A Special Place for Women, Laura Hankin [brene brown rising strong .txt] 📗

yourself, Beckley, I told myself. Pay attention to it all, so you can write it down.

“Carve your initials in the tongue,” Margot said, her breath hot in my ear. She watched over me, her hand on my shoulder, as I inscribed them unsteadily into the meat: JAB. Jillian Abigail Beckley.

When I was done, Margot lifted the meat from my hand, and held it above the flames. Caroline came up next to her on one side, with Vy on the other. The other women flanked them, linking themselves by putting hands on one another’s shoulders.

“May tongue uncurl and speak its truth,” Margot recited.

“May tongue uncurl and speak its truth,” the other women repeated, and then said it again, the words echoing and growing more urgent. Again and again, they said it, their voices lifting louder and higher until the words became almost a shriek, and the women’s eyes blazed. When it seemed that the words could not possibly gather any more force, the women all took in a breath as one, and then Margot threw the tongue into the fire. Sweating, the women arced their heads back, releasing a guttural yell up toward the sky.

I was sweating too, the heat of the fire flushing my face, as the meat began to char and the panting, shrieking sounds continued. The meat threw off a rich smell—shit, now I was hungry—and the smoke hung heavy around us. I was back in the dream I’d been having when they’d startled me awake, where everything was underwater, the world around me a slow-motion haze. And then Iris took off her robe. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath it.

What. The. Fuck. Was. Happening. I tried not to stare, but . . . well, I could see why she was so body positive. One by one, the other women followed, shedding their robes, until they were entirely bare. Nipples everywhere: tiny ones the size of dimes, large, puckered ones as big as sand dollars. So many nipples, and a lot of full bush. They tossed their robes to the side and began to dance, leaping and twirling, uncoordinated movements around the fire. They swung their hips and clasped their hair in all their naked, uninhibited glory, while I clenched my body tighter, not knowing what to do, on the outside again.

Margot appeared at my side and put her hands on my face. Eyes on her eyes, not on her boobs, I told myself. Don’t be a perv.

“Sometimes we worship sky-clad,” she said to me, as the women whirled around behind us. Even Caroline was naked, totally hairless and well maintained, her breasts like pert round apples. She danced like someone who’d been obsessed with ballerinas as a little girl and would have wanted to be one herself if not for a total lack of talent. Still, she was unabashed in her ungraceful movements, throwing in the odd pirouette or arabesque, and it was weirdly hypnotic to watch.

“Sky-clad?”

“Naked. When the body is released from all the things that constrict it, it has a power unlike anything else. Try it with us.”

“I’m not quite comfortable with my body,” I said quietly.

“Why not?”

“I just don’t . . . love it.”

“Oh, Jillian,” Margot said, with such sympathy in her voice. “That’s exactly why you should do it.” She stepped even closer to me, and the sounds and people around us blurred, growing smudged and fuzzy like the two of us were a photograph at the center of an Impressionist painting. She reached out and grasped the bottom of my pajama shirt. “May I?”

I nodded, my throat dry, trembling. Slowly, she drew the shirt up, lifting it over my head in an unhurried movement, so that the fabric scraped against my far-too-sensitive skin. I started to cross my arms over my chest, but she cocked an eyebrow, and I put them back down at my sides. She made no attempt to avert her eyes like I had. Instead she ran them over me, a lazy, contented smile playing around her mouth, then looked back up into my face.

“You’re beautiful, Jillian,” she said. Next, she combed her fingers along my hips. My skin prickled and sent off sparks as she drew her fingers underneath the waistband of my leggings and hooked them on the cotton band of my underwear. We rested like that for a moment as the other women continued their worship. Then, gentle and deliberate, Margot pulled the fabric down until it rested at my feet. She held her hand out to me, and I took it, our hot, sweating hands pulsing against each other’s. I stepped out of my clothes and into the circle, which opened up to welcome me in.

Enthusiastically, Margot jumped into the dancing. I moved stiffly, trying to copy her ease, so that no one would realize their mistake in letting me in here. Dance like no one’s watching, you dumbass, I told myself. And nobody was watching. No one was rating my movements on a one-to-ten scale. The other bodies passed in front of me. Up close, they were a feast of imperfections. Cellulite dimpled some of their thighs. I saw a birthmark here, a stretch mark there, and yet the dancing women didn’t care, didn’t try to hide it in the shadows, because they were too busy moving in an ecstatic communion.

I rolled my shoulders back. I dug my toes into the dirt below me. I went into the smell and the fire and the humming, and my body was no longer some ungainly shield I used to keep the world out but a flowing thing all of its own. I forgot to pay attention, I forgot everything except the rush of my arms and feet, moving in ways they never had before. I was in my own private world and I was terrified and alight all at once.

We danced for I don’t know how long, until they handed me back my pajamas to put on, then led me down a warren of stairways and out onto the street. They kissed me