Coagulant

"I just want you to understand one thing before you sit down." she whispered, "If you were a guy this conversation would never be taking place. I would have complained about you, and you would be gone. And since you are a fellow woman I don't get the impression that you view me as some sort of easy prey. But still you followed me without saying a word, and that's just a little out of my ordinary. So if you want me to answer stupid questions like why a blind person would go to a movie, I suggest that you find a seat somewhere else."

Glory apologized. The blind woman sat. Glory felt a small twinge of shame, but not enough to move on to another seat. Ten minutes later the film had lost its appeal to the majority of the audience, and most had already left. Glory whispered an apology. From there the conversation graduated pleasantly, and for the most part genuinely, until the blind woman apologized for her own rudeness. That was when Glory knew she could ask Nina to join her for coffee. After coffee she knew she could meet Nina for dinner. After dinner Glory knew how fond she was of Nina, and knew for certain, without her actually saying it, that Nina would be open to the affections of a fellow woman.

Glory learned that Nina was capable of many things. She was born and raised in a small suburb in Ohio, from which she left at the age of twenty. She was bored there, constricted, and as soon as she obtained her special education degree through Ohio State Nina fled to New York. Depending on how much free time was available to her Nina liked to spend it riding horse-back, hiking through the upstate woodlands, scuba-diving off the Jersey shore, or just listening to new-age folk while she cleaned her apartment. To support herself Nina worked for the New York state board of education, teaching disabled children of all five boroughs. She also worked as in mobility rehabilitation, teaching those who have gradually become blind to cook and clean for themselves, to counsel them, to show them how to use braille. The work paid well enough. But at the end of each month-after all the usual bills, after paying the fees necessary to indulge in her more expensive activities-Nina has very little left to save.

What Nina knew of Glory was that she loved the ocean, she enjoyed boating, she was a diehard fan of the Marx brothers, she also liked to hike up state, and that she was working her way to a Masters in psychology. Glory told Nina her focus of study was human sexuality and its frequent state of disorder. To Glory that, for the most part was the truth. She was a student of disorders after all. That lie, as well as the rest were truth enough for the blind woman. The pathology of the liar can be very entertaining, depending on how frightening the liar's reality could be to people. The complexity of Glory's lies depended on how much television she watched, what kind, and how well she could twist it into whatever fact or fiction some long time clients disclosed to her. How ever long the lies lasted, however their severity, Nina was positively enthralled. It was what Glory wanted, even if she never expected it.

By their fourth date, while sharing dinner in Nina's apartment, they professed their increasing affection for each other. After dinner the couple spent most of the night showering each other with timid kisses. Nina told Glory she had not been with a partner for over two years, and had long been tested. She said she would test again if Glory wanted her to. Glory told Nina her last sexual contact was five months earlier, and wanted to wait before compromising Nina. Nina asked what could be done in the mean time. Glory quietly undressed her. Nina undressed Glory. For the rest of that night they caressed one another until Glory's fingers found Nina's clitoris, and Nina's fingers found Glory's. It was decided that morning that Nina would join her lover at the Cape. It was that following morning that Glory decided that it would be then that Nina would be told the absolute truth.

"Why didn't you tell me the truth in the first place!?!" shouted Nina, feeling her way from the queen-sized bed to the small table by the window.

"Oh sure, imagine that!" said Glory, huddled like a large child between the pillows, "Hi Nina, welcome to our first date. I'd just like to begin with a quaint little tale about how my actual profession entails that I organize and participate in various sexual activities involving usually two or more people, a chamber of torture, whips, chains, creams, jellies, pins, needles, teeth, leather, nipple clamps, a whole dungeon full of the usual implements of degradation and displeasure. Oh what's that? You suddenly realize you have another appointment? You have to go? Well go figure!"

"Oh you just think it's so God damn funny, Glory!!!"

"No Nina, I don't. That's...that's just my way of dealing with things."

"Normal people get therapy!"

"Please lower your voice Nina. And what the hell do I need therapy for?"

"What do you need therapy for!?! Oh my God! You willingly take money to physically include yourself in... I can't even think of what-"

"What are you doing Nina? Where are you going? What about your cane?"

"I know what I'm doing! Get away from me. Just get away. If you follow me, if you touch me I will scream. You horrible...filthy-"

Nina slammed the door to room 2C. Glory stood there for a long time. She would not cry, she didn't blame Nina for hating her, for being disgusted. Eventually she strode to the window that faced the sea. Nina sat in the surf, motionless, dejected, her head cradled in her hands. It was dusk, the sun leaving a last dull violet on the horizon. Glory went quietly to the beach before the sky turned too dark. Nina was crying profusely, her face red and swollen. She appeared as if convulsing agony. Glory went to her, and whispered her name. Nina screamed ferociously, and flung herself at Glory. The blind woman was in a rage, her fists pounding, her finger nails slashing across Glory's face and body.

"Is this what you get paid to do, you fucking pig, you despicable filth!?!" shouted Nina, "Come on you fucking Amazon! Does this get you off, God damn you."

Glory rolled herself up in defense. She suddenly began to weep. Nina stopped and listened. Glory's cries became whimpers, pathetic woeful whimpers. Nina sat beside her. She shook her head, covered her ears, pushed and pulled between love and revulsion.

"Why?" ,cried Nina, trying to make sense of what she could never imagine, "I just wanted to start loving you. Why do you have to be that. Why couldn't you be who you...are."

Nina fell to the sand, and rolled herself up into a ball beside the whimpering Glory.

"It's not your fault, that you are what you are…is it?" Nina muttered to herself as the dusk turned to night.

It was ten that evening when Glory awoke to find herself alone, the tide just short of her. She bolted to room 2C, and saw that Nina had changed clothes, taken her purse, and left. Glory was sure that Nina hadn't gone too far. She washed her face, and changed her clothes. Glory drove into P Town, parked, then investigated every bar, every night club from the pier to the edge of town, and back again. At around mid-night, Glory found her in one of the night clubs that served a mainly lesbian clientele. The place was full of women that looked like women, and women that didn't. She walked through the smoke, past every watchful eye, and saw Nina dancing, stumbling, and laughing with a woman who resembled Bet Midlir to an astonishing degree. She helped Nina to the bar as the song came to its close. Midlir ordered two beers. Glory came between them. Bet took one look at her, and stepped away. Nina sniffed the air beside her, and her laughter dimmed slightly. Suddenly she chuckled.

"Lookin' for love in all the wrong places," Nina sang dully, her words slurred, "Lookin' for love in two many faces. Searchin' your eyes, lookin' for traces of what I been...dreamin' of. Dora, meet Glory. Glory, meet Dora. Dora's my drinkin' pal, ain'cha Dora?" "She left."

"Who left?"

"Dora."

"Why that chicken shit. Did she leave her beer?"

"Yes, Nina, she left her beer."

"Oh good. That's one more for me...unless you want it."

"I don't want the beer. Nina can we go ho-"

"Glory...is there a monster under your skin, lurking around, waiting to strike?"

"Nina, let's go home and talk abou-"

"I mean what if one day you shoved a screwdriver up my-"

"Forget it Nina. You can stay here. I'm leaving."

Glory turned toward the door. Nina shouted after her. She took her cane, and cried, flinging it wildly back and forth. Sad women, laughing women jumped from their seats. Glory turned to see Nina crash into chairs, then drop to the floor. She ran to her, and took Nina into her arms.

"Would you kill me because I loved you?" cried Nina into Glory's chest.

Glory lowered her head to Nina's. She kissed gently across her warm moist brow. Glory smiled, not completely sure as to why. It was not the smirk she often wore when tension faced her, she knew that. Perhaps it was madness, or contentment, or possibly an emotional cyclone of the two. And she wondered if that was what love, real love, was supposed to feel like. She had no point of reference, no precedent. Nina had become quiet, her eye lids, her lips hung loose, pitifully abject. The blind woman felt every stare in the room. Glory was also aware of it, and proceeded to lift Nina to her feet. Glory pulled Nina's cane from between two overturned chairs, and tenderly folded her lover's fingers about its grip. Glory moved to help Nina through the tables, but Nina made it politely declined. Presently the couple left the bar, quietly and outwardly unabashed. The street was substantially dark, sparsely illuminated by the neon signs of night clubs and the safety lighting of myriad tourist shops closed for the night. On each corner stood groups of gay and lesbian couples. Some dressed in the clothing usual to summer, some dressed in chains in leather, some dressed in drag. Some playfully harassed and objectified any visibly heterosexual tourist that happened to walk by. Some smiled from the chiding, others took offense. Glory and Nina walked slowly through the parade, each waiting for the other to say something, both unaware of the whirlwind of thoughts and fears spiraling through one another's mind.

"I remember when I was a little girl." began Nina, her tone smooth, sad, and dreamy, "There was a lady in my neighborhood, this lady named Ruth. I remember how she always used to come to me whenever she saw me sitting on our front stoop, alone and crying. I'd sit there and wait for the kids across the street to come and get me, so that I could play with them. I knew they were there. I could hear them, I could always hear them. But they'd never come for me. And so I would just sit there and cry and cry."

Glory watched Nina eagerly as she used the cane to guide her along the curb. When one curb ended Nina crossed the side-streets in a straight line, without once veering, to exactly where the next block began. The night people were two blocks behind, the pier was three streets ahead.

"And Ruthy, she'd come and sit with me." Nina went on, "She made the best cookies. Always brought a plate-full with her. She'd offer some and I wouldn't take them at first. Ruthie would start eating, and between bites she'd talk about things. She mostly talked about her garden, how she loved to grow things, how she loved to save seeds to grow the same things next summer. She said I should grow a garden, have something I could take care of. Because something I could take care o. Sometimes I'd ask her to explain, and she would, but I still wouldn't understand. After a while I'd start eating the cookies, oblivious to everything but Ruth and her stories. She had this favorite one. I knew it was her favorite because she used to tell it all the time, only with different characters in different places."

"Nina, turn right." instructed Glory as quickly as possible, hating to interrupt, "I parked my car on the pier."

"Yeah, sure. Anyway, most of the stories were about these little bug characters. There was Sally spider. She was my favorite. Sally was like the nicest spider of them all, and she was the prettiest. One day, while lookin for a good place to build her web, she came across this old man's farm. The farmer, he was throwing away these rocks and pebbles out of this little piece of land where he was going to plant string beans. Sally was just crawling by when all of a sudden she got hit with one of those pebbles, right on her back. She was stunned for a while, but she eventually made it to a little juniper bush. Sally thought she was fine, until she saw that she couldn't make any webbing. Now web or no web, Sally had to find a way to get food, because as nice as she was no one was going to just hand it over. So she thought and she thought. And soon enough she figured out a way to use tree sap, blades of grass, and some old apple skin to build a trap. And it worked, and she caught just as many flies as all the other spiders."

Nina smiled, enjoying her memory. She stopped, took a huge breathe of air, released it, and continued toward the pier. Glory sighed, her eyes cast toward her feet.

"Glory, despite how drunk I may seem." said Nina, "I was able to think pretty clearly about why I'm so fucked up over this, why I'm still here. I needed to know if I want you because you're the first person in three years to even speak to me outside of my job, outside of the mundane question an mad answer sessions I have out on the street with an occasional non-disabled ignoramus who pretends to care. I needed to know if I want you because of who you are, and the energy you send, and the affection you inspire...the way it hurts when I try to see you in my mind and I can't. And maybe because I can't see you, I think about you more, and I want you more. And then you tell me a truth, some obscure and ugly truth about yourself, and...and I hurt even more because you're not just a body, a somebody. And so here I am, and I still want you, I want to love you. And then I think that for the past five years...you've been doing what you do. Now I don't know about your line of work, but mine is a huge part of me. It's what I do well, its how I help, its what I want to wake up every morning to do."

The couple had passed the parking lot, past the pier, toward the beach. Glory walked as blindly as Nina then, even more so. Her eyes blind to the dark, her mind reaching for clarity and not yet feeling. The tumultuous crash of waves grew louder, as their feet reached sand. Glory had stepped ahead.

"Glory!" called Nina, "Glory, where are you? Glory?"

"I'm right here Nina."

Nina drew closer to her voice. The breezes off the bay blew salt spray upon their faces. Glory looked toward the sea, toward the sound of the sea.

"No more secrets?" asked Nina.

"No more," answered Glory, "I promise."

"What is it that makes you do what you do?"

Glory did not answer for a very long time. No one ever asked. No one ever cared. Clients always asked Ms. Jane, but Ms. Jane always told them she was born that way, and that was all. Slowly she turned to Nina.

"After I say this to you," said Glory, "Please don't ever bring it up again. I was my father's...object for twelve years. He loved me so much, he had to watch everything I did, from every drink of water I took, to every drop I pissed. He hade me sleep with him for so long I thought it was normal. By grade school I figured out he was just a crazy scum bag."

"What happened to your mother?"

"He told me she died when I was born. I don't know. I never found any photos, any family trees. We never visited anyone. Anyway, the week I told him the truth about himself was the week he started to tie me down and rape me. And for that week, and the week after that, he left me there. He'd bandage my mouth shut when he wasn't trying to feed me. He made me use a bed pan. I shit in the bed one night, and he beat me for it. By the end of that second week he didn't realize that all his raping and beating had loosened the bindings. And so I took off. I had big plans about walking across the country. But what I ended up doing was staying in New York, living on the street, sucking Johns off for ten bucks a shot. Then I turned eighteen, and started dancing in strip clubs. My stage name was Ms. Jane, it still is. I used to play around with this whip, had it in my act. I finally had enough for my own apartment. Then I had enough to start renting my own private little house in White Plains. Because I always paid him in cash he was kind enough to mind his own business. And so I had to keep up with those payments to the landlord, and then I bought my own car, and all that other shit you're entitled to add to your life as an American citizen. I became Ms. Jane the dominatrix... full time. Full time...so that I could perpetuate my independence."

Nina and Glory stood there, their faces toward the bay. Glory stared at the light house's beacon. Nina knew what she would ask next, but waited. Suddenly Nina began to cry for the third time that night.

"Do you think you could ever really love me?" she asked.

"I don't know." answered Glory, a single tear trailing from her left eye, the breezes blowing it toward her mouth.

"Are you willing to retire Ms. Jane?"

"I've been wanting to retire her for years."

"Then you can love me Glory, you can love me."

They watched the black night together. Slowly Nina reached her hand to the person she loved. Glory took it, held it tightly, and cried more violently than she had ever before. After a few moments Nina dropped her cane, wrapped her arms around Glory, and rested her head between her breasts. She took great breaths of the salt air, Glory's clean cotton shirt, the fragrant skin beneath it. Nina closed her sightless eyes, and tried to imagine. But it only led her to memory, remembered textures, caresses, smells, the perfume of skin, feeling. The shock wave of goose bumps traveled through her, and settled in the pit of her stomach, and disappeared into the soul of her. Glory's tepid tears dripped from her chin to her lover's face. Nina felt each droplet cross the bridge of her nose, her cheeks. She felt the wind push them, animating them. She smiled brilliantly, and whispered. The blood of love runs warm, and I will be you, and you will be me.

For the twelve days that followed Glory experienced a kind of emotional gestation. Without knowing it Nina had taught her lover about the curative nature of joy. During those twelve days the couple basked in the felicitous simplicity of being. What little they spoke, they spoke out of necessity. Nina had become as the water, and Glory had become as the pebbles and uncountable grains of sand beneath her. And yet there were no physical sensations shared between them, nothing more intense than the intermingling of fingers or the sweet exchange of children kisses. And Glory became aware of her rebirth, her cleansing, when she found that those modest embraces were the most profound she had ever experienced. She was frightened at first, overwhelmed with the sheer tranquility of it all. But as it goes with birth there is no return once the womb is breached, once the flood is let loose.

Nina implored Glory to never return to her dungeon. She tried to convince her lover to avoid it entirely, no gathering of belongings, no returning of phone calls, no tieing of loose ends. And Glory would have made a total and complete disconnection, if it was possible. But it was not. Despite Glory's emotional liberation-despite Nina's abhorrence for her lover's past- business was still business, and had to be attended to accordingly. During the four hour trip back to Manhattan Glory explained what was involved. Glory told her about Joan, and other long-time clients, what they expected of her, what she expected of them. She described how most paid up front, and some maintained running tabs. Those of whom did not pay on an agreed monthly basis were very few. But for those who felt they could pay when and if they wanted would never get away with it. When she started the business Glory knew enough to install a video recorder in the wall opposite the play room stage. Every client has been recorded. Some end their relationship with Ms. Jane, and get to take their videos home. Others had to pay a sizable insurance for their films.