Gender Theory

by Madeline Docherty

And the best part of the joke is that your flat is exactly the same – you even have a record player and a drawer specifically for tote bags – and you love all of the clichés about art students because they’re true, and it makes you feel like you are part of something.

You meet her at the door and, as you open it, you can’t believe the sun is rising. And she grabs you and says, I forgot, it’s the summer solstice. And you link arms and start walking and you’re both silent, looking at the pink and orange dawn sky, and you’re thinking about how warm she is, how you can feel the heat of her skin through her thin sleeves.

And you look at her and think, she was the prettiest girl at the party, at any party, anywhere.

You are impressed by her effortless retreat from flirting to friendship, and curious as to whether she has seen something in you that you are still uncovering.

I think I am, you say, before you can talk yourself out of it. You think you’re what? Gay, or bi, I guess. I do like boys. She laughs and says that she likes boys too.

When she pulls away, she is wearing your lipstick. You want her to leave it like that all night, smudged around her mouth, you want everybody to know that you put it there.

One of the girls knows the angel and elbows her and says, I should have known you would be out here seducing people. You’ve got lipstick all over your face. The angel shrugs and says, what can I say, I can always spot the best-looking girl at the party, and Ella looks at her and then back at you.

When it is your turn, you say you love strawberries and he smiles and says, like the Edwin Morgan poem? You know he used to teach here. And you smile back at him and say, yeah, I know.

You know that she’s right, but the emails break up the mundanity of your daily routine, give you something to think about that isn’t your health.

The subject line says, I cannot stop, and the body of the email reads, thinking about you. You fall in love with how the email makes you feel, like something desirable, like something worth pursuing. Impulsively, you cancel your gynaecology appointment, thinking you could live like this forever, running pill packets together and never knowing what was wrong.

This version of him that you have created in your head becomes so alive to you, that the next time you see him in his office, he looks dull and tired, saying the wrong thing and holding you too tightly.

wink in real life before, and you get a compulsion to roll your eyes. You don’t know why you get these urges, to spoil things, to be unkind to people when they’re nice to you.

While she’s gone, Chris turns to you, and cups your chin with her hand briefly. You’ve been such a good friend to Ella. She absolutely adores you. We are making falafel burgers in your honour.

A stream of nausea and fatigue sweeps over you and you can’t stop your hand jerking from the pain, spilling a few drops of wine on the sofa. Ella puts a hand on your leg and whispers, hey are you okay? You shut your eyes tightly and shake your head. You know that you are bleeding, and stay perfectly still, like you can stop the blood spilling out of you if you really try.

Do you need any help getting out of your dress? You nod. Do you want to have a bath? You nod again. She starts running the tap and helps you pull the dress over your head. You have changed in front of each other countless times, but this is the first time that Ella is seeing you fully naked; hunched over and bloated, with tears and cold sweat soaking your face. It isn’t how you pictured it.

You follow her instructions and go into the living room, which is tidy and smells faintly of bleach. The blood on the sofa has gone, like it was never there in the first place.

You imagine the wind stripping the sickness from inside of you and blowing it out to sea. A spray of seawater lands on your face and you lick your lips to taste the salt.

You like the way Christine frames things, like you have all the time in the world.

You would like to be part of this family, permanently tangled in their lives, but you don’t think of Ella as a sibling. You don’t want to top and tail with her or fall asleep on an air mattress beside her bed. You want to lie next to her, your face in her neck, your arm over her body.

You wonder if one day she will bring someone else to Kilnacre Cottage and they will look at a photograph of the two of you and ask Ella your name.

You still feel delicate from the medication, and you blink hard to stop your eyes from getting wet.

The gynaecologist is quiet and calm, and when she tells you it’ll only take a minute, you believe her. She pushes her fingers inside of you and you feel like you are being turned inside out. You clench your fists to stop them from shaking and bite the end of your tongue over and over until you taste blood. She says, is that okay? And you say yes, even though it isn’t.

She asks you if you know what endometriosis is, and you shake your head. She gives you a leaflet and starts to explain, but you can’t focus, because you are looking at the words on the page, which seem to be written in a different language. She suggests that you get fitted for the coil in the meantime, and you say okay.

You don’t want him to see you like this, naked from the waist down and opened up like a magazine. You cannot speak, so you nod, and he pulls the curtain across while you take off your trousers and underwear.

He pats your foot and says, some people have a very low pain threshold, but it won’t take long, you can cope. After it is over, you try to stand up, but your vision dips and you come to on the floor.

It was fine. You can’t stop your voice from sounding petulant. Douglas laughs, his eyes still on the road, and says, Oh dear. Someone’s on the rag. You breathe out hard and fight the urge to say something you can’t take back.

You’re flustered, still trying to calm down, a deep pain resonating through your stomach. You are aware of there being something alien inside of you that wasn’t there before. A small T shaped thing that is supposed to fix you.

The appointment letter requested you to come to the hospital with a full bladder, or the ultrasound wouldn’t work. You drank three bottles of water on the bus and now you are genuinely worried that you are going to wet yourself.

You have been wrapped up in Bertie, and she has been with Douglas, and you wonder if this is the beginning of the end, if you are transitioning out of each other’s lives.

Ella says, did you always know that you were gay? Like did you know when we were living together? I don’t know if I am one hundred per cent gay, to be honest.

The day before you are due to fly home, you are struck down again by your period, your first in months, and Bertie takes you to the emergency room of a nameless hospital.

You are curled up in your chair, squeezing your hands into fists as the pain comes over you in waves. You want to press your face into her lap and scream.

When you get back to Scotland, you start getting high more often. It helps with the cramps and also helps you shelve the niggling feeling that something is wrong.

It feels wrong to see her like this, so you close the door and retreat to your room, where you lie awake all night, wondering how the person you love most in the world could behave like this.

You know that she is straight, you’ve tried not to hold it against her, but you can’t help but feel offended that this is her sexuality, that she could like somebody like him.

The waves are rocking you gently and the core of your body feels hot against hers. You’re too drunk.

You realise that Fraser has stopped kissing Ella when he puts his hand on your knee and says, Have the two of you ever? Ella shakes her head. Never. But I have thought about it. You look at her, You’ve thought about it? She shrugs.

You want to climb inside of her, you can’t get close enough.

After a moment she says, I’m sorry if I manipulated you into the kissing. I can’t really remember everything, but I remember that I enjoyed it. Your body floods with warmth, and your feelings become clear, even though when you speak again you are stuttering and stupid. I didn’t feel manipulated.

He doesn’t know that you are so tired, just so exhausted of feeling like you have no control over the things that happen to you.

Your courses are full of older people; some work full-time and some have kids, all too busy to make friends.

There are barely any social opportunities for postgraduates, and the pros-pect of going to a fresher’s event makes you feel a million years old.

And Finn says, If you split a bag with me, I’ll tell you. You hesitate for three or four seconds, check your bank balance, wish you hadn’t, and say, Fine.

They think they know what’s wrong with you, but this is the only way to know for sure. It feels like everything has been leading up to this, the years of pain and gynaecology appointments and knowing that something is broken.

To quiet the noise in your head, you do something that you have been resisting up until this point, you google endometriosis.

You look at the search results and think, that cannot be me. You don’t understand how your body, which is supposed to be a machine that works when you fuel it, could be so foreign to you.

teenagers who are going through medical menopause,

What if they don’t find anything? What if I’m making it up? You aren’t making it up. If I have it then there’s no cure.

He pauses and says, are you thinking of having children? You say, So, I have it? Yes, you have endometriosis. You are struggling to absorb what he is saying. But it’s gone?

You were right, there is something wrong with you.