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There’s a woman inside of me (There’s one inside of you, too)
There’s a gasp lodged in her throat. She doesn’t know where it came from, or how long it's been there, just that there’s something stuck in that delicate place between breastbone and mandible. Today, this gasp is Jane’s plus one—scarf knotted around her neck like a cheap imitation of the burial shroud, breath muffled as she steps into biting February air. Today is going to be something different. Today Jane is going to be Jane and only Jane—she will not pretend to be Him. She will not listen to the promises of blind deliverance that lodge themselves in her prayers and in her throat. She will wear her new coat and her worn in winter boots and wander familiar laps through an unfamiliar museum and devote herself to simply being Jane.
The museum isn’t somewhere she(—He) would have normally chosen. Picked by chance, delivered upon the blue-lit altar of her laptop lain upon her unmade bed. Not so close to friends or colleagues that she’ll run into anyone, not so far that it’ll feel like running away from herself. She will breathe life into something new surrounded by the bones of things centuries old, and it will feel right—it has to feel right. It will be a place where she can give herself over to the new sensations fizzing along arms and down her spine—breath rushing out of her in time with the sway of her woollen skirt, stockinged toes frozen in her too thin boots.
She’s half Jane half not-Jane as she stands in front of the unbearable façade of her deliverance—last cigarette warming her from the inside out as her right-hand twitches against shuttered muscle memory. It took this far for the nerves to catch up to her—she let the dull anonymity of the London underground wash them away, breathing in one blissful moment to be Herself and no one else. But here they are again, red-faced and puffing, struggling against the chase she’s put them through. Jane feels lit aflame, cigarette dripping slow honey down her throat as she breathes and stares and breathes and stares. Grinds the butt into worn stone under worn heel and pulls her shoulders back.
Deep breath in, deep breath out. Step in. She only has to be Jane.
No glass shatters. No name is crossed off any list. She is Jane and she is in the lobby of an anatomical museum and both things can be true. No ticket required, no name to be given. She’s offered a warm smile as she untangles herself from the gordian knot wrapped around her neck, artificial heat rushing to the soft parts of her as they each become bare. Scarf in bag, coat unbuttoned, map in hand. Halls of marbled stone branching out before her—she takes a step.
~~~
Its heavy handed, a weak yearning for the familiar, but there is something like home to be found in these halls of hallowed stone—the reverent hush of bodies milling around bodies, breath held, hands braced—like slipping into a warm bath of memory.
Surrounded by the bones of things that’ll never know her and people who won’t care to ask, Jane is wrapped tight in the burial shroud of becoming. It’s almost like mourning—like any corner could reveal it to her black lace gaze—17. Specimen of John Irving (human remains, origins unknown gifted to the museum anonymously circa 1995). She feels hollowed out, bones shucked clean from what once was and will never be again, heart racing quick as a rabbit. Mourning cowl bound tight around her shoulders, she wanders silent halls and thinks—and prays.
Is this right? Is this just? Will I be forgiven? Will I forgive?
Jane jolts out of her revelry with an icy-hot trickle up her spine. This wasn’t supposed to happen. This was somewhere safe, somewhere sacred that she could just be Jane, and no one would know the wiser—but here, like an omen, like a divine gift was Her. Standing scant metres away from her is Solomon Tozer.
She’s like a thermometer in hot water. Cheeks startling red as she takes in heavy boots and worn denim from afar. This isn’t right. She shouldn’t be here. She needs to leave. Her boots feel as if they had flooded with cement, some juvenile naivety praying that she’ll be left unnoticed, a stone left unturned. But then like the damning rays of the sun, Sol begins to turn.
~~~
“What d’you think of that one?” It’s startling, its damning. A warm voice trickling into the vulnerable parts of her like caramelising sugar.
“It’s—um—gosh, its dead? Hi?” The words tumble from the barrier of her molars before she can stop them. The tips of her ears are red. Does she know? Will she ask? Will she tell?
“Yeah, I think you’re right. I’m Sol, if y’were wondering.”
Theres a hand reaching out to her and it feels like a gift, like an opportunity. It is creation, it is amnesty.
“Oh! Jane—,” its foal-legged and wobbles from her lips, but there’s a warm, rough hand wrapping around her own and for the first time Jane feels every inch of herself, in these halls, in this knowing grasp.
Sol grins at her like she’s something delicate—like whatever just fumbled out of her mouth was the funniest thing she’s heard all week. There’s fear creeping in again, kicking the soft backs of her knees as she teeters against the feeling of hair curling around her chin and warm eyes looking at her—knowing.
“Well, Jane,” (its absolution, hearing it from someone else), “What’s a pretty thing like you doing all by yourself?” Sol is nothing but scorching heat, crystallising the tender edges of her, sticking her to the spot.
“Solomon, you must—you have to—Why?”
“Nothing to it, dove,” The grin is wicked now, turning her inside out, “Couldn’t help m’self.”
~~~
Jane is terrified. Jane is a frothy mix of fear and excitement. Jane wants to know more, wants to pull of this string until it frays. They are surrounded by old things, and they are beginning something new. Theres a hot mouth against hers and worn palms against her cheeks. It’s a holy thing—a confession box of their own, marble folds and museum plaques granting their own sense of illusion.
She is Becoming. She never has to be (—him) anyone but Jane again. She is Jane and there’s a rough palm pushing her hair behind her ear. She is Jane and there is a lump at the back of her throat and a wire at her chest. She is Jane and she is forgiven. She is Jane and she heaves a breath through new lungs as Sol sets her right. Tucking blouse into woollen skirt and fixing the strap of her bag, understanding hands shape her like molten sugar—and with a turn of the room Sol is gone.
Jane’s hands clasp and unclasp in familiar, devoted motions—blouse rucking up her heaving shoulders, leaving her forearms bare against reverent stone. It’s only then that she notices it. Jet black stigmata upon shaking palm.
“#### ##### <— Sol call me xx”
She gasps.