The Secret Letters of Marilyn Monroe and Jacqueline Kennedy: A Novel

by Wendy Leigh

  When I met him, I was fully aware of his playboy past—and present. I knew that he was an inveterate womanizer, just like every other Kennedy male. I was aware that if I married him, he would probably cheat on me. Although I have to confess that a part of me was vain enough to think I might be able to prevent him from doing so. On another level, I wanted to prove that I could handle my cheating husband far better than my mother had handled my cheating father.

  I wanted to prove that I was superior to her. To prove that she had been wrong in not accepting my father’s infidelity. I thought that if she had just turned the other cheek, or pretended not to notice, they might have lived a long and fruitful life together. All in all, that was my challenge—to prove her wrong, to rewrite history, and I used Jack to do it.

  From the moment we married, I goaded him into cheating on me. I told him the story of how my father cheated on my mother during their honeymoon. Then, when we were on our honeymoon, I joked to Jack that I was waiting for him to cheat on me, just like my father did on my mother. I kept on teasing him that way. Till he did. He cheated on me during our honeymoon. I felt such a sense of triumph and control. First, because I had engineered the whole thing. Second, that I was ready for him. I had been prepared for his infidelity. Then I ignored it, even joked about it. In short, by cheating on me, Jack played right into my hands.

  I think he was slightly unnerved by the nonchalant way in which I virtually ignored his infidelity. In the end, I think my attitude probably caused him to feel unloved. More than likely, he would probably have relished me making jealous scenes. Maybe even a catfight (I have always believed that men love pitting women against one another. Divide and conquer …).

  For a long time, I got a thrill every time I thought Jack was cheating on me. I didn’t blame myself, nor did I blame him. In some ways, I virtually guaranteed that he would cheat on me. Ever since my childhood, I have had a propensity for mocking other people. Either behind their backs or—whenever possible—in front of them. When it came to Jack, I indulged that propensity. He hated it when I did things like mimic his Boston accent, the way he says “foah moah yeahs.” Once, when he was being photographed by an important publication, I sneaked up behind him and threw a wreath over his head, so he looked like a prize pony. He was livid.

  I suppose I was making a mistake when I treated him that way, but I just couldn’t help it. It’s my nature. Jack would never admit it to me, but I think he must loathe it when I diminish him (especially in front of other people). Because no matter how spoiled and feted and powerful Jack is, inside he remains that small, frail, lonely little boy whose mother kept sailing away to Europe and leaving him and whose father constantly pushed him to emulate his dead brother. I think I reminded him of all of that when I made fun of him. In retrospect, I think that drove him to other women—women like you, who would never dream of trying to diminish him.

  Part of Jack’s and my problem, however, is not exclusively my fault. During a rare attempt to play the wise mama, my mother once said, “Bad sex ruins a marriage. Good sex doesn’t make one.” Which, I suppose, is what you once wrote me regarding your marriage to Joe—that if sex were all, you would have been blissfully happy.

  It all started to go wrong on our wedding night at the Waldorf when Jack indicated that I should perform a certain sex act on him. I attempted to, but was less than enthusiastic in my execution. The very thought of that act demeans me in all sorts of ways. Apart from the fact that (and it is far too late in our relationship for me to be coy with you), quite simply, I cannot conceive of the manner in which one is supposed to do it.

  That first year, Jack and I did have intercourse, which I began to almost enjoy. But even that went awry. We were in Manhattan, staying at the Westbury. My father went to live there after he divorced my mother, and I used to visit him there. I was happy with Jack, that night at the Westbury, remembering. We went to bed and, for the first time in our marriage, I readied fulfillment. Whereupon Jack slapped my face and said, “You bitch!”

  Without a word, I got up and started dressing. I was about to leave when Jack (who finds it congenitally impossible to apologize), for the first time in his life, did. I demanded to know why he had spoken to me in such an insulting manner. I had never seen Jack search for words before, but now he was genuinely unable to articulate. He seemed at a loss regarding his own motives. Finally, he said, “I just hate it when you are unrestrained.” I never permitted myself to reach fulfillment with him again.

  Funnily enough, when you sent the music box as our wedding present, I was far more disturbed by the song which it played than by the fact that you sent it. “Falling in Love Again,” of course, is Marlene Dietrich’s theme song. I know that she had made herself available sexually to Joe K and I believed Jack wanted her as well (Kennedy men all pass their women from one to the other as if the women were like a plate of angel cakes). Strangely enough (until Judy), I was always more threatened by the women whom Jack desired than by the women he was having. I know that once he has a woman, she immediately begins to bore him. You, of course, were clearly the exception. But you know that. …

  So you and I began our correspondence. Then we met (in 1954, with Joe DiMaggio) and I felt relief because you seemed so in love with Joe. I don’t know, even today, whether or not you were acting. Because you really are a very good actress, Marilyn. But when I saw Joe’s jealous rage and the way in which you pandered to him, I knew that the ice was very thin between you and it was only a matter of time before it cracked irrevocably and you would be free again. I was afraid that when you were free, you might crave Jack.

  I understand why you always craved him, Marilyn, because even I do, now and again. As I wrote that, I remembered something Simone Signoret said about you in a newspaper last year, that she understood your being in love with Yves because she was. By the way, were you really in love with Yves, or was he just a smokescreen to hide your deep emotions for Jack?

  Until last November, when you made that slip about Gramble Bear, I was never really completely sure whether or not you and Jack were lovers. But by mentioning Gramble Bear, you virtually announced to me that you were. You see, only Jack, Caroline, John, and I knew that he told her bedtime stories about a bear called Gramble. I certainly hadn’t mentioned Gramble to you, so I suspected Jack had. I just couldn’t work out where or when, or why. You concocted that story about asking Jack about bedtime stories when you met him at that fund-raiser in L.A. However, I didn’t for one moment believe it. I think far too highly of your intelligence, your passion for politics and civil rights, to believe that you would waste a rare meeting with the President of the United States by prattling about bedtime stories. Not unless you were meeting him privately as well and often. Lately, I have wondered whether you made your Freudian slip because you subconsciously wanted me to know about you and Jack. Did you?

  Once I knew the truth about you and Jack, I was devastated. In a way, it was worse, it being you rather than any other of the others. Not just because we were friends, but because I knew that you were not one of Jack’s usual floozies. Uncannily enough, you sometimes reminded me of him. The way you thought, your perceptions, your sense of humor, your quickness, and your lust for life.

  My suspicions caused me to inveigle you into singing the birthday song in a suggestive way which I knew would alienate Jack forever. You see, I instinctively understood that Jack would end his relationship with you, wouldn’t risk it anymore, because in full view of the entire world, you proclaimed your affair with him so blatantly. He knew then that through you he could lose the world. No woman, not even you, could compensate him for that. For he is Jack Kennedy, bred to be President, not the Duke of Windsor, merely born to be King.

  Despite that, there were times when I worried that your relationship with Jack would cause our marriage to end. You may ask me why I would have cared. First, because of Jack’s place in history—and, of course, my own. For although there is a lot of animosity and bitterness between us, bot
h of us still relish the opportunities the Presidency offers us.

  There is also my pride. I have no intention of failing at my marriage like my mother did. Or like Lee, living out her life among tawdry Europeans, traveling from fashionable resort to fashionable resort, following the social season like dirty water swilling around in an enclosed basin.

  Then, of course, there are the children. The ones we lost and the ones we have. Caroline is a sensitive, loving little girl, sometimes wounded by all the public attention, other times unaffected and happy. I would hate her to be the victim of divorce, as I was. Or to grow up infused with an abiding father hunger, as I was (and still am). As for John—he is only a baby, but already his tiny face lights up at the sound of his father’s voice. I would not wish to be responsible for depriving him of that joy.

  All of which is another way of saying, Marilyn, that I am delighted that you have fallen in love with Mr. X and out of love, at last, with Jack. If you hadn’t—I would have survived (I am inordinately stoic), but I am glad things are ending this way. Write and tell me about your mysterious Mr. X. I can’t wait!

  Now that we have both come clean, as they say in the movies, on another front, there is something else. Tell me, if you will, what, if anything, Jack ever said to you about me. Did you ever tell him we are secret pen pals? Did you show him my letters? If that is the case, what did he say? I am also curious where, when, and how you and Jack ever managed to conduct your trysts.

  There is also something else which I should like to know. I am not altogether sure how to phrase this request. … Just to say that it would amuse me greatly to learn exactly what Jack was like with you. In a sexual sense. Tell me everything. If I blush, then so be it.

  Love,

  J

  __________________________

  “Jackie was not threatened,” Clare Booth Luce said. “Not even by Marilyn Monroe. But if somehow word had gotten out, it would have upset her terribly. She could not bear the thought of being publicly humiliated” (see Bradford).

  MARILYN MONROE

  12305 Fifth Helena Drive

  Brentwood, California

  Jackie Kennedy

  The White House

  July 22, 1962

  Dear Jackie,

  My phone probably isn’t tapped after all, but I am glad that I thought it was and told you. This way, I can read your letter over and over again. If it had been a telephone call, I couldn’t have.

  Thank you for not making me feel bad for telling you. I never wanted you to know about Jack and me while it was still going on. I didn’t make that Freudian slip on purpose. It was an accident. I never wanted to hurt you or Caroline or John. I am not saying that I was pure—hardly … because I also was afraid that if you knew the truth, Jack would find out you did and stop seeing me. Or you would tell him to. Either way.

  To answer your questions: I never once showed your letters to Jack, and I never would have. But sometimes I used to fantasise [sic] that you knew about Jack and me, that you didn’t mind, that you were giving us your blessing. Other times I was afraid that you knew and that Jack knew you knew and that you talked about me together and laughed at me. I couldn’t have borne that. I know that wasn’t true, was it?

  How, where, and when did Jack and I manage to meet? Some nights, when I can’t sleep, I count all the hotel suites where Jack and I had what he used to call our “interludes.” That sounds romantic, doesn’t it? But it didn’t always feel that way. Sometimes it was short and cold, with me being smuggled up to the suite in a service elevator, like a hamburger, then bundled out afterwards, like dirty laundry. There was also the guilt, particularly that time when you lost the baby. I was in London with Sir Olivier, Jack called, asked me to fly to Paris to meet him, and I did. That weekend, you lost the baby. Jack didn’t even know. He was too busy having fun with me. When you wrote and told me, I knew God would punish me one day for my wickedness.

  Other times, though, it was glamorous—like in Chicago when Jack was there campaigning. We met in his suite at the Ambassador, he was elated with success and already had the smell of power all over him. I liked that smell, I liked his power. I also liked him powerless as well. In the hospital, when he was close to death and just lay there, looking at me, helpless. So helpless that it was easy for me to make him happy. I loved making Jack happy. I lived to make him happy because when he was happy, so was I.

  I think I should also tell you another secret—or how else are you ever going to trust in me again and tell me things the way you used to? Now and again—not too often, probably about ten times through all the years—I wrote to you and put something in that I hoped would make him jealous. Part of me was always hoping that you would show Jack the letter so that he would call me. Did you ever do that? If you did, I would have been glad. Other times, when I missed him desperately but hadn’t heard from him, I thought he might want to see me if he found out from you that I was blue. On the other hand, I would rather he only ever saw me because he wanted to, not because I was blue and he felt sorry for me. On second thought, I am sure he never did. Men only ever like happy girls.

  I meant to say that I feel sad that you put up with Jack’s cheating because of wanting to best your mother. It seems more self-destructive than I ever expected you to be. But nobody, not even you, can always stop themselves from stabbing themselves in the heart.

  You say you got a thrill sometimes about Jack cheating. Did you ever ask him about other women in bed? I don’t know how you would have liked it if he did tell you about other women in bed. I’ve had plenty of men who think that hearing about other women in bed will arouse me. I like to hear about other women’s sexual tricks—in case I can learn anything—but I don’t want to hear how much the man I’m with cared about them, or how beautiful they were. The only aspect that sometimes titillates me is if, before I go to bed with a man, he tells me about a sex fantasy he acted out with another woman. That way, the woman doesn’t seem real, but I get to hear about the fantasy.

  I don’t know whether you really hurt Jack by making fun of him. There is a side of him that needs a woman who diminishes him. Not me, of course. He doesn’t see me that way. I think it is sad, though, that he put you down when you had an orgasm. I discussed the situation with Dr. Greenson—disguising you and calling you “Geraldine,” saying you lived in Wisconsin and were a friend of mine needing help—and he said, “The man in question has a Madonna/whore complex. To him, Geraldine, his wife, is the Madonna. She is pure and innocent, elevated on a pedestel [sic], rather like a superior mother figure. But if she exhibits an enjoyment of sex, she topples from that pedestel [sic] and becomes a woman. Just like his mother.”

  Dr. Greenson says that the man in question probably had incestuous fantasies about his mother and that he can’t enjoy sex with a woman whom he equates with his mother. He can only have sex with a woman who is diametrically opposed to his mother. That way, he doesn’t feel like he is having sex with her (his mother). “So I am just the whore?” I asked Dr. Greenson, forgetting this wasn’t supposed to be about me. “No, Marilyn,” he said, “you are not a whore. Men know you are not. It just arouses them to fantasise [sic] like that.” I didn’t buy it, but I hope it explains something about Jack to you.

  He talks about you a lot. Sometimes I think it is just to stop himself from getting swept away. To remind himself that he is married. Or because he feels that by talking about you, he is somehow including you in us and that way, he won’t feel too guilty. I don’t know if he does feel guilty, though. I know he pretends to. I’d like to think that he felt guilty about seeing me but just couldn’t help himself. But I don’t think that is the truth.

  When he talks about you, he always refers to you as “my wife.” Never as Jackie or Jacqueline. In one way, calling you “my wife” is a way of making sure I never forget he is married—why would I? In another, it is a way of putting you up on that pedestel [sic] again, so you aren’t sexy and he doesn’t have to feel like he’s fucking his mother. />
  I think you could break him of all that if one day, when you were alone with him, you did something really wild or outrageous. Like Jean Arthur did in A Foreign Affair. I remember you said you’d seen it, when she gets—I can’t remember the name of the actor—I’ll ask Billy Wilder if ever I talk to him again—drunk and lures him back from Marlene. There goes that name again! Sorry. Perhaps she pops into my mind because Marlene and Marilyn are very close. In name only.

  I’ve left your last, most difficult question to the end. What is Jack like in bed with me? I don’t know if he is any different with me than he is with you. Except that I suppose I do fellatio—I call it “head”—and that pleases him, so maybe he tries a little harder, in return, to please me. In any case, I am not difficult to please.

  Jack is brilliant at getting me hot. He doesn’t do it with presents or compliments. Mostly by talking about sex, which excites me, telling me beforehand what he wants to do to me, and what he wants me to do to him—although I know that already.

  No matter how many women a man goes to bed with, he usually wants the same thing from every woman, has the same desires, the same triggers, the same needs, with all of them. In fact, I sometimes think it would be easier for us if men carried printed instructions around with them (a do-it-yourself kit) so you know how to assemble them. Or, rather, get them hot and then satisfy them.

  Jack adores getting head. Of course, he is useless at giving it, but I don’t really care. Every man loves getting head. Only Joe wasn’t wild about it—although he was very proud of his prick—it was enormous, but not as big as Frank’s—Frank is really genetically gifted. Sometimes, though, I would rather look at Frank than have him inside of me. Looking at a really big prick is very appealing. Having it inside of you can sometimes be painful.