Partly Toothless
A Short Story by Jen Ives
Helen balanced her youngest Amy precariously on one knee as she tried, hopelessly, to reach the programme of events underneath her chair. Her eldest (but by not very much), Benjy - was out of sight but she could hear him, off to the left of the aisle seats somewhere, giggling girlishly in the way that all five year old boys did. She called him back over to her authoritatively (but not sternly) and tried once more to grab at the programme down below. Somehow it was even further out of reach now. She’d have to just allow the day to play out and let its contents surprise her, she thought.
There was a tapping on her elbow. Heaving Amy over to her other knee, Helen turned to face the man on her right hand side, who had gotten her attention to offer her his programme of events. He was bald, and party toothless, which Helen might not have noticed as quickly, had his tap on her elbow not awkwardly transitioned into an overfamiliar pinched grip. Helen declined the programme, thanked him anyway and, using Benjy’s return as an excuse, broke expertly away from the partly toothless bald man’s uninvited physical contact.
Helen was at the conference, first and foremost, as a journalist - but she’d have been lying if she said she wasn’t interested in the topic at hand. Lucky for her, her paper was too - so had paid for her ticket outright. It was the first ever Gender Critical conference. It was a big deal - they’d just achieved official charity status (the first of their kind to do so). It was impressive, no one could deny it.
Helen glanced around the packed conference hall. It felt assuring to see so many passionate women together in one place, she thought. Not ‘bigots’ or ‘monsters’, but concerned mothers. She herself didn’t like to take sides - after all, she herself had a transgender nephew. No, wait - niece, sorry. She was still getting used to it. But all the same, events like this one - it’s not like they hurt anybody. They were about healthy discussion - fair debate. And she was going to report on it, professionally and fairly.
There was a rumble of murmuring as speakers began to pass down the aisles and mount the stage. Helen looked around to see if she recognised any of the faces there, and suddenly seemed to notice just how many men were also in attendance. In fact, there were probably slightly more men at the conference than there were women. No, that’s good - she thought. Men can be feminists too. God knows we need more men on our side.
Benjy was clamouring up one of her arms now, trying desperately to gain purchase, but unable to harness enough strength in his thin little arms. He had that look on his face that Helen knew to mean - you need to take me to the toilet right now or I will piss all over the convention hall carpet. She heaved both him and Amy up with ‘Mum Muscles’ as she liked to call them, and made her way down the aisle past the approaching guest speakers, whoever they were, now single-mindedly in search of one thing - a toilet.
As Helen entered the main lobby, which was now being set up in preparation for lunch, she looked desperately around for signs to guide her. She knew it was ridiculous that she be on full parental duties this morning of all mornings, but she also knew it was more ridiculous to try and argue with Paul when he was in one of his ‘I need to be in the office more often’ moods. He didn’t. He could do everything he needed to do from home, but he was insisting on going in more and more as of late, and coming home later and later smelling of whiskey and cigar smoke. Helen knew that the boozy lunches with contractors were an important part of what he did, but she really did think he would be helping out more with the kids now.
Predictably, the ‘accessible’ toilet was locked, and thereby inaccessible. Helen made a mental note to remember to find out how to get one of those big radar-keys. It’d have to be the ladies. Helen made her way over, but as she went to push open the door, a stoutly figure with a grey bobhairdo stepped in her way.
“Women only, Madam”.
Helen hated being called ‘Madam’ - she wasn’t anywhere near it, yet. This grey haired woman, who looked to be in her early sixties had on a fluorescent yellow hi vis bib - she was the ‘Madam’.
“I am a woman!” laughed Helen, readjusting her arms to keep Amy from pinching Benjy, who by now was wriggling around like one of those toy ferrets she’d refused to buy them in Hamley’s. It took Helen a few seconds to clock what this toilet-guard had meant, but it suddenly became crystal clear to her that her objection was to Benjy.
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, he’s only five! Come on now - it’s an emergency”.
“Is there a problem?”
The bald, partly toothless man had stepped in now. He was still holding a programme, just like he had been back in the conference hall.
“If you like, I can take him into the Gents for you? It’s no bother. That frees you up to look after the little one…”
Helen was confused. Weren’t they both ‘little ones’? Benjy wasn’t a ‘man’ - he was a soft, emotional little Silly Billy who needed his mum to help him and is in no way going into a men’s room with a weirdo stranger. Helen noticed for the first time, now that she was getting a longer look at him, that this bald, partly toothless old man was also suffering from some intense, possibly infectious rash all over his neck and arms.
She declined his help as politely as she could, and told both he and the grey toilet-guard that she’d find a security guard to let her into an accessible toilet. The truth was though, that Helen had no intention of doing that. She was angry now - angry at the very audacity of these two strangers thinking they could police her parenting. She stormed across the main hall, through the caterers preparing their sandwiches and chocolate mousses, to the toilets on the adjacent side. Helen stopped midway to crouch down behind a pillar, where she took the pink headband from Amy’s head and placed it onto Benjy’s. He resisted at first, but when she explained to him that his cooperation now would be rewarded with a HappyMeal later, he relented.
It was extraordinary how much he looked like Amy with the headband on - at that age, any real variation in visible sex was negligible. Plus, Amy had always been stronger than Benjy. She was self-sufficient, even from the start. Like a cat. Benjy on the other hand - he needed his mummy.
The adjacent toilet-guard, this time slightly younger but by no means less grey, had no issues what-so-ever, and Helen swanned past making friendly eye contact. It was just as well, because she could feel on both of her arms the familiar, warm damp warning that time was running out. She bee-lined past two women reapplying lipstick and eyeliner in the bathroom mirror, and rushed herself, Amy and Benjy all into one single cubicle together.
Helen sat Amy down first, as she was starting to lose grip on her - she tended to be done a lot faster anyway. Helen positioned herself in the corner, keeping an eye on them both, while at the same time directing a keen ear towards the conversation playing out between the two women on the other side of the wall. Benjy had managed to distract himself well enough for now with the toilet paper dispenser.
“...are we going to the 13:30 talk?”
“Which one is that?”.
“The Gender Cult In Our Classrooms”.
“Oh yes, I want to go to that one!”
“Did you select salmon or chicken?”
“Salmon”.
“Same here”.
Amy was finished - Helen could tell because she had started to sing: “I’m finished!” over and over again. Benjy was up next, so she helped Amy off the seat and turned Benjy to face the porcelain. He didn’t like standing up to do his wees, but Helen was trying to encourage him. Paul didn’t like him sitting down, but Helen had to admit that it was easier - especially on days like this one. Still, she did try.
“What about 15:00?”
“Remind me…”
“It’s Not Conversion Therapy, Actually - with Dr. Zapf”.
“We can’t miss that”.
“He’s quite good looking, isn’t he - Dr. Zapft…”
“Behave yourself, you’re married!”
Something was up. Benjy still hadn’t gone, and now Amy was getting restless to leave. Helen asked him what the matter was, and that’s when he began to shout…
“Mummy - my willy hurts! It’s burning - my willy…”
There was an ear piercing scream from outside the cubicle, followed by someone shouting: “Help! Help us, someone! Security? Security! There’s a man in the ladies room. Help us!”
Before long, the screaming had turned to banging on the cubicle door. Helen pulled up Benjy’s trousers and heaved him and Amy up, sitting herself down on the lid of the toilet. She could hear more and more voices joining in the rabble as they entered the bathroom one by one.
“A man? There’s a man in here?”
“Where? Have you called security?”
“What happened? Did he attack you?”
“Get out. Get out of there right now you pervert sicko”.
The banging was turning to yanking, the walls and door buckling a little more each and every time. Helen pulled her tiny children close as she tried to calm them. They felt even tinier than usual. She tried shouting back, but whatever it was she was attempting to argue was completely drowned out by the burning anger behind the door. Glimpses of eyeballs kept flashing past the cracks between the door and the sides, each one seemingly angrier than the last. Amy had a good, tight grip beneath mummy’s coat, but Benjy was struggling to find purchase, so Helen gripped onto his tiny, bird boned wrist. That’s when the door buckled and fell in, which would have fallen flat onto Helen’s head had the toilet paper dispenser not been in the way to tilt it off its axis. A swarm then of furious women, all of varying ages and backgrounds flooded into the tiny cubicle. Helen immediately yanked Benjy down between the porcelain and the sanitary bin, almost stuffing him in there - it being the furthest place, technically, from the horde. The women began punching and kicking with reckless, unapologetic abandon - landing horrible, heavy blows onto Helen’s shoulders, head and face. She wanted to cover herself with her hands, but doing so would mean wilfully letting go, and she’d never, ever forgive herself for that.
Helen held out as long as she could, she really did, but at a certain point Benjy was found, and fished out from his cramped hideaway, carried off into the unforgiving wave of furious, lashing arms. The punches onto Helen subsided, turning to mere restraint, not that Helen had the energy left to put up a fight.
The women left the ladies room seemingly as quickly as they’d entered, leaving Helen and Amy unbalanced and dazed. No one offered either of them so much as a glance, let alone a hand to get up. As soon as she could physically do so, Helen clambered to her feet and lifted Amy up off of the ground. She knew her nose was pouring out hot blood, but she had no interest in tending to it, not while Benjy was somewhere needing her.
Helen stumbled out of the ladies room. The women who had just been hitting her were now sitting down at long tables, eating dishes of salmon and chicken, and calmly chatting to one another about how great the conference had been so far. Helen called out for Benjy, but no response came.
Placing Amy down, Helen ran manically over to the dining tables, pushing several full servings of Salmon and broccoli onto the conference room floor. No one looked up at her.
It was only when Helen felt a familiar tap on her elbow did she stop smashing plates. There, handing her a programme was the bald, slightly toothless, rash stricken man. She pushed his arm away - told him to get fucked. Demanded he hand over her Benjy. Go and fuck off and die you ugly freak. Where is he? Where is my son!
Like the women though, he had no words to offer her. Just a programme - of all the day’s events.
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