Daughter of Tides

Estelle seemed like a decent person when I first swiped right, but that was before she slid three Cosmopolitans across her tobacco tongue, prompting a flood of manic ramblings about obscure indie bands that she’ll “totally make me a playlist of”. I don’t have the guts to tell her that as much of a listener I tend to be in conversation, I’m not very big on music.

Her dating profile is chock-full of sweaty rave selfies and abrasive half-nudes, both of which would traditionally turn me off, but her written biography includes an existential quote from Fight Club, which gave me the impression that she might have at least some emotional depth. The photo selection on my profile is limited to a years-old, half-redeemable picture previously of my mother and me until I cropped her out, as well as my deadpan passport photo, which I hardly feel confident in, but at least it shows my face clearly enough to prepare potential partners for what they might get into.

Estelle is scrawling something indiscernible on a cocktail napkin with a pen she boasts she stole from Staples— a self-proclaimed “kleptomaniac”. That term keeps coming up through slurred giggles alongside drooping smokey eyes and it’s hitting me that she thinks I might find that kind of thing sexy. The shrill tone of her contraband scribbling comes to a sudden halt.

“I’m like completely boring you, aren’t I?”

I look up from where I was finger-tracing cup-ring stains on the wooden bar to view Estelle’s anticipatory expression. The rainbow string lights overhead toast my vision and the cozy aesthetic almost sways me into feeling sensual, but not quite. I shake my head no, of course you’re not boring, but in reality, I’m far too sober to appreciate her ranking of Radiohead’s entire discography— B-sides and demos included.

“W...w-what are you d...d-d...” I stutter, then immediately regret once I remember D’s are the hardest for me. I want to suck the botched sentence back in and swallow the mass of humiliation now obstructing my speech, but I do what I can to perform a mental Heimlich and gag out the last pathetic word: “...D-doing? What are you d-doing with that napkin?”

Although my eyes squeeze shut with the strain of the attempt, I can still assume that Estelle is giving me that expected face somewhere between discomfort, unease, and obligatory pity, which is a trademark indicator that it’s downhill from here. 

“Uh...” Estelle starts with an awkward let's-change-the-topic chuckle, which instantly sinks my ego. “It’s one of those fortune teller thingies! I learned how to make one as a kid... they were the best way to spark middle-school gossip.”

I study the four-pointed piece of origami that Estelle has folded up from her napkin as she operates it swiftly between her fingers, hiding and revealing various “numbers”, which seem a lot more like chicken scratch to me.

“Alright, here we go. Tell me a number. Oh, wait...” Estelle’s heavily done-up face reddens even further and her giddiness temporarily falters. “I mean, you don’t have to say it if that’s hard for you. You can just... point to one.”

I sigh in a routine sense of defeat. I knew I should have kept my mouth shut and let her drone on about why Marlboro Reds are superior to American Spirits. I point to the “3” on one side of the fortune teller, which guides Estelle to open and close the contraption thrice. She asks me to pick again from the newly visible set of digits, and I settle on a “7”. 

“Okay, let’s see...” Estelle squeals as she unfolds the fortune teller to reveal a message hidden beneath my selected number. “Oh my god...” she says with widened eyes and a hand cupping her mouth.

I cock my head as a nonverbal and…?. I’m finding that body language is especially coming in handy here.

“It says...” Estelle whispers in an ominous tone, “you’re gonna drown!” She projects her hands in the shape of claws and leans in close with yellow teeth bared.

She then breaks into a fit of inappropriately-timed laughter, which allows me to detect each individual substance on her breath in excruciating detail. Her chortles crescendo, her sequined ass slips drunkenly from the bar stool, and the moment she is out of sight on the filthy floor, I take my opportunity to head for the bathroom.

From date after failed date, I have my escape route down pat: hurry past the bartender who shoots me dirty looks, take a left at plastered couple with their tongues down each other’s throats, enter the dreaded Men’s Room that stinks like losers, step on the urinal for elevation while avoiding the piss and shit, slip through the broken window just big enough to accommodate my lanky form, and make a run for it.

I slink from my bedroom into the bathroom of my parents’ home with as little ruckus as possible; the hallway is creaky, I’ve learned by now, but nearly 30 years of sneaking around has taught me precisely where I can and cannot step.

The dark curly hairs just beneath my belly button are plastered to my skin and the sticky residue between my fingers keeps me acutely aware that my carnal instincts couldn’t be tamed. Likely, Estelle would have felt more pleasurable than my right hand alone, but her perpetual chatter would have taken me out of the delusion that sex can be something special.

I peel crusted plaid pajama pants from my body and employ the one brief glance into the mirror that I allot myself per day. The first thing I catch is the impenetrable coat of hair that crawls from my ankles up my thighs like a parade of fat-legged spiders. My hips are square and jagged, which contrasts the billowy nature of my stomach, and my jaw is a stretch of land accented with scarlet hills of razor bumps. Thankfully, the bathwater has warmed up enough that I have an excuse to turn my attention to more optimistic things, such as cleaning the semen off of myself.

Slipping into the tub is always a smooth, porcelain embrace. The water smells like musky skin, and the steam causes it to disperse throughout the tiny room. I inhale the intimacy so deeply, I think it might enter my bloodstream. As I shut my eyes and let my body sink further into the liquid caress, I begin to feel adequate.

During my days, there is a constant sensation of pressure from my ribs housing my lungs, and it presents itself in a lump that lodges itself in my esophagus. Now fully submerged beneath the bath’s gentle ripples, I feel that lump unwind like a ball of twine, leaving through my open mouth in the form of rising bubbles. The strain on my vocal cords is instantly alleviated by the slick, warm water that gushes into my airways. I take a few deep breaths like this, just as they told me to in therapy, and pass the liquid in and out of me.

When I sit up from my resting position, the bathroom has mutated into a fish tank of sorts, brimming from floor to ceiling with bathwater. Old framed photographs of myself as a naive, grinning child lose their sharpness as fluid seeps behind the panes and douses the aging paper. Shreds of toilet paper linger nearby, falling leisurely as a life-size snow globe.

I swing my legs out the side of the tub and have to shield my eyes from the glistening mosaic of rose gold, turquoise, and lavender scales that wrap around a newfound mermaid tail. I run my hand along it; it’s wonderfully textured and also rather slimy, but I don’t associate this stickiness with shame.

I approach the mirror, which is rare when I am dry and unassuming, but frequent on the nights that I transform. As per usual, my appearance leaves me breathless: the greasy onyx hair that once fell messily over my eyes has grown several luscious feet in length, and its shade has lightened to a warm peachy tone. It perfectly frames my face, which harbors softer features, garnished with an application of gracefully simple makeup. I don’t need the facade of cakey foundation in the way that Estelle does— in this solo haven, there’s no reason to hide.

A school of small iridescent fish shimmy past my face and tickle my nose and ears with gentle kisses. I catch one in my hands and cradle its innocence with my satin set of hands, which feature an exquisite, lustrous manicure.

Then, amidst the marvel, the house starts to quake, and my aquatic wonderland shivers right along with it. Water whips itself around me, sending my coral hair to and fro until it gets caught in the glossiness of my lips and I am forced to taste its brackish oils.

I hear her voice – seasoned with 62 long and miserable years – yell up the stairs, “Harvey! Harvey, is that you?”

In my self-loving awe, my overbearing mother’s existence fully slipped my mind.

The weight of her arrival creaks the wood’s weakening mildew. It rattles rhythmically like a foreboding kick drum and sends my fish friends to hurry into the medicine cabinet, tucking themselves somewhere between Prozac and Lamotrigine.

I hear her booming footsteps getting closer, causing the swishing water to intensify to a high tide that rips a “Live, Laugh, Love” plaque right off the puke-colored wall. Medicinal lotions lose their caps in the commotion, and chunks of whiteness threaten to taint me with their ooze.

“Give me a minute!” I scream out in a smoother delivery than usual. However, my plea gets caught in a large oscillating bubble, which the whirlpool permeates without a sound. My yells emerge as languid currents and the familiar pressure wraps its way back around my chest tenfold.

My mother reaches the top of the staircase and begins pounding on the door with two wrinkled fists, calling out, “Harvey! What the hell is taking so long in there?”

The impact of her knocking instigates cracks in the damp and softened door, which expand at an exponential rate. She refuses to let up, and I wouldn’t be surprised if her fragile skin is bruising indigo like a peach from last season.

Water cascades into the hallway through the door’s deepening crevices and the room’s water level rapidly declines, unveiling irreparable damage to our vintage wallpaper. As the draining tank threatens to expose my newly beautiful head to the air, I rummage through drawers and cabinets to find any sort of potential blockade. In my scramble, to an orchestral cacophony of my mother’s screeching, I realize what I must do.

With my short seashell fingernails, I begin tugging at the rubbery top layer of my beloved tail and cry out in agony from the slicing of the flesh. This is necessary, I tell myself. This is self-preservation.

“You don’t sound right, Harvey! What’s going on?!” My mother belts out in the style of nails on a chalkboard.

I begin desperately applying gluey wads of scales to the holes in the door. The barricade seems to help a bit, but not enough to prevent the height of the liquid from falling beneath my chin. As I repeatedly tear and paste – leaving soggy, torn gashes that expose fishbone – I take one more look in the mirror and acknowledge that my previously silky cheeks have returned to their acne-ridden selves, and ingrown facial hair nearly bursts from their irritated follicles.

Was the air always this thick and dry? Did inhaling always scrape my throat and stop before it fully filled my lungs?

The room’s water level dwindles past the lower half of my body, and as I peer down, I find that my legs have returned to their formerly rough, bristly texture, this time accented with scrapes and scoops that leave blood beneath my bitten-down fingernails, as well as staining the butchered remains of the door. It is harder to breathe than it ever has been, so I opt to hold my breath until the water can loosen my double-knot of a throat again.

I hold it patiently and I hold it for her: the mystical creature that lives inside of me.