swallow

excerpt from sexing the cherry by jeanette winterson

escape from what? the present? yes, from this foreground that blinds me to whatever may be happening in the distance. if i have a spirit, a soul, any name will do, then it won't be single, it will be multiple. its dimension will not be one of confinement but one of space. it may inhabit numerous changing decaying bodies in the future and in the past.
i can't know this. i am only looking for a theory to fit the facts. that's what scientists do, though you may feel i am too far-fetched.
perhaps i am.
poisoned or not, the mercury has made me think like this. drop it and it shivers in clones of itself all over the floor, but you can scoop it up again and there won't be any seams or shatter marks. it's one life or countless lives depending on what you want.
what do i want?
when i'm dreaming i want a home and a lover and some children, but it won't work. who'd want to live with a monster? i may not look like a monster any more but i couldn't hide it for long. i'd break out, splitting my dress, throwing the dishes at the milkman if he leered at me and said, 'hello, darling.' the truth is i've lost patience with this hypocritical stinking world. i can't take it any more. i can't flatter, lie, cajole or even smile very much. what is there to smile about?
'you don't try,' my mother said. 'it's not so bad.'
it is so bad.
'you're pretty,' said my father, 'any man would want to marry you.'
not if he pulled back my eyelids, not if he peeped into my ears, not if he looked down my throat with a torch, not if he listened to my heartbeat with a stethoscope. he'd run out of the room holding his head. he'd see her, the other one, lurking inside. she fits, even though she's so big.
i had sex with a man once: in out in out. a soundtrack of grunts and a big sigh at the end.
he said, 'did you come?'
of course i didn't come, haven't you read master's and johnson?
and then he fell asleep and his breathing was in out in out.
later i said, 'i'd like to swallow you.'
'adventurous, eh?' he said.
whole, i meant, every single bit, straight down the throat like an oyster, your feet last, your feet waving in my mouth like a diver's flippers. jonah and the whale.
i don't hate men, i just wish they'd try harder. they all want to be heroes and all we want is for them to stay at home and help with the housework and the kids. that's not the kind of heroism they enjoy.