A moment passes as Dr. Sandra considers this. “Have you ever looked into the asexuality spectrum?”
I nod. “Yeah. I thought about that. But I don’t think that’s me. I want to have sex.” That is maybe the understatement of the century. “And I know I could just get sex, in theory, but it’s more than that. I want a romantic connection. It’s like…it’s like I started out on the same spot as everyone else, but with every life experience they took another step further and further away from me, until suddenly I looked up and everyone around me was miles away. And I know I should catch up, but how?”
Silence. Then Dr. Sandra sighs. “Well. I guess you start by taking it one step at a time. No one’s expecting you to run a marathon on your first time out the door. But you aren’t going to get anywhere by standing still.”
Chapter 5
Helen
I’m doing my very best to stand as still as possible.
Arriving at work after my appointment with Dr. Sandra, I was dismayed to learn that the heater had gone haywire. The usual toasty wintertime warmth of the library has become a hot, sweltering stuffiness not nearly so agreeable to my wardrobe—my usual black leggings with one of my oversized knit sweaters that’s more of a dress than a top.
The easy solution would be to just remove the sweater, but there are a number of barriers to this plan. Namely, that I am only wearing a tank top underneath said sweater. For most people, wearing a tank top in public wouldn’t be anything all that remarkable, but I like the ambiguous bulkiness of my turtlenecks. In one of my sweaters, with no makeup, big glasses, and my hair tied up in a topknot, I can be invisible.
A tank top allows no such luxury. A tank top shows off arms and shoulders and a generous scoop of neckline when you have natural double Ds. A tank top fits to one’s form, suggesting the shape of the body underneath.
Paired with my leggings, a tank top practically begs the world to look at me and say,This is my body. These are its contours, ambiguity be damned. Behold, and be amazed!(Or something along those lines.)
So my alternative solution is to push up my sleeves, put up my hair into a stereotypical librarian bun, and try to stay very, very still in the hopes of preventing my body temperature from rising. I’m still sweating like a sinner in church, but right now it’s a sort of tolerably gross, damp state of being, and I don’t want to tip the scales into the territory ofintolerablydisgusting.
“Kimberly.” Erica—blithely wandering around in her own tank top, her skirt rolled up to the point where I half wonder why she even bothers wearing the thing anymore—drops down into her swivel chair with a dramatic flourish. “Take over restacking. I’ve been doing it for hours and it’s soooo hot.”
It’s been twenty minutes. I hesitate, not wanting to be a jerk and not contribute my share, but also realizing that taking over restacking will sabotage my genius plan of not moving. “Umm. Maybe we can wait until the heater’s fixed, or at least until tomorrow?”
Erica purses her lips, giving me a none-too-subtle once-over. “Look, I don’t want to bethat person, but youdidcome in late today because of your ‘therapy’”—this said with skeptical air quotes—“and you know how those books add up if we don’t get them back on the shelves in a timely manner.”
Funny how Erica doesn’t seem to care so much about the books piling up when it’sherturn to restack the shelves but she has to leave early for a date, or a concert, or “drinks with the girls,” or one of her mystery chiropractor appointments.
I motion down to my outfit, trying to appeal to her sense of pity. “It’s so hot.”
“I know. Maybe next time you should bring a change of clothes,” she says, as though I’m being completely unreasonable for not having anticipated that the heater was going to break out of the blue.
Come to think of it, Erica could have given me a warning, since she’d been at work for an hour and a half before I arrived. It would have been an easy detour to stop off at my apartment on the way over and grab an appropriate change of clothes. Gritting my teeth against this new realization, I do my best to shove my sleeves up even higher, then push the cart into the stacks.
I only make it two and a half aisles before I admit defeat. It’s just too hot to be wearing a woolly-mammoth sweater. Besides, the library is virtually dead due to the overenthusiastic heating, so only Erica and a few of the die-hard public computer users will see me—and most of the latter are so consumed in whatever it is they’re using their computers to do that they probably won’t even give me a second glance.
That settled, I remove my sweater, giving an audible gasp of pleasure as the offensively hot piece of clothing is discarded. The toasty air hits the bare, damp skin of my arms, my collarbone, my shoulders, and it is glorious.
Sure enough, I encounter no one in the stacks as I finish unloading the cart. I wheel back toward the front desk, anticipating my bottle of water and upcoming break, when I’ll be able to stand outside in the freezing air for fifteen spectacular minutes.
“Kimberlyyyyyy!”
The irritation and urgency in Erica’s voice makes me stop in my tracks, teeth clamping down in instinctive aggravation.Lord, give me strength.For one moment, I allow myself the luxury of hiding behind one of the stacks before—taking in a deep breath—I peek my head around the corner. “I’m here!”
No sooner do the words leave my mouth than I freeze, stunned to see the Red Unicorn standing at the counter, a flustered Erica standing opposite him. It’s unusual to have a second sighting so close in the same week, so I hadn’t even considered the possibility of running into him in my current tank-topped state.
The Red Unicorn’s own concession to the heat is that he’s unbuttoned the top few buttons of his shirt and rolled up his sleeves, revealing tantalizing glimpses of muscled, tattooed forearms and a broad chest faintly visible through the top of his white undershirt. The edges of a tattoo creep up over the rim of his collar.
Somehow, it feels even hotter all of a sudden.
Erica raises her voice, managing to sound both relieved and irritated at the same time. “There she is. I’m sure an error’s been made.” Her tone leaves very little room for interpretation as to who might have made this error. She gestures for me to come over.
You’re not my boss, I think irritably, not liking how Erica is trying to show off for the Red Unicorn and make it seem like I’m her underling. But I also can’t refuse to help a patron, no matter how annoying Erica is being.
I’m so flustered by Erica’s behavior that it takes me a moment to remember the tank top of it all. Right now I’m partially concealed behind one of the stacks, but I’ll have to walk across the room, right in front of the Red Unicorn, on full display.
You are ridiculous, I tell myself sternly.It’s just a tank top. But as I force myself to take one step forward, then another, I feel as though I might as well be completely nude, being sweater-less under the Red Unicorn’s gaze. I avoid his eyes, but it suddenly feels extremely difficult to do something as ordinary as walking across a room. What do I normally do with my hands when I walk? Why are they just pointlessly hanging there like that…?
