Yearning—In Sickness and In Health
Image: Unsplash
If someone had ever told me that it would take a distance of over 4,000 miles to overcome my body dysmorphia and experience multiple orgasms, I wouldn’t have believed them.
Most of my early childhood was spent inside hospital wards and private doctors’ chambers, diagnosing the rare genetic mutation I was born with. My condition has no cure: only life-saving injections in my abdomen and thighs every night since I was 2 years old. The injection has to be administered via an infusion pump, which takes 12 hours overnight. As a result of my injection scars, my belly protrudes with ulcerated skin. My thighs are swollen, and I have difficulty walking in the morning until the skin heals—which is seldom.
It also means that living life on my terms is out of the question. My body is always at the mercy of my condition, which, when aggravated, becomes life-threatening. This entails many things, but most importantly, it means having to confide in my sexual partner in detail about my health. You are not only delaying or sacrificing an injection dose for them, but you also need to share your pre-existing physical discomfort with them. It is an overwhelming thought and a difficult proposition to deal with, especially for a teenager or a young adult who had the privilege of attending a convent school followed by a same-sex college. Circumstances ensured that I lacked opportunities to be in the company of men for the longest time.
My first boyfriend, at the age of 25, parted ways with me for another girl. We had barely been comfortable with pecks on the cheek, and he demanded we take things forward. I needed my time but he chose the easy way—to cheat on me just to be able to have sex.
I blamed my body for rejection. I thought to myself that if I were healthy, this would not have happened, and I would not have to deal with the conundrum of sharing this part of my life. I wouldn’t have to wait for someone at all, let alone have to conceive of painless ways to be with him after an injection is pricked into my body.
I continued to inject myself every night as a punishment and a reminder of the life I had. I often wondered if an existence without a perfect body, a “normal” body, was worth having at all.
I spent the next few years oscillating between being in a funk and having breakdowns. I would respond to this state by smoking endless pot and drinking my guts out, both of which are not recommended for someone with my condition.
A few years later, on vacation, and in one of my depressive spells, I found myself downloading Tinder and matching with Hashim. Our shared passion for pre-Partition history, graphic novels and desserts as appetizers were an uncanny match. We didn’t get to meet: he had to leave for the UK the day after we matched, the day of my scheduled visit to the hospital.
Hashim and I both felt the need to be in touch regularly. There was room to breathe around him, and our conversations were stimulating. We had no future together due to our individual career choices. Still, we made it a point to constantly flirt and communicate about how we should have materialized a date back in Malaysia where we had first matched.
Image: Unsplash
The series of unbelievable events began a year later when I received an opportunity to represent my organization at a conference in the UK. I mentioned my trip to Hashim, and he was stoked. It would coincide with my birthday. But I had to prepare now to deal with a new kind of hell—telling him about my condition, especially if things got hot and heavy.
When Hashim and I met, our sensory neurons fired over house wine and banter as we hopped around the city. By nightfall, neither of us wanted to part. I invited him to my AirBnB for a drink hoping the evening would last till dawn. One drink led to another, sloppy kisses to heavy petting. It was straight out of a romance novella full of cheesy clichés. I would be lying if I said that I didn’t feel like Cinderella dancing at the ball, dreading the idea of us parting soon after.
On my 27th birthday, and for the first time in my life, I was with a man I was attracted to and felt comfortable with. I took it upon myself to attempt to please him, to show that I cared and that I was more than a wounded body. He stopped me midway and began to reciprocate the gesture. In no time, I found myself snapping back to reality. This is where he stops and leaves.
To my surprise, none of that happened. He went down on me as we brought in my birthday in bed. Many men and accounts from other people have since made me realize that this was, among other strokes, a stroke of luck. I can testify that it is uncommon to hear about the existence of men who want you to have a good time before they do.
With Hashim, I also experienced the mythical multiple orgasms. That immersive experience of navigating pleasure in bed was better than anything I had heard or read about during my teenaged years. Perhaps it was because he never stopped to examine my body and my wounds. Perhaps he liked what he saw.
The morning after, I had to get to work, and we couldn’t stay and chat. Later, though, I brought it up: did he feel weird seeing those wounds and the stained skin? He said it was my story to tell, if and when I chose to share on my terms, and that it had not bothered him to see them on my body. He was concerned about the amount of pain I carried, not just from the wounds but also from the burden I lived with, the stigma, and the grief of keeping it all to myself. I cried throughout my flight back home, and two days later, about how Hashim was my lesson—into acceptance, into not denying my body the pleasure it deserves.
Perhaps those multiple orgasms were a learning aid. I understood that love and lust have no bearings to caste, colour, creed, sex, ability, or disability in an ideal world. Love is love, whether it is clear-skinned or wounded.
