A Madwoman's Diary

by Lawrence Block

  “I want to see you naked, Jennifer. I want to look at your body while I come.”

  I got undressed. Very timid but did it anyway. Fear was that I would disappoint him. Fear that he would look at me naked and see not Jennifer but Arlene. Watched his cock while I stripped, not only out of fascination with it but from inability to meet his eyes. Almost afraid to watch the penis, either; afraid that the cock would droop when my body revealed its Arlene self to him.

  But it didn’t, and when I was quite naked I raised my eyes to meet his. Read excitement, joy in them. And stood and then sat down again while he worked his hand on his cock and told me how hot it made him to see my body. Talked about all the parts of me. How beautiful I was. How he could imagine his hands on my breasts, his mouth on them. How he would like to fuck me between my breasts and come all over my neck. How he would eat my cunt, how he would lick it and suck it.

  (Heating me again to write this. Too much detail—I am indulging myself, heating myself purposely. I shall enjoy this again tonight in memory. I did last night. Unable to type it, I acted it out in bed and tore a sweet coming out of myself.)

  “Show me yourself. Open up your cunt for me. Play with yourself. How hot you are. Play with yourself, I want to see you come.”

  And I did all of these things. Staring at his cock, his beautiful cock, adoring it with my eyes, tasting it in all the parts of myself, I did what he wanted. Just as I felt it coming on, his muscles went rigid and he sobbed, and his seed jetted forth from him. Shimmering silver arcs like a leaping salmon.

  How beautiful my coming, how complete, how divine. I reenacted it last night and will do so again tonight, but the memories are shadows of the event.

  Edited shadows at that, as I rearrange the lighting to cast them where I wish. Monday his seed spawned upon the rug a few feet from me. Last night it took wings and splashed my body in fantasy. And last night that entire interlude was followed by true coupling, multiorgasmic fucking and sucking that endured for hours.

  When in fact the aftermath was something quite different, and less the stuff that dreams (mine, anyway) are apt to be made of.

  11 March—Thursday

  I rented a Post Office box today in the name of Jennifer Starr.

  You don’t need identification to do this. You have to give a name and address, that’s all. I gave an address on East 83rd Street. I don’t even know that there’s a building with that number. They don’t check these things. It’s just something for their records.

  One of the girls at the office today was talking about her husband. There was nothing suggestive in the conversation but for one reason or another I got the impression that the two of them, she and her husband, had recently had sex together. Last night or this morning before she left for the office. And I found myself imagining the two of them in bed together. I had them doing rather unusual things in my mind. Got very excited at the image. Not I-want-to-masturbate excited. Just I’ve-got-a-secret-thought excited.

  I have been doing this sort of thing more and more lately. Walking down the street and noticing people. Looking at men, trying not to stare at their crotches, and wondering what their cocks are like. The shape of them, the size of them, whether they are circumcised.

  Bill is circumcised. Gary was not.

  Interesting block—I cannot remember what Gary’s cock looked like.

  After we both came Monday night, Bill handled things very well. (As he had handled things well before, in all senses of the phrase.) Just slumped in his seat exhausted at first, but then sucked in a deep breath and got to his feet. Told me very convincingly that I was beautiful and desirable and exciting, and that I had brought him great pleasure, and that he wanted to take a quick shower and would be back in a moment. Gathered up his clothes and went into the bathroom.

  Sat wondering what sort of cue this was for me. Thought at first I ought to have the consideration to be gone when he returned, and that this might be his intention, a way to give me a convenient exit. Decided no, something in his tone that suggested he expected me to be there when he emerged. But naked or with clothes on?

  I got dressed. Smoked a cigarette and waited while he showered quickly. He emerged wearing his clothes, which made me glad I had put mine on.

  He made drinks and we talked. Mostly he talked. Essence was that he had had a good time, that my unique qualities more than compensated for the fact that we did not touch each other, that he could use my body only from a distance.

  He told me things about me. That I am a voyeur. A Peeping Jennifer. That I can fight it or indulge it, and that if I fight it it will always be there, but that if I indulge it it may lead somewhere, and even if it doesn’t I’ll have a good time on the way.

  I admitted a few things. Desire to look at movies and pictures. Desire to watch people screw.

  “I can help you, Jennifer.”

  Afraid to believe it, but I think perhaps he can. Help or not, he can give me things I need now. Or things I think I need.

  He has pictures. He has films and a projector. And he hinted at other things. Hard to be sure what he meant, but the impression was that I might actually be able to watch people together. That he could arrange it.

  Just before leaving I turned to him, unguarded. (I do not have to guard myself with him. Of this I am quite certain. My pleasure is his. His hangup, his neurosis, he calls it, but I call it one healthier by far than my own.)

  Turned to him. “But won’t you feel cheated? Wasting your time in kids’ games with me? When you could be having a fuller thing with some other girl?”

  “Were you excited tonight, Jennifer? And fulfilled?” “Yes.”

  “And was I?” Hesitation on my part.

  “Jennifer, you saw my passion. And my culmination. I rarely get as much pleasure fucking.” Does this mean that he’s an exhibitionist? He must be, to an extent. My observation thrilled him. Not merely my passion, not merely my presence, but that he was doing this solitary thing for a receptive audience. I’m seeing him Saturday afternoon. Can’t wait.

  12 March—Friday

  Went to another of the Barrow Street concerts tonight. Thought the man with the beard might be there. I wonder if I did or didn’t hope he would try to pick me up.

  Moot point. He wasn’t there.

  An all-Chopin program tonight. A female pianist, very attractive.

  Attractive to me?

  Jennifer has always been bisexual, although sometimes she has to be forced into it. I know I get hot reading lesbian scenes in books, and would like to watch two of them together sometime.

  I’ve often thought I could relax with a girl as I cannot with a man. Worried about being gay, a lesbian. I don’t honestly think I am. Or could be. I don’t honestly think I could shed with a girl any of the inhibitions and reserve I cannot shed with men.

  I have no friends, male or female. And have never had a close friend of either sex. If my withdrawal was just from men I might believe it of myself, but it has been from men and women equally. I keep myself a secret from both, and feel as uncomfortable with either.

  The bisexual voyeur. Attracted to both sexes, attracted to anything sexual, and desiring only to watch.

  I would find myself less impossible to believe if I encountered myself in a psychiatrist’s casebook than I do facing myself in real life.

  Real life?

  Whatever the hell that means.

  13 March—Saturday

  I’ll have to write about Bill tomorrow because I haven’t seen him yet today. It was one-fifteen the last time I looked at a clock and I’m supposed to go over there about three or three-thirty. I just got back from shopping, picking up a few odds and ends, and there’s nothing I feel like reading so I thought I would do the day’s diary-keeping, get it out of the way now.

  Oh, I am so full of shit.

  Lying to a diary is contemptible. Why is it harder to put on paper the truths which one already recognizes? Because print has a more permanent quality than thought. Because it is so
mehow more concrete, less ephemeral.

  I am typing because I do not want to type after I get back from Bill’s place. After having decided that it is important to lend immediacy to these entries by recording experiences as soon as possible, I am copping out by making today’s entry in advance. My own rules—one entry a day, no more and no less, will then make it impossible for me to type anything more later on.

  But it is true that I do have the desire to write now, and maybe that’s a real part of it. I left something out last night. The reflections on lesbianism were prompted by more than the faint appeal of the girl who played Chopin.

  I believe a lesbian tried to pick me up.

  I am unsure of this, and prefer to believe that my own uncertainty about the precise circumstances of the perhaps-pickup played a part in my failing to mention it. I think that’s probably true.

  Let it be said—one of the reasons for this diary, one of the very important reasons for making these entries, is because I occasionally fear madness. Fear a particular form of madness. Fear that I will reach a point where I will have trouble separating fact from fiction, fantasy from reality. I have had this thought before, and have possibly put it on paper before. I can’t remember. But it is a real fear, and thus to one person, to Smith-Corona Electra 110, I must be true.

  Perhaps a conversation last night was only an attempted pickup in my mind. But it still belongs here, with the preface that it may have been innocent.

  Woman about thirty-five, my height, a little heavier. Can’t remember what she was wearing. Dark hair in a pony tail. Strong features. Beak of a nose. Walked alongside me on the way from the hall.

  Said I looked familiar. Had I gone to Barnard? No, I said. Brooklyn College, I said. Wondered, as she would have been at least eight years ahead of me in school, and did I look that old to her that I might have been her classmate? Answered my unvoiced question—she was an instructor at Barnard, thought I might have been in a class of hers. “But I knew the minute you spoke you weren’t the girl I remembered. You’re prettier, and you have a much better speaking voice. I suppose a lot of people comment on your voice.”

  No one had ever said anything about my voice.

  Did I have time for a cup of coffee, or was my husband waiting for me? Not married, I said. But I had to help my mother and was already later than I’d planned. Did I live at home? I said I did.

  More chat, but nothing vital. The fact that I lived at home seemed to lessen her interest, although this, too, may have been my imagination. Maybe she simply didn’t believe me, and was turned off by my lack of interest.

  I’m positive she was a dyke. And I was easier with her than I would have been having the same conversation with a man. But I can explain that. I was naive. Didn’t think there was any sexual overture in her conversation at first. (Does seem unmistakable in retrospect.) In any conversation with a man I am aware of sexual interest on his part and guard against it. I am less inclined to suspect it from a woman. And thus was more open to talk with her, even saying where I went to school and that I was unmarried.

  Complimenting me on my voice. Did she learn that one herself or read it somewhere? A dead giveaway. No one has ever said anything about my voice.

  If she’s a dyke (and I’m beginning to think it matters less and less) it’s interesting she tried to pick me up. No one ever did before. And unless I am imagining it (which is possible) more men are looking at me on the streets.

  Perhaps I’m getting prettier.

  Perhaps something shows in me. In my eyes, in my walk, in my face. The excitement of Monday night, and the excitement I hope will happen this afternoon.

  I have to end this and get over there. It’s a shame, not that I have to go because I am anxious to, trembling with excitement about it. But because this is one of those times when I am really enjoying this diary-keeping. I could go on typing for hours.

  Think of the paper Bill is saving me.

  14 March—Sunday

  Nothing happened today.

  Much happened yesterday.

  I feel on the threshold of so many things. I sat around not typing this all day and all night, alternating between joy and sorrow. Perched precariously on something high, with joy on one side and sorrow on the other, and afraid to fall in either direction. Read sections of the Times I normally discard on the way home from the newsstand. Read about a species of bird facing extinction and found myself weeping. Read some story of heroism, don’t even remember it, and got weepy with joy at the beauty of humanity.

  I’m in no condition to write about yesterday. Chalk up this Sunday as a fat zero. A day at the office should make me a little saner, or flip me out altogether, and I’ll get all of this together tomorrow night when I get home.

  15 March—Monday

  All day at the office I sat around wanting to be home so I could type this. And Mr. Karlman had to pick tonight to keep me late. I wanted to invent an excuse but couldn’t bring myself to do it. I can’t blame him. The work runs this way, with sudden peak times when everything had to go out at once. Sometimes during the day I sit around for hours with virtually nothing to do, and sometimes it’s necessary for me to work late. They’re very good about overtime pay, and he always pays for my dinner, too.

  This time we worked right through instead of ordering sandwiches from Smiler’s. We finished at ten and he insisted on taking me out for dinner. I really didn’t want that. I tried to get out of it but there was no way. It would have been impossibly rude.

  I may leave that job.

  Isn’t that stupid? Because he was decent enough to take me out for a good dinner?

  We went to an Italian place in the Village. The food was very good. I had …

  Oh, Christ, the hell with what we had for dinner. I got the impression he wanted to go on the make but didn’t believe he had a chance. I tried to encourage him in this belief by being boring. Which comes naturally. He didn’t go on the make but evidently decided that boring girls make good listeners and talked endlessly about his problems. I was expecting intimate revelations, something tragic like Mrs. Karlman won’t blow him. But it was mostly crap about business and sometimes he wonders if it’s worth it all, because in a sense he’s successful and secure, but when he was in college he wanted to be a poet, and what happened to that poet’s soul that once beat in his breast?

  Not that corny, the phrasing, but it might as well have been.

  At least I had the presence to fake a phone call to my nonexistent girl friend, so I didn’t have to take a cab home this time. He dropped me around the corner, and I walked here after his car pulled away. Mood he was in, he’d have absolutely insisted on driving me clear to Brooklyn, and that would have been too much of a hassle altogether on a night like this.

  Just don’t have the strength to type this. Quick summary of the afternoon with Bill—we looked at dirty pictures, he gave me a dildo for a present, and we watched each other masturbate.

  Maybe I’ll feel like rendering the unabridged edition tomorrow night.

  16 March—Tuesday

  I almost bought a plant today.

  Walking home past a florist I pass every day and I noticed the plants and flowers. Tubs of daffodils. Looked at them and thought that something like that would brighten the apartment.

  Was going to get daffodils, a bunch of them, and then I thought it might be nice to have a plant, water it every day, watch the new growth appear. Just a fifty-cent philodendron, something like that. Nothing grand. I wouldn’t feel equal to one of those magnificent split-leaf jobs.

  Then I caught myself. Remembered something I read, a case of a man who was unable to relate to people and his psychiatrist started him off small, had him grow a sweet potato vine, then had him get a pet turtle, the idea being that he could eventually work his way up to human friends.

  Have to keep fighting that kind of impulse. I do not want anything in this apartment for which I will have to be responsible. Don’t want anything that needs taking care of. Enough trou
ble taking care of Arlene.

  Krause the Mouse.

  Why?

  Not sure.

  Too many ways to interpret it. Don’t think I want to bother, either.

  Don’t want to bother writing about the day with Bill, either. Wonderful time, wonderful, and I felt wonderful afterward, felt wonderful all day yesterday, too, and would have written about it last night if I hadn’t had to work late for Karlman the Cocksucker but too tired to type so I just summarized it.

  Don’t feel wonderful now. Depressed. Down. Don’t know why.

  17 March—Wednesday

  Still depressed.

  Down in the dumps all day and God knows why. Arlene doesn’t know why.

  Does Jennifer know why?

  Maybe there is no Jennifer.

  I can’t get out of this fucking mood.

  I didn’t even feel like buying Screw after work today. But I bought it anyway because I thought it might shake my mood for me. Started to go up to Times Square as usual and decided this was foolish. Walked a block to a newsstand I don’t usually pass and bought it and a copy of the Post. The news dealer wasn’t blind and somehow I didn’t care. I don’t know if this is progress or just that I was too down in the dumps to give a damn one way or the other.

  Put the sex paper inside the other paper and came home and tried to read the articles, but they just seemed cheap and obscene. Read the ads and had even more of a down from them. Thinking that all these people are perverts and I’m a worse pervert than they are for wanting to do the things they’re actually doing.

  And for not being able to do them.

  And I’ve had that fucking Post Office box for a week and not done anything with it, and I guess I won’t, because a couple of times I have started to order things and always copped out, and a couple of times I have tried to answer ads besides Bill’s, and chickened out, and I’m beginning to think that I’ll never do the things I want to do, and that maybe I don’t want to do them in the first place, and I don’t know where I am tonight.