie. What I do not tell doctor is that I listen to nothing. Though I hear him, I do not listen to doctor speak. Though I feel him, I pretend that what I feel does not come from doctor. I close my eyes so that I do not have to see him. Not like this.
    We do not talk about love.
    We talk about healing.
    What I want is for doctor to touch me the way I remember being touched by Jamie. I want doctor to touch me the way Jamie used to touch me before baby was born; the way Jamie would sometimes touch me after baby was born; the way Jamie refused to touch me once we lost baby.
    I am dead tired.
    Doctor rises to his knees and brings his moist, bearded face to mine. I feel the sharp stubble of his beard, smell my smell against his lips and face.
    I do not forget about my baby.
    Here’s