The Dream of The Broken Horses

by William Bayer

  After Mrs. F's father left town, her mother wanted her to continue riding but in a different style. She took her out of the racetrack environment, enrolling her in a school of traditional equitation. Here the objective was not to learn how to race but to become a show equestrienne. The instructor, G, a middle-aged Hungarian refugee, taught the demanding art of dressage. G was the opposite of Mrs. F's father, strict, tense, an old-school disciplinarian. Mrs. F longed to ride fast and free again but under G's tutelage was not allowed to do so. And since Banjo had not been trained for dressage, her mother sold the horse, using the money to pay for her riding lessons. Of this betrayal, Mrs. F stated: “I've never forgiven her for that and I never will.”

  Although her mother insisted Mrs. F's father had abandoned her, Mrs. F always believed her father would reappear one day to rescue her from her mother's strict discipline. Although her father drifted around the country from track to track, he still managed to write occasionally, sending her notes around Christmas and on her birthdays. These communications tended to be brief and increasingly impersonal in tone. He never gave his phone number, and several times, when Mrs. F tried to call him, she discovered he was unlisted or had moved. She harbored the fantasy that one day she would run away from her mother, find her father, and that they would live together happily ever after. When despite numerous written pleas her father did not appear at her high school graduation, Mrs. F finally gave up the fantasy. By that time, having followed her mother's design, she was the second top student in academics in her class, captain of the field hockey and tennis teams, a member of the student council, easily the most honored girl in her school. “I was also the most envied,” she said. “Mother always warned me that was the price I'd pay. ‘They'll envy you when you beat them,’ she told me, ‘but still you hold the power.‘”

  Mrs. F recalled early sexual feelings dating from around the time her father moved out of the house. She found the atmosphere around the racetrack stables ‘sexy’ and constantly schemed to spend time there with her dad. She liked the smell of the horses and the smell of the leather tack. She was also fascinated by the genitalia of male horses. It was at the stables, she believed, in an atmosphere fraught with talk of mares, stallions, and geldings, that she became conscious of and fascinated by gender differences. Here, too, it was possible to embrace horses without hearing recrimination that such embraces were improper. She believed this was important, as her mother often warned her about touching people and allowing herself to be touched. She remembers overhearing her mother angrily accuse her father of fondling her too much, and her father replying that he would continue to do so ‘‘cause I don't want her to end up a frigid hard-ass like you’ – or words to that effect.

  After her father left, her mother took on a succession of lovers. These relationships rarely lasted more than a year. Just as Mrs. F would grow fond of one of these boyfriends, her mother would break up with him. The breakups were inevitably bitter. Her mother would berate the boyfriend, banish him from her presence, angrily tear up all photos of him, and command Mrs. F never to utter his name again.

  Mrs. F's mother warned her about men, their rotten nature and ulterior motives. ‘Men,’ she told Mrs. F, ‘only want one thing. Once you give it to them, you're finished.’ Cautioning Mrs. F not to engage in premarital sexual activity, she admonished, ‘Remember, no one buys a use slip!’

  Mrs. F's mother was a stickler for cleanliness. Donning rubber gloves, she thoroughly cleaned house every day. She assiduously trained Mrs. F in matters of personal hygiene and inspected her nails each morning before she left for school. On one occasion, when Mrs. F left a ring around the tub, she was forced to scour the entire bathroom again and again. Whenever Mrs. F dared to use foul language or speak of sex, she was instructed to wash out her mouth with soap. Mrs. F was taught that sex was dirty. Her mother told her: ‘Men are dirty and your father was the dirtiest of them all.’ She also told her that boys were her enemy and that in dance class, when Mrs. F's school held jointly with a nearby boys' academy, she should not allow boys to hold her too close or else ‘you'll feel their stupid things poking at you through their trousers.’ Mrs. F recalled that when her mother broached the subject of menstruation, “she did so with a lot of nose twitching and disgust.”

  On one occasion, when Mrs. F was twelve, her riding instructor, G, slapped her to punish an error she'd made in dressage. Mrs. F, outraged, fled class. When she reported the slap to her mother, her mother told her she'd already heard from G about the incident. ‘You weren't paying attention so he slapped you to wake you up,’ her mother said. ‘He has my permission to do so again if necessary.’

  Thereafter Mrs. F was terrified of G, whom, in any case, she had never liked. In retrospect, she believed G colluded with her mother, then took advantage of his authority over her by touching her in intimate ways. Though not overtly abusive, this touching was clearly sexual. Under the guise of correcting her posture, G would lightly grasp her buttocks and graze her budding breasts with his hands. He insisted she ride bareback ‘so you can feel the horses' withers in your wound.’^1 He instructed her to grasp the horse with her knees, then ‘grind in with your crotch.’ He also instructed her not to wear underclothing beneath her jodhpurs during these bareback riding sessions ‘so you can make close contact, really feel the animal, control him with your body.’ Mrs. F found this latter statement disconcerting since she was riding a filly at the time. When closely questioned about this, she insisted her memory was correct. “G was formal and correct. He always addressed me as ‘Miss’ and of course riders are always aware of the gender of their horses. So when he spoke of controlling ‘him with your body’ I took that as a deliberate reference to having sex.”

  Over the next year, she heard similar tales of intimate touching by G from other girls in her riding class. Realizing that with this information she now had power over G, she told him one day after class that she wished to speak to him in private.:

  “I was nearly fourteen. I had a good figure and knew males found me attractive. G suggested we talk in the tack room. Once inside, he closed the door. I told him all the girls were complaining about his touching and that if he didn't stop sooner or later one would tell her parents and then he'd be in a sea of trouble. He glared at me, told me he didn't know what I was talking about and I'd better be sure of my ground before making accusations. Something about his manner told me he was bluffing, that all I had to do was hold my own and stare him down. So I told him I was sure, that he wasn't to touch me anymore, and that if he did I'd make it my mission in life to see him ruined. He asked me if that was all. No, I told him, there was something else. I told him I still resented that he'd slapped me, and I wanted an apology for that. He looked at me curiously, smiled slightly, told me he could do better. ‘You can slap me back,’ he said, then paused. ‘If you have the nerve.’ Well, I don't know where I found the nerve, but somehow I did. I pulled back my arm and slapped him as hard as I could across his face. He took my slap, didn't flinch. ‘Not bad,’ he said afterwards, smiling, massaging his cheek. ‘I like a girl who stands up for herself.‘”

  Mrs. F confessed that she'd taken great pleasure in delivering that slap, and not just because she'd had her revenge. “I felt physically warm and slick below. I got a sexual charge out of it, no question.”

  From that time until she went off to college four years later, she continued her riding lessons with G but on a new basis. Though G continued to instruct her, his manner with her became almost obsequious. And now that she no longer feared him, she learned much more from him than before. “He wasn't at all like Dad. He wasn't easygoing or fun, but he was a fine teacher, respectful and full of good advice. And

  1. When asked whether G really used the word ‘wound,’ Mrs. F insisted that he had. When asked whether it were possible G had actually said ‘womb,’ Mrs. F vigorously shook her head, replying, “I'm positive he called it my wound.” Note the similarity in concept between her belief that G called her genital
area her wound and perhaps the most vividly described of her presenting symptoms: “I feel injured in my sex.” now there was something between us, the light slap he'd given me years before and the very hard one I'd returned. Those two slaps were always in the background of our relationship.”

  Over the next few years, G attempted to train Mrs. F to Olympic standards. She rode well, won numerous competitions, accumulated numerous trophies and ribbons. But they both knew there was no way she could become an Olympic-level equestrienne without training on a champion-caliber horse. This was not to be. She had other interests, her mother didn't have the money, and she didn't want to be beholden to a wealthy sponsor.

  In the spring of her senior year, she went for her final lesson with G. The lesson went well. She took all her jumps with great poise. Afterwards, G invited her into the tack room for a farewell toast. There he opened a bottle of champagne and poured them each a glass. ‘To a fine rider and a magnificent woman,’ he said, clicking his glass against hers. They reminisced, laughed, she thanked him for his efforts with her, and he thanked her for her diligence and talent. Just as it was getting time to be on her way, he asked if she remembered the slap she'd given him in that very room. Over the years they'd never spoken of it. Now, suddenly, G brought it up.

  Yes, she told him, she remembered. “That was our turning point,” she said. He agreed it had been and that he was sorry for any sorrow he may have caused her. He told her that, yes, he did like young women, found them beautiful, and that he knew he'd been wrong to touch them the way he had, and that he was grateful to her for having warned him off this admittedly unattractive practice. ‘I owe you a great deal for that,’ G said, ‘and yet there's something else I'd ask you to do for me.’ When she asked him what that was, he told her he would appreciate it very much if she would slap him hard once again.

  She was astonished by his request, excited by it, too. “You really want that?” she asked. He said he did, that he needed it as a reminder to behave himself. Though she would be gone, he told her, he would still be instructing young girls, thus he wanted to carry the sting of her slap as a memory. She let him plead a while, then agreed.

  “Again,” she said, “I pulled back my arm and hit him as hard as I could. I was bigger then, stronger, able to hit much harder. In fact, I hit him so hard that this time he reeled back.”

  Again she felt the same slick warmth below, but much more powerfully than when she was fourteen. She was eighteen years old then, knew she was a beauty, had confidence, poise, was a fully sexual being. And this time G reacted differently. He fell to his knees before her, lowered his head, and slavishly kissed the uppers of her tall, black riding boots. Studying him as he did, she felt a great surge of power. She reached down, placed her fingers in G's hair, pulled his head toward her crotch. At this, he gently pulled down her jodhpurs, buried his head in her groin, and performed cunnilingus upon her. “I came within seconds,” she said. It was the first time she'd ever had oral sex with a man. After her orgasm, she pushed him away, buttoned up her riding pants, and told him she had to go. Her last image of G was of him still on his knees, bent over, head turned toward the tack room floor. She never saw him again.^2

  During the winter term of her first year in college, she received news of her father's death. He was training a horse while drunk, fell off, and suffered a mortal head injury. She was greatly upset by this news and went into what she termed “a deep depression.”

  Coming out of it that spring, she began a succession of brief sexual affairs with boys. Most were one- or two-night stands, others continued for several weeks. She wanted to learn about men and male sexuality and felt the best way to do this was to have sex with as many boys as possible.

  She said she found these sexual explorations enormously liberating, as she was now for the first time away from home and out of her mother's control. And she made an effort, she said, when breaking up with her lovers, not to replicate the cruel, dismissive manner of her mother. Rather, she said, she took pains “to show compassion, letting them down easy so as not to bruise their tender egos.”

  She soon developed a fondness for experienced, affectionate men, culminating in an affair with a graduate teaching assistant, H, who was ten years older, and which lasted through the winter and spring terms of

  2. Various bits of this narrative, not recounted here, strongly suggest the possibility that G and Mrs. F's mother had an affair in the past and that Mrs. F somehow understood this. her sophomore year.

  When it came time to break off with H, his reaction was unexpected. Rather than accepting her decision, as others had, H took to stalking her, following her about campus, phoning her then hanging up when she answered, finding her in the college library when she was studying, sitting across the table from her then staring at her until she looked up, etc. Frightened, she confronted him. H told her he adored her and couldn't live without her, that he didn't want to stalk her but felt compelled to do so since the compulsion was beyond his control. Though unmoved by his professions of adoration, she felt thrilled for having inspired them. Describing the sensation, she said: “I felt enormously powerful and I believe the feeling was erotic.”

  She knew she was seductive and felt moved to test her seductive powers again and again. “I make men fall in love with me, bring them to their knees so to speak, then I would reaffirm my power as a woman. But once I conquered them, I quickly lost interest. For me the seductions were far more interesting than the relationships. Actually I found hanging out with these lovesick guys quite tiresome after a while.”

  Concerned that her sexual behavior was becoming obsessive, she sought out therapy at the student health services division of her college. Here, asked whether she had a gender preference in regard to the therapist, she specifically requested a male. Dr. L, the man to whom she was assigned, was a clinical psychologist in his forties, married with three children. Asked how she knew this, she replied that he displayed an array of family photographs on his office desk.

  Immediately, she said, she set out to seduce him. All she had to do, she said, was recount her sexual adventures, including detailed descriptions of her lovemaking and the explosive power of her orgasms. “I had him panting for me before the end of our first hour,” she said.

  After two weeks, Dr L yielded to her completely. “He was an easy score,” she said. She described pulling off her panties, balling them up and throwing them at him, the perching on his desk and pulling up her skirt. Immediately, she said he performed cunnilingus upon her. “I came so wildly,” she said, “thrashing about, I swept all his family photos to the floor.”

  When asked if this gesture was deliberate, whether in retrospect she thought she was trying to displace Dr. L's loved ones, she answered in the affirmative. “I think I wanted to demolish his crummy little middle-class existence.”

  Afterwards, Dr. L expressed great remorse, declaring he'd acted unprofessionally and would probably be fired, perhaps even blacklisted, if she ever told anyone what they'd done.

  She remembered holding Dr. L in her arms, assuring him she would never tell and assuming all blame for their ‘indiscretion.’ At the end of the session, Dr. L told her he could not treat her any longer, that she had ‘acted out’ her problem on him and ‘I stupidly fell for the bait.’ He told her that in his opinion she needed intensive psychotherapy and recommended a female colleague. ‘But please,’ he begged her, ‘don't tell Dr. D what we did.’ When she asked how she could not tell Dr. D since what they had done was a symptom of the problem she needed to work through, Dr. L placed his head in his arms on his desk and sobbed.*3

  Mrs. F decided not to pursue treatment with Dr. D. “For one thing, I'd lost confidence in the process. These psychologists, it seemed to me, were as weak or weaker than my fellow students. Also I had no desire to work with a woman. That would be too much like trying to get help from my mom.”

  Instead, Mrs. F threw herself into sports and extracurricular activities, trying out for and winning a pl
ace on the women's varsity tennis squad. She also joined the college drama society and played secondary roles in several school plays.*4

  *3 For further discussion of this incident and its relation to Mrs. F's psychoanalysis, see TRANSERENCE ISSUES ARISING IN THERAPY below

  *4 In the course of one of these productions, she began an affair with another student, M, a drama major, who wanted to pursue a professional career in the theater. Some years later, after she was married, she used her position as a board member of the professional theater company in her city to secure M an appointment there as associate director. Then, when M moved to her city to take up his new position, she resumed her affair with him even though she was still married.

  She met her future husband, A, her junior year at a horse-riding club dance when she was home for Christmas break. He was handsome, rich, smart, charming, and athletic, having all the qualities she felt a suitable husband should possess. He was clearly taken with her and she liked him too. “I don't know that I was actually in love with him, because, you see, I don't know if I'm really capable of love. But he was wonderful to be with. We had a lot of fun and the sex was great. So I decided ‘Hey! This one's probably worth holding onto.’”

  They became engaged and were married three years later. Meantime, after graduation, she'd moved back to her hometown, taking up a job with a local arts organization. She rented her own apartment far from her mother's and spent several nights a week with her fiance.

  During the period of her engagement, Mrs. F tried to work things out with her mother. They had a number of conversations in which each pledged to respect the choices of the other. They seemed to reach a modus Vivendi, and she was pleased that her mother seemed to like and approve of her fiance. For this reason, she was shocked when on her wedding day her mother accused her of being a whore. “It was as if she was trying to ruin the little happiness I'd managed to eke out.”