A Madwoman's Diary

by Lawrence Block

  A reassuring rush for me. Confirmation of my own decision. And more—the realization that we were equal partners in this charade we have devised, that involvement is equally possible and equally frightening for him as for me. No need now to feel that my role in this is exploitative. He wants me (if for unhealthy reasons) just as I want him (if for similarly unhealthy reasons.)

  A lazy Sunday again. Either today or tomorrow is the first day of spring. The weather is right for it, mild with showers that cannot make up their minds whether to pour in earnest or give up the whole thing.

  I feel bittersweet. Glad that I went through all of it yesterday. That I let him go down on me, and that I let myself use the moment to come.

  A breakthrough of sorts, I suppose, in that I had never come before through physical contact with another person. Yet I could only do so by willing him and Wanda out of existence and yielding entirely to fantasy. The fantasy I employed was so gripping I might as easily—or more easily—have come by myself, untouched by anything, my own hands included.

  22 March—Monday

  I bought some daffodils today. Came home and found I had nothing to put them in, and walked all over the neighborhood looking for a pretty vase. The thing I ultimately found looks more like a cocktail shaker, but the flowers are pretty.

  When they die I can throw them out. Flowers are nice. No responsibility. They look pretty for a few days and then wither, and you throw them into the garbage.

  Metaphorical of what?

  23 March—Tuesday

  Checked my Post Office box today. Nervous, this the first time I went to it. Half convinced I would no sooner draw out my mail than a hand would fasten on my wrist and a Postal Inspector would arrest me for obscene use of the mails. I don’t believe the letters I wrote, the six of them, constituted any real obscenity. It’s hard to remember I what I wrote. I think I typed a sample letter into this diary thing but it’s impossible to remember afterwards what I wrote and what I merely thought about. And I have stuck to my resolve not to look at any previous entries.

  Any easy resolve to stick to. I fear the embarrassment of encountering old thoughts on a typed page as much as I fear anything.

  An interesting thought: What will I do with this diary when I finish writing it? Just leave the pages forever in the radiator’s humidifier tray? Or burn everything unread? Or l present the whole mess to a psychiatrist to save the time of telling him all of it?

  Or will I ever finish doing this? Pepys and Evelyn were lifelong diarists, talking to themselves in notebooks. I’ve read both their diaries. Evelyn never wrote a thing he could have been uncomfortable having anyone read (although I doubt he felt that way about it himself). So impersonal in so many ways. What the minister said at services. Details of his various business transactions. Summaries of papers read to the Royal Society.

  Pepys a different sort, easier to identify with. Wrote in a cipher so that no one discovering his diaries could readily crack the code. And yet was careful to leave his work with the foreknowledge and evident desire that the cipher would be broken and the work published after his death. An interesting compromise between the need for privacy and the desire for immortality.

  I might go on doing this every day forever. (However long my version of forever chances to be.) Or I might give it up tomorrow.

  Tomorrow—a date with Bill. We have formalized things, an outgrowth of the mutual realization that we both have the same desires and the same forebodings about our relationship. (Semantic query: Do we relate enough to dignify this thing we share with the term relationship?) And so we save ourselves phone calls and uncertainty by meeting every Wednesday evening, no more or less frequently. I am to call him every Tuesday around dinner time to tell him whether or not I can make it, and to learn whether some appointment or obligation has come up on his end. And I’m to call him again Wednesday before going to him to make sure things are still on. For example, I occasionally have to work late; if this happens I’ll call him from the office.

  How would it feel to call him from the office?

  He asked for my phone number but I refused. He didn’t say anything but looked at me oddly. I’m sure I could trust him to call only in an emergency and not to take advantage of me by trying to learn more about me. Especially because he gets a kick of sorts out of my secrecy. Still, I’m uncomfortable at the idea of his having my number.

  In that same conversation we outlined what our Wednesdays would do. He will extend the boundaries of my experience. He knows what I require and will enjoy supplying it. I don’t have to do anything that I don’t want to do. We both understand this. Yet I’m not worried about that sort of thing with him. Touching his penis was a giant step forward, more significant by far than letting him go down on me. (And more thrilling.)

  I think I’d probably let him fuck me if he wanted to. I could probably do something like that. I never refused Gary, even sometimes encouraged him. And because he wouldn’t expect me to enjoy it I would be less inhibited than otherwise.

  Better way to put this. Could let him fuck Jennifer. Not me but Jennifer. (It was Jennifer’s hand on his cock.) Could perhaps even enjoy it through his excitement while feeling no excitement of my own.

  He approves of my letter-writing. Very relieved to hear about it. Didn’t specifically say so, but was as apprehensive of my becoming overly involved with him as he was of becoming hung up on me.

  The one question I can’t answer is whether I am getting progressively saner or progressively crazier. I’m making good time but wonder now and then if I’m Wrong-Way Corrigan, flying to Los Angeles and landing in Ireland.

  It’s a nice trip, though.

  24 March—Wednesday

  Two letters in my Post Office box.

  Took them out of the box and checked to make sure they were truly addressed to me. Both addressed to Miss Jennifer Starr. Odd flash—Oh, they’re not addressed to me, they’re addressed to Jennifer. Buried them furtively into my purse and hurried home.

  A fetish quality to the letters. Turned them over and over in my hands before opening them. When I borrowed dirty books in secret from my mother’s store, I did much the same thing before opening them, savoring them in anticipation like a child with a piece of especially good candy which he has been saving for the occasion.

  Always hated candy—Gary’s inevitable gift. Odd how I automatically select the traditional metaphors of other people’s childhoods.

  Opened one envelope and out fell a glossy polaroid photo of a muscular young man with a crew cut, no sideburns, a nose once broken, tattoos on both biceps, and last but surely not least, an impressive erection. He was squeezing his buttocks tight and thrusting his hips at the camera as if to fuck it from a distance.

  A short hand-written note. Won’t bother to type it now, though I could almost quote if from memory. Ill-chosen words to the effect that I may think I just want to watch, and he wouldn’t mind my watching him, but if I don’t like to fuck it’s only because I’ve never been fucked by him, God’s gift to women. And a lot of specific detail on the size of his cock, its length and girth; the measurements he cites are not quite supported by the photo introduced in evidence, for while it’s obviously a sizable one, it can’t be the ten inches long by six inches in circumference he claims for it.

  He is certainly involved with his own cock, this young man.

  I’m to call him afternoons at a midtown number. Bet he’s married and his wife doesn’t know about this.

  I won’t call him. I like his picture, but I’m sure I wouldn’t like him. He wouldn’t be happy until he’d fucked me with that treasured shaft of his, and would certainly hate me if I failed to adore every moment of it. He assures me he can sustain intercourse for an hour or two with ease, assures me too that he is willing to eat a girl for as long as she wants. Mr. Willing-and-Able, willing to eat and able to fuck. More power to him, but no thank you, sir. I won’t call, nor will I answer his letter. The other has more promise.

  Dear Jennife
r Starr,

  We cannot help wondering if you are real. If so, please don’t be offended by our suspicious natures. But if you are a Postal Inspector returning to the old entrapment policies or a male or female crank anxious to receive erotic letters under false pretenses, I’m afraid we’ll be disappointing you.

  We are a couple in our early thirties who have made some tentative ventures into modern social life. We both feel most comfortable in those situations in which a female friend joins us for a pleasant evening. If your own interests are exactly as you describe them, we think we might enjoy your company; the presence of an extra girl, even as a bystander, seems likely to add to our enjoyment. Should you wish to play a more active role, we would be pleased to accommodate you. But the choice is yours.

  If this sounds like what you are looking for, you may get in touch with us at 688-9970. As we both work days, a call any evening between 6 and 10 would be best. Our children are young, and go to sleep early in the evening.

  For obvious reasons we are not enclosing photographs or last names. If our phone conversation warrants it, we could arrange to meet on neutral territory to decide whether we find one another simpatico. No strings at any stage of the proceedings, on your part or on ours. That’s to be taken for granted.

  We look forward to hearing from you—if you exist. If you’re a phony, that’s your business, but please don’t annoy us with obscene phone calls. We really don’t enjoy them.

  Wayne and Maureen

  PS—Forgive the tone of this. We are considerably warmer people than this letter indicates. And Wayne is a lawyer, and is inclined to sound much stuffier in print than in person. We do look forward to hearing from you!

  I’ll call them tomorrow. Definitely. Must end this now. Just called Bill and the coast is clear. I have just about enough time to get there.

  Mr. Karlman asked me to have dinner with him tonight. I told him that wasn’t something I could do. He looked disappointed, said it wasn’t a pass or anything, just that he had enjoyed talking to me the other night, that he felt I was someone who could really listen. It is the preliminary to a pass, though I’m almost willing to believe he doesn’t recognize it as such. Either way, it’s the last thing I need. I just hope I can handle things cleverly enough so that I won’t find it necessary to quit my job.

  Must end this.

  Almost hate to. Feel like speculating about Wayne and Maureen. My reactions, my image of them. Don’t know any married couple named Wayne and Maureen. If those are their names, and they might not be.

  What if either or both of them turned out to be someone I know?

  Oh, worry about it later.

  Bill’s waiting.

  25 March—Thursday

  Another letter in my Post Office box. The bored housewife who wants to get a lesbian thing going. A whole word trip about how I am a voyeur because I can’t relate to men and a relationship with a female could open me up. But I don’t want to be opened up, you dismal dyke! Suggest we get together and have a drink and get to know each other. No need to have sex, but it would probably be good for us to talk about things.

  Enclosed a picture. A facial snapshot from one of those booths where you get three poses for a quarter. A very hard-faced woman, wide jaw, bitter expression. Utterly uninviting. But that doesn’t mean anything. Nobody ever gets a decent picture out of one of those machines.

  I won’t call her.

  I will call Wayne and Maureen, but not before I type this.

  Last night with Bill.

  I knocked on the door and he called out for me to come in, that the door was open. I opened it and walked inside. The room was dark, with a small ultraviolet lamp providing the only illumination in the apartment.

  Didn’t even see him at first. Then saw him on the water bed, his pale body glowing white in the black light, glowing fiercely upon the royal blue satin sheet.

  He was naked and motionless. His eyes were closed. His penis was in repose, small and defenseless. It is so small when relaxed, less than a fourth of its size in full erection. Just a tiny unintimidating thing.

  I closed the door and bolted it. I said, “Bill?”

  No answer.

  I walked closer to him, looked down at him. He was almost expressionless but when I said his name again he had to fight back a smile. This reassured me. For a moment I had thought he might be sick, or in a trance, or (except that I had just heard him invite me inside) dead.

  I understood then. He was there, naked, inert, at my disposal. I could do whatever I wanted. Nothing at all, if I wanted. Or absolutely anything.

  For a while I just watched him. Lit a cigarette, walked around the bed looking at him, butted the cigarette after two or three drags. Then took off my own clothes, watching his face to see if he opened his eyes. But he didn’t, his only motion the rising and falling of his chest as he breathed slowly and regularly.

  I put my hand out and touched his arm. Just touched him. Then drew away like a child touching a live coal, then took a breath and touched him again.

  He did not move.

  I touched him, read his body with my hands like a blind man reading a face. I am trying now to recall how I felt. It is hard to say. Like an explorer, I think. I was touching another person, able to do so because of his passive immobility, and I was discovering the novelty of another’s flesh beneath my hands. That, I think, was the initial pleasure.

  It became something else. After a few moments of touching him I became at ease with his body. I had not yet touched him intimately, and …

  A particularly stupid euphemism. My touch was quite intimate, could not have been more so by virtue of touching his cock. I did touch him intimately, but had not yet touched his cock.

  (Although I was not scared to. I was looking forward to it, but had simply not yet done so.)

  At ease with his body now, with my hands on him, and the impulse to discover changed to the impulse to excite. He was passive and receptive and immobile, his penis tiny and limp, and it was my task to make that penis grow, to make it lengthen and widen and grow rigid as blood filled it, and to further provoke it until it disgorged its seed.

  I took my hands from him and got to my feet. I stood at the head of the bed, my feet on either side of his own head, and I squatted slowly so that my cunt was positioned just over his face. He kept his eyes closed and did not see me, but I hovered over him like that, not touching him, and felt my own juices begin to flow. I stayed like that, not minding that the posture was uncomfortable, and watched as he inhaled the perfume of my sex.

  I watched his penis grow. Just fractionally, adding perhaps a half inch of length. But I had done that. My smell had done that.

  This dizzied me.

  I straightened up, gulped air. Went again to his side and sat down, this time on the edge of the water mattress. My weight made waves and his body rolled on them.

  I took his penis in my hand.

  I played gently, gently, gently with him. The tips of my fingers on the smooth skin of the shaft, then rubbing at the different texture of the glans. I cupped a hand and took his balls in it and felt their weight.

  Watched him grow, felt him growing in my hands. Teased his asshole with the tip of my forefinger. Probed at the base of the scrotum where the prostate gland is hidden. Gave his balls gentle squeezes.

  His body remained utterly still. Only his cock moved, growing a little at a time, emerging from its sleeping self like a cobra rising to a snake charmer’s flute. I kept shifting position slightly as I stroked him, not squirming with passion but doing so deliberately so that the bed would continue its wave-like action.

  When he was as hard as a bar of steel I began to jerk him with one hand while I felt his balls with the other. I felt his excitement rise, then deliberately changed the pace of my stroking to keep him from reaching his orgasm. The sense of power that came over me was enormous. I could excite him, I could diminish his excitement, I could do anything I wanted with him.

  I lowered my face slowl
y toward his cock, moving closer until it filled my vision. I held one hand tight around the base while the other remained cupped around his scrotum.

  I took him in my mouth.

  Just the tip at first, sucking the velvet tip. As Wanda had done. And then, unlike Wanda, I lowered my mouth and let the hot hard cock slide deep into my mouth. Filling my mouth, almost making me gag, but I slid it in and out, my mouth jerking him as my hand had done, and the gagging reflex went away.

  I cannot call all of the rest to mind. Cannot make the detail sharp. It was too immediate, too totally involving at the time for it to be properly etched in memory. I think it lasted for a very long time but I cannot be sure it was long at all.

  Never tasted male seed before.

  Wondered, when Wanda drank his gift, what it tasted like. What she felt.

  Felt some revulsion. Almost took my mouth away just as he was coming, but wanted the experience more than I was repelled by it. Sucked him as he came. The taste—indescribable, but I remember it perfectly.

  Liked it.

  Didn’t want to swallow, but it seemed impolite to spit. Swallowed it.

  Felt as though I had sort of come. As when I jerked him into Wanda’s mouth, but far more intensely so.

  Felt like laughing aloud. Felt sinfully proud of myself. And proudly sinful.

  I can close my eyes now and picture him lying there, glowing with satisfaction. I sat watching him, glowing myself, and saw his eyes open and the beam of a smile spread on his face.

  “You surprised me.”

  “Surprised myself. What did you expect?”

  “Didn’t. Oh, a hand job, maybe. Or that you would turn and leave the apartment.”

  “Did you really think I would do that?”