The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer

by Joyce Reardon

  Teak from the islands; ivory from the dark continent. I have begun to make lists in my head. Thankfully John has brought along a complete set of plans to the grand house, allowing me to anticipate placement of our forthcoming collection. Now, not just John, but husband and wife shall be poring over those plans day and night. Now, finally, the project can consume us both! I have become a part of that great house that owns so much of my dear husband. I feel myself inside its walls. He enters me. He resides in me. I sweat and I writhe in his presence. My walls shudder. My mind reels.

  He comes and goes from our stateroom, having not invited me to join him topside. Returning just now smelling of liquor and cigar, he pulls the underclothes from my trembling body, lifts my skirts and drives me against the far wall, the sound of the ocean and the rumble of the ship. He lifts me from the floor, pulling my legs around his waist, and I am carried away to the point of frenzy, the point that any shard of ladylike behavior is lost to his lust, his penetration. My lipstick smeared, my breast exposed and the object of his attention, I can no longer maintain my composure. I cry out into the stateroom, “Oh, John. Dear John!” my fingers raking the back of his dress shirt, “Dear God in Heaven! I have never … I have never …” And all my shameful release so unexpectedly serves to engorge him, to send him into a fevered pitch, a furious, frantic pace where the thumping of my bare bottom on the wall runs up my spine and fills my ears like drumming. He pins my arms to that same wall, his face a crimson cry, and I wail behind his release like some wounded animal, humiliated and reduced to a trembling, panting state of spent excitement.

  And he loves it.

  He leaves the stateroom yet again, neglecting to offer me his company. Me, ruffled, sitting quietly on a chair, awaiting his departure so as I can tend to my toilet. He, his eyes flashing, his white teeth grinning at me, and without a word, he departs. The air is no longer tainted with liquor and cigar, but with our commingled scents—dark and somewhat sour. I freshen it with perfume. I open the doors to the balcony. I stand with the wind whipping my hair, flushed with a woman’s satisfaction, embarrassed with myself, and yet exhilarated. I am a wife. I have made the transition.

  19 NOVEMBER 1907—ABOARD SS OCEAN STAR

  A brief note in an effort to keep myself company. I have torn out and discarded many of your pages, Dear Diary, small knots of white paper in the trash as I attempt to come to terms with my position. Dearest John is quick to display me at dinner or lunch, or an evening reception offered by one guest or another, but the remainder of my time on board this ship resembles more prison than honeymoon as he confines me to our stateroom, where I must admit, I am taken to nausea in the early winter seas that we encounter. I have begged to go topside to relieve myself of this condition, for fresh air and a firm horizon can do wonders to steady my stomach, but my husband steadfastly refuses me, saying that he doesn’t want any “displays” on deck. He points to the balcony off the stateroom and suggests its use for my purposes. He is afraid I might vomit, or show my pale face, I suppose. (“No Rimbauer ever shows weakness!”) He uses me as a charm on his bracelet while claiming that the less others see of me, the more mystery, the more power I hold over them at the captain’s table, afternoon teas and cocktail parties. When he does visit me in my confinement it is to take of me his pleasure. With no other trustworthy woman in whom to confide, I have no idea if this is normal or not, though I must admit it is thoroughly exhausting, if in no other way in terms of bathing and dressing. I must spend half my day being undressed by him, later bathing and finding new wardrobes to replace the last. What appetites he has!

  I find myself at least a bit unstable, with the only attentions his, and these so clearly physical. Only this morning did it occur to me, from something he said, that he is hiding me from the other men on board, the silliest boyish notion I can imagine. John, jealous? The conversation went something like this:

  John asked me, “Did you notice Mr. Jamerson, last evening?”

  “Notice how, dear?”

  “Does the word notice escape your comprehension, Ellen?” His tone immediately sharp and coercive. I feel myself being drawn into a fight, and worse, I find myself willing to go. Why? I wonder. Because he locks me in this stateroom, a captive, readying myself for his next fit of womanly satisfaction?

  “It does not. Taken literally, I most certainly did notice Mr. Jamerson. He sat immediately to my right, as you will recall.”

  “And the captain placed you to his right for the fourth dinner in a row.” He pauses, strutting now about the stateroom. “The chair of highest honor on a ship, its occupation to be rotated night to night through a variety of guests.”

  “I am honored.”

  “You are the most beautiful woman on this ship, Ellen, by a factor of ten.”

  “You flatter me.”

  “I caution you,” he said. “A ship is a lonely place.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “You needn’t take to their humor quite so vigorously. Your endowments, my dear …,” he indicates his own chest, meaning mine, of course, “quite an eyeful when you laugh like that.”

  I blush, for I can feel it in my face. Not from embarrassment, as he must suspect, but anger. Is he implying that I am purposefully being vulgar in such company? Is this the kind of thing husbands and wives argue over? “May I remind you that it is you, dear husband, who bids me to remove my shawl at the dinner table. Such as my bosom may be, and I might remind you—as if it’s necessary—that Miss Pauling, our ship’s entertainer, and a guest I notice who has come to address you most informally, John, has a substantially greater bosom than I, and is in a mood to display her wares in what I consider, quite frankly, a most inappropriate and lascivious way. Moreover, my gowns are crafted by the finest San Francisco seamstresses and fashioned to designs created by Paul Poiret himself, and that all of this was at your request. These gowns were ordered because you heard of them, or saw them for all I know, on that business trip last August. I take great umbrage at any implication from you that I have behaved in any way unbecoming. I was born, bred and raised a lady, dear sir, and you will kindly remember that fact before leveling such accusations at me.”

  “I meant only—”

  “You meant to say that when I laugh my bosom is on display, and believe me this fact does not escape me. I have nearly come out of my gown. I am terribly aware of that fact. So perhaps your indignation might give way in favor of allowing a woman to wear her shawl when she sees fit, rather than forcing her into compromising moments of great embarrassment. Now, leave me alone! Go do whatever it is you do on this dreadful ship. But if you return with Miss Pauling’s perfume on you, John, as you did two nights ago—oh yes! you thought I missed that? how could I? It’s a dreadful scent!—then there will be hell to pay!”

  I had lost all composure and found myself shouting at the top of my lungs. At my husband. To my regret. But oh, Dear Diary, the story does not stop there. For I swear it is true that upon mention of the word “hell” did the gas lights in that stateroom dim, and the bedroom door blow open. Behind this door came a wind that lifted my nightgown from the floor and blew my hair straight back off my shoulders—and yet John moved not a hair. His handkerchief did not wave. The curtains did not ruffle. As my heartbeat did subside, so too did this wind lessen. John and I stood perfectly still, a silence between us. The air crisp and smelling as it does after an electric storm, both bitter and sweet all at once.

  My husband said not a word, a stunned, apoplectic expression overtaking him. His eyes narrowed, boring into me. He turned and left me then, partly because there was nothing left to say, partly out of fear, if I read him right. I have never seen John Rimbauer seeming anything less than absolutely certain. Stoic, even.

  Until now, that is. This evening the tables turned.

  I attended dinner without a shawl, just to spite him. And I laughed as never before.

  FOR THE SAKE OF EXPEDIENCY, AND DUE TO ANY DIARY’S REPETITIOUS NATURE, THE EDITOR CHOSE TO OMIT
VARIOUS DIARY ENTRIES. ELLEN RIMBAUER’S FULL DIARY IS ARCHIVED IN THE WINSLOW LIBRARY OF LETTERS AND MEMOIRS, SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, A COPY OF WHICH RESIDES ALONG WITH OTHER MATERIALS IN THE JOYCE REARDON COLLECTION: OBSERVED PARANORMAL ACTIVITIES, 1982–1999, WHICH RESIDES IN THE WIRMSER LIBRARY, BEAUMONT UNIVERSITY, SEATTLE, WASHINGTON.

  —JOYCE REARDON

  15 DECEMBER 1907—THE SOUTH PACIFIC ISLANDS

  I don’t know why they bother giving these islands any name but Paradise. Certainly one is no different than the other, a crust of sand rising from the deep, palms clinging by shallow roots, wind and bright sky and the bluest, clearest water on the face of the earth. The cinnamon-skinned women, as bare-breasted as the National Geographic Society would have us believe, welcoming white strangers with wide smiles and, I fear, open arms. The sun beats hot as we enter the part of their seasons that coincides with spring and summer, despite it being fall and early winter at home. Our world is quite literally turned upside down.

  I lock your pages closed each night, Dear Diary, and then, in turn, lock you away in my steamer where I keep my underclothes and my toilet, confident my husband would never violate that sanctity. I scarcely know what would become of me if he ever did. And so it is, with beating heart and a certain amount of timidity, that I once again turn to you as my confessor.

  It began more than a week ago now, during a nighttime celebration as the Ocean Star crossed the equator. There was music, much drink, a proclamation by the captain, dancing and a gay atmosphere on board. John and I, for all our conflicts, rose from our beds in the morning as if we had not a care in the world.

  We had taken breakfast together on the balcony, a peaceful, enchanting hour. I do believe that John has adopted a different attitude toward me, and that this is reflected both in our breakfast and in the fact that we followed breakfast with a stroll on the deck, an extremely social activity where certainly my absence has been noticed. We lunched together, in a smaller dining room I’d not seen before, but one where all the waiters knew John quite well, addressing him as “Mr. Rimbauer,” instead of the “sir” and “madam” used on guests less well known. After high tea with several new friends, we retired to our stateroom and “rested”—John’s new term for our husband and wife activities, which falls desperately short of the truth of that time spent together; it is anything but restful!—and prepared for a late dinner at the captain’s table and the equator celebration scheduled to follow.

  It was sometime during that fabulous celebration, the warm tropical night winds playing over the Ocean Star’s rail, the champagne playing with my head, the delicious chocolate mousse still lingering in my taste buds, that the following events occurred.

  John, I believe, was dancing with a matronly woman named Danforth, Danvers—I have a devil of a time with all the names!—leaving me to the company of Mr. Dan … I can’t possibly remember! … who rather quickly excused himself to the toilet, one brandy over his limit, if I might say.

  “Truffles, Madame?” A creamy warm voice over my shoulder, as welcome as that tropical wind. A woman’s voice. Deep and soothing.

  I turned, perhaps too quickly for our proximity, and found myself eye-to-eye with a Negro of nut brown skin and enormous olive-shaped eyes. Her face was a perfect oval, her lips thick and sensuous. I felt myself stir in a way no woman should stir for another woman. I am certain I made a fool of myself, the way my voice caught, with the blush I must have revealed.

  A waitress, she was dressed in a black costume appropriate to her service, with a white apron and a firmly pressed white collar buttoned nearly to choking. She had a tiny, wasp waist, full hips and strong legs, widely set. The shoes they had put her in were easily a size too large. She had feet more my size. What an idiot I was, just staring into her eyes as I did.

  “Madame?” she inquired a second time.

  “Well, yes,” I answered, having no desire to consume any more food. But I picked one off the silver tray nonetheless, and bid her to remain in my company a moment longer.

  What I felt is unspeakable, but I push my fountain pen to write it here in these pages: I wanted to kiss her. To touch that soft skin. Mind you, I did not want to be kissed back—Heaven forbid!—nor touched in any way, shape or manner. But I did want to undress her and see her God-given body in all its glory, to run my hands over her skin and feel it respond to my woman’s touch. So horrified was I by this response that I left the celebration early, feigning a headache, and I returned to prayer in our stateroom, kneeling at the side of that bed where my husband and I perform acts of increasing indecency, praying for salvation from wherever it is my mind seems destined to take me. Is this what marriage brings on in women: a heightened curiosity of the forms that pleasure takes? If there were only someone to whom I could bare my soul! The ship’s priest comes to mind, but he is a rheumy-eyed man with a proclivity for drink. My one great fear now is that in all my isolation of the forthcoming year I will not find answers, not find release for such sinful thought. For the better part of three weeks I have been shuttered in our stateroom. I am currently ensconced in a five-room suite in the only decent hotel for a thousand miles. Laughter rolls up from the hotel bar, spilling out into the street and then rising like hot air to the room’s high ceilings.

  Dare I confess this? Earlier this morning a chambermaid entered to service our rooms, to change the sheets that my husband and I have soiled with our activities. (I dare not ask where John has learned all that he is “teaching” me—his term.) She couldn’t have been over fifteen, if she’s a day. Petite, and fair-skinned with black eyes and a strong back. Oh, yes, I studied every inch of her as she worked. She saw me watching and seemed to take great pleasure in it. Giggling. Provocative. She knows not what she does to me! I had a kink in my neck that I tried to work out—there are no pillows here to speak of, only firm square mats with cotton slipcovers. I sleep fitfully, if at all—in part because John’s appetites are insatiable (he drinks heavily into the night and then arrives to our rooms in a desirous state). Our maid took note of my efforts and indicated that I should turn around. She touched my neck with her small, warm hands and I jumped, a source of great amusement on her part. Then, for the better part of a quarter of an hour or more, she kneaded my tight, knotted muscle and sculpted it, restoring it to a state of complete relaxation. I am told this form of massage is Asian, Japanese or Chinese in origin, and spilled down the archipelago over the thousands of years of commerce that has come and gone in this remote area of the world. I was quite taken by the magic of her hands, and I tipped her generously, which she clearly enjoyed.

  But listen, Dear Diary, there’s more! This young beauty then indicated that I should lie down on the bed. In her unfamiliar tongue and sign language, she first locked the door and then motioned for me to disrobe. (I am certain this was the meaning. It needed no translation.) She indicated with her hands that she would continue her work, the Asian massage with which she had soothed me. She appreciated my generosity, no doubt, and saw clear to the idea that she might expand on that gratuity by increasing the canvas, if I may adopt an art analogy. I declined, of course, thanking her profusely, which I’m sure she understood, and getting out of it as best I could. I suppose she meant for me to remove my dress, and only my dress, so that she could continue her work through my undergarments, but given the level of undress these natives undertake, my thoughts went elsewhere. I had visions of disrobing, becoming naked in front of this young girl.

  Even now, many hours past, I find myself excited at the prospect. Dare I confess this? To be touched by another woman, someone of my own sex, who would know the aches and pains of a woman, where to touch, where to relieve the back pain that comes of the corsets, the foot and leg pain that comes from the shoes. Nothing more than this, you understand! And yet, even this seems a sinful act. One woman with another, one in full undress.

  The bright-eyed young girl had such a problem accepting no from me, either being driven by the desire for another tip or being culturally unfamiliar w
ith such a refusal. This island and its simple people are so very foreign to me.

  I am troubled by my desires. There, I wrote it down. Perhaps that will help to purge me of them. Perhaps if John included me more, allowed me out more often, my mind would have elsewhere to go other than to the physical pleasures that have entered my life for the first time in these past few weeks. The dark secrets of satisfying a man that John continues to reveal to me. But my days are just this: food and carnal pleasure. The honeymoon is for me more a horrormoon. I have prayed—to both sides—for release from this depravity of thought, for increased independence from my husband, for the freedom to walk the sands and visit the markets. I have prayed for his drinking to temper, for his earlier return to our suite, as some nights he does not return until three or four in the morning, sweating, smelling of liquor and cigars—and—dare I say it, for I am not absolutely certain?—other women.

  He snores as I cry. He snores as I long for home, and most of all my dear mother. Her guidance. Her advice. Oh, the ache in my heart this loss causes me. The terror with which I face another day here, for I know it is but one of many that will combine to make up this year of travel.

  There is talk of a European war. John believes the need for petroleum will increase dramatically, and with it our fortunes. But what good is fortune without love? And if John loves me, what strange ways he chooses to display it. Is love at the heart of our sweaty embrace? I once felt this—it seems like months ago now. But since our arrival here at the islands, it is bestiality that my husband brings to bed, not love. He takes me, he does not make love to me. It is carnal and awful, and I give myself to him only reluctantly and with great displeasure for fear of suffering badly should I do otherwise.