A Madwoman's Diary

by Lawrence Block

  I just got up from the typewriter and called Bill. The line was busy. I guess that means he has a girl over there and is sucking her or fucking her or playing some desperate little game with her. Probably getting her hot by telling her about Jennifer Starr, the crazy pervert who comes over once a week to watch him jerk off.

  It doesn’t matter to me and he can say whatever he wants because there is no Jennifer Starr. All there is is Krause the Mouse and maybe she doesn’t exist either.

  I don’t even think it does any good to put all this crap on paper. I had a drink when I came home and it was scary how good it tasted. I’m going to have one or two more. In fact I might even get good and loaded, and why not, because no one in the world gives a fuck.

  18 March—Thursday

  “Bill? This is Jennifer.”

  “Hello.”

  “Hello. I just felt like calling.”

  “Well, how’s everything?”

  “Uh, fine.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “Is there someone there? That you can’t talk?”

  “No, I’m alone.”

  “You sounded different,”

  “You sound different yourself. Is something the matter?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Huh?”

  “I thought, oh, that maybe I would come over tonight. If you weren’t busy.”

  “I don’t know if that would be a good idea.”

  “Oh.”

  “Today is what? Thursday? We’ll be seeing each other Saturday.”

  “I just thought, oh, it’s not important.”

  “Is something wrong, Jennifer?”

  “No, nothing’s wrong.”

  “Then I’ll see you Saturday.”

  “Maybe I’ll be busy.”

  “I hope not. I’ll look forward to it. Look, I’ll explain some things Saturday.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Saturday, okay?”

  “I guess so.”

  No comment no comment no comment no comment no comment no comment …

  19 March—Friday

  I guess it went away, whatever it was.

  I think I know what it was.

  I was starting to play games with myself. I was starting to think Bill was something other than what he is. I must have known all along I was in danger of doing this. I was making him a central figure and that is dangerous because he does not want to get involved with me and I honestly do not dare get involved with him or anybody else. I was selling myself something and it did not go down well and it made me sick.

  I even got sort of drunk the night before last. And wanted to get drunk last night, after that telephone call, but I guess I knew better. Because that doesn’t solve anything.

  I wrote half a dozen letters tonight. All of them signed Jennifer Starr, and all of them with my Post Office box as my return address. To Screw advertisers.

  Dear So-and-so (s):

  I am an attractive young woman in her early twenties with a problem. One which will either turn you off or turn you on, and you may be the judge of that. For a variety of reasons, I am incapable of having a genuine sexual relationship. I am unwilling to touch or be touched but get a tremendous thrill out of watching the sexual activity of others. I will undress and excite myself while watching but will not otherwise participate. If my kinky tastes interest you, perhaps we can get something going. But I would not want to get involved unless it is understood that my privacy will be respected, and that you will not be put off by my refusing to join in and will make no attempt to change my mind.

  If at all interested, reply with phone number and tell me what you’re all about. Photo appreciated but not necessary. This isn’t a gimmick, and I’m a little nervous about putting this in the mail, but I feel I have to.

  Sincerely, Jennifer Starr

  “A little nervous” indeed. I’m terrified, and not at all certain I’ll mail the letters. Or check my Post Office box for replies. Or call any of the people who reply, assuming anyone does. Or go through with any of it.

  Two of the letters are to single men looking to swing with women or couples. Ads similar to Bill’s, but the singleminded sincerity of pleasing the woman isn’t there, or doesn’t come through as strongly. One’s a bisexual male. Another is a bored housewife, or so she describes herself, who wants to swing with another woman. And the last two are couples who want threesomes with single girls.

  I can’t offhand imagine why any of them would be interested in having me around, but it’s possible.

  Main thing—it’s something to do. It’s something to get my sex life (such as it is) headed in a direction that is independent of Bill.

  I want very much to see him tomorrow, and I will see him tomorrow, but I can’t focus everything on him. I think that’s what he was trying to tell me over the phone. Just as he cannot attempt to get in touch with me, I can’t get in the habit of feeling I can call him whenever I’m in the mood. I’m sure that’s what he was telling me, but of course I was too depressed to hear it in his words.

  But the thing is that unless I start striking out on my own (and I have the horrible feeling I’ll just be striking out in the baseball sense of the term) I’ll tend to call him every time I get depressed, or at least feel like calling him whenever I get depressed, and that would be the worst possible thing to do.

  Bill and I can be of use to each other. That’s coldblooded, put that way, but it’s true. And it’s all there is. We can do each other some good, provide each other with some pleasure.

  I never provided anybody with any real pleasure before. There’s joy in that. Not as much joy, I must though admit, as in receiving pleasure from somebody.

  And no one ever gave me pleasure before.

  But all we can be is of use to each other, is pleasure for one another. That is enough, but trying to make it more will ruin what it is.

  The stupid fantasies I have.

  Oh, put it down, girl, put it down. You have been thinking it and ought not hide it from your typewriter. It says nothing you have not said to yourself.

  Fantasies of love and marriage. (Aches me to type the words. Hurts, hurts, hurts!) Fantasies of getting caught up in each other, of him being the teacher and I the pupil and he gradually works on my neuroses and delivers me at last to the Promised Land of fucking-and-loving-it.

  Dreams.

  These are dreams I must avoid. Or must dream them as I dream Jennifer’s rougher fantasies, her sadomasochistic trips which would turn me off in anything other than fantasy. (Or would they? Let us say for now merely that I much prefer to think so.) By using these fantasies as fantasies I can defuse them. If it lends agility to my under-the-cover finger fucks to think of Bill as a potential husband, to dream fucking him and marrying him, let me do so—but let me not forget that it is fantasy and only fantasy, evaporating with the morning mist.

  I’m going to that concert, and if that dyke is there I’m going to let her buy me coffee. And tomorrow I’ll see Bill before I write anything and my diary entry will be about what happens with him.

  And I’ll mail those letters on the way to the concert tonight.

  And I’ll brush my teeth before I go to bed, and say my prayers, and wash behind my ears, and lick my fingers clean after I finish playing with myself.

  If it weren’t that I decided not to cross anything out, I think I would cross out that last paragraph. But the hell with it.

  20 March—Saturday

  “Hi, Jennifer. I wasn’t sure you were coming.”

  “Am I late?”

  “No, but after the conversation the other night—”

  “I’m embarrassed about that. The mood I was in.”

  “I was working out hangups of my own on you. I’ll tell you about it later. One thing, I have to make a call. An old friend called earlier and I said I thought I had a date but wasn’t sure. I said I’d call her back.”

  “If you want me to leave—”

  “No, don’t be ridiculou
s.” Turns to the phone, turns back to me. “Something occurs to me.”

  “What?”

  “Let me show you her picture.”

  A tawny blonde, skin like warm honey, large firm young breasts. She is tied spread-eagled to what I recognize as a water bed, well-muscled thighs wide apart. Bill kneels at her side poking a large dildo in and out of her.

  “Wanda. She had to be tied up.”

  “Who took the picture?”

  “I did. A Polaroid with a cable shutter release. You said you’d like to watch me with another girl.”

  “Won’t she mind?”

  “She would if I told her about it. You could stay in the bathroom until she’s tied up.”

  “I thought you don’t like to do things that people don’t like.”

  “She’ll like it. All part of her scene. She’d object to it if she was given a choice beforehand, but she’ll be thrilled when it happens and be glad afterward.”

  “You’ve done this before?”

  “Not with Wanda. But similar things.”

  My knees shake. “Call her.”

  “And tell her what?”

  “Tell her I didn’t show up. Tell her to come over right away.”

  She must have lived nearby. In very little time she was climbing the stairs. I went into the bathroom and locked myself in. And waited for hours of subjective time, unable even to think. Trembling.

  Until finally he knocked. I froze for a moment, unable to open the door. Scared again and wondering what it was I feared.

  “Open the door, Jennifer.”

  Unlocked, opened it. Saw Wanda on the bed, posed as in the photograph. Startling sensation—the identical pose, as if what had been unreal pornography was brought magically to life. Wanda on the bed a few feet from me a reenactment of the two-dimensional Wanda of the photograph.

  Much more beautiful in the flesh. Soft down on her arms and legs. Huge doe eyes fixed on me in wonder. Not fear but wonder. Tied and helpless, but no show of fear in those eyes. No more than twenty years old.

  “Wanda, this is Jennifer. She likes to watch people. She doesn’t do anything. She only watches. Do you mind if she watches us?”

  A negative head shake.

  “Do you want her to watch?”

  Hesitation. Then a nod.

  “Get undressed, Jennifer.”

  I get undressed. Wanda watches me with her constant expression of uninvolved but interested innocence. Her eyes move over my body and I can feel them on me like hands, like a tongue.

  Then he begins.

  Long lazy oral lovemaking. His mouth moves dissolutely over her body. He grazes on her, nibbling nourishment first here and then there.

  For me, as always, there is a point where it becomes real. A point where the voice inside my head no longer has to comment on the reality of the moment because at last the rest of my head knows it’s all real, it’s all happening, and I can relax and become a nonpart of it. It is as if a film, thus far improperly projected, suddenly slips correctly into focus. Past and future time leave my frame of reference. The immediate now is everything.

  I have been waiting for this to happen, and when it does I recognize the moment and rejoice in it. And very shortly after I tune in, Wanda herself seems to come alive. Before she has been lying utterly inert, eyes open, a warm corpse receiving oral caresses but seemingly indifferent to them.

  Now she begins to respond.

  Her breath comes faster. She begins to flex her hip and thigh muscles, rocking as industriously as her bonds will permit, and the water bed rolls in response to her movements. His face is between her thighs now. He eats her diligently, licking and sucking and nibbling.

  No idea how long this goes on. Seems eternal. I move around the bed, looking now at Wanda’s face, now at her breasts with their turgid nipples, now moving to peer closely at her pussy while he eats it. I have a look at him, his cock rigid, fully erect but seemingly with no need to relieve himself. He eats her with single-minded devotion.

  She comes, but there is no let-up; he continues his caresses and, after the briefest of pauses, she resumes her rocking and moaning response. Soon she comes again, and the pattern repeats, and he goes on until she is caught up in serial orgasm, coming again and again, thrashing, unable to stop, her voice a thin piercing wail. Finally she hits a high note and her entire body goes slack. I look at her eyes. They glaze over, turn opaque. The lids fall shut.

  For several minutes everything is frozen. None of us move. Then Bill gets to his feet, walks around the bed, and kneels beside her head. Wanda turns to face him, her red mouth open in an O.

  Her eyes are huge and damp. He leans slightly forward and her mouth fastens around the very tip of his cock. She closes her eyes and begins to suck him.

  His own hand grips his cock. He begins to pump the shaft up and down while she sucks the tip. I am at his side, also kneeling.

  The next part happens involuntarily. Not against my will but simply in its absence. I act literally without will, without thought.

  I touch his hand, push it aside. I replace it with my own and curl my fingers around the shaft as I have seen him do. And I duplicate the motion he has been using, to and fro, to and fro, maintaining his tempo of strokes as I jerk him off into her greedy mouth.

  I am not physically excited. I am excited in a new way, and to a new degree, but there is no feeling of impending orgasm for me. I am not moving in that direction, have no desire in that direction. My hand has become his hand and it is manipulating his cock into her mouth which is my mouth, we are all each other, and I feel that cock twitch and sense its climax—our climax—approaching.

  I feel the flood of semen through the tube along the base of the shaft, feel him thrust in automatic spasms, and my hand, so utterly alive, pumps him in perfect rhythm as Wanda drinks down the treasure I have conveyed from him to her.

  I was him. I shared his coming.

  It was more like watching than doing. I touched him, shared in it, but it was more like watching, observing, than acting, participating.

  He said I surprised him. And he took my hand and kissed its palm, then offered it to Wanda who kissed my fingertips. Wanda said it was beautiful and she loved him and she loved me and I could do anything I wanted to her. I said there was nothing I wanted to do.

  “Did you come from that, Jennifer?”

  I told her I didn’t. In a sense, I had come—in that his coming was mine by proxy. But I did not tell her this.

  “Let Bill eat you, Jennifer. You’ll come, darling. I know you will.”

  “No.”

  “You will, though. Oh, try it. I can’t stand for you not to come.”

  “I don’t really care about coming.”

  They talked me into trying.

  Funny that I can’t write descriptively about this part. No, not funny. I know why.

  Because it was not real for me.

  Paradox: the observation was real, the participation was false.

  I assumed Wanda’s position, but without benefit of bonds. Lay there purposely inert. Froze for a moment when he began, then relaxed and let it happen. No gradual game this time, no attention to various parts of my body. He moved at once to my clitoris and began to tongue me.

  It felt good.

  But that was all. Of course it felt good, it would have to feel good, and my body knew that it felt good, but it was as if it was happening to someone else. When he did it to her, it was as if it was happening to me. Now, when it actually was, it was as if it wasn’t.

  I couldn’t get out of my head. Not into it but thinking thinking thinking about it.

  Wanda told me to go with it. Forget what was happening. Let fantasy take over. I started to, and after a few moments tried to mime passion with body movements, then stopped abruptly and started to sit up. Her hands, large hands for a girl, eased my shoulders down.

  “It’s not real,” I said.

  “Then think of something that is.”

  “But I don’t wan
t it that way.”

  “Try it this way.”

  I did. And it worked, I suppose. You would have to say that it worked.

  I had an orgasm.

  It was like masturbating. It was like jerking myself off with someone else’s lips and tongue, and it was infinitely less satisfying than doing it myself because I could not suit the rhythm of his lovemaking to the rhythm of my fantasy, an improvisation on the theme of Wanda spread-eagled on the bed while I squatted on her face—Jennifer, not Arlene—and Bill fucked her. I thought of this, carefully blinding myself to the reality of his mouth on me, and I did ultimately come.

  In the course of this Wanda touched my breasts. This merely got in the way. It did not bother me that she was touching me. I noted the fact and felt warmth for her, gratitude for her kindness, but it got in the way, as did his mouth on my cunt.

  Afterward she said, “I told you you could come.”

  And I said, “I know, but it wasn’t good that way. It was better before, when I didn’t come.”

  She didn’t understand, but Bill did. I caught an unguarded glimpse of his face. Deep sadness, made me very sorry I had said anything.

  When Wanda left Bill told me something very interesting, something odd.

  21 March—Sunday

  Couldn’t type this part yesterday. Don’t know why. Maybe just worn out from so much fast and furious typing; by the time I finished the day’s entry I felt as though I had run a race and couldn’t move another step.

  What he told me: The reason he had been abrupt with me on Thursday.

  “I have to be careful not to see you too often, Jennifer. You could far too easily turn out to be a preoccupation of mine and that wouldn’t do either of us any good. You’re a special sort of challenge. We excite and fulfill each other and yet I don’t touch you at all.”

  More in this vein. I felt a rush of dejd vu. Then recognized it. He feared involvement with me for the same reason I feared it with him. He, too, saw that we could be good for one another, but only if we kept each other at the proper distance. We had to avoid making one another actors in a fundamentally unreal drama.