I don't remember when it started, but he has always had long hair. He knows everything about me and knows how to frighten me more than any of the dreams I have already told you about.
He first started to play with me. We would chase each other through the woods, and he would always find me... but I could never find him. He would come up from behind me and grab my shoulders and ask me my name. I would tell him it was Laura Palmer, and he would let go and turn me around and laugh.
When I think about it, he wasn't playing the way he should have been. He was being very mean to me, and he was scaring me all the time. I think he likes it when I am frightened. He makes me feel that way every time he takes me with him. He likes to embarrass me by pulling down my panties and putting his fingers inside, deep. When he knows it hurts me, he pulls them out and smells his hand. He always tells me I smell like bad things. He screams out loud into the trees that I smell, and that I am dirty, and he doesn't know why he even likes me. He says if I didn't beg him to come all of the time, he would never come back.
I never beg him to come. Never. I wish him far away from here. I swear it.
When I started to get older, he would tell me things about myself that I didn't know. I don't think he was telling the truth. I think he was lying to me and making it up as he went along. He always knew exactly what scared me, and just the things to say to make me cry. Then he would take my neck... and squeeze. He squeezed my neck hard until I stopped crying. He would let go just before I would faint... I think I was fainting... sometimes that still happens. Everything goes tingly and dark, and my head spins inside and I can't see anything, and I have to stop crying or he'll keep squeezing.
Sometimes he says, "What's this down here?... What's this down here, Laura Palmer?" He always says my whole name like he won't get close to me like that, but he will every other way. Sometimes I would come home bleeding. I would bleed and I couldn't tell anyone, so I would sit up all night in my bathroom, all alone, and wait for it to stop coming out. Sometimes he would cut me between my legs, and other times he would cut me inside my mouth. Always tiny little cuts, hundreds of tiny little cuts. I had to use a flashlight in the bathroom or else my parents might wake up and see the light, and I'd be in worse trouble then.
Some nights he would make me sticky. Rub himself very fast, and he would say that I had to hold the sticky in my hands, close my eyes, and recite this little poem while I licked my hands clean.
I only remember a little. This hasn't happened for a long time, the sticky. He made me say:
The little bitch
Is awfully sorry
The little bitch
Drinks you up
(I can't remember more, except the last line.)
In this seed is death indeed.
He wants me to like it, when he is with me. He wants me to say that I am dirty and that I have an odor. I should be thrown into the river so that I will be clean.
I am so careful to smell clean, all the time. I always wash between my legs, and I always go to sleep in fresh panties, in case he makes me come with him. I always worry he will come for me, and I won't have clean panties. He says I'm lucky he even stays to spend time around me. He says that he is the only man who will ever want to touch me.
He comes to the window, and I see him. I always see him, and he is always smiling like we are going to have a good time together. I am so close to calling my parents for help, but I am afraid of what would happen. I can't let anyone know about him. If I keep seeing him, he might get tired of me and go away. Maybe if I stopped fighting him, he would not like to visit me anymore. If I weren't afraid. If I could just not feel afraid...
I have never thought about him like this ever before.
I hope that if there is a God, he will understand that I am trying to keep clean, and if this is a test that he is giving me, I'll find a way to pass it. I bet it is a test. I bet God wants me to prove that I can take orders, or maybe that I am not afraid to die and come be with him. Maybe BOB knows God, and that is why he always knows what I am feeling inside. God must be telling him what to do to me. God wants me not to be afraid, maybe, of being dirty. If I'm not afraid, he'll take me to heaven.
I hope so.
L
July 25,1986
Dear Diary,
I have been trying very hard not to be afraid.
I am seeing a boy I told you about once before. I didn't like him then, but now I think he is just right for me. He reminds me very much of the boy on the wall of the Book House. He dresses the same way, but he does not have a motorcycle. I am fourteen now. I didn't let anyone celebrate my birthday. I made Mom promise she wouldn't plan anything. I told her at the kitchen table the day before that I had a lot of thinking to do about my life. I just wanted to spend my birthday alone. I wanted to walk alone, and maybe take Troy out for a ride: I made sure she knew I didn't want to hurt her feelings, but I just needed to spend some time alone. She fussed for a while and kept asking me why I couldn't spend the following day by myself. I finally told her that I was feeling confused and I wanted to come home on the night of my birthday with everything sorted out. I wasn't going to go far, I promised her that. I just wanted to go. I promised her that next year and the following year, sweet sixteen, I will have a party of one kind or another.
So I spent my birthday alone. I went out to where I go with BOB. It was light out, and everything seemed like an awful dream, until I saw a piece of rope lying at the back of the base of his favorite tree. I got a chill, but forced it away. I tried to look carefully at the tree, to find something that would explain why he picked this place, this tree. There was nothing. I made sure I was alone before I did what I had planned.
I looked very carefully, and when I knew I was alone, I pulled a marijuana cigarette from my pocket. I made Bobby get one for me. He wanted to share but I told him he couldn't. We could do some together later, maybe. I smoked it very slowly and started thinking about sex. About men, all kinds of them, inside me.
I tried to think of things that BOB would like. I pulled a pair of my panties out of my pocket and rubbed them on the tree. I wore them just before I left to come here, so I knew the smell of me would be strong m not afraid anymore either that I smell bad. I know I don't. I think I smell like a girl should.
When I put my panties to my own nose and breathe in, I imagine a girl in front of me, and how a man would want to touch her. Get up close. BOB calls it pussy. I want to touch, can you hear me, BOB! When I smell it, I am not afraid, I told myself. I said it out loud many times while I was there, smoking and thinking of all sorts of ways I could touch Bobby... Things I would like to make him do. I thought every thought I could that would call BOB to come. I think he was' there, but he was hiding.
So I got very stoned, all by myself, and pushed myself onto the dirt, sliding onto the leaves and pine needles on the ground, and I looked up into the great tree. I wanted the tree to watch me, memorize the face of the new little girl who came to lie down. The old one is gone. She had to go off. I only use her voice sometimes; it is so much easier to get what I want when I say it sweetly, and like a little girl. I took off my clothes and began to touch my breasts, lick my fingers, and then rub my nipples with the wetness. I made circles the way the boys do with their tongues. I made noises when it felt good. I cried out when I pinched them hard and made them pink.
The wind began to come up, and I felt it move over my bare chest, and I remember saying, "Ohh, whoever that is, I like that... Yes... I like that very much..." I felt myself get a little wet inside my panties. ... so I undressed completely and I talked to BOB out loud, while I touched my secret button. I said, "BOB... Bobby... Laura has a sweet muffin here for you... Nice and clean and... mmmmmmm... I'll bet it tastes good too... Come out, BOB... come out and play..." The wind picked up, but I never saw BOB.
I came like I never have before. My body just couldn't stop, and I had to grab on to the tree, peel off bark in one place, grab again, dig in with my nails... and then it s
lowed. I was so warm with the marijuana and my little show for the woods that I almost took a nap, there, lying naked. But I couldn't do that. I won this one. He hadn't shown up. Night or day doesn't count. I showed him I wasn't afraid. I touched myself under his tree. I called to him and made him the fool. I'm going to pass this test... you'll see. If BOB wants nasty, all I need is a little time. I can be the bad girl he wants.
On the way out of the woods, I was nearly killed as an owl swooped down out of nowhere. I could feel the power in his wings as he shot by me. I thought of the Log Lady. Something she has said:
"Many things are not what they seem."
This used to seem frightening to me. This place, the slightest thought of touching myself, and teasing myself, frightened me. No more. No, this place I visited is not what it seemed. I see now that it is a place of darkness, but I love it. I welcome it. I will not fight it, even when it slips deep inside and cuts me. I have found light and pleasure inside this horror. I am not done with my plan.
I'll be back, BOB. I'll be back to open and close around you like you thought I never would. I'll be back.
Laura
August 3,1986
Dear Diary,
Just to fill you in, I did spend the rest of the day with Troy at the stables. Being around him relaxed me, and I went home later that evening feeling very strong, very new inside. I did not entertain any thoughts of being bad, or wrong, by doing this. I was going to stop being hurt and taunted by this man. A man I know only by his first name. I do not know where he lives, or where he comes from. But I will get him back. There's no fun in a game of torture if the victim is screaming for more.
That was almost two weeks ago... no, maybe a week. I am very deep in concentration lately. Seeing Bobby Briggs is fun. He is anywhere I want him to be, with anything I want him to bring. Just yesterday, I decided he had waited too long to be with me the way he wanted. I, too, was tired of the process of petting and going home feeling like a cork had been stuck inside me, that it had trapped everything I so wished to let go. But I had to let him think I was the fourteen-year-old I appear to be...
Mom and Dad left for the entire afternoon, and I told them I'd be out for almost as long as they would be, but that I wanted to help with supper that night, so I would be home no later than six-thirty. Mom's face shined at the sound of such words. I have to keep my parents happy. I have to keep loving them, like their little girl should. I have to support what I have not chosen, but have, quite simply, been given. Two lives. Two very different lives.
The naughtier Laura had a date with Bobby Briggs in Low Town. He said he knew of an abandoned barn out where no one would find us. I liked the idea that I would have him alone someplace where I could go kinda crazy on him. I was nervous, for a bit, because I suddenly realized that this was not the BOB I hated, but the young Bobby who swaggered up to smiling Laura Palmer and asked if she would be his. No matter, I'd play him like he needed me to. I knew he was aware that I had never made love with a boy before... I knew it would be different with someone who took care... I knew it might pull me back to thirteen years old, when I learned to love a man's hands in a stream late at night and cried because he was gone so soon afterward. I couldn't let that come up. I knew I had to be strong. I could have BOB watching me right now... at any moment. I couldn't fall in love... certainly not out loud.
Bobby was charming and I could tell he was nervous because he couldn't get his words out very well, and the blanket he brought on the back of his bike wasn't opening as he tried, diligently, to spread it.
This made him very nervous, because I was balancing a bottle of vodka, a small one for two, and a marijuana cigarette (some smoke) in between my fingers, and I didn't have as good a grasp as I would have liked, and I had to fall to my knees to avoid breaking anything.
He felt very bad, but I turned it around so that he had been more of a hero than a dunce. He was neither, but I allowed him to lift me to my feet and steady me with his arms. I could think only of how I just wanted to take a drink and do some smoke so I could relax. Things come much easier for me when I am loose, and feeling confident. One of the reasons I most enjoy Bobby is that he can get me smoke anytime I want ... he can have a friend buy us alcohol, anytime I want. I like the way that feels, that kind of devotion. I enjoy the way he moves, little tiny waves inside him, when I lean in close and say, "I can't wait, but let's take our time." His immediate smile and his readiness to let me take over first.
I, after all, was for the first time beginning a sexual experience with interest, and affection. A little control of my own. I knew he would take over, once he felt I'd let him. But for now, if he was to keep bringing me little treats all the time, I wanted him to feel it was worth it... that he hadn't chosen a dead fish, like I promised I would never be.
An hour later, after taking my time with his lips, and occasionally feeding him the smoke, or vodka, I was ready, and I told him to lie back and imagine whatever he wished. I told him to build a dream inside his head, and to let his imagination follow me. It was just for him, we both knew that. I put him, hard, into my mouth, and had a picture in my head of BOB's hand as he did himself... as he put my hand on it... and then I was back in the barn. I slowed it down, found the rhythm he liked, and I kept my tongue moving inside and I went up and down him, following the noises he made, the whines... listening with delicacy, making sure I kept him where he wanted to be. This time was not about teasing him in and out of his pleasure. He came the way I dream men do.. with suddenness after a long internal climb, sitting upright with a look of amazement and awe... gratification. A smile.
We spent another hour or so buried in each other, until it had to happen and he slipped inside. I opened my eyes and saw him as his eyes fell closed. I forced the memory of wanting this... away. Feeling like that would be so easy, and yet, I could not become weak.
We moved together, and I found it easier to handle, easier to really enjoy, with my eyes closed. I could move with him, roll around to the top, place his hands where I love to feel them. He is so good to me, without any words. I wanted him to know how wonderful it felt, locked there inside, never wanting to leave, just wanting more and more of me! We rolled and pushed and pulled at each other and came apart hours later, when it was impossible that we do more.
I felt truly satisfied, like years of taunting and emotional pulling and pushing had been set free. The steel bar I imagined holding me upright was flexing, turning to flesh, and melting. The tension and the anxiousness I felt for so long, about how it would be when someone really wanted me. Not because they wanted me to weep or to die slowly of a sadness I could not name. Someone who cared how it felt to me, wanted to make sure it was nice. I felt like I should feel, like all girls should feel... but I could not forget that there were other worlds to think of. Other moments. Rude awakenings at the darkest hours of night. A man in my window, smiling... offering a challenge by waving a black glove. I lay there wondering if he would come soon, or if by my simply deciding he no longer frightened me, he was somehow eliminated.
I couldn't rely on dreams like that. And suddenly, there was a terrible problem. A terrible and sad problem that I had to face without the emotion I so wanted to give! From Bobby's mouth came, slowly, small words of love, then confessions. Soon after, promises of loyalty and happiness forever.
Laura, Laura, I can't let you hear this. Just watch his lips move, do not listen, I told myself, over and over. But Bobby meant it. He was, after all, the boy who had admired me for years, who had tugged on my ponytails for as long as I wore them, and soon after made a point to pass me at least once a day in the hallways at school, or to catch my eye in class. Smile, as if it were an unexpected sight.
I knew he had planned this. But the Laura who loved him back, the young girl who so desperately hoped he would come after her, when the time was right, cannot come out to play. She is inside resting. Deep inside, cradled in the braver half. The one that finds this Bobby boy satisfying, yes, but not interesting be
yond that. There is no strength in him... no challenge. I'll keep him with me, save him for her, when it is safe for her to come back. But these words of love are too real, too innocent. This boy, so young, is merely a messenger to the Laura that is living here now.
I was forced to do something cruel. Something that would make him, perhaps, rethink the entire idea of Laura. He had to see her as something he never thought existed. I had to laugh at him. Hard. Laugh until his eyes lost their light. I had to shoot him down, couldn't let him be so appealing to the same young Laura that BOB wants. The one I'm sure he's waiting for. To save myself, I had to laugh in the face of a boy, who now may never be so honest again.
I had to do it! Why does it hurt so badly to protect myself? Where was this love when I was on my knees begging for it? Dammit. I know I hurt him... I hope someday he will understand why. I would never crush someone the way I was crushed. Had I been the one laughed at, I don't know that I would ever stand as straight again-never approach someone with even the smallest compliment, because the memory of laughter would still ring in my ears.
I am ashamed and confused again by the things that happen to me. Is this a trick that BOB is playing on me? Another test? Ruining my chance at love with the right boy, by forcing me to humiliate him, the way I have been and have now turned cold and bitter because of its scars? ... Will Bobby pick himself up and see that I did not mean it? Or have I been tricked into spoiling a romance I could have been protected by at least during the day?
What does life want from me? What have I done, and what do I do now?! I only wanted to stop the pain, not to begin spreading it myself.
I'm thinking... I'm thinking. Everything that had to be done has been done. If this is something BOB did, then it will only cause him an amazing victory if I show any regret... any... remorse. I cannot care. I must believe Bobby will come back, tail wagging. If he does not, I shall master the whistle he responds to. Let the boy earn my attention outside the barn lust, outside the kisses I give out only when I feel like it, never just because. I'll become a professional at not feeling anything.
The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer Page 6
