Tooth and Nail

by Linda D. Dahl

  We got our drinks and made small talk until the appetizers came. Once the waiter set down the calamari, all talk of me stopped. We were on to the main event.

  He told me he had worked as a matchmaker for four years for one of the promoters. He was the one who arranged the bouts, sizing up the boxers to match their records evenly. That was why he knew all the fighters so well. He was appointed chairman of the commission by the governor almost three years prior and had already made ballsy calls, like suspending a very famous fighter. “He couldn’t defend himself in his last fight. I wasn’t gonna let him get hurt, not like that,” he said, through swallows of bread. “I’m cleaning up the commission. They used to have seventeen fights a year, and now we have over thirty. And no one’s gotten hurt.”

  He continued, telling me how he was a cabbie, then a traveling salesman. At one point, he had enrolled in but never finished law school. He even tried his hand as a ring announcer. “I know everything there is to know about boxing. I want to bring the glory back to New York.” He spoke slowly and carefully, eagerly asking, “What?” every time I mumbled an affirmation. His hearing was a lot worse than he would admit. And it was most obvious in this quiet restaurant, as he struggled to read my lips.

  “But all sports, they are like theater. A fight, when you see it live, is like a play. What happens in that ring only happens once. Maybe that’s why I write plays. I’ve written lots of them. I’m a dramatist. I see the drama in things,” he said, placing a finger on his chin.

  “The play I’m staging now is called Huckleberry’s Garden. It’s about a fireman who lets his captain burn in a fire. He’s haunted by the death, and the other guys in his company want revenge.” Without warning, his face contorted into a different character than the one he was playing for me. He looked off into the distance and broke into dialogue.

  ‘Huckleberry, you let ’im die! He coulda lived.

  I didn’t, I didn’t know. I tried ta go back...

  What kinda man does that?

  The place was goin’ down! It was him or me...’

  He went on like that for a full three minutes.

  “And then there’s a rookie firefighter, Debbie Mansfield, who’s so sexually aggressive she can’t control herself. You know women like that.” I didn’t know any women like that. “She goes after one of the guys, and he has to fight her off.”

  His voice rose an octave.

  ‘I want you now, right now. I don’t care who hears.’

  Then back to his deeper voice.

  ‘I’m a married man. Stop clawing at me, you wretch.’

  He continued, speaking the words in a Brooklyn dialect more exaggerated than his own. The dialogue was so stereotypical, and the subject matter so unbelievable, I could hardly bear to listen. I wished my brain could stop hearing his words.

  “What did you think? It’s great, isn’t it?”

  “Oh, yeah. Amazing. You are so, um, multifaceted,” I lied. By his enthusiasm, it was clear that no one had told him what they really thought of his work. I wasn’t going to be the first.

  Our meals came, and he filled himself with another glass of wine and kept talking. “I grew up in Florida until I came back to Brooklyn as a teenager. David Dunkelberger, that’s my real name. I changed it when I went into broadcasting. They already had a David Davidson, and I couldn’t use Dunkelberger. No way.” He shook his head at the audacity of such an ethnically placeable name. “So I created my own.” He smiled at his creativity.

  Somehow the conversation turned the corner into the dark alley of his childhood. He paused midsentence, suddenly overtaken with emotion. The tears came.

  The subject matter had segued into something much too heavy for spaghetti Bolognese. I tried to steer the subject elsewhere, but he returned to his family. I could tell he was no longer aware of me, too trapped in his pain.

  He kept talking. There was a girlfriend, who was also a witch. She cast spells to make him stay with her. She also gave him inspirations for his plays.

  “I was married once, but we didn’t have children,” he said. “She was a good woman; it just didn’t work out,” he said, now four Merlots deep. “Trust me, I’ve had a lot of girlfriends. I have no trouble with women. But eventually, I lose interest. I’m very picky.” He stopped. After nearly two hours of stories and talking and emoting, I prayed that we had finally come to the finale. And we had. Just not the kind I was hoping for. “I knew, the minute I laid eyes on you, that you could be The One.”

  How had I not seen that coming? I thought I was just being polite, lending an ear, doing what I did when my patients needed to let it all out. We were colleagues, and it wasn’t like I could have stopped him with all the waterworks and vomiting up of family secrets. I desperately wished I could go back to Before. To unhear his confessions and unknow his stories.

  But unlike the other men, I couldn’t just shut him down and walk away. I wanted to be a fight doctor, and he made all the assignments. It was as simple as that. Threatening this relationship meant threatening what I wanted, even though I was starting to question why I wanted it anymore. I let him down gently, but all the wine I’d drunk wasn’t doing me any favors.

  “David, that’s very sweet. I’m so flattered. But...” I grasped at the first thing that came to mind. “We work together. I wouldn’t want the other doctors to think you are giving me fight assignments because we are going out.” I added important words like incite and undermine and integrity. Official-sounding words to create distance and formality.

  “Let them get jealous. We don’t have to worry about what other people think,” he said. His heart was still melty. It wasn’t working.

  “Well, what if something went wrong? What if you broke my heart?” I suddenly burst out, remembering how catastrophe happened in romance novels. But my pleading fell on deaf ears. Literally. And only bolstered his already overblown ego.

  “Tell you what: let’s just keep an open mind and see how it goes.” He smiled at me through moist eyes and beckoned the waiter for the check.

  In the cab ride home, I berated myself for going down the rabbit hole—again. What was it with me? Was I some sort of homing beacon for broken babies? Or maybe I was so submissive I brought out the worst in men. I also brought out the worst men. I was sick of reacting to what they wanted instead of getting what I wanted. I wanted all these men to go to hell and burn in a deep, dark dungeon for their selfishness. I had passed all the same tests, learned the same material and worked just as hard as they had, but it didn’t matter. In the end, it was always about them. And all they cared about was getting into my pants.

  10

  One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. I had tried to show different parts of myself: the butch, the nerd, the nurturer, the doctor, the Midwesterner. But it didn’t matter. I must have been repeating the same patterns because the end result was always the same. No matter what role I tried to play, I was always on the defensive side of my sexuality.

  For me, sexuality was a double-edged sword. Too much, and I worried I’d be seen as a slut. Too little, and I might be considered a prude. But I was not a binary being. I had many sides, with dips and curves and U-turns. So many, they often seemed contradictory.

  When I was thirteen, my family visited the Middle East for the last time. My father did a sabbatical in Saudi Arabia and took us along for the ride, “to remind you of your real culture,” and to show us what hell we’d skirted by being born in the United States. Even though we had heard rumors about the way women were treated “over there,” he told us not to worry. He promised that once we got to the town where he would be teaching, he would immediately get us tickets to Syria to see our relatives. He would handle the Middle Eastern culture, since we didn’t know how. He would protect us.

  As we made our way across the country, strange things happened. The
planes got smaller and smaller, the men exchanged pants for long white dresses and the women disappeared, only to be replaced by ghostly figures covered in black from head to toe. By the time we had reached our final destination, a small town outside of Jeddah, I was scared. Even as a newly pubescent teen, I felt the men leering as they quickly shuttled us to an empty dormitory. We would stay in that dorm in near captivity for the next four weeks, while my father secured our exit visas.

  It was hard not to feel tricked. Of course he had known we wouldn’t be allowed outside without him. He was Muslim and had grown up in this suffocating, punishing culture. Yet, he left us every day at first light, anyway, and returned late into the night or not at all. It was no surprise we went stir-crazy. With no television and only an empty game room and courtyard to keep us occupied, we whiled away the time dancing to prerecorded tapes of Culture Club and Michael Jackson. We also wrote monotonous tales of woe in our prison diaries.

  Today we did nothing.

  Today I fought with my sister.

  Today I slept for as many hours as my eyes would stay shut.

  My father ignored us and our pleas for freedom until two weeks in, when I forced his hand. I’d decided that, if he wouldn’t set us free, I would do it myself. The only way a thirteen-year-old girl in a Muslim country could: I would starve myself to death.

  Staring at my bony frame, the first and only time anyone called me skinny, I was proud of what my will could do. I knew there was an end date for how long my body could feast on itself in my hunger strike. He couldn’t enslave us forever.

  When we were finally allowed to walk outside, we floated six feet behind him, ironically liberated by our very own burkas. We were introduced to other women, Syrians, whose husbands worked with my father. They explained that men could not control their desire for women, so we had to completely cover ourselves. Even if we still saw ourselves as children, if we bled between our legs, we were marriageable and, therefore, potential victims. Not even our eyes could show through. If they did, religious zealots would chase us down and beat us with sticks and rocks, which I got to witness firsthand when I accidentally lifted my veil to look at fabrics one evening at a market.

  But repression is only one side of a two-sided coin. The other side, the one hidden beneath the flowing garments, was infinitely more confusing. Once indoors, Arabic women removed their dark cloaks to reveal an exaggerated kind of sexuality. Skirt hems were raised to the fullest part of the thigh. Faces were accentuated with dramatic makeup. Bodies were draped in thick ropes of twenty-two-karat gold. Shoes were strappy heels adorned with jewels. One extreme begat another. I was terrified by both.

  * * *

  I was pondering my dilemma with the Chairman and men in general at work one day, when the answer came to me. On its own, and in the form of a woman. She was in her early forties, pretty in an ordinary way, with dark red hair and hazel eyes. Legs crossed in exercise tights, she sat in my exam chair, gesturing with her firm, but not unreasonably toned, arms as she spoke.

  “I just keep getting these sinus infections. One every other month. I take really good care of myself, so it doesn’t make sense.” She looked directly at me when she spoke, one eyebrow raised quizzically, like she was analyzing me.

  “How often do you get infections? Do you take antibiotics each time?” I asked about timing, severity, other treatments, what worked, what failed.

  Nothing in her medical history seemed to explain her taxed immune system. She was probably around sick people frequently. The worst culprits were small children and the bugs they spread to each other in social gatherings, like playgroups and day care.

  “Do you have any kids? Or are you around them, like at work?”

  She let out a deep, throaty laugh and shook her head slowly. “Oh God, no. But sometimes my clients act like children. I won’t let them come in if they’re sick.”

  I was intrigued by her response. Clients could mean anything. She could be a personal shopper or photographer. By the way she held herself, back arched, shoulders back, my best guess was a Pilates instructor. I glanced at her intake paperwork. Under employer, it simply said self.

  “What kind of work do you do?” I asked, mostly out of curiosity.

  “I’m kind of a therapist,” she said, smiling.

  “Really? Like a psychologist?” I could see that. She had an authoritative air about her. And she leaned in at the waist when she answered my questions. Therapists did that.

  “Not exactly, although there is quite a bit of psychology involved. For the right person, my work is very therapeutic.” She smiled a wicked smile. “I’m a Dom,” she said, wrapping her lips around the m.

  I almost choked. “Wait, Dom as in dominatrix? Are those even real?” Not only had I never met anyone in her, uh, industry, I hadn’t even realized it was an actual thing outside of porn flicks and the internet. I immediately pictured her beating some guy with a whip and tying up his balls. I couldn’t help it. Isn’t that what Doms did? I had so many questions I could barely connect them into logical strings of words. If I spoke, it would have sounded something like: How do you find the men are they all men what do you do and how much do they pay you do you hurt them and how did you learn how and is it fun? Instead, I just stared at her with my mouth open.

  “I can’t really talk about it. You understand. Much like what you do—client/Dom privilege.” She sat back and crossed her arms in front of her, resolute in her discretion.

  “Wait, you can’t drop a bomb like that and say you can’t talk about it. What’s it like?” I knew she held something vital. Something I needed. I had to get it out of her, but she was a tough one.

  “It’s part of the code. I really can’t give you details. There are contracts and rules we must abide by. But what I can tell you is this. It’s not about sex. It’s about power. I am sexual, yes, and I dress provocatively so I can do my job. That’s why it works. When men are attracted, you can gain control over them. Only a woman can be a Dom.”

  “I had never thought about it that way,” I said. “I thought it was about pleasing men. Giving them what they want.”

  “Not at all. My clients’ only desire is to please me. They agree to submit to me, so I am in total control.” She tilted her head to one side. “I think you already understand what I mean.”

  I did understand. She was describing exactly what I was looking for—what I was missing in myself. But I needed to know how she did it. I needed lessons. “Is there a school or something, where you learn how to be that way?”

  She stared at me for a moment, not laughing at my ridiculous question. “I’m sure there are classes, but they are for beginners. You don’t need that. You already have it in you. You’re a surgeon, right? Your patients already submit to you every time they lie on the operating table or sit in this exam chair. Then you cut them and hurt them, and they pay you. You’re already a Dom. You just need to acknowledge her so she can come out.”

  I had never thought of it that way. I wasn’t a Dom: I was a healer. It took so much abnegation to do this job, I often felt submissive to everyone else’s needs. But she had an interesting perspective. If I really wanted to have control over men, I needed to embrace the one part of me I had been trying to avoid the most. I had to own my sexuality like it was a real part of me.

  I examined and diagnosed her, then sent her on her way with some recommendations. It turned out she had recently moved into a new dungeon that had a mold problem. The spores had infested her whips and cloth handcuffs. They would need to be dry cleaned to stop making her sick. And I strongly suggested air purifiers.

  When we finished the appointment, she thanked me and imparted one last piece of advice. “You need a costume. And a pair of very high, very black boots.”

  * * *

  I looked at myself in the mirror. Although I was never happy with what I saw, I didn’t exactly hate it anymore. My hair was lo
ng, well past my shoulders, but you wouldn’t know it. I usually wore it tied into a ponytail or clipped into a homely bun. I resisted a more modern cut because it would require maintenance with things I’d left behind in high school, like hair dryers and mousse. My makeup was also minimal. I limited it to streaks of eyeliner and mascara to enhance the only hair on my body that wasn’t thick and long. Although my skin was ruddy and dotted with the occasional bit of acne, I left it naked. Foundation only made it worse, as it did the circles under my eyes that had never quite resolved once the sleepless nights of residency ended.

  Although I agreed that the surgeon in me gave me some Dom qualities, I didn’t look the part. My patient was right. I needed a costume. The Chairman had said that live fights were like plays. If I saw myself as part of a theatrical experience, I could cast myself in the role of the Dom. The ring could be my stage.

  * * *

  Since I didn’t know where to shop for edgier clothes, I walked up and down a few streets near my office to browse. One window display caught my eye. It showcased mannequins laden with plastic jewels and drapey fabric. None of the outfits suited my typical style, but at least they looked stretchy. I decided to give it a try.

  “Can I help you?” the sales girl asked, with a pleasant but perplexed look. She was tall and buxom and scarcely older than nineteen. Cheap, capacious jewelry dangled from her ears and neck, clinking against each other like wind chimes. Her lips were traced with liner that was two shades darker than her skin tone and filled in with translucent, shimmery gloss. When I was her age, I was still wearing jeans with real holes in the knees and pumps from Payless.

  Since I looked so out of place, I thought about lying that I was looking for something for my niece. But my niece was only twelve. I fought back humiliation and confessed. “I need a suit. A black suit that’s fitted, but I also have to be able to move around in it.”