out of the closet
I think I had been clean a year....the time runs together for some periods of my life.
It's startling, really, because my recall for detail is immense generally. I am often nonplussed when I run headlong into these shady, bricked areas in my memory. It's foreign territory anymore; I stay out of those shadowy areas of my subconscious instead, stay on the neutral ground that my work demands, safely in the light of analytics and quantifiable assessment, of defined deliverables and flawless execution. It frightens me to go into my own unknown and so I stay away and the details fade further and further beyond my reach.
Maybe a year, maybe more. I had taken steps to move on with my life, re-enrolled in college with renewed drive and focus. The girl I had been when I started school was gone; there were no more 14th century gowns considered appropriate class apparel, the medieval bodices stayed in the back of my closet. I redesigned myself and relaunched, deviated, sensibly pursuing a degree in Economics, nothing creative.
I was tangled in J...how deep? For how long? I don't know. Time is relative anyway, a river that ebbs and flows, now faster, now slower. Certain moments in my memory expand to fill a year, while months disappear into a second.
I lived in a house with three other women. Mine was an attic bedroom; a slanty room that had been converted from storage space to bedroom, the knotty pine paneling painted white., a tiny bathroom behind louvered doors. A new beginning. I couldn't stand up straight in all places from the slope of the roof, but it suited me, my little retreat. The curious little shelves built into the wall were all lined with books, a battered wingback nestled in the corner beside a lamp. I like old things, I'm too anachronistic for modern life and so my antique maple desk, the wrought iron bedframe covered in a quilt I had made years ago, these fit right in. Who I was fit seamlessly into that small room at the top of the house.
I had a window that opened out over part of the house...when the summers would become unbearable in that attic I would crawl out the window and sit on the roof, encapsulated in my solitude. The bottoms of my feet would be black from the tarpaper, but I'd sit out there, Karl Jenkin's exquisite music floating out, and watch the stars.
I had a job, some irrelevant data entry, 2nd shift hours. I went classes from 7:30 to 2:30, work til 3-11. I took a ridiculous class load because I wanted to be done. Once I make up my mind about something, there is no stopping me and I will run myself into the ground to achieve a goal.
I had no social life. I'd divorced most of my old social circle for a variety of reasons. The few that remained I had little time for, and J's increasing jealousy meant I began to distance myself more and more anyway. I felt too old and battered to form any bonds at school; I was older than everyone else and I felt as if I didn't belong. I hadn't quite regained social abilities post-drugs anyway; I couldn't remember how you interact with strangers, how bonds are formed. I went to school, I went to work, I went home into my garret and wrote my papers, waited for the moments I would talk to J, 2000 miles away.
Those moments were precious to me, unbearably precious. We were at opposite ends of the country dutifully going to classes. I was alone; he was engaged to someone else. It killed me and yet the force of my want kept me shackled to him. He was the only one I had ever wanted and he was the only one I had been with on so many different levels. I was his utterly, completely, but he was not mine. It would never be balanced between us.
As closed as I am even in what I write here, as many secrets as I hide, it's an open door compared to then. I still regret that. Things would not have, could not have turned out differently that they did, but perhaps if I had been more transparent the damage would not have been so deep. Who can say?
Sometimes our conversations would degenerate into pure emotional abuse and I would completely shut down. He battered at my psyche until I would find myself curled tight in a corner of that bathroom, a razor in my hand, begging him to relent just a bit because I couldn't take this. I bartered respite for physical damage and Rob, this is why I am wracked with guilt when I read your writings. I didn't mean to be manipulative, I truly didn't. I just didn't know what else to do and so I would slash at my wrist again and again and again, curled tight on the white linoleum, just one more cut would be enough to prove....what? My devotion to my tormentor? He grew to recognize the almost imperceptible hitch when the corner of the blade first dug in, the drunken slur to my words when I would suddenly switch from sobbing and apologetic to placid and docile, confessing to every sin he accused me of, regardless of truth.
Red drops would pool on that white linoleum until I felt I had suffered enough to be temporarily absolved of whatever sin I had unknowingly committed. It was an exercise in futility; I knew that. I knew it would all come up again but I didn't care. J was all I had ever wanted.
My little garret sanctuary had a closet. It was...12 feet long? 4 feet deep? Because it was an attic, never intended to be a bedroom. Built into those knotty pine walls, knotty pine doors that latched shut. Deep in the back were nifty little shelves.
Why did I start this? I have no clue. Did I get the idea from my two dysfunctional female friends? Maybe that's it...that sounds right. Maybe it was Julie in her perpetual insanity that came up with it. She started sleeping in her closet; said she felt safe. One day, for whatever reason, I gave it a try. It's likely I had fought with J. It's likely I was tired. I was definitely lonely, no support system, but I know I wasn't drinking.
It was the best thing in the world. I started slow, ran an extension cord in under the door, hooked up a lamp. I started doing my homework in this cozy little bubble. Since the closet was long, my long legs had plenty of room. I took pillows, blankets, bottles of water. The shelves hidden at the back held all of my textbooks. I would shut myself in the insular womb of my closet, nestle in, and do my homework, write my papers. I didn't need any razors, and my phone didn't have a signal. My laptop kept me company and I felt safe.
One night I fell asleep watching a movie on my laptop, and liked my little sanctuary so much I started spending every night in there. I took my brightly colored quilt, appliques of who I once was in muted cotton in there with me. The lamp in the closet would generate heat and I would curl on my side under my quilt and read, the door tightly shut.
I told my therapist about it. She asked why the closet? And I said I can hide from the monsters tongue in cheek, but you know, there was some truth in that. (I can't sleep to this day with my bedroom door open, for fear of monsters. Irrational.*
It escalated. I began spending every waking moment in my closet. Every moment I was not at school or work, you would've found me in my closet. It was a construct I desperately needed. I told J about it, laughingly because that would disguise the truth, but he wasn't fooled. But what can you do so many miles away?
It kept escalating. I got to where leaving my closet would give me a panic attack; the onset of a learned agoraphobia. I tamped it down to go to classes, but upon returning I would dive for my closet in tears. I dropped out of some classes because the way they were scheduled kept me from my closet too long. Outside of the closet, I would burst into tears for no reason. Inside, I was safe and warm and alone.
J came to visit for the holidays. Of course I was elated. I went to him, threw myself into his arms, babbling about how much I'd missed him. He took my hand and pulled me to another room, then pushed my head down between his legs, guided my mouth onto his cock until my words were stifled, replaced with the wet sounding silence.
He stayed for...a week? I had my obligations; work, class. There was a fight, something inconsequential I'm sure. I remember the tears rising to my eyes as I drove with him next to me, biting my lip to hold them back. I remember scrabbling in my console for a razor blade, wrapping my long fingers around it tight, just a reminder, just to know that I could make it stop, digging the corner into the fleshy part of my thumb.
At my house, I threw my little blue trick into neutral, jammed on the brake and dashed for the calm of my closet, the blade still tangled in my hand. I remember hurtling up the stairs three at time (two is normal for me) and diving into the tangled next of quilt in my closet, pulling the door shut after me, barely in time before I started sobbing.
J was behind me, a few steps back after exchanging niceties with my roommate downstairs. But my long legs were faster and before he was up the narrow oak stairs I was already burrowed into the closet.
He followed me, curled around my supine form that lay crying in the the darkness. Gradually, he gently pried my fingers from around the razor and two twin points of blood rose to my palm. He stroked my short curls as I pressed my face into his thigh and wept; for nothing, for everything. babbling nonsense words. Eventually, my sobs lessened and he brushed stray strands of hair out of my eyes, murmuring soothingly at me.
He coaxed me out of the closet, shuddering with the aftermath of strong emotion. I slowly followed him, streaks of eyeliner down my cheek. He cupped my face in his hand and kissed away a tear, sitting next to me on my floor and despite everything, my breath quickened and I felt myself rouse to his fingers. He pushed me back onto the white carpet, pulling at my short grey skirt, fingers insistently tugging at black tights until just enough was free and he knelt between my legs, those black tights tangled at my ankles while my skirt bunched around my waist.
You're such a slut, you can't even be bothered to take your clothes off as I whimpered and dug my nails into his back, tearstains stiffening on my face. I was beginning to think there was no greater aphrodisiac than my tears as he pushed brutal thumbs into partially healed cuts on my thighs until I shrieked.
I never went back into that closet. I've never been back in a closet since then.