Forever Thinking About The Short Story “The Husband Stitch” From Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body

Forever thinking about the short story “The Husband Stitch” from Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties.

Thinking about bodily autonomy in romantic and sexual relationships, especially with men. Thinking about the expectation of martyrdom in womanhood. How complete servitude is the status quo. How women give and give until we’re empty and that’s considered a job well done. How much it hurts that women have to fight to keep the scraps of humanity we’re able to acquire.

Thinking about:

“A wife,” he says, “should have no secrets from her husband.”

“I don't have any secrets,” I tell him.

“The ribbon.”

“The ribbon is not a secret; it's just mine.”

Thinking about:

Resolve runs out of me. I touch the ribbon. I look at the face of my husband, the beginning and end of his desires all etched there. He is not a bad man, and that, I realize suddenly, is the root of my hurt. He is not a bad man at all. To describe him as evil or wicked or corrupted would do a deep disservice to him. And yet—

“Do you want to untie the ribbon?” I ask him. “After these many years, is that what you want of me?”

His face flashes gaily, and then greedily, and he runs his hand up my bare breast and to my bow.

“Yes,” he says. “Yes.”

“Then,” I say, “do what you want.”