The Better of Two Evils

We were three months into this quasi-relationship of fucking and dating, the onset of affection setting in months before. He was sweet, loving, austere, and far too gentle. It unnerved me when he stared at me, an undeniable ache in those pretty blue eyes. This was a frequent occurrence early in our relationship. He looked right through me, studying the blood’s path from my weak veins to my cheeks. My hair stood on end when he was near, and I retaliated like a prey animal, darting out of fondness’ way. But with time, I soon got over that. Mid-morning had emerged as it did, and I greeted a partner in my bed. I had thought about his long sinewy form making its dent in my shit Argos mattress, interacting with my smaller, stouter frame. Would it stay as long as he did, or had he made his irreversible imprint on my plush casket? Smiling sleepily, we crawled towards each other, tossing the duvet onto my crumb-ridden floor with odd socks and a pair of striped boxers.

It was warm when we slotted into a fleshy puzzle. At first, we stalled like bad drivers, spluttering and apologising, appraising each other on performance as though we had an idea of what we were doing. But with time, we soon got over that. We fucked, falling into a steady rhythm.

He stops.

Uh oh. What’s wrong? I ask. Complications, he responded breathily, a worried line piercing his wide, pale forehead. Ultimately, a cockup -fantastic- with a condom meant that I was vulnerable to the reality of pregnancy.

He took me to breakfast, a cafe we visited frequently, but not so much any more. Earlier in the house, I grappled with the idea of a baby, the metaphysical creation of a life between this poor boy and me. Shaking it away, I realised it was better to get the coil instead. The better of two evils, I resigned.

At this point, I remembered something only spoken in passing between my housemates. Carmen had been on the pill and shewas ‘absolutely fine’ apart from all the things that weren’t, whilst Claire righteously insisted that the best birth control was the implant, her nose pointing to the ceiling. I touched the metal imprint; they stuck out like an etched tin sheet on her wiry arm. Like a clotted vein. I agreed with them both, considering their options the better of the bigger evil: a child in your mid-twenties.

Where was I meant to leave a child when I went out to be a person? Would I crush it like a hamster, accidentally sit on it, grow insane, despising its gurgles, and pitch it like a rag doll against the wall? I pushed these thoughts aside.

Hand in his bigger and sweatier hand, we entered the building. It was on the other side of the flowering park that I had taken him to on our first date. The sterile waiting room was plastered with posters of sex-positivity and the compassion of strangers. It was circular, a post-modernist temple to the mistakes of pleasure- and I strutted happily into it. This will be fine, I convinced myself. This was a growing curve in the endless summer of awkward teenagehood that should've ended four years ago, and I naively believed this would be an adventure to assuage my fear.

The boy, instead of holding my hand, stroked it mindfully, eyes on my knees. My name rang out in the empty room, and the double doors opened to reveal a small woman about my mother's age. Immediately I bounced up, keen to ascend the mystic ladder of vaginal promotion/development/ improvement/advancement/evolution/final form. The doctor's room was plain, lined with the same generic posters of sexual health seen in the reception; the acrid stench of antiseptic and rubber gloves seemingly seeped from the walls.The doctor herself stank of it like bleach was stuffed into the padding of her soft flesh. She offered me a seat. I sat. It was soft and inviting despite the stirrups, made to pull me wide apart, warmth hitting the cold air. Half naked and only slightly afraid,

I wasn’t ready for how cold it was, the speculum. Unyielding, frozen metal struck me open. I was caught. Trapped and bound by metal stirrups, I widened and stretched like a fowl ready for roasting. All the while, she spoke methodically, gloves up to her age-weathered elbows, instructing me to breathe, breathe, breathe. It won’t take too long now. She slid herself in. Pain. Sickening agony stitched its lining into every second. Without a stick to bite on, I grabbed onto her leg, my nails feeling soft old flesh. The flesh curled under my fingers, and I became a mother to a metal cross lodged deep in the heel of my womb. I laughed, feeling the wetness of my eyes stain my cheeks; my vision glassy, drowning in amniotic. Screams were snatched from my throat, some guttural aching howl. Only a little longer, she crooned.

I wished nothing more than to fall face-first into her chest and sleep.

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Head in his hands, he cradled himself and, upon my arrival, stared at me in despair. He looked up like a child yanked from swings, dazed from his brief flight.

‘Let’s get going,’ I tugged on his arm.

Agape, he stared at my chirpy form, incessantly asking if I was okay. I assured him that I obviously was and that it would take more than an old woman throwing a spanner around in my uterus to put me off. I grinned at him as we walked back.

Twenty metres away, I collapsed in the park, grabbing onto a tree. I curled the bark under my fingers, embedding itself into my skin. My stomach looked no different than this morning, but it churned maliciously. My intestines were snakes in famine, gnawing like beasts, blistering my innards. It felt like a baby’s hand had grown within seconds, pulsing, clutching at the fleshy putty of my womb. It twisted my muscles in scorn.

Nothing was audible, but a piercing note was almost too high to hear.