Grip and Pole
The pole is stationed in the middle of the living room. It’s the only space we have for it to go. The ceiling in the garage isn’t flat, and our bedroom, too tiny. So the pole is in the middle of the living room, not far from the parrot chandelier I impulsively bought online one night.
The pole is my Valentine’s day gift from Andrew. It is our first Valentine’s day engaged. I’ve wanted a pole for years and so when he asks if there is anything special I want for the occasion, I tell him. That sounds cool, he says in response to my request. Really? I ask, unconvinced. Yeah really. I think it would be good for you. And not so bad for me too.
I am in awe of the new addition after it is installed, all of the light in the room reflecting off its metal sheen. I can’t wait to learn how to maneuver on it and I spend three hours learning simple spins the first night it is up. I put on the pink 7-inch platform heels I bought in anticipation and circle around it, discovering how to control my footing. I am going to figure this out. I am 25 and tackling something new, for the first time in a while.
***
It is the summer before I start grad school and I am 22. I get a job at the adult store in my town, as it is one of five retail jobs I’ve applied to and the first to respond.
It is as good as retail jobs get, with a minimal amount of new stock, amicable coworkers and mostly uneventful work days. I spend most of my shifts flipping through the price-reduced copy of Fifty Shades of Grey, ultimately marked down to 99 cents. There are items stocked that I didn’t even know existed; robot-like dildos that become erect with the press of a button; silicone torsos with two flesh-like holes at the bottom; tiramisu and gelato flavored lubricants. I stroll around the shop thinking about things I might buy with my employee discount. I have my eye on the spinning dance pole with the hourglass silhouette of a woman on the box. It retails for 300, but with my discount it would be closer to 200.
I tell my boyfriend, Rob, that I am thinking about buying it. He doesn’t respond the way I expect him to, although I should know by now, almost a year into the relationship, that expectations are useless here. Why would you want that? He snaps, an aggressive interrogation. Because it would be cool to learn, I respond, in a way that sounds more like a question. A good workout too, I add, also a question. And then I’d get to do it for you, when you’re back. I think this might be a selling point, even though I’m aware I shouldn’t need one. In many ways, our relationship has prepared me for work in a retail environment. My body knows no comfortable response in his presence, so I am ready, always conscious of a possible need to rotate my angle, in regard to both customers and him. I know how to walk on leaves without disturbing them.
There isn’t an approach here that will persuade him of what does not require his approval, but that I will yearn for anyway, so I give it up.
Rob is in New Jersey for the summer and I am California, where we met a little more than a year before and where we have since dated on and off. This week we are on. The week before, he flew to the east coast for three months.
Out of all of the time we have spent together, last week was the first declaration of commitment to come from his mouth. I thought we were already dating before he put the name to it. If spending every night and most days together while being exclusively intimate isn’t dating, then what is?
I have dropped the pitch for the pole, but he hasn’t. I just don’t see a point in getting one, he says. I don’t know it in the moment, but this conversation will turn into a fight in the days to come. I am surprised that someone who took so long to claim me is so avidly opposed to this seemingly harmless choice I might make. The thought of me sharing this potential hobby with anyone else disgusts him. He is not afraid to tell me he wont want me if I take up the activity. I have never been convinced that he has ever been afraid to lose me, but I don’t object. I don’t buy the pole. I stare at it longingly during my shifts and wait for him to call me on my lunch breaks. I think maybe this inanimacy could love me in a way I currently don’t know love to be.
I don’t know it yet, but Rob is a week away from breaking up with me over text. It will not be the first time, and certainly not the last. I spend the rest of the summer restocking vibrators and crying in my bathtub, at least, until he returns in late August to reclaim what he discarded.
***
It’s my fifth day trying to conquer a back hook when I manage to pull a muscle near my groin. It has been almost a year since graduating with my master’s degree and I am wondering if I will ever be capable of learning anything again. I spend 15 minutes on the floor before trying to maneuver myself up from the hardwood to the couch. It is a horribly painful sensation and permanent, I’m certain. Maybe I’m not cut out for this, I acknowledge. Later, Andrew helps me in and out of the tub he’s filled with warm water and lavender Epsom salt. I take a muscle relaxer before bed and to both my relief and surprise, wake up feeling completely fine.
***
Rob and I spend every night together since he’s returned, but I know I am not his. Some nights are less sweet than others, but the others are saccharine bliss. On the best ones, I feel like the only woman this man has ever seen and the only one he will ever know. He brings me slices of key lime pie from my favorite local bakery and holds me as though I am a beloved heirloom. On those opposite, I can feel a mass of disdain growing in our shared space, spoiling our proximity. I notice these nights early on but I don’t voice concern. I am convinced he will come back around from the distance, even if it’s after a full week of avoiding eye contact with me while we eat dinner and forcing his palm over my face while we fuck.
I have never been in something so inconsistent, so undeniably torturous, and I think this is part of the reason I stay; I am convinced I have the power to transform these waves of violent indifference. I am convinced I have power at all. Maybe it’s because I have felt what it’s like for him to love me. On the days he does, I am on fire. Every natural thing about living is a gift; I don’t remember existence before this high. On the days he doesn’t, I am as useless as I am small. My existence has been erased. Everything aches like all of the discs in my spine have been herniated, the nerve endings severed. When we cross the street together, he is five or more steps ahead of me. If a car were to turn and hit me, I think he would continue on without noticing.
It is a cycle I am fully cognizant of but don’t know how to break. I have never felt so vulnerable, so malleable in someone’s hands. My friends notice the pattern, my infatuation and my tidal-like disappointment. I am glued to my phone waiting for texts. I am always eyeing my front door, anticipating his often-random arrival. My participation in conversations and social outings is slim and half-hearted.
His name is every other word out of my mouth and I don’t want it to be. It is a name that swells in my stomach and interrupts my appetite. I go days without a full meal and then cook one for him. Some days he disregards me completely and when he does, it is obvious. He doesn’t look at me for the entire time we are together, sometimes hours. My fingers sit loose in his hand, a wrapper he is trying to subtly litter.
I never know what I did to set him off. I never know what I did. I am a few months away from completing my bachelor’s degree but I feel entirely void of knowledge. He knows the power in his withholding. I eat a fair amount, as one has to in order to function, but I am starving all the time. I don’t enjoy myself or anything for that matter when I am without him. He controls my happiness like weather, and I am unable to intervene. Do I even want to? In a week or so after he has stopped ignoring me, he will love me again, and the world will return to its normal state of hyperpigmentation. This is a love that will either save me or ruin me. If I had a choice, I would choose the primary, but captivity breeds no choice.
***
I’ve finally figured out the back hook, front hook, and can successfully climb the pole after two weeks of training. I put on my 10-inch platform boots and work on exercises to get me closer to inverting, my newest goal. I watch videos online and marvel at the effortless movements of these dancers. They make it look as simple as standing up. I am covered in bruises, purple spots in places I did not know one could get them. That looks like it hurts, Andrew says, pointing to the fist sized one on the top of my left foot. It’s from climbing the pole, and although it does hurt, the bruise, I am enjoying the evidence of my efforts. I am getting stronger, more consistent with my practice, and if this is what remains as a result, I’m okay with it.
***
Where did that come from? Rob asks, pointing to the blueish mark above my collarbone. I’m not sure, I lie. It’s from your heel on my neck the other night, I think. He looks at it for a moment and then returns his attention elsewhere. He thinks I enjoy the roughness, and if he asked explicitly if I do, I’d probably nod, but the truth is I feel obligated to accept whatever form our intimacy takes, if it means there will be intimacy at all.
***
On the days I practice pole for an hour or two, I sleep better than I ever have. Andrew notices this. You might be ready to retire your Ambien prescription, he jokes. I’d say he might be right, although I’m not certain the physical exhaustion will permanently keep me from the often-unending spirals of thoughts, recollections, memory. For that, I need something stronger than exercise.
***
For Rob’s birthday, I bake him a lemon cake from scratch. His favorite, he once hinted. Do you like it? I ask, watching him bite into a piece he pulls off the corner with his fingers. He nods. It’s a bit bitter though, he says a few moments later. It’s a detail I could have lived without knowing.
For my birthday a week later, my 22nd, he shows up hours late to my mixed college graduation and birthday party with nothing in hand. I might have liked so much as a card, but still I’m relieved to see him. Before the night is over, he will leave prematurely. I’ll call you later, he promises. We’ll meet up after dinner. He falls asleep instead. I stand in my kitchen eating from my uncut birthday cake with a fork before going to bed alone.
***
I watch a documentary about pole that leaves me in tears. The women featured in the classes talk about the things that led them to try it out. Trauma, sexual abuse, loss. I cry for them and I cry with them as I watch them set and accomplish their goals. I feel more motivated than ever. I momentarily wonder if a film like this would have changed Rob’s mind about the purpose of my pole dancing, but then I remember that his opposition wasn’t about purpose: it was about control. He didn’t have to tell me I couldn’t do something to keep me from it. And that’s what a strong, wrong grip will do to a person.
***
My time away from him never lasts. I always end up answering the texts, opening the door at midnight. Even though I swore him off for what I swore to be the last time, the devastating and unexpected death of Abbey, my best friend from college, propels me into a state of desperation. I’m here for you, he texts me unprompted, and I believe it because I need to, because in the weeks after her death I am floating, and because there is nothing disappointment can do to me that is worse than this. In a week, he wont look me in the eye and I’ll know it’s over for good this time. I’m making the choice I forgot I have. Abbey was never afraid to tell me she hated him. I am making the choice to be more like her. I am making the choice to not be afraid.
***
I don’t call it what it is until I’m a few months into therapy. My therapist has to coax the word abuse out of me. Even then, it doesn’t register as such. I am still convinced of the good, even as time moves farther away from that which we spent together and the details I held onto decay. It has been almost two years since I ended things for good, and I am finally starting to open up. I contrast the past and my present, although there is no comparison. Andrew’s certainty of me is so unbothered, so confident, that I am almost terrified of the ease that comes with it. But the ease is growing on me and I know it; I am not hungry all the time; I don’t drink or smoke, or else; I’ve forgotten that those outlets exist. I go to bed with stillness in my stomach. I am learning that satiety and love can and should live together.
***
Andrew claps as I successfully demonstrate the inversion I have learned from watching YouTube videos and virtual workshops. Once during a poetry reading I was doing, I caught a glimpse of him looking at me: eyes wide like witnessing their first glimpse of the moon; cheeks parting to their furthest point to make room for a full smile. It was a look towards me that I had never seen on someone other than my parents. So proud to know me. So proud of me. I am seeing that look again, here in our living room, and I am certain it is not for the last time.
Danielle Shorr (she/her/hers) is an MFA alum and professor of disability/queer rhetoric forever trying to make the transition from poetry to fiction. She has a fear of commitment in regard to novel writing and an affinity for wiener dogs. Her work has been published by MTV, Crab Fat Magazine, Hobart, Split Lip, Redivider, etc.