The Collected Stories of Diane Williams

by Diane Williams

  The power had made me see things too. The power had turned him into the shape of a man wearing his clothes so he could leave me in the dark, standing be­side his side of it, our bed. I knew I was seeing things.

  He said, “I hear you.”

  I may or I may not cheat on him again. But the last time, I was standing up when I knew I was going to do it. I see myself on the street, deciding. I am holding onto something. Now I cannot see what it is. This is no close-up view. I am a stick figure.

  I am the size of a pin.

  SOME SEXUAL SUCCESS

  STORIES PLUS OTHER STORIES

  IN WHICH GOD MIGHT

  CHOOSE TO APPEAR

  (1992)

  Oh, my God!

  The Limits of the World

  My adventures have led me to believe that I possess two powerful powders—genuine powders. The “I command my man” pow­der is one of my powders. When I put this powder on my body, then I will command my man. He will al­ways be my lover whether he wants to be my lover or not. He will be obedient and satisfied, whether that’s what I want him to be or not. Nothing will ever take him away, whether that’s what I want or not.

  I’m not sure what the purpose is of my other genuine powder.

  Now what?

  What would you do? Would you go ahead and use either of these powders, if you, as I have done, had gone ahead and paid money for them?

  Keep in mind, we are past the age of enlightenment. This is past reason. We are pretty deep into modern history and the decline of religion. This is when Nature itself has been stripped bare of its cozy personality and we all feel homeless in our own natures as well.

  To say it another way, I gave away a pure love powder with no conditions on its use, or specifications war­ranted. (A lusty friend of mine grabbed it out of my hand.)

  So now what?

  Whosoever reads this, write to me if I am still alive, or please write to my children, or to my children’s children, who may yet be even still deeper into the farther reaches of our common history. Give us your opinion. Provide please credentials for you yourself, who you are doing the talking.

  Are you a superior person? Or, how soon do you think you will be? I can ask because I asked.

  My Highest Mental Achievement

  Baby, I will miss you with your common sense, and with your blindness to psychology. My prediction for you is that you will have a fas­cinating life and that you will stay eternally young, and that you will never lack for love. I am interested in all aspects of you.

  If I could know what happened the last time you had sexual intercourse with me, and what your opinion of it was, what your experience was with it, I would be so interested to hear. Could you tell me how this time this sin was different?

  The last time for me, when I saw my own hair there beneath my swollen belly, the sight of my hair offended me. I would rather see how I pinned your legs. I had opened my legs for you, and with my saying “This is better for me,” I had twisted around onto my side for your sexy behavior. The big baby which was inside me took a beating. In any event, I do believe that sex, or even love, is not inappropriate for the very, very im­mature.

  It is so much better for me to be the one who loves rather than to be the one who gets loved! It is so much better for me not to be the one who can take it or leave it—as you take it. Just think!—I actually became radi­cal at the Grand Canyon when I looked around us and just kept my mouth shut there. It was the full scope of my achievement that I wanted to take a running start and then leap in. Don’t forget, I like a mess!

  Clean

  This begins where so many others have ended, where the man and his wife are going to live the rest of their entire lives in perfect joy, so they arrive at the train station.

  Now we’re on our way. I’m dooteedooteedoing as if I’m happy. Went to the mail where I go to get it. Touched it. Washed myself. Meticulously washed out my contraceptive device with Cascade or Joy.

  I toasted a piece of toast for myself to eat, buttered it, put cheese on it, drank coffee I had made, orange juice I had squeezed, took care of the other people. Put away food. I washed. I washed. I never thought I’d get the semen off my ring. The speed of my thought was a deep offense to me. It should have taken me a lifetime to find out how not to be happy just to ensure perfect success.

  The Good Man

  He called it a triumph that he never controlled her passions. That gadget with propellers, with the pads on the propellers, that he had used to produce ultra-pleasure for Darlene—his dream come true—was swell.

  He was consoled by this ultra-pleasure briefly. Soon afterward, he died. He was alone when he died, be­cause his pleasure-loving daughter had gone off to the theater.

  As a dead man, prone upon his bed, this gadgeteer would be an inspiration either for Darlene or for his daughter.

  One day, when he had been alive, so to speak, he had killed a hornet by slugging it, and then, before he realized what he was doing—seizing for himself an opportunity—he had consumed all of the fresh greens which he had heaped up on his platter, plus the strips of the boiled meat. That should have been the test of his manhood, because he is a darling.

  Pussy

  The woman’s knowledge gives her vicious plea­sure. She could have understood sooner if she had only tried to understand. Now that she understands, she will just not leave the men alone, now that she understands that everything that matters has nothing to do with her expectation of loyalty and devo­tion from a person she is hoping is nearly perfect. Oh yes, now the woman is full of desire as she climbs the stairs to her room. The stairs glow for her eyes. The woman sees a man heads taller than she is jump out at her and then turn back away. He is subtracting things from himself, because she can see only his trouser leg and his one shoe as he goes into her room.

  Upon her entering her room after him, the woman does something significant and full of meaning.

  Albeit, the orange orange, the thin, dry, oval slice of gray bread—oh no, there was even something more concealed in some silver foil—the elixir the woman knows emanates from these hors d’oeuvres which are all hers, on her tray, on the table, at the end of her bed—amounts to what the woman is if I say so. She equals anything at all on my say-so. The woman is a little dirty thrill.

  This is the haunting story of a young man who mar­ried for love and who found himself in the grip of a considerable poonac.

  Turning

  We kept on and I did not break into tears. Meanwhile, I am wondering which one of us is the cruelest. I can hear my voice saying all of those things.

  A few months later, he reminded me that our misfor­tunes were almost identical, because, he said, we had become inextricably commingled. When he said what amounted to that, I put my arms around him and I kissed him. However, my suspicion is that he cannot tolerate being confined by a woman.

  When daylight came, we made our preparations for the day, by bathing, by dressing, by eating. My own appearance was of concern to me, but there was also my great suspicion about what we had been doing through­out the night. Had we succeeded? Should we have been rejoicing? controlling our anger? openly admitting where the true superiority resides? Or should we have kept on with our spirit of rivalry?

  Anyway, I spoke seriously with him about my vio­lent disposition. But just around the corner, I did not know what it was.

  No sooner had the summer arrived—it was a day like today—with the sea whipped up by the wind, the sky was filled with action—with tumbling clouds, carrying on how they do, erratic, totally unstable, disorderly, maltreating each other’s lifeless bodies, fabricating, evaporating ominously. I trust the unknown. I could never be astonished by such painless deaths apart from one episode, wherein I attempted to twist my fate, and to rear a child, among other things.

  The Dog

  She had every reason to think
that he had had a good time with her when he licked thoroughly with his strong tongue the private parts of her body. She was in bed when he did this. He was her best friend.

  When she awoke the next morning, she smelled the sweet lilac and the roses in her garden—she was aware of the thump of his tail—and felt a breeze spring in through the window screen.

  She ate a small piece of fish for her breakfast. She hummed a little tune to herself—and when she opened a drawer, she observed an old crumb from some food in there and she thought, This is unbelievable.

  Her husband, Frank, came in for his breakfast. Frank is clever, of course.

  She said to Frank, “Sit!”

  Really, she did not understand at that time why Frank didn’t.

  The Man

  It was the best week of his life. I wasn’t there for much of it. He used to try to copulate with my boyfriends when they’d come to the house and he’d chase around and chase around. He’d come when I called his name, and I would go wild screaming his name until he came running to me faster than I could ever run, so I’d sink to my knees sometimes to get down on his level with him, with his excitement, which was often running rampant. His bed was filthy where he rested and slept. He ate with gusto, made a great noise, and drank what he drank with a power to drink I will not ever forget. He influenced me a lot.

  The Circumcision

  The infant is too young to hear the credo he should live by: He should marry and do good deeds.

  I want to know what is going to happen—you know—will he end up being one of those people? I am one of those people—leading my life. Almost daily, my life is ideal for a person gifted with power and reason.

  That the infant was substantially drugged was a good deed. I left without paying any respect, or without saying anything to the infant, because who is it?

  Walking to my car, I see the other cars available to other people. I put my key into the lock of my car, but my key doesn’t fit the lock. I am going to have to stick my key into another one. This is being repeated and repeated and repeated all over the world with impa­tience or maturity or dead to the world. The ease with which my key finally does do the trick puts a knot in my throat. I am a sad woman. My face is hard. My car is enormous. The road is an outrage that I follow with a blood lust to get to my home to my husband.

  Whom I uncritically love.

  All New

  When I was still a girl, I did this. When I get to you, you have such a stake in warmth and affection and you are drinking up your wine from a golden goblet. You have out the cracked mixing bowl and your steel spoon for you to mix with. The fire is the blue ring of light on your stove and your music is here. Flutes, I think, and entreaties from a gang of women. I suppose I am supposed to live or die without such a brilliant man as you.

  First, I have to climb a hill—not a lucky omen. Then it is easy going until the storm bursts out. In the storm, I hear the shouting. The people swearing to God. Wet again! I am heading to somewhere else I cannot stay, having such a good time, not lost, and I like to take breaths. I have been doing this. I did not make this up.

  The Real Diane Williams Has Captured the Whole of Freud

  My son Eric Williams told me how he’d jump over or he’d jump on top of a car that was going to run him down, rather than go under the car. We were riding in our car then. I was the driver when he told me.

  My errand was to get my new nightgown to fit—the silky, soft, shiny, creamy, slinky nightgown that did not fit me when I bought it, that has more flowers than I’d care to count all over it. I was taking my gown to the woman tailor whose husband invited Eric to his boy’s surprise party by calling me up on the telephone to tell me about the party.

  The two times I have been to the tailor it was very bad weather. This was one of those times. Sleet slopped on the windshield. Pointing to the windshield, Eric said, “If there was nothing there—if you stopped suddenly—I could go right through it and I wouldn’t get hurt!” He meant if there were no glass. I knew what he meant.

  “That’s the way to think!” I said, “and there’s no reason why no windshield would not work except for bad weather,” and then I was thinking about my begin­nings.

  I undressed for the tailor and for Eric, too, so they could both see me naked. I could not figure out why. It wasn’t required.

  At the tail end of her decadent sofa, I stopped, so I did not have to go into her dressing room. I took off my clothing, throwing it all down on the sofa, and then put on the shimmering gown.

  She had me stand up on a pedestal from where I admired in the mirror the gown shimmering and shin­ing on me, and I admired her nimbly squatting to put pins into my hem, and she kept both of her knees up off of the floor, which surely was a feat!

  Even Eric was jolly—we all were smiling when her husband emerged out of nowhere. My clothing was all back on then, so all of us were wearing all of our clothing, the hell with that!

  When her husband held on to his belt with two hands, she crossed in front of him to go to the cash register with my money, which is when I admired her shoes. I was looking down. When I saw her belt, I was looking up, and when I saw her smiling—I was looking up even higher into the middle region which was my warning signal to stop looking.

  I determined that her husband is sly on this basis—I’ve determined this on this basis more times than I can count about so many sly people—that a person is sly if the person seems to insist upon keeping a smile on his or her face. I would not smile—that’s not fear!—if I had to say what he had to say about me in front of his wife!—but maybe it will make her happy.

  The clear plastic cover for the gown on the hanger that she gave me was far more brilliant than my gown is. It’s scintillating. The clear plastic cover was also longer than the gown and it’s lethal for a tiny tot whose desire is to put it over his head and with it smother himself, as we all know.

  When I piled the gown onto the backseat of my car, I had no opinion of the gown except that it was prac­tically a weightless gown.

  When I was with her husband, and when her hus­band saw me walking toward him, and when he said, “God, look at yourself in the mirror! Will you go look at yourself!” I refused to go look at my white skinlike covering.

  In conclusion, human beings—my worrying about them—it’s over, it’s over, and it’s merrier!

  The Flesh

  As a couple, I admit, they had me transfixed. They were so alike in everything, with their skin still intact, side by side, under our dining room table, close enough to each other to reach out to each other if they had not been all encumbered because of what they were in actuality—slices of cucumber. I scooped them up.

  What is missing here is what I did then with them.

  That’s when all our company came in, our friends and our relatives, not all of them all together, but the stream of their entering our house began.

  I was hearing myself say sometimes, and I’m afraid I don’t know and yes, I do hope and think of me. My friend R. exclaimed “Cliff!” Then C. said in a some­what louder voice than R.’s, “No doubt he will come.”

  Plenty has been missing here all along, in addition to most of the people’s names in their entirety, more of what they were saying, also the overtones and the un­dertones of their major statements.

  Later, when everybody had said their good-byes, I told C. that it had all been like a dream—dinner and so on.

  He said, “Tomorrow is another day.”

  I didn’t mean for what I had said to make such a muffish sound, from where there was nowhere further naturally to bounce.

  This happens, though, to what gets eaten up. That’s all my fault Betty McDonald is a doornail.

  Peniel

  The child who became a very great president of the United States of America scolded Dr. Tiffany: “You got me in the eye!” because some of the
novocaine Tiffany withdrew with his syringe needle from a vial shot into the child’s eye on account of the doctor’s clumsiness, and the doctor knew it.

  For these purposes, a very great president means a president who understands the meaning of the word good and who is capable of leading the country, and therefore the world, at least several giant steps toward Good.

  After the child was shot, Dr. Tiffany commanded the child, “Don’t move, that’s all you have to do.”

  The nurse attending both of them, holding the vial, was acting as a nurse for one day only. On all other days the nurse was a fireman at the army base.

  There had been another nurse attending also, but she had been jubilant to excuse herself: “You know what to get him!” she volleyed at the fireman; then she had taken off, as if she was flying.

  When she did so jubilantly, the child was doing a quick, wild writhe after having been shot. He was lying down. Dr. Tiffany was standing big and tall—the tall­est one, with a robin’s-egg-blue paper mask, masking half his face, tied behind his head, and the abashed fireman was confronting Dr. Tiffany.

  So far the clues are: the word Tiffany, probably from theophany; robin’s-egg-blue; fireman; and vial—the same sound as vile.

  Whoops, before the presentation of clues, more infor­mation should have appeared concerning the child—that the child scolded the doctor again.

  “Trust me, trust me,” Dr. Tiffany said. “It’s safe, I know, in your eye—because we put it in eye drops. That’s how I know.”