Year Seven: Nipple Clamps and Very Clean Houses

Year Seven contains roughly ninety percent of all the awkward conversations I have ever had with my aunt, a fact that I will never forgive my uncle for. She came downstairs one night as I was lying on the bed, contemplating The Thingy, which was indeed "kind of stairsteppy," wondering if it were possible for it to make my clothing smell any mustier. She collapsed on the bed beside me and tearfully confided that Unc didn't love her anymore and they were probably going to get a divorce. I acted far more surprised than I really was. After all, I had spent the past several years watching them drive each other insane, and there really only was one conclusion to the whole ordeal. My uncle is too proud to admit he should change, or even that he had changed, and my aunt is too much of a bleeding heart to ever let things go. His behavior concerning me and driving was ample proof of these flaws for him, as were the unresolved problems with my mother my aunt victimized me with regularly. But at that moment I knew I needed to pretend to be floored by this, since I suspected one of the reasons they kept on trying for as long as they had was out of a misguided sense of "what's best for the child(ren)."

Two months later, Unc and Fam finally decided to make it official, and I was quickly filled in on the grisly details. He'd been having an affair, but had recently gotten lazy hiding the evidence, and since Fam was the one who paid the bills, the truth came out rather quickly. It would have come to light sooner, in fact, had my uncle not been using me as a smokescreen. I will never forgive him for that, not because of the circumstances I was used to hide, but for the circumstances they caused several months later when my aunt mentioned the incident in passing. Apparently my uncle bought a starter bondage kit and left the receipt in the Monte Carlo, which I was allowed to drive when home for break. My aunt found it, confronted him, and was told that I must have been the one that bought it. She accepted this with insulting readiness and went on about her merry way. Meanwhile, I was up in Tacoma, blissfully unaware that my supposed sex life was a heated topic of discussion between people whom I would have been perfectly happy never imagining me and bondage in the same train of thought.

Any anger I could have mustered against my uncle when this story came to light, however, was immediately quenched by a wave of shock at what my aunt blithely asked after its telling. We were driving down Highway 90 in the middle of Spokane, Washington, and as I stared out the window trying desperately not to imagine my portly lawyer-type uncle in leather, my aunt was trying desperately to have a mature conversation with her Newly Adult Niece, probably mentally capitalized in exactly that fashion. Her mouth opened, and the worst possible combination of words spilled forth:

"I don't know; I've never really understood the appeal of bondage. What about you? Are you into bondage?"

"Budh-ag-cuh?" I sputtered in a rare moment of speechlessness, simultaneously feeling my face flush a shade of scarlet and wondering if she'd found my rope stash and finally really figured out what had happened to the bed.

"Well, you always wore those metal bracelets and belts in high school, I mean, that's why I assumed in the first place that the receipt was yours when he suggested it."

I rallied and took shelter behind my sarcasm. "Fam, do you really think I'd buy a starter kit? I'm insulted."

Unfortunately, she took me seriously, and the conversation dragged on as she desperately sought to make me feel comfortable about my Alternate Lifestyle. I briefly considered doing a tuck-and-roll onto the highway. "Well, I don't know. I was just surprised by all the things he bought that I had to Google! Nipple clamps? I didn't even know those existed! Have you ever used nipple clamps?"

"I AM NOT COMFORTABLE HAVING THIS CONVERSATION WITH YOU," I shriek, vision going black. She sighs and trails off, and probably to this day believes I have personal experience with nipple clamps and all the other "things she had to Google."

Buying a starter bondage kit and blaming it on me, I can forgive, but causing me to experience that conversation? I may be harboring a slight grudge over that one. That experience was worse than the combined scarring produced by the time she asked me if I "had gotten my tongue pierced for Sexual Reasons" and the time I had to explain to my Biology professor what those "reasons" might be. I tried to retaliate over dinner a few night later and give back some of the same shocking imagery and personal information overload I had been given, but it ended up backfiring horribly.

"I don't know, I just feel so unwanted, you know?" she said for what was probably the fiftieth time. Granted, I did feel bad for her, but my quota of available emotion had been filed by time fifteen. "Sometimes I feel like I wasn't deviant enough, but he never even asked me!"

"I wouldn't know how that is. I'm a bisexual!" I interjected, hoping to shock her into silence, or at least something that wasn't The Divorce. I'd been meaning to tell her for a few years, anyway, especially since I'd made out with her daughter's babysitter once or twice.

There was a short pause, and then she resumed. "You know, I've thought of becoming a lesbian, but I just can't imagine kissing another girl! Though we'd probably have a very clean house!" she bubbled, and I collapsed into my salad.

Yes, I have imagined my aunt kissing another woman and my uncle having sex in leather and nipple clamps and other nefarious gadgetry, and I owe it all to The Divorce. Luckily, at that point I was still too furious at my uncle over the major issue to give the depths of my mental scarring much attention. They had filed for divorce in January of that year. It was official in April. I was not, however, officially told until September. Unc refused to let Fam tell me because "he was worried the strain would be to much for me while I was away at college." She, needing a confidante, informed me anyway, but told me that I had to pretend that I didn't know. In retrospect, this shows a surprising amount of lucidity on Fam's part. She probably knew that I'd be far angrier if I were kept in the dark the entire time, and by telling me in advance ensured that Unc received the brunt of that backlash. She also probably remembered the Knee-High Boot Debacle, and figured I could play the part of convincingly unaware dependent.

It all worked out well for me in the end, anyway. Unc was so paranoid about making me suspicious that he stopped saying no to any of my demands, even going so far as to buy me a round-trip ticket to go spend the weekend on the East Coast without asking any questions. He also let me bring two of my friends into Seattle "on a visit" during one of his sailing regattas. We spent a grand total of 45 minutes in his company, and a grand total of $1,400 dollars of his money. All I had to do was bite my tongue and smile dutifully as he did the same. In the end, he never did tell me himself. I wasn't really surprised by this, however, since he never likes to admit that he has fucked up. I've always wondered how he has been alive as long as he has without picking up that little skill, but have since decided that it is something he lost along the way-- he's so used to simply throwing money at everything now that he has forgotten the normal ways one solves a problem.

The break-up had very little impact on me, as far away as I was. The only things I had to deal with were painfully detailed conversations with my aunt, which was in a way nothing new. It wasn't until that Christmas, when I came back to STL, that I wondered just what in the hell I was going to be dealing with for the rest of my life.

When I came back for Winter Break last year, they told me they'd sold all my stuff, and the year before that I didn't even have a room to sleep in. One of their favorite pastimes is leaving me alone for indeterminate amounts of time at the airport, but this is a new low for welcome-back events.

My plane was an hour late. When I land, I call Fam to see where I should meet them. "Call Unc," she says. "You didn't let us know your plane was going to be late, so Minifam and I went home and he's out with [the new girlfriend]. I'm not sure when one of us can pick you up."

"..." Yes, my lack of precognitive ability has failed us all, and as a result I missed my window of opportunity to be part of the family. I call Unc-- it gets better.

"Hey, who is picking me up?"
"I don't know. I'm on my way to [girlfriend]'s."
"...So when am I going to get picked up?"
"I don't know."
"..."

In the end, he decided to turn around and come get me. But when we got home? "Alright, I'm going to bed. I only got five hours of sleep last night." Twenty minutes later, girlfriend "sneaks in."

That night I lay in my bed, once again staring at The Thingy, wondering how in the hell I was ever going to get anything done anymore. Now they could just shuffle me off on the other one if they didn't want to deal with me at that moment, which I could see becoming a problem in the near future. Luckily, the rest of the break was blissfully uneventful, though that may have been because I spent most of it on Vicodin with two gaping holes where my wisdom teeth had been. We had planned me to get my teeth removed months in advance, and I had sent them both e-mails in November and a week before my arrival giving them the details and reminding them of what all they needed to do. My teeth were even the topic of the only real conversation my uncle and I had that break:

"So, are you ready to get your wisdom teeth out?" he asks conversationally as we pull onto the highway.
"Oh, of course. I am going to LOVE being on Vicodin for two weeks."
"I don't envy you. I'd gladly never take that stuff again."
"Yeah, it can make some people angry and very irritable, but I just get kind of hazy and loopy. It doesn't really even make me tired."

"That's good. So what are you going on Vicodin for?"

In his defense, he quickly realised what he'd said and laughed at himself. I didn't start to wonder if his newfound love of bondage had left him brain-damaged in some way until four days later when he stumbled upon me while I was making hole-in-head friendly food.

"What are you doing?"
"Making mashed potatoes."
"Why?"
"Because I'm hungry."
"Oh, okay."

And then he left the room.

I was very happy that I only spent ten days with them during that vacation. When I was to return, a year later, everyone had settled down somewhat and into their new lives, which was a refreshing surprise after dealing with them for the entire year via phone. Year Eight marks the year of one of my most serious illnesses yet, and also some of the most frustrating encounters with my family to date, so spending a pleasant break with them spurred a frenzy of jaded over-analysis. I have never been proud of being such a suspicious person, but as I'm sure has been made clear at this point, I have always felt I've been given adequate cause.