Troika

by Adam Pelzman

  I close my eyes and imagine him now. He takes a small towel from the rack and wipes his face, clears off the remaining dollops of shaving cream. He moves closer to the mirror. He examines his face. He wonders what it is about this face, with its odd angles and the crooked nose and the scar across his right cheekbone—a busy face—that has such a powerful effect on people. He shrugs his shoulders.

  I feel a movement in my midsection, the suppository softening my stool, causing my bowels to contract, expand, contract—and forcing the feces downward through my rectum and then outward, toward the light. My body expelling excrement is one of the few sensual pleasures that remain. I don’t get the full experience, though. There’s no feeling of climax when the shit squeezes through those final inches and leaves my body. But there is movement within the intestines that I do experience and, when it is finally expelled, a feeling of lightness and detoxification that I enjoy.

  I know that the process is complete only when the smell becomes detectable. My diapers could be filled with five pounds of shit, but if by some miracle it were odorless I would have no idea that I’d soiled myself. No idea. It is only the smell that alerts me.

  I call for Norma by pressing a button on the side of the bed. Norma knocks before entering, a gracious, subtle adherence to etiquette that in some odd way helps preserve my dignity.

  “Come in, Norma.”

  “How you feeling, Mum? Ready for a wash?”

  I nod affirmatively as Norma rolls the rubberized mattress next to the bed. The mattress is part of a customized, all-purpose bathing unit that has stainless steel channels and protective rails running around all four sides, hot and cold water dials, a shower nozzle, a small rack for soap, shampoo, sponges and scented lotions.

  Norma drops the side rail closest to the bed. “Come here, Mum.” She places her hands under my arms and slides me, top half first, over onto the bathing cart. Slipping one arm under my hips and the other under my knees, as if I am some tragic, beached mermaid, she guides my lower half on to the cart so that I am now perfectly aligned. “You okay?”

  “All good,” I say. Norma removes my diaper, taking a quick peek before disposing it in a sealed container by the bed. “How much?”

  “Tons, Mum. No need to worry when you with Mr. Pravdin. There can’t be a speck left in you.”

  Norma lights a long wooden match and touches the wicks of the six Cire Trudon candles that fill the room—and have since I first returned home from the hospital. The candles, citric and woody, hide the smells that my body emits. And as if we are in some Eastern temple, the candles have the effect of ritualizing this cleansing. She turns the dials, hot and cold, and tests the water first with her hands, and then—because my lower half has no pain receptors—she checks again with a thermometer. Satisfied, she removes a sterile sponge from a package, soaks it in water and then squirts on some antibacterial soap.

  Norma starts with my feet. I look down to see her cradle my left leg, holding my heel in her meaty palm. She tenderly spreads my toes, glides the sponge between them; then, up over my ankle, my calf, under my knee, my upper leg. She repeats the same procedure on my right leg.

  Once Norma is finished with my legs, she soaks the sponge, squeezes it out, soaks it again, then applies more soap. She rolls me onto my side so that I am facing her. She lifts my left leg, which, given its dead weight, requires considerable effort on her part. She guides the soapy sponge between my buttocks, cleans out the remaining feces. Several times, she cleans the sponge with water and applies soap. She returns to my buttocks, the area between, until she is satisfied with the results. And then, with the quick flick of her foot on the bin pedal, she disposes of the sponge.

  Norma removes a new sponge from the rack, douses it and applies not the antibacterial soap but a mild soap designed for babies. She moves to my vagina—that sacred space that once offered me both a narcotic escape and the promise of children, but that now offers only a sickening reminder of my fallowness, a dry crusty hole.

  She works her way inside, cleaning me, careful not to abrade the tissue within. When she has finished, she again discards the sponge and moves on to a new one.

  “The worst is over, Mum.”

  “For you or for me?” I ask.

  “There’s no worst for me. It’s God’s work, a privilege. I should be paying you.”

  “That can be arranged.”

  Norma laughs and returns me to a supine position. She runs the sponge over my lower belly, along that narrow band where the sensation begins. She cleans out my belly button, moving upward—and I brace for what comes next.

  The best way I can describe the change in my sensitivity since the accident is as follows. Let’s say that when I was healthy, I had one million sensory receptors on my entire body: from my scalp to the soles of my feet. Now, that’s not the real number, it’s just for illustration. After the accident, what happened is that the, say, half-million receptors that had been allocated to the region below my waist—my feet, my legs, my hips and vagina—were not eliminated; rather, they seem to have been relocated upward, so that my upper body now has twice as much sensitivity as before.

  But it is not as if these half million additional receptors were spread out evenly over my upper half like some pointillist creating richer detail in a painting. Rather, while some of them are placed between existing receptors, thus reducing the distance between point A and point B, the vast majority have been placed on top of existing receptors, stacked like poker chips, amplifying the sense of touch. Some areas, like the belly button, are stacked two or three high, thus creating a heightened sensitivity that is only marginally more enjoyable than before. But there are some areas, why they were chosen I do not know, that seem to be stacked as high as the ceiling. The receptors on my breasts are ten high, a thousand percent increase over my prior self. My nipples, twenty high. And here’s the strangest of all. My ears—the lobes, the flesh just outside the canal, the ridge—a good thirty high. So high that my ears have become sensualized, almost sexualized.

  For reasons that not even my doctor can fully explain (maybe psychological, maybe neurological, maybe a bit of both), my ears have developed a sensitivity to touch, but not hearing, so extreme that I am convinced my nerve endings are raw, exposed to the air, dangling and thrashing like the translucent tentacles of a jellyfish. They pick up everything, my ears, every contact—a wayward strand of hair, the otherwise indiscernible texture on a fine cotton pillow, a drop of rain. The sensations are, unlike those generated in my breasts, not entirely pleasant. I am grateful for them, as any sensation for me is now a luxury, but sometimes it is too much to bear.

  I’ve read books about spinal cord injuries that talk of nonvaginal orgasms, nonclitoral orgasms—the stroking of the breast or some other part of the body causing something either identical to or remarkably similar to an orgasm. That has not been my experience. I get intense sensation, arousal even. I get those moments that used to lead up to orgasm: the slow, steady increase in pleasure, the anticipation of climax, the fear, sometimes a primal terror, that for any number of reasons climax will not be achieved. I get all of that, but I never get the climax. I get that sneezy flutter in my chest, in my brain, without the release, without the closure. I get a big tease that reminds me what I do not have—the nasty prom queen flashing a cruel wink after she steals my boyfriend.

  Norma lifts my breasts and slides the warm sponge underneath. As the sponge touches my flesh, there is a feeling of excitement, a tingling, soft and warm, first on the outer layers of my skin, then, as if it is burrowing, deep into the core of my breasts—then down into my chest, where it seems to coalesce and concentrate. The feeling is not quite sexual, but it is, rather, a pleasurable and welcome sensual experience, one that far exceeds the sensation I felt in my breasts prior to the accident. Here it is, I think, the brain remapping, rewiring, creating neurons and receptors where they once didn’t exist, or if they did
exist, were not so finely tuned. Norma now moves up to my neck, under my chin and carefully dabs the skin on my face, making sure that the soapy water does not enter my mouth, my nose, eyes, the canals of my ears.

  Norma moves to my hair. She fills a pot with water and pours it over my head, shielding my eyes with her hand. Into my scalp, she massages a lavender shampoo from France—for years, my favorite. I love the feeling of her strong fingers pressing into my scalp, stroking my hair, stimulating the points at which each shaft of hair enters my scalp. She finishes, and I ask her to keep going a little longer. Norma obliges.

  She then refills the pot and washes the shampoo from my hair. She lifts two towels off the electric warmer. She wraps one around my wet hair and drapes the other over my body, from my neck down to my shins. As if she is kneading bread, she pushes and folds the towel on my body and thus both lifts the water from my skin and accelerates the flow of blood.

  Once I’m dry, Norma removes from my dresser drawer the lingerie that Julian bought me last Christmas, and which I have not yet worn. It’s a beautiful, plum-colored ensemble from one of those old shops on Madison that sells sexy stuff even though it’s been around for fifty years: bra, panties and a baby-doll top. Norma lowers the rail on the shower bed and slides me back on to the mattress, propping me up so that my back is upright and pressed against the tufted headboard.

  She arranges my legs before me. From this angle, I have observed my legs many times over the years—and they have taken numerous forms. There was the time Julian and I traveled to the Cayman Islands, when he wheeled me out on to the beach and laid me out on a chaise, placed a straw hat on my head and a silk scarf over my legs. I recall waiting for Julian to fully immerse himself in the sea before pulling the scarf off my legs, revealing them to the blazing sun, watching them for a half hour as they turned from deathly gray to a salmon pink. At least there is some part of these legs, I thought, that still works.

  Before we put on the lingerie, though, there is the matter of lubrication that needs to be addressed. For despite my young age—thirty-eight—my vagina is as dry as an octogenarian’s. The paralysis has somehow impacted this part of my physiology as well. It is as if the body is telling me that I am not to even think about reproducing. And while there is almost nothing too intimate for Norma when it comes to matters of the body, matters of my body, this is where she and I both agree that the task is mine. Norma hands me a bottle of lubricant. She turns her back, pretending to arrange socks in the dresser drawer.

  As if I am resuscitating the engine of some rusted Model T, a tremendous amount of lubrication is required for me to have intercourse. I’ve got to slather the labia, inside and out, the clitoris, the first couple of inches of the vagina. But even that is not adequate to prevent tearing, so I squeeze several globs of lubricant into a plastic applicator—causing a mess in the process. I feel around for my vagina and insert the applicator. I push down deep, so that my entire canal is drenched in goo. And that’s still not the end of it, because Julian’s got to put it on his dick too.

  “Okay, Norma,” I call out. “I’m wet as a twenty-year-old.”

  Norma closes the drawer and turns around. “At least one of us is.”

  With a soft towel, Norma wipes the excess lubricant from my hands, my upper thighs. She lifts my right leg and guides my foot through one hole of the panties. When she gets it up to my knee, she does the same thing with the left foot and, when she reaches knee level on that side too, pulls the panties up to my waist. She takes a step back, and we both stare at the panties, at the contrast between the silk’s deep purple and my pale skin. I nod, and Norma lifts the bra with two hands, spreads it out so we both can see it. “Mum, this wouldn’t even hold one of my titties,” she says. “Maybe half a tittie.”

  I laugh as Norma reaches for my shoulder and pulls me forward, away from the headboard. “Arms up,” she says, and I comply with some difficulty. She drops the bra around my outstretched hands and then, after I lower my arms, she wraps her own around me—her huge breasts pressed up against my face—and fastens the bra in back.

  “Stay right there,” she says, reaching for the silk baby-doll top. She drapes it over my head and pulls it down over my shoulders, over my arms, down to my waist. She takes a step back to admire me. “Time for your hair,” she says, plugging the blow-dryer into the socket. For ten minutes, Norma works my hair like she is arranging flowers—with numerous permutations, angles, shadows. Finally, she settles on something feral, wanton and holds up a mirror for me to see.

  “Not even when I could walk,” I say, “did I ever wear my hair like that. You directing a porn video tonight?”

  The final part of the ritual is the perfume. Norma walks over to the dresser on which a dozen bottles sit on a sterling tray. “Which one do you want, Mum?” There are so many beautiful scents, and the bottles too are gorgeous.

  “Anything,” I say, “I like them all.” Norma hands me a bottle, frosted and smooth, that I have not touched in months. I examine the top to make sure that it is pointed in the right direction and shoot one test spray into the air. I inhale the bergamot, saffron, nutmeg. I spray twice between my breasts. The atomized perfume settles on my skin and triggers a surge in anticipation. Careful to avoid my ears, I spray once on my neck and then a quick wave that sends a fine spray over my upper thighs.

  After returning the bottle to the dresser, Norma lifts my left leg and crosses it over my right at the calf. She pulls down the baby-doll so that my cleavage is revealed, then pushes the shower bed into the corner and turns to leave. “Thank you, Norma,” I say.

  “An honor, Mum. Now you give that man a ride.”

  A minute or two passes and Julian knocks on the door. He, too, has embraced the formality of knocking before entering, but for different reasons than Norma. For Julian, his consideration is necessitated by an awareness of my self-consciousness, a diffident state that plagued me in my adolescence, caused me to cast my gaze to the floor, cover my body in baggy pants and thick sweaters, but that lifted soon after Julian broke my uncle’s nose, a brave and principled act that awakened in me a confidence in my body, my curves, the possibility that justice exists—only to return the moment I awoke in the hospital and learned that I could no longer walk.

  And even though Julian has seen everything when it comes to my physical degradation—the feces, the vomit, the urine, the necrotic skin, the bed sores—I just can’t bear for him to see me when my hair is a mess, my lipstick smeared, crust in the corner of my eye. Despite all that has happened, I still want to look like a lady for him.

  Julian enters, wearing nothing but his boxers. When he sees me dressed up in my beautiful lingerie, bathed in the soft light of the candles, he stops and smiles, shakes his head. “You’re a hot piece of ass, you know.”

  I loved Julian’s sweet vulgarity when we first began to date, and I’m grateful that he has not given up. “Still?” I ask.

  “Still.”

  He sits down on the bed next to me. He, too, admires me. And he does so sincerely and without a hint of pity or regret. He pushes a strand of hair off of my forehead. He lifts the baby-doll at the waist and places his hand on my left side, within that transitional band of flesh. He guides the shoulder straps down over my arms and tugs down until the fabric encircles my midsection. Julian leans over me and kisses me on the lips, and when he does so, his chest touches my breasts and an intense sensation ripples through them. I giggle, in part out of the discomfort of so much feeling, of so much good feeling, and in part out of shame. My nipples become hard, pushing back into him, bringing me great pleasure. It is a pleasure that, sadly, I know cannot be fully consummated.

  Julian kisses me deeply, presses his fingers against my jaw—careful not to touch the finely tuned flesh on my ears. With his left hand, he reaches around my back and deftly opens my bra clasp, and I enjoy the release that follows, the unpinching of the flesh under my arms, the dropping of
my breasts, the slight expansion of the rib cage. When you are as confined as I am, a few centimeters of freedom are pure heaven. Julian lifts my bra, gently kisses my nipples, rubs his chin over them. And there it is, the rapid firing of thousands of stacked receptors; the oil heats, crackles, elates me, terrifies me with its power.

  With my right hand, I reach down and tug at his boxers, rub my hand over his dick. I am relieved, flattered to see that Julian is still aroused, almost instantly, by my touch. He groans, pulls his boxers down over his thighs, and I hold him in my hand. I squeeze him tightly, too tightly, and he winces in pain. “Sorry,” I say. “It’s been a while.” There is something adolescent about our foreplay: the awkwardness, the speed, the clumsiness, the mutual concern.

  “You sure you want to do this?” he asks.

  “After all the work Norma and I had to do, you’re damn right I want to do this.”

  Julian nods and looks down to my legs. He stands by the side of the bed. His boxers fall to his ankles. He slips one foot out and, with the other foot, flicks the boxers across the wood floor. I admire his erection. Julian runs his fingers from my hip down to my upper leg. He reaches the knee, taps once, twice, three times, then along the ridge of my shin, to my ankle, which, as if to measure its circumference, he momentarily wraps his hand around and, finally, over my foot. I feel nothing. Absolutely nothing.

  Julian moves to my panties. He pinches the side straps and pulls them down over my hips. The panties get stuck under the dead weight of my ass, so Julian slides a hand underneath, lifts me an inch or two off the mattress, and frees the panties. From there, he removes them with ease.