AUGUSTUS C. GROHMANN

Rapunzel by Rapunzel

Rapunzel has his ear pressed to the floor of the bathroom, and is listening to his downstairs neighbor masturbate. Rapunzel does not consider himself a pervert. He is not (very) aroused by this, but he goes on listening, hearing the low buzz of the vibrator, and the occasional gasp rising over it. He has never met his downstairs neighbor. He does, however, share her interest in frequent and noisy masturbation, and may very well masturbate every day, although he would never admit that to anyone. There are two reasons for this, the first being that he has not said a word to anyone in well over a year. The second is that he has no knowledge of when one day ends and another begins. Rapunzel looks at calendars only when he needs to meet a deadline or pick up one of his frequent deliveries, and the window in his apartment stays perpetually shuttered. Light scarcely ever reaches his confines.

Rapunzel lives on the top floor of his building, and most days he considers himself lucky to be able to hear the rain hitting the roof. At the moment, however, the storm's growing intensity is drowning out the sound of the woman below him right as she is about to orgasm. He presses his ear further into the floor, the canals between the bathroom tiles making a checkerboard on the side of his face, but cannot hear much of anything now. The blood stops flowing through his body with its feverish pace and the swelling in his pants stops its tumor-like growth as his heartbeat slows. The rain is calming, and the once-cold floor has been warmed by his body heat so that it almost becomes a comfortable place to sleep. He slips into unconsciousness, not knowing how long it has been since he last slept. He will not know how long he was asleep, either, until it comes time to open his computer to put in another few hours for his work-from-home job.

His morning (morning?) starts the same way every time he wakes up from what feels like a sufficiently long rest. His counter-top is covered with brands like Olay and Ole Henriksen and COSRX, but his skin isn't fixed yet. Rapunzel smears skin creams into square-shaped swimming pools pressed into his face. For the next step of his morning, Rapunzel moves into the main room and works out for as long as he can stand on the elliptical, the only furnishing in his room aside from a desk, a chair and his bed. When he talks to himself, Rapunzel calls himself a "cardio bunny," but feels bad for using a term that mostly exists to objectivize women. He will feel worse about it approximately two hours from now, the next time he watches internet pornography.

After his workout ends, he will collapse on to his bed, feeling the sweat pool into the tangled sheets. He wraps the wet fabric around his fists like a rope. Rapunzel remembers when he first got his job, with its high pay and low workload. Rapunzel remembers the victory of moving out of his mother's home into his new apartment. Rapunzel holds the rope, and considers tying it to the window ledge, and climbing out into the street. Rapunzel knows he is the prince who could lead him out of his sweat-drenched apartment. Rapunzel also knows that she is the fair young maiden, who never lets herself out, despite having all the tools she could ever need. She twists her hair around his knuckles until they hurt, and he does not do much of anything besides panting.

Rapunzel looks around the room for something to distract him, and sees the only two books he owns. He does not read very frequently, and when he does, he usually finds pdfs of the books online. The two books he owns physical copies of are Søren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling and the Grimm Brothers' Fairy Tales. Rapunzel has read Rapunzel but did not like it very much, did not like the tears that came at the end. Rapunzel thought the Prince was better off blind.

INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR

Interviewer: In this story, you explore a lot of ideas and lifestyles considered shameful. Are you worried that readers might project these seemingly negative ways of being onto you?

Rapunzel: If they want to project this story onto me, then let them, I don't give a shit. Assume that writers are always writing about themselves. Well, writers are always writing about themselves, I guess, but that doesn't mean everything they're writing is always true. My window is open most of the time, for example.

Interviewer: This story also seems to touch on ideas of gender and gender identity, but, as of yet, you've made no statements about being trans in any way. How do you, as a writer, navigate the politics of writing for an identity you do not necessarily consider yourself a part of?

Rapunzel: Well, that's a fair question in some ways, and an unfair one in others. I think you're right to ask about the challenges of writing about people with different experiences than yours, and, honestly, I still don't know exactly where I stand on the politics of it. I think you're wrong in assuming that this is a story about a trans person, though. This is a story about someone who has problems with their gender identity and who has questions about it, but it's not a story about someone who's decidedly trans. It doesn't matter whether I identify as trans in the context of this story because that's not what it's about. It's about someone who has questions.

Interviewer: So you have questions about your gender identity, then?

Rapunzel: Well, you sure seem to, may as well get in on it.

Interviewer: What was the purpose of writing interview questions for yourself? Do you think it could be interpreted as narcissistic?

Rapunzel: I'm sure it could be, yes, and, in a sense, it is. But any additional information forces the reader to recontextualize what they've already read. Everything I say is a part of the story too, because everything I say changes how you feel about it. This is a deliberate effort. I intend to shove my own reading of this story down your throat.

Interviewer: Isn't the subject already messy and confusing enough?

Rapunzel: The subject is already confusing, yes. Stories about it are allowed to be messy.

Interviewer: Alright, last question. Are you Rapunzel?

INTERVIEW ENDS.

Augustus C. Grohmann is a graduate student and cross-genre writer at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia. They make a mean pasta alla puttanesca. Email them at ggrohmann@hotmail.com.