The Transformation Of Amy Lunaro: Chapter Fifteen. {fiction}
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Amy found Yoga horrifying.
She had laid her mat down in a back corner because that felt like where the secret door to Anywherebutthere could be, but sadly she wasn’t taken into an alternate world; she was still visible, in her sweats, in the tiny Yoga studio with the cast of Mean Girls and Jack, who did her no favors by laying his mat right alongside of hers.
She didn’t have the courage to ask him to practice where he couldn’t see her, like China.
She flailed around on the mat like a slick rubbery whale while the girls from the parking lot moved like synchronized swimmers in the front row. It was if they had each been born in crow pose and spandex.
And instead of Amy’s withering grunts, they breathed in gently and smoothly, chatting to each other easily as they moved.
The teacher, a strong thin tan girl in her early twenties, named Leslie, with blond bouncy hair, wearing head-to-toe Lululemon, knew each girl by name and delighted in sharing inside jokes with them.
At one point, she even said to Amanda, “You’re holding that pose a lot better than you held your liquor last Friday,” and the harem of girls tittered with laughter.
When Amy’s arms quivered in downward dog, Leslie stared at her and said, “This is your ‘home pose.’ You should be able to relax here, this should feel good.”
If good meant you had been set on fire as your limbs were quartered in town square while the villagers watched, then Amy felt fantastic.
Leslie seemed to point out everything Amy did wrong, constantly prodding her to use her core, which could have been in Amy’s foot for all she knew.
She wanted to beg Leslie to pay attention to anyone else but her, but Leslie seemed addicted to her like watching a moth burn in a flame. At one point, she loomed right over Amy and said, “For the beginners, feel free to go into child’s pose when things get too difficult.”
When Leslie turned her back, Amy glared at her with the fury of ten thousand fires. And as she glared at Leslie, she could feel Jack’s eyes on her, and she burned in mortification. Her internal tears revealed themselves in an external sheet of sweat coating her entire body, pooling on the mat beneath her.
She had never used any of these muscles before in her life, and she had never had any desire to be aware of them either.
She wanted to be anywhere but there in that stuffy room down in the harbor.
She would kill to be taking the SATs. In line at the DMV. Being reamed by a dodgeball in eighth grade. Being stood up for the homecoming dance by that sullen, passionless boy, even though she had pity asked him. Getting a root canal. What. Ever.
Finally, she chose her dignity over dying on that sweaty rented piece of rubber.
She stood up and left the mat and walked out to the water, where she sat, wondering, if Jack abandoned her, how she would get home. But a few minutes later, she felt him approaching. She swiveled her head and looked up at him, her eyes appealing for mercy.
“I’m not ready for that,” she said.
He sat down next to her in the sand, rested his arms on his knees.
He didn’t say anything, he just let the warmth grow between them. He was really good at saying nothing while saying everything. She could feel his heart beating, she could feel the blood coursing through the veins of his body.
His naked sweaty arm pressed alongside hers, their sweat sticking their flesh together. Their breath synched up as one. She was about to burst when he finally looked her in the eyes.
“Well, are you ready for this?” he asked gently, then he leaned in and pressed his warm soft lips against hers. There was that smell again from the first time she saw him at Al’s, of moist earth and caked sweat, of something both safe and dangerous.
When he pulled away, she sucked in the sea air.
She nodded, “Yes.”
“It means union,” he said.
“What?” Amy asked, watching the vein pulse in his neck.
“Yoga, it actually means Union. Of things,” his gaze went deeper into her eyes, “merging as one,” he said. “But sometimes, sometimes people forget that.”
He stood up in the sand and offered his massive paw of a hand for Amy to grab. She slipped hers in his and he pulled her up.
“Come on,” he said, leading her back to the car. But when he saw the girls letting out of Yoga, he released her hand. They were milling about in the parking lot, texting their boyfriends about where to meet for brunch.
They looked up at Amy and Jack, and they did that pinched faced smile that was really just a pretend smile. Amy wondered why they did that at all, she preferred no smile to a fake smile. But she smiled full back anyway, from her heart, because being nice felt better than being mean.
He held the door open for her, and she found she was getting used to that. She was getting used to Jack, despite their moments of disconnection. She slid into the truck and her body trembled with a feeling she hadn’t felt in far too long, of delicious anticipation, for what was almost certain to come.
He had his usual air of calm satisfaction, like everything was always going perfectly to his plan. He flicked on the radio.
Mumford and Sons was singing, “there will come a time, you’ll see/ with no more tears/ and love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears…”
And Amy thought maybe that was a sign, that everything would be okay now, that Jack would be her lover and she wouldn’t feel so alone. That the hard part was over.
They didn’t talk the whole drive, her lips were burned with the sensation of the kiss and their energy filled the car.
Ten minutes later, he pulled up to a grey shingled house on the outskirts of a sprawling farm.
She stepped out of the truck and smelled sea air; she couldn’t see water but she could feel it.
All over the property were grazing animals. She saw horses, pigs, rabbits, sheep, chickens. Amy started to walk to a large black horse who hung its head heavily over the fence, fluttering its luxurious Kardashian eyelashes at her.
Come hither, the horse seemed to say.
But Jack took her hand.
“Later,” he said.
“Who’s that?” she asked.
“Princess,” he told her, leading her toward the house.
She looked back at Princess who kept her large, deep brown planets of eyes on Amy, almost as if she had something to tell her. Amy just stole one last look at her, and then let herself be led into the house by Jack.
For a moment, she didn’t mind being led or directed. She didn’t mind not thinking. She’d been working so hard on herself, in all this transformation, that she just wanted to let go, and not think for a moment. She’d missed the masculine presence of just… presence.
And maybe, she thought, just letting go was the transformation.
He walked her through the door and up the steps to what looked like a messy bedroom of a boy, and then he kissed her again; this time his mouth opened, this time he pulled her against him, and she had to stand on her toes to meet his kiss.
Their bodies began to speak to each other, their mouths passing secrets. He pressed his hands deep into her back, underneath her shoulder bones. It opened Amy’s heart to lean into those large hands and fall back weightless; it cracked her open, and she opened and opened and opened.
And it felt like exactly what she needed and had been waiting to do. She felt a letting go of a thousand lifetimes of holding on.
And then she started to talk. “I didn’t think I would ever feel this way again,” she said as he pulled her shirt up over her head.
“I thought I was broken forever.”
And the less he said, the more she said. It was as if when he opened her body, he opened the dam in her heart and she had no control over the words that flooded from her mouth. And the more Amy spoke, the less he did; she felt her power dwindling, and his strengthening.
Somehow, she always lost her power with men, she always got so tiny. And here she was doing it again, dooming herself, repeating herself with a pattern. She felt a sinking, like in quicksand, but she couldn’t stop the sabotage. She couldn’t stop telling her same, sad, small story.
“When my mother died, I felt… abandoned, and then … then when my husband left me, it just doubled that… I just felt so incredibly unlovable…discardable, you know?”
He fumbled off her sports bra, but still said nothing.
“I thought I was just going to drink myself to death in the corner of the world,” she said, as he kissed her breasts.
“I didn’t want to be close to anyone again, because of the pain of being loved and left. But then I realized, you know, we all lose each other at the end, so while we are here we should attach, we should lean in, we should let ourselves be seen and see others… do you know what I mean?
I think that’s what the brave do. I mean, people who are really alive.” She paused, as if he might speak, but he just gnawed on her shoulder.
“I never thought I would heal. But I feel like things might be okay… like I might be okay… I mean, I hope, we all hope, right? That we’re not alone and we matter and we’re okay?”
He finally put a finger to her lips as he laid her down on the bed.
“Shhh…” he said.
“Oh, Okay,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
And she was suddenly so embarrassed. Even as he undressed the rest of her body, it seemed he didn’t really want to know her soul, and for a moment she felt she should stop him, before she gave absolutely everything to him. Even though her body wanted it, something was saying No.
And even as his tongue painted her neck and she began to slip away, she wrestled with all the thoughts that boys never had to have.
She wrestled with all the sex shame that had been passed to her, from a society where men could freely have sex but women couldn’t.
Of, I should wait, and, he won’t respect me, he’ll think I’m cheap and easy, and, girlfriends don’t give it all away right away, and, what if he tells everyone, but she didn’t really know whose rules they were. They had been handed to her but they had never been hers.
So she lost her mind and she followed her body’s lead, because it begged to be touched, held and opened, so she just closed her eyes and they made love.
At one point he said, “We move really well together,” but that was as close as he got to saying anything tender, so she turned it into something, she made it a metaphor in her head. That they made sense together, that they, as people, worked well together.
But it was all he said, and when it was over, she didn’t know what to say. So she said, “Thank you.” But as soon as that came out, it felt wrong. Suddenly, everything was feeling wrong, and she was powerless to reverse it.
“You’re welcome,” he said, casually.
She wanted to take the Thank You back, because it made her feel like a charity case he had made love to, like he had done her a favor, but it was already out there.
She rested her head on his chest and listened to his beating heart. She loved nothing more than a heart pillow, and couldn’t help but remember lying on James’. She even almost said something about James at that moment, but he stopped her.
“Want to see those horses now?” he asked, moving out from under her, scooting to the edge of the bed and slipping into jeans.
She felt she had no choice. “Sure,” she said, pulling the sheets up over her body, like she could take back something she’d already done..
He stood up and pulled an old cotton fishermen’s sweater over his head and she felt like she was watching a walking J. Crew men’s ad. Then he reached into a bureau drawer and pulled out a pair of women’s jeans.
Alarm bells sounded within her.
“Whose are those?” she croaked, sitting up.
“A friend’s,” he said.
“A girlfriend’s?” she asked.
He paused. He shook the jeans out but didn’t look at her. “Do you think I would take you in my bed if I had a girlfriend here?”
“Here?” she asked. Like, is she elsewhere?
“Come on,” he said. “Give me a break.” He handed them over to her.
The traffic light inside of her went from green to red.
But the abandoned part of her, that just felt so grateful to be loved and didn’t want to rock the boat with questions, that accepted crumbs and called it love, that was so scared of losing she clung, the little girl inside of her who endlessly cried, “Please love me, please don’t leave me,” took the jeans.
Amy stepped into them warily. She had to suck in and lay back on the bed to zip them up. From that horizontal view, she started to look around the room. Now, she saw. There weren’t only men’s things, the way it had looked at first.
There was a silk gold scarf on the desk chair, there was a small silver ring on the nightstand. She felt a little dizzy, her throat went dry.
She imagined if you looked inside her heart, it would still look like two people lived there. And suddenly that’s how the bedroom looked, like two people lived there.
She didn’t feel like she was allowed to ask more questions. She felt like an outsider who was only allowed to be so… loud. She didn’t really belong here, her privileges could be revoked at any moment, so she’d have to behave. She’d have to walk on eggshells.
At a certain point way back in her story, Amy had gone small to be loved. She felt muted. She felt the dread that she had felt standing that morning in the kitchen.
Something is going to happen, but I don’t know if it will be good or bad, she had thought.
That feeling she had felt, but ignored.
And she was beginning to see. The internal picture was coming into focus. And it wasn’t good.
He ambled down the stairs and called at the foot.
“You coming?”
She walked down in a daze, clinging to the railing, step by barefoot step.
She had just slept with the first man who wasn’t James, in eight years. And she didn’t feel safe, or loved. She felt numb. And a little scared. When she and James made love, they… came into union. But now Amy felt more alone than ever.
He walked in front of her through the kitchen, then out of the back door, where the two horses roamed in the back pasture — a smaller sturdy white horse and that proud ebony one who had stared at her on the way in.
“Princess,” he called.
He clucked gently until the midnight mare sauntered over to them. He slipped a bridle on her, and the bit into her mouth with a clink, as the metal hit the teeth. He interlaced his fingers and bent over, making a step for Amy’s foot.
“No saddle?” she asked. “I haven’t done this since I was twelve.”
“Just take a stroll around the pasture,” he said. “She’s the gentlest horse you’ll ever meet.”
“Okay,” Amy said, completely out of touch with who she was and what she wanted.
“Anyway,” he winked, “I know you can ride.”
She gave him a limp smile.
Gross, she thought.
She stepped her bare foot into his hands, threw her leg over, and sank onto Princess’ wide black back.
She looked down at him as he adjusted the mare’s bridle. He now he looked and felt like a stranger. She felt a coldness from him, a distancing. He was treating her like an acquaintance, and she had that feeling when something is over before it had even begun. A small death. They were together but worlds apart, and Amy longed for the love where you could be worlds apart but still together.
Her mouth tasted like metal and her body was weak. Another rejection. She wanted to be alone in bed, crying, not in another girl’s jeans in Jack’s backyard, on his horse, listening to his orders. He was always in control. Now more so than ever.
“Give her a little kick,” he said. “Just walk around.”
But she did as he said. Amy kicked the horse gently, “Come on, Princess,” she whispered.
Princess lazily ambled them away from Jack.
“Only one thing,” he said to her back. “Don’t let her feel your fear.”
Amy turned to look at him, wild-eyed.
“Why?” she asked.
“You were the writer,” he said. “Riding is an endless life metaphor.”
Were, she heard. I was something.
“What will happen if she feels my fear?” she asked.
“Just trust me,” he said.
That’s a tall order, she thought.
“She feels everything you feel.”
She and Princess moseyed along the fence of the pasture.
“Sit up tall,” he said. She raised herself.
“Open your heart.” She tried, but the gates were back.
“Keep your spine straight, but let your hips move with her.” She felt anything but regal, but let her hips go soft. She ignored him and focused on the beautiful animal beneath her. As a little girl, she had ridden three times a week after school, but had stopped after a scary fall.
But she didn’t feel afraid on Princess, who felt as sturdy as a Buick.
“Good girl,” she whispered into her massive velvet ears. She reached down and gave her a soft pat on the neck. They sauntered along the fence until Amy’s mind began reeling.
Did he have a girlfriend? Did the mean girls know he had a girlfriend? Is that why they were so cold to her? Was she the stupidest girl in the whole world? Or was she just paranoid?
Suddenly Princess lurched down to graze on the grass and almost took Amy sliding down her thick neck.
“Show her you’re in control,” he called.
Amy yanked at her bridle and tried in vain to pull her up from the grass.
“Hey!” she cried to Princess, “Hey!” she kicked her lightly but frenzied. “Listen to me!”
Princess continued to graze, ignoring Amy.
Jack walked over and touched Amy’s thigh. It recognized his touch and quivered.
“If you don’t trust yourself, she won’t trust you,” he told her.
“Take a breath. Calm down. Get back in your center.” And then he had the nerve to say, “Use your core.”
Amy and Princess both flared their nostrils.
“She felt your distraction,” he told her, pulling the mare’s head up himself. “You have to stay present.”
She couldn’t take his orders anymore. She just wanted to scream.
“This is all body language,” he said, immune to the storm brewing inside of her. “All you have to do is focus on the direction you want to go. And just look in that direction. She’ll feel it.”
Look in the direction you want to go, she thought. There’s that question again.
She closed her eyes.
Where did she want to go?
“Come on, Amy,” he said. It almost felt as if he was mocking her. “Show me what you got.”
She could hear James, “You were something. Now you’re nothing. What happened to you?”
“Okay,” she said.
“Okay, what?” Jack said.
She couldn’t tell if she was talking to Jack or James anymore, but it didn’t matter. She was done with this story, of falling apart, of abandoning herself for love, of being so small. She was ready to be free of it. She was ready to feel wild and big and possible.
Whatever lay ahead was far better than living it one more day.
“I’ll show you,” she said.
Amy looked ahead and sat up tall. For the first time she saw where she was going. And it was far, far ahead.
She gave Princess a swift kick. “Let’s go, darling,” she said, the inner storm now raging.
Just like that, Princess took off in a gallop, like she’d been waiting for this. She went buckling across the field in a streak of midnight. Amy held on through her thighs, which, with the Yoga and sex and now riding, had done more work than they ever had in her life.
She felt like she was flying, like the whole world was below her and she was up above it, where she was free of everything. She and Princess moved as one, in true union.
“Whoah!!” Jack called.
She smiled, until she realized Princess was headed straight toward the fence and she wasn’t slowing down. Amy clung hard and closed her eyes, and she felt the mare soar clear over it, and they sailed in the air for a frozen moment in time, as if she had wings.
Then they ripped into the forest behind the pasture, and all she could hear was Jack calling like a maniac from far, far, far behind her.
“Wait! Wait!” he cried.
But Amy was done waiting.
This is an ongoing series from a forthcoming fiction novel by Sarah Durham Wilson of DOITGIRL.
Tune in weekly for the next chapter in ‘The Transformation of Amy Lunaro’.
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