by People sometimes inquire as to how I get the bruises on my skin. I do not find the questions rude or intrusive because woman-beating (I refuse to call it by its euphemism, ‘domestic violence’) is a serious problem in society, and so I think it is a good thing when people want to know how a woman was injured.
The number and severity of my bruises depends, of course, on how frequently I have had the good fortune to be played with (for the last few weeks, it has been ZERO, and I am going insane, thank you very much). Most of the fun-time marks are hidden by my clothing anyway. I also get bruised because I am clumsy and constantly knocking into things at the gym or in my apartment. I seriously think that my coffee table may well be the death of me one of these days (imagine the obituary: “DEATH BY COFFEE TABLE.” How dignified). I’m also fair-skinned (my ancestors did not exactly hail from the sunshine capitals of Europe), so that doesn’t help, either.
Don’t get the wrong idea, gentle reader, it’s not as if I look like a car-crash victim as I run about town (most of time, at least). I don’t look beat up. I just have, usually, a random ding here or there. Usually one on my legs (that coffee table. I’m telling you.).
Anyway, this essay has a point, so let me get to it (as I always told my freshman students, repeatedly, in caps, on their syllabus: “YOUR PAPER SHOULD HAVE A POINT.”). A student, a friend, a random dude chatting me up on the train–they ask: “How’d you get that mark on your leg? Ouch!” Okay, fine, understandable.
What boggles my mind, though, is when a masochist, a real player, comes into the studio and wants me to land on him like a ton of bricks, and then asks me, in all sincerity: “How did you get that bruise on your thigh?”
This happens all the time. All.The.Time. It’s a real head-scratcher.
Quoth the Masochist: “How Did You Get that Bruise?”
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