I did not have a chance to be afraid. For the entire duration of the car ride from my Harlem apartment to Long Island, I tried to memorize my body’s topography: every blonde hair on my arms, dry spot on my face, stretch mark on my thigh, gnawed skin on the sides of my fingers. I chose not to have my procedure in a hospital because I wanted as short a recovery as possible. In the weeks leading up to the surgery I’d had to get a handful of shots; fill a series of prescriptions for hydrocortisone cream, Vicodin, and Percocet; read through an informational packet about what I must do pre-and postoperation; and take a call with the doctor so he could elaborate on any part of the process. The packet seemed like a fair list of rules and guidelines, such as no eating before the operation and mandating that I shave my vulva before I went into the office. One page listed what might happen to me: nerve damage, sexual dysfunction, scarring, death. I swallowed a large wad of saliva as I read, figuring that this was standard practice as well. I’d had a root canal years ago, when I also could have theoretically died. The last page, however, was what almost caused me to renege on my decision altogether: it was titled “Psychological Healing.” Psychological healing? I was reducing the size of my inner left labium, not getting a hysterectomy or a mastectomy. What kind of psychological healing did I need after a surgery that would last no longer than an hour? Although I couldn’t get this out of my head, I never spoke to the doctor about it.
As I sat in the waiting room, the receptionist instructed me to take one Vicodin and one Percocet. Afterwards I was escorted into an exam room, where I took off everything from the waist down and stood up against the wall adjacent to the door. The doctor crouched down in front of me while the female nurse stood watch in the near corner, perhaps to thwart sexual harassment accusations. He asked me to part my legs and then he pulled down my inner left labium in order to photograph its original length. I focused on the fluorescent lighting overhead, my eyes spasmodically blinking in concordance with each camera snap. I felt humiliated. But once I lay down on the exam table, I didn’t feel that way anymore. Inside, I was pulling away from my core, like dandelion seeds being stripped away from the flower by the wind. The doctor injected the local anesthesia into my vulva and praised me for being able to hold still. Truth be told, it was easy; I was not in my body.
As the doctor cut away, my mind drifted. I thought of food and documentaries I wanted to watch on Netflix. There was not a moment where I thought, Hey, pay attention to what’s going on. I felt like I was levitating. Even when he grabbed the forceps I did not flinch. I saw part of myself wedged in between his right pointer finger and thumb, the same digits I used to adjust it. When he placed what he’d taken from me on a draped table, I wanted to twist my neck to look at it, but my head was too heavy to move.
After I was stitched back together, he showed me how much he’d cut off. That part of my “second tongue” was about as wide as my two thumbs pressed together, its consistency similar to that of an elephant’s skin. My mother came into the room and helped me to put back on my clothes and stand up. We stopped for lunch at Chipotle on our way home.
In March of 2016, I was allowed to attend the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) conference in Los Angeles. AWP is a prestigious three-day extravaganza teeming with agents, editors, MFA students, creative writing instructors, publicists, readers, and, of course, writers. There are an overwhelming number of panels and parties, occasioned by an industry fair that features over 850 exhibitors. I was only several months into my job as an editorial assistant, one that I had dreamed of getting for over a year, and I had stars in my eyes the whole time.
One night, an acquaintance invited me to a party at the Silver Lake home of the writer of some Oscar-winning film. Because the friend of said acquaintance offered to drive us and one of my mentors would be there as well, I decided to go. We walked into the backyard, and the party was exactly how I’d envisioned it. Hordes of mostly white people, including a few authors whom I recognized because of their recent releases, bobbing their heads and casually sipping on vodka next to a pool. I decided to stay sober. There wasn’t a chaser to help with the vodka, and these were not my people. I had to remain professional.
Kristina, a young Latina from New York whom I’d met at a Halloween party the year before, was swimming in the pool along with several other guests. She spotted me and swam over to the side, urging me to come in, too. I smiled and politely declined. I was only one of perhaps four black women there, and I didn’t need to stand out any more than I already did. I wanted to explain my decision by saying I didn’t want to mess up my hair, but I didn’t think Kristina would understand this; although she was a woman of color, she could easily have passed as white because she was very fair-skinned and had blonde hair. I’m sure she had on many occasions. My second option was to say I didn’t have a bathing suit, but before I could speak, a black woman got out of the pool and told me that there were communal bathing suits in the house. (I wanted to give this woman the side-eye for even suggesting this. Growing up, I learned that black people’s personal hygiene standards were different than those of white people. We cannot refuse to wash for days, or not wash our hands after using the bathroom; poor hygiene is a privilege reserved for white people, who can eschew certain modes of decency and still be considered clean. Why would I want to put my body in a bathing suit that I couldn’t be sure had been thoroughly washed, or washed at all, since it was last used?) I sat down on an adjacent sofa, but that didn’t stop Kristina from trying a second time, and then a third, to get me into the pool. I could not tell Kristina the truth, that I was uncomfortable and afraid, because I worried that she would think that I had some kind of social anxiety disorder.
Then again, maybe I do.
Now that the other woman had left, there was no other black person in that pool. Some of the people in there were smoking. Men and women were making out with one another. There was a weird vibe, like the pool activities could have easily progressed further. For a moment, I felt like an extra on the set of some Entourage episode; these were the kinds of behaviors that I only saw in decadent HBO series, or read about in personal essays written by white women. To me, such hedonism was a luxury afforded to the white and privileged, and when I was in that world I could observe but never participate. At the most I could afford a glass or two of the weakest wine, but I could never indulge. White, privileged people are always considered clean no matter what they do, while I as a black woman have to constantly scrub at the filth that society smears onto my body.
I feared that if I got into the pool half naked, with my breasts spilling out of a bikini top, my body would alter the atmosphere. I would be stared at, and men might even hit on me, asking me where I was from and if I was having a good time before offering me drugs. If I got in and didn’t participate with everyone else, I would be seen as uncool and immature. If I did, someone I knew professionally could see me, suspect that I was up to no good, and then my boss could find out that his most recent hire was fucking up.
When I discussed this deep sense of unease with my mentor, who is also black and more than ten years my senior, he told me that I made the right decision by not swimming. He eased my worry that I was overthinking an otherwise fun situation. In fact, he argued that there is no limit to overthinking when you are a young black woman in an overwhelmingly white space.
But a part of me wanted to fuck up. I wanted to see what it was like to be so carefree, so white. I fantasized about getting in that pool, taking off my bikini top, catching the eye of some older and more powerful editor, and having sex in a bathroom with the door slightly cracked. I thought about what it would be like to do a line of cocaine, even though I’ve never wanted to. (I have a strong aversion to taking even regular, over-the-counter drugs.) But these fantasies were the only luxury in which I could indulge. Only in my imagination could I do any of these things and remain unscathed both professionally and socially.