I am trying to find myself. Sometimes that’s not easy.
-Marilyn Monroe
“I am beautiful.”
Dressed in underwear and a T-shirt, Karma stared at herself in the mirror as she repeated the affirmation, just as she had yesterday morning before Pilates, and just as she would tomorrow before work, and the next day, and the next, just as Mark had told her to do.
She had heard Daniel discuss the concept of mind over matter before. Of repeating affirmations to change your mind-set in a karmic practice of putting out good energy to receive good energy back, but she had never tried it. She didn’t know why, though. Maybe she had become complacent. People had a way of becoming complacent and accepting the status quo instead of searching for ways to change and improve.
Karma didn’t want to be part of the status quo, anymore. Complacency would no longer do. Not now that she had met Mark and he had opened a whole new world of possibilities.
If she was being honest, though, the change had begun before she met Mark, even before she put on that red dress and envisioned herself inside a fantasy where she could be anyone she wanted. Her transformation had begun her freshman year of college, when she had abandoned her father’s dream to become an engineer and embraced her own desire to become a writer. It had only been a baby step at the time, and one she hadn’t recognized until recently as being the real her trying to break free. That one small change had been her first effort to discover her true self.
In hindsight, she realized she had always done what everyone else had expected. She had studied academics in school even though she wanted to pursue more artistic endeavors. Dad had compromised and allowed her to take piano lessons when she was a kid, and she later taught herself how to play guitar, but her class schedule had been packed with math and science. If not for English, homework would have been a drag. At least she had managed to convince her parents to let her join the basketball and cross-country teams in high school. Back then, she had loved distance running.
She hadn’t run in years. Not since sophomore year in college. She missed it. For her, running had been almost meditative. Maybe she would go for a short run later in the day. Perhaps start training for a 5k. The thought was surprisingly empowering.
In the mirror, her gaze dropped to her chest. Mark had called her breasts perfect.
“I am beautiful.” She smiled at her reflection, believing the words. Mark had made her feel beautiful.
She pulled off her T-shirt. Were they perfect? Instead of seeing the definition of small in her reflection, was she really seeing the definition of perfection?
Gentle swells pushed upward from the confines of her bra. Her skin was smooth and flawless, and for the first time, she looked—really looked—at her breasts. Always before, she had averted her gaze, too insecure to face the perceived flatness.
But her breasts weren’t flat. She did have hills on her chest instead of valleys. Screw those stupid kids who had bullied her.
Taking a deep breath, she reached around and unclasped her bra. She held it in place for a moment, and then, with eyes closed, she let it drop to the floor. Slowly, as if unwrapping a gift, she opened her eyes again.
“I am beautiful.” Her words were a mere whisper now, but a feeling comprised of equal parts relief, happiness, and revelation hugged her heart.
Her pale nipples puckered against the air, forming tiny round nubs the size of baby peas. She had small, pert nipples that capped smaller-than-average breasts. But her breasts weren’t flat, and they weren’t ugly. In fact, now that she was giving them a hard look, they looked perfectly proportioned to her body. She was naturally lean, like her father, with hips that looked more athletic than curvy. When she turned to the side, her bottom curved in a way that balanced perfectly with the small stature of her breasts. She was no Jennifer Lopez, but her bottom was…well…nice.
Hmm. How about that? Amazing what an objective assessment—and one very hot man—could do to change how she viewed her body.
“I am beautiful.”
It would take time for her to fully adjust her perspective, but this felt like another breakthrough moment, similar to the one she had experienced when she made the decision, despite her dad’s protests, to change majors. She had felt such a burden lift off her soul that day, just as she felt one lifting now. For the first time, she saw herself the way Mark saw her.
Screw her stupid brother and his wife, Estelle. Screw Jolene, too. Screw all her stupid childhood classmates.
The past was the past, and she was moving forward.
She retrieved her bra from the floor and put it back on. As she pulled her T-shirt over her head, she crossed the room and sat on the bed. The case that contained the pair of black Ben Wa balls sat on her bedside table. So far, she’d done her Kegels without them. For some reason, the idea of putting them in her vagina had intimidated her. Well, no more of that. She was a grown woman, for crying out loud, not a baby. It was time to grow a pair and woman-up.
She took the balls out and rolled them in her palm. They were heavier than they looked, but not too heavy.
She lay upon the bed, lifted the waistbands of her shorts and panties, and then slid the first ball around until she found her entrance. Before Mark had taught her about her G-spot, she hadn’t been accustomed to putting her fingers inside herself, so it took a while to get the ball in place, and then, just like that, it slipped inside.
She actually gasped. Hooray! Success.
In went the second, more easily than the first.
Recoiling into the mattress and squeezing her eyes shut, she slowly poked her finger more deeply and pushed the balls in as the instructions said to.
She withdrew her finger and took a deep breath. She’d done it. She’d accomplished another first. Then she did her Kegels before taking care of her housework. Dishes, laundry, vacuuming. Mark had said she could leave the balls in for a while, which would help strengthen her inner muscles, so she didn’t take them out.
As she worked, she worried the balls would slide out on their own, but despite a slight heaviness, she hardly felt them as she went about her business. After a while, she didn’t feel them at all. She finished the laundry, cleaned the kitchen, made a pot of chili, and read more from the books Mark had given her. She was learning so much, such as how to give a whole variety of hand jobs and the joys of anal sex. Yeah, anal wasn’t something she would try any time soon.
By the time she finished the books, she would know enough to be truly dangerous in the bedroom. But reading and doing were two different things, and while all her new knowledge sounded great in print, when it came to the rubber meeting the road, would she be able to perform?
At nine o’clock, she figured it was time for the Ben Wa balls to come out before she got ready for bed.
She went to her bedroom, put on a pale blue, oversized nightshirt, and lay down.
The instructions had said she could maneuver them out with her fingers or stand up, crouch, and cough. The idea of doing a crouch and cough reminded her of a man’s prostate exam, so she opted for getting squeamish with her finger instead.
Deep breath. Insert finger. Dig a little. Ah! There was ball one. After a couple of tries, she hooked her finger around it and pulled it out. Nothing to it. Now for round two. In she went. Where was it? The tip of her finger grazed it. Gotcha. Oops, no. Slippery little sucker. Visions of Julia Roberts shooting a snail across the restaurant in Pretty Woman made her smile. Okay, try again. Oops. Slipped away again. This wasn’t funny, anymore. Come here you little bastard.
After five minutes, panic began to set in. She couldn’t get ball number two to cooperate. Another five minutes later, and she was crouching and coughing as if she had pneumonia, but still no ball. Number two wasn’t budging.
What if the ball got inside her uterus? Could that happen? What if she couldn’t get it out? Would she need surgery? Oh God! How embarrassing would that be?
She rushed to her laptop and pulled up everything she could find about Ben Wa balls, how to get them out, and whether or not they were safe for prolonged use.
The good news was, they couldn’t get into her uterus. That was a relief. There were a few other tips about how to remove a stubborn ball, and it was apparently pretty common for one to dig in its heels and not come out. She eventually found a thread on a message board—a whole friggin’ thread hundreds of comments long—devoted to posts from women who had suffered the same fate. Most of them posted they’d had to get their husbands or boyfriends to fish the stubborn thing out.
Great. Just great. She could hear that conversation with Mark now. “Hey, could you come over and pull out my Ben Wa ball?” As if it were the same as asking him to come and clear a clog in her kitchen sink or help her move the refrigerator.
No, she would do this herself. She tried a couple of other suggestions, such as jumping up and down, as well as bearing down like she was giving birth, and still the tiny, seemingly innocent ball remained rooted firmly in place. Great. Women could squeeze something the size of a small watermelon from their vagina every time they gave birth, but she couldn’t even pop out a marble-sized ball. Maybe she just needed labor pains and someone standing over her telling her to breathe and push, and the little sucker would shoot out like a torpedo. As it was, that wasn’t happening.
She lay down on the floor and tried using her finger again, but after another five minutes with the same results, she gave up.
There was nothing more she could tonight. Her insides were sore and irritated after so much prodding, so she would give it a rest and try again in the morning.
And if that didn’t work…?
“Ugh.” She flopped her arms down on the carpet and stared up at the ceiling as a heavy chill settled inside her gut.
If she couldn’t get Ben Wa number two out on her own, she would have to…
“Please, God, don’t embarrass me like that.”
But that’s what it might come to.
Mark just might have to ride in on his white steed, his silver armor gleaming in the sunlight, and save her from the curse of the evil Ben Wa ball.