Body Politics
by Libby Gerdes

Runestone, volume 10

Body Politics
by Libby Gerdes

Runestone, volume 10

Content Warning: Rape/Sexual Assault

Blake turns too fast into the Kum & Go, the only building we’ve seen for miles driving cross-state. Our college town in southwest Kentucky is surrounded by nothingness.

The under-eye concealer I’m applying jabs into my eye.

Kate’s mascara wand hits the passenger visor mirror. “Whoops.” She licks her thumb, but just further smears black. “I guess that’s what you get for turning too fast.”

“There’s no time for safe driving.” Blake pulls beside a pump. “Y’all have 90 seconds to change, pee, and purchase.”

“Good luck with that.” Chance grabs the suits and passes them out to Blake and me. 

“Timer… starts… now.” Blake drives his finger onto his phone and grabs his outfit. 

“Oh, he’s serious?” I ask.

“I guess I’ll change in the car. No way in hell I can do all that in that time,” Kate says.

Blake and I finish in the bathroom first. He uses the club credit card to pay for gas and the snack I grabbed in hopes of diminishing my burgeoning headache.

The cashier eyes Blake’s tight, striped pants and my buzzed peach hair. “Where y’all going so dressed up?”

I look to Blake for help. “We’re, uh, going to a Democratic political gala.” 

“You don’t gotta be nervous darlin’, I figured you leaned that way by the looks of ya.” She eyes us again. “We don’t gotta agree on things to be friendly. Y’all have a good time.”

Blake pulls out his phone while the receipt prints. “With four seconds to spare.” 

As the designated navigator, Chance pulls up the directions on his phone. “We’re an hour and fifty-one minutes away from Lexington, which puts us there thirty-four minutes late. But that should be fine since the whole first hour of the itinerary is just mingling.”

“Okay, good. Kate, I’ll hold my jacket up while you change.” I block her view from Chance, the only straight man.

“Thanks Lib.” She closes the mascara-stained visor mirror so he can’t see from behind her. 

***

I don’t know why I had sex with Chance the first time a couple months ago.

We’re not close, but it’s safe to say we’re friends. We’ve talked (and argued) in class, hung out in groups during and after meetings, events, and parties, at which we’d harmlessly flirted. He was the butt of the joke in our dems friend group for being a Republican until college, a “man whore” and “fruity” despite identifying as straight. Blake had a running Google Doc with all the gay things Chance said like, “Every straight road has its curves” and “I’m gonna ask Blake if he has a good gag reflex.” 

Still, he considers himself an ally. One time, he asked me a question regarding my womanhood and I joked back, “Are you assuming my identity?” Blake overheard and laughed, but Chance’s cheeks flushed and he immediately apologized, rambling, until I assured him I was kidding.

But more than anything, our friendship sprung from a mutual love of Taylor Swift. Once, we dragged down the party’s vibe by singing karaoke to the ten-minute version of “All Too Well,” the long version of her iconic heartbreak song that had just come out. But we didn’t care because we had a blast belting it, contradicting the lyrics by laughing the whole time. 

I went to his apartment on a whim. It started nice. His kiss pleasantly surprised me, gentle, without too much tongue. Knowing his preferences for thin, cis women, I wished the lights were dimmer. When he asked if he should get the condom, I said yes, despite knowing that I wasn’t at all ready. 

He must’ve mistaken my cries of pain for screams of pleasure, because his pace only increased. I stared at the ceiling, analyzing the swirls in the pattern, imagining running my fingertips over its texture—any feeling but this. When he flipped me on top of him, I counted the freckles on my arms, noticed my triceps looked more defined, and compared the size of my hands to head, supporting me on both sides of it. It has to be over soon, I thought. It wasn’t. 

Afterwards, he asked to go again.

“I don’t think I could take it. Physically,” I said.

He nodded, laying his head on my chest. I played with his light brown, coarse curls as he fell asleep.

I don’t know why he had sex with me either, given his reputation. I don’t fit into either category of thin nor woman. Maybe he made assumptions about my sex positivity. Maybe he thought I was smart. Maybe he was just horny, or maybe he just genuinely found me attractive. Maybe because he knew I wouldn’t tell anyone. Maybe all of the above. 

Afterward, he avoided me when I saw him on campus, until I ran into him and Blake together. I greeted him like nothing had changed. Afterwards, he stopped avoiding me. Still, he doesn’t pretend like it didn’t happen. In groups, he references what we’ve done in ways he knows that only I will understand, like casually mentioning that he likes strong women or enjoys when girls play with his hair.

Not exactly a woman, I always think. But he knows this, and just doesn’t want to out us. Or in a way, himself.

***

Our lateness proves inconsequential. Some people and organizations had yet to arrive, including Charles Booker, the primary democratic candidate running for Senate in the upcoming election. 

Chance starts talking to a politician before we even get a table. Kate, as the president of our club, introduces me to the University of Kentucky’s president for cross-college collaboration. Afterwards, I try to keep networking, but the deafening pressure behind my eyes threatens my capability to talk to strangers—other than to ask people my age if they had Tylenol, to no avail. 

When Charles Booker arrives, Blake comes to pester me since Kate and Chance, the social butterflies, were flitting around somewhere out of sight. “Let’s go talk to Booker!”

I stop rubbing my temples. “He looks busy. Everyone here wants to talk to him. Let’s wait a bit.”

He sideyes me. “Yeah, but you know we just have to insert ourselves. You okay?” 

“Yeah, I just have a migraine and feel kinda dizzy. But I’ll be fine when I can get some Tylenol at Kate’s.” We were staying the night at Kate’s mom’s house ten minutes away from the venue. The night can’t go on too much longer, I think. 

When word spreads that Booker is about to leave, Kate runs up to his assistant to introduce our organization and ask for a picture. The assistant gives us her contact information for campaign events on campus for next semester and pulls his attention away from the old, gabbing local politician. 

Booker shakes each of our hands, ending with me. “I like your suit! And your hair.” 

“Thank you.” I’d been worried my hair and twelve piercings might garner judgment from political professionals, and his kindness reminded me that I should feel safe here. 

***

When we get back to Kate’s, we all change into comfy clothes, my choice plaid boxers and an oversize sweatshirt.

Kate spreads snacks all over the counter, uncorks several bottles of wine, and gives me pain medicine. She shows us a brief tour of the house and sleeping areas; Blake calls the guest bedroom and I call the bed in the basement, leaving Chance for one of the couches.

We decide to play a drinking game, and Chance explains the rules. “Then Libby will roll, and if their number isn’t higher than Kate’s…”

I stop listening, stuck on his “they.”  Most people who know my pronouns ignore the they in my they/she pronouns. I try not to let this gesture mean anything to me, tell myself that anyone would’ve made that effort—even though hardly anyone does. 

At around two a.m. the game finally ends. Blake pushes his chair out and stands up in a dramatic, fluid motion. 

“I’m going to bed.” He heads toward one of the guest bedrooms. 

Though my head feels lighter now, the alcohol only increased the dizziness. “I’m beat, too. Goodnight y’all.” I grab my stuff and head downstairs. 

Chance jumps up. “I will too.” 

Too disoriented to place his enthusiasm, I had assumed he’d go to the living room couch. When I hear his footprints down the stairs, I think, I hope, maybe he’s going to the couch down here. 

He climbs beside me and puts his hand on my face. It’s dark in here, the only light emanating from the sliver of moonlight between the small basement window curtains and the red glow of the bedside clock. He kisses me. Remembering his softness, I kissed him back. But this wasn’t like before. He was sloppy, forceful, quickly moving to my neck. His desperate hand tries to wedge under the two compression bras I use as a makeshift binder. But they’re too tight to my chest, so he opts for slipping his hand down my boxers. Until that, too, isn’t enough. He pulls them down and suddenly he is in me.

My first thought: It doesn’t hurt as much this time. 

My second thought: There’s no condom. But I freeze under the heat of his body and say nothing.

Later, he slips it out and goes to put it back in. I say no so softly I don’t know if I said it out loud or in just my imagination. I realize it’s the former when he promptly jumps off of me and lies to my right.

He raises his arm out for me to come into. I do, and he kisses my forehead. Later, I am still wide awake, but still as though otherwise. He kisses it again. He holds me for hours. 

Awakened by my own sweat and a sliver of sunlight seeping through the curtains, I roll away on my own.

When I next open my eyes the clock reads 7:48. He kisses me and puts his hands down my boxers. Half-asleep, I don’t react, but I don’t fight, either.

Finally, he stops and we fall back asleep. When I wake up I can hear his voice upstairs thanking Kate for the eggs. I get up, brush my teeth, clean up, and take my newly-prescribed acne medicine. 

At breakfast, I engage in conversation as I normally would, and again we pretend like nothing happened between us. No one had noticed that we both ascended from the basement.

***

Kate loads us up with water and snacks for the drive. Blake asks me to drive, and I do for two hours until my eyes refuse to stay open and we switch. I sleep the rest of the drive. 

When I get home, I want to climb into bed. But the desire to shower is stronger. To scrub his sweat from between my legs, his aftershave from my face.

I fall asleep in my towel, awaking a few hours later to my best friend’s ringtone and answering it. 

“How was the gala?” Emma asks.

“Good and bad. My head hurt so bad there I couldn’t do much. But when we got to Kate’s I got painkillers, and we played games and drank her mom’s fancy wine.”

I normally tell her everything, but, all sore and ashamed, I don’t say more. 

After we hang up, I get out of bed, still naked. Wanting to survey the damage, I sit on the floor in front of my full-length mirror, the hardwood acute against my tender pelvic bones. 

My vulva is red and swollen. I stare for a long time, wondering how anything could fit into something so small.

Eventually, I get up, dress, and take my second dose of the medicine. Try to put last night out of my head and go about my Sunday.

An hour later, I start to feel dizzy and feverish. Then it clicks—the new prescription was why I was dazed last night.

***

The next day, Monday, I call my doctor and ask for a new prescription. Throughout the day, I think about what happened with Chance. I need to get it off my chest, so I call Emma. It’s not until I say it out loud that I realize I would’ve said “no” if he would’ve asked. 

“You can’t entirely blame him. You knew he didn’t have a condom on and didn’t say anything.”

I try to hide the hurt in my voice. “Yeah. I guess I just feel weird because that medicine was fucking with me on top of the wine. But it’s not like he knew that. And he knew I was drunk anyway, but he was drinking too. ”
“I get that.”
“I just have to wait to see if my period comes, I guess.” 

“What are you gonna do if it doesn’t?”

I say nothing for several seconds. “I mean, I don’t really see another option.” 

“Well, we’ll just cross that bridge when—or if—we get there. I’ll be hypothetically praying for you,” she says, an inside joke as we’re now divorced from our Catholic upbringings. 

***

The next day, Tuesday, my phone alarm wakes me up. When I go to press the snooze button, a notification catches my eye from the news app: “Leaked document suggests U.S. Supreme Court will likely overturn abortion rights.” 

My first, selfish thought: Of course this happens two days after.

My second thought: Our bodies are once again taken from us. 

But I don’t let myself linger on all of the uterine-clad people of this country now. I will later—I’ll sob, I’ll scream. But I can’t let myself feel now, with class in an hour. 

So instead I try to focus on my own logistics. I open my health app and go “cycle tracking,” a feature I’ve never used. It asks me when my last period was. Though I don’t remember the date, I do remember texting Emma ranting about cramps on its first day. Never thought complaining would prove so useful, I thought as I opened iMessage. 

After I log the date, it predicts I am likely in my “fertile window” and that my period will start in two weeks. 

Now, there’s nothing I can do but wait. And beg for blood.

I sit on the floor and stretch my legs out to once again look at my vulva, which looks normal now, like nothing ever happened. I pray I won’t be forced to push something out of something so small. 

Content Warning: Rape/Sexual Assault

Blake turns too fast into the Kum & Go, the only building we’ve seen for miles driving cross-state. Our college town in southwest Kentucky is surrounded by nothingness.

The under-eye concealer I’m applying jabs into my eye.

Kate’s mascara wand hits the passenger visor mirror. “Whoops.” She licks her thumb, but just further smears black. “I guess that’s what you get for turning too fast.”

“There’s no time for safe driving.” Blake pulls beside a pump. “Y’all have 90 seconds to change, pee, and purchase.”

“Good luck with that.” Chance grabs the suits and passes them out to Blake and me. 

“Timer… starts… now.” Blake drives his finger onto his phone and grabs his outfit. 

“Oh, he’s serious?” I ask.

“I guess I’ll change in the car. No way in hell I can do all that in that time,” Kate says.

Blake and I finish in the bathroom first. He uses the club credit card to pay for gas and the snack I grabbed in hopes of diminishing my burgeoning headache.

The cashier eyes Blake’s tight, striped pants and my buzzed peach hair. “Where y’all going so dressed up?”

I look to Blake for help. “We’re, uh, going to a Democratic political gala.” 

“You don’t gotta be nervous darlin’, I figured you leaned that way by the looks of ya.” She eyes us again. “We don’t gotta agree on things to be friendly. Y’all have a good time.”

Blake pulls out his phone while the receipt prints. “With four seconds to spare.” 

As the designated navigator, Chance pulls up the directions on his phone. “We’re an hour and fifty-one minutes away from Lexington, which puts us there thirty-four minutes late. But that should be fine since the whole first hour of the itinerary is just mingling.”

“Okay, good. Kate, I’ll hold my jacket up while you change.” I block her view from Chance, the only straight man.

“Thanks Lib.” She closes the mascara-stained visor mirror so he can’t see from behind her. 

***

I don’t know why I had sex with Chance the first time a couple months ago.

We’re not close, but it’s safe to say we’re friends. We’ve talked (and argued) in class, hung out in groups during and after meetings, events, and parties, at which we’d harmlessly flirted. He was the butt of the joke in our dems friend group for being a Republican until college, a “man whore” and “fruity” despite identifying as straight. Blake had a running Google Doc with all the gay things Chance said like, “Every straight road has its curves” and “I’m gonna ask Blake if he has a good gag reflex.” 

Still, he considers himself an ally. One time, he asked me a question regarding my womanhood and I joked back, “Are you assuming my identity?” Blake overheard and laughed, but Chance’s cheeks flushed and he immediately apologized, rambling, until I assured him I was kidding.

But more than anything, our friendship sprung from a mutual love of Taylor Swift. Once, we dragged down the party’s vibe by singing karaoke to the ten-minute version of “All Too Well,” the long version of her iconic heartbreak song that had just come out. But we didn’t care because we had a blast belting it, contradicting the lyrics by laughing the whole time. 

I went to his apartment on a whim. It started nice. His kiss pleasantly surprised me, gentle, without too much tongue. Knowing his preferences for thin, cis women, I wished the lights were dimmer. When he asked if he should get the condom, I said yes, despite knowing that I wasn’t at all ready. 

He must’ve mistaken my cries of pain for screams of pleasure, because his pace only increased. I stared at the ceiling, analyzing the swirls in the pattern, imagining running my fingertips over its texture—any feeling but this. When he flipped me on top of him, I counted the freckles on my arms, noticed my triceps looked more defined, and compared the size of my hands to head, supporting me on both sides of it. It has to be over soon, I thought. It wasn’t. 

Afterwards, he asked to go again.

“I don’t think I could take it. Physically,” I said.

He nodded, laying his head on my chest. I played with his light brown, coarse curls as he fell asleep.

I don’t know why he had sex with me either, given his reputation. I don’t fit into either category of thin nor woman. Maybe he made assumptions about my sex positivity. Maybe he thought I was smart. Maybe he was just horny, or maybe he just genuinely found me attractive. Maybe because he knew I wouldn’t tell anyone. Maybe all of the above. 

Afterward, he avoided me when I saw him on campus, until I ran into him and Blake together. I greeted him like nothing had changed. Afterwards, he stopped avoiding me. Still, he doesn’t pretend like it didn’t happen. In groups, he references what we’ve done in ways he knows that only I will understand, like casually mentioning that he likes strong women or enjoys when girls play with his hair.

Not exactly a woman, I always think. But he knows this, and just doesn’t want to out us. Or in a way, himself.

***

Our lateness proves inconsequential. Some people and organizations had yet to arrive, including Charles Booker, the primary democratic candidate running for Senate in the upcoming election. 

Chance starts talking to a politician before we even get a table. Kate, as the president of our club, introduces me to the University of Kentucky’s president for cross-college collaboration. Afterwards, I try to keep networking, but the deafening pressure behind my eyes threatens my capability to talk to strangers—other than to ask people my age if they had Tylenol, to no avail. 

When Charles Booker arrives, Blake comes to pester me since Kate and Chance, the social butterflies, were flitting around somewhere out of sight. “Let’s go talk to Booker!”

I stop rubbing my temples. “He looks busy. Everyone here wants to talk to him. Let’s wait a bit.”

He sideyes me. “Yeah, but you know we just have to insert ourselves. You okay?” 

“Yeah, I just have a migraine and feel kinda dizzy. But I’ll be fine when I can get some Tylenol at Kate’s.” We were staying the night at Kate’s mom’s house ten minutes away from the venue. The night can’t go on too much longer, I think. 

When word spreads that Booker is about to leave, Kate runs up to his assistant to introduce our organization and ask for a picture. The assistant gives us her contact information for campaign events on campus for next semester and pulls his attention away from the old, gabbing local politician. 

Booker shakes each of our hands, ending with me. “I like your suit! And your hair.” 

“Thank you.” I’d been worried my hair and twelve piercings might garner judgment from political professionals, and his kindness reminded me that I should feel safe here. 

***

When we get back to Kate’s, we all change into comfy clothes, my choice plaid boxers and an oversize sweatshirt.

Kate spreads snacks all over the counter, uncorks several bottles of wine, and gives me pain medicine. She shows us a brief tour of the house and sleeping areas; Blake calls the guest bedroom and I call the bed in the basement, leaving Chance for one of the couches.

We decide to play a drinking game, and Chance explains the rules. “Then Libby will roll, and if their number isn’t higher than Kate’s…”

I stop listening, stuck on his “they.”  Most people who know my pronouns ignore the they in my they/she pronouns. I try not to let this gesture mean anything to me, tell myself that anyone would’ve made that effort—even though hardly anyone does. 

At around two a.m. the game finally ends. Blake pushes his chair out and stands up in a dramatic, fluid motion. 

“I’m going to bed.” He heads toward one of the guest bedrooms. 

Though my head feels lighter now, the alcohol only increased the dizziness. “I’m beat, too. Goodnight y’all.” I grab my stuff and head downstairs. 

Chance jumps up. “I will too.” 

Too disoriented to place his enthusiasm, I had assumed he’d go to the living room couch. When I hear his footprints down the stairs, I think, I hope, maybe he’s going to the couch down here. 

He climbs beside me and puts his hand on my face. It’s dark in here, the only light emanating from the sliver of moonlight between the small basement window curtains and the red glow of the bedside clock. He kisses me. Remembering his softness, I kissed him back. But this wasn’t like before. He was sloppy, forceful, quickly moving to my neck. His desperate hand tries to wedge under the two compression bras I use as a makeshift binder. But they’re too tight to my chest, so he opts for slipping his hand down my boxers. Until that, too, isn’t enough. He pulls them down and suddenly he is in me.

My first thought: It doesn’t hurt as much this time. 

My second thought: There’s no condom. But I freeze under the heat of his body and say nothing.

Later, he slips it out and goes to put it back in. I say no so softly I don’t know if I said it out loud or in just my imagination. I realize it’s the former when he promptly jumps off of me and lies to my right.

He raises his arm out for me to come into. I do, and he kisses my forehead. Later, I am still wide awake, but still as though otherwise. He kisses it again. He holds me for hours. 

Awakened by my own sweat and a sliver of sunlight seeping through the curtains, I roll away on my own.

When I next open my eyes the clock reads 7:48. He kisses me and puts his hands down my boxers. Half-asleep, I don’t react, but I don’t fight, either.

Finally, he stops and we fall back asleep. When I wake up I can hear his voice upstairs thanking Kate for the eggs. I get up, brush my teeth, clean up, and take my newly-prescribed acne medicine. 

At breakfast, I engage in conversation as I normally would, and again we pretend like nothing happened between us. No one had noticed that we both ascended from the basement.

***

Kate loads us up with water and snacks for the drive. Blake asks me to drive, and I do for two hours until my eyes refuse to stay open and we switch. I sleep the rest of the drive. 

When I get home, I want to climb into bed. But the desire to shower is stronger. To scrub his sweat from between my legs, his aftershave from my face.

I fall asleep in my towel, awaking a few hours later to my best friend’s ringtone and answering it. 

“How was the gala?” Emma asks.

“Good and bad. My head hurt so bad there I couldn’t do much. But when we got to Kate’s I got painkillers, and we played games and drank her mom’s fancy wine.”

I normally tell her everything, but, all sore and ashamed, I don’t say more. 

After we hang up, I get out of bed, still naked. Wanting to survey the damage, I sit on the floor in front of my full-length mirror, the hardwood acute against my tender pelvic bones. 

My vulva is red and swollen. I stare for a long time, wondering how anything could fit into something so small.

Eventually, I get up, dress, and take my second dose of the medicine. Try to put last night out of my head and go about my Sunday.

An hour later, I start to feel dizzy and feverish. Then it clicks—the new prescription was why I was dazed last night.

***

The next day, Monday, I call my doctor and ask for a new prescription. Throughout the day, I think about what happened with Chance. I need to get it off my chest, so I call Emma. It’s not until I say it out loud that I realize I would’ve said “no” if he would’ve asked. 

“You can’t entirely blame him. You knew he didn’t have a condom on and didn’t say anything.”

I try to hide the hurt in my voice. “Yeah. I guess I just feel weird because that medicine was fucking with me on top of the wine. But it’s not like he knew that. And he knew I was drunk anyway, but he was drinking too. ”
“I get that.”
“I just have to wait to see if my period comes, I guess.” 

“What are you gonna do if it doesn’t?”

I say nothing for several seconds. “I mean, I don’t really see another option.” 

“Well, we’ll just cross that bridge when—or if—we get there. I’ll be hypothetically praying for you,” she says, an inside joke as we’re now divorced from our Catholic upbringings. 

***

The next day, Tuesday, my phone alarm wakes me up. When I go to press the snooze button, a notification catches my eye from the news app: “Leaked document suggests U.S. Supreme Court will likely overturn abortion rights.” 

My first, selfish thought: Of course this happens two days after.

My second thought: Our bodies are once again taken from us. 

But I don’t let myself linger on all of the uterine-clad people of this country now. I will later—I’ll sob, I’ll scream. But I can’t let myself feel now, with class in an hour. 

So instead I try to focus on my own logistics. I open my health app and go “cycle tracking,” a feature I’ve never used. It asks me when my last period was. Though I don’t remember the date, I do remember texting Emma ranting about cramps on its first day. Never thought complaining would prove so useful, I thought as I opened iMessage. 

After I log the date, it predicts I am likely in my “fertile window” and that my period will start in two weeks. 

Now, there’s nothing I can do but wait. And beg for blood.

I sit on the floor and stretch my legs out to once again look at my vulva, which looks normal now, like nothing ever happened. I pray I won’t be forced to push something out of something so small.