A Madwoman's Diary

by Lawrence Block

  “Let’s say I conceded the possibility. How do you feel?”

  “Good.”

  “You have a natural talent. Unless you’ve had lots of practice.”

  No answer from me. We don’t discuss what I have done’ or haven’t done. I have no past in his apartment. Was his suggestion a hint, an attempt to find out more of me?

  Actually I yearn some times to tell him everything. But the yearning is never as strong as the compulsion to hide from him. To hide Arlene from him, and leave Jennifer a creature of present time.

  “A drink?”

  “Fine.”

  I wanted and didn’t want the drink. I thought of it as something that would take the taste of him out of my mouth, out of my throat, and I did and didn’t want this to happen. I wanted to erase the taste and yet wanted to savor it, to retain it.

  I drank the drink, sipped it, and it did not utterly wash away his flavor.

  He talked, I listened. His talk was of other women. Things he had done, things they had done. I wondered as he spoke whether he was talking literal truth or whether he was carefully building scenes he thought would excite me. I was interested, as I am always interested in hearing sex talk, but it was not exciting me.

  “Is there anything you would like me to do for you?”

  I shook my head. “I would like to lie on the bed.”

  “With me?”

  “Alone. You can watch me. But don’t touch me.”

  “All right.”

  “Please don’t.”

  “All right.”

  “Something I thought might work and wanted to try. Call it an experiment.”

  “Call everything an experiment, Jennifer.”

  I stretched out on the satin sheet. Lay as motionless as he had lain for some time. And then began to play the scene we had just enacted, an instant replay of it in fantasy. With one change. My role was performed by Jennifer, a Jennifer who looked not like me but as I have always pictured her, a somewhat sleeker and more knowing Wanda, with higher cheekbones and no innocence in her eyes. I was the Jennifer in the fantasy. I wore her body but I was her. And there was a girl off to the side watching us. The girl was Arlene, I’m sure, but in my fantasy her face and figure had no definition. She was merely a voyeuristic presence.

  As the fantasy took hold I began to move involuntarily and the bed moved beneath me. It rocked me, and while it was my muscles which caused the bed to move, it was as though the bed itself was moving and I was being tossed limp upon it. Rocked in the womb of darkness, rocked on the waves of my fantasy. Jennifer sucked him in my mind, and a faceless shapeless Arlene watched us, and the bed rocked me.

  I did not touch myself. I did not move my hands at all. My arms lay limp, flaccid, Venus de Milo arms of which I was barely aware. I did not touch myself at all but let the rocking and the fantasy bring me unassisted to an intense, shattering, extended orgasm.

  When it was over I waited a long time before opening my eyes. Waited first for the effects to wear off while I savored disinclination to meet his gaze.

  We talked for awhile. He said it had been fascinating to watch me, that the image that kept recurring to him was one of a witch locked in sexual union with the Devil.

  “What would you call what I did?”

  “Call it?”

  “Was it masturbation?”

  “Oh. I don’t know exactly. You didn’t touch yourself, rub against anything.”

  “No. It was all mental.”

  “Fantasy tripping.”

  “Yes.”

  “What was the fantasy?”

  “Don’t want to say.”

  “Fair enough. I don’t think it would fit my concept of masturbation.”

  “Is it better or worse?”

  “Than masturbation? I don’t know. Did it feel better or worse? Do you feel better or worse about it now?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I just stopped typing long enough to call Wayne and Maureen. Funny. I thought it would be easy talking to them after what I have done with Bill, the changes I have gone through. It was not as impossible as my first conversation with him, the business of dialing the number and hanging up, all of that, but neither was it as routine as I had somehow thought it would be. I was nervous, had trouble getting words together.

  Maybe it is new with each new person and you have to go through fighting the same defense mechanisms all over again. I’ll have to think about this.

  No point putting down the whole conversation. It was Maureen who answered. I have a feeling this is not her name, because when I asked her if this was Maureen, her voice changed slightly and she seemed to take it for granted that this was a sex call. I wonder if they always use the same false names or if they use a different one with each letter, so they can tell instantly who they’re hearing from.

  (That sounds too involved. I’m projecting my own elaborate compulsive furtiveness on others.)

  Briefly—I’m meeting them Saturday at a cafe on West 72nd Street. I am to take a table in the outdoor garden and will be reading a copy of Swann’s Way. (Doubt I’ll be reading it. I’ve had my copy for years and never managed to get through the first chapter.) And Maureen will sit with me and we can talk. Wayne will be baby-sitting. If I want to see him too before committing myself, or if he wants to see me, I’ll wait there while she relieves him as a baby sitter.

  Complicated but sensible. They must be rather experienced at this.

  I think I’ll go to the concert tomorrow night.

  A thought—there are hundreds of concerts and plays and lectures every night in New York, yet the only one I consider going to is the one on Barrow Street. Because I went twice. And thus am comfortable with it, and unwilling to try anything new in its place.

  Same as being easy in Bill’s company but nervous with Maureen?

  Enough.

  The daffodils still look quite nice. I thought they would be dead by now. Bought them Monday and they still look good Thursday night.

  If I could save some money I probably ought to furnish this place a little better. It’s comfortable, but it wouldn’t be hard to improve it a little. I sometimes think it shouldn’t matter as no one but me ever sets foot inside it. But all the more reason to make it perfect, as it is the only place where I am always perfectly alone.

  26 March—Friday

  I went shopping on my lunch hour and spent most of my paycheck on clothes.

  I was sitting at my desk this morning trying to decide what to wear tomorrow. I began to feel a little apprehensive at the thought of meeting those two tomorrow night. The whole idea of meeting at the cafe and having Maureen give me a once-over, and if she likes what she sees she can have Wayne give me a once-over. Makes me feel like merchandise on display, which is irritating, but also makes me feel as though the merchandise has to be displayed to best advantage.

  Went through my wardrobe mentally and decided nothing was really that exciting. And nothing is. I have just never been an exciting dresser. I automatically pick blah clothes. As if I want to make sure I don’t stand out.

  (Though something must show now in my face or my walk or something. I always used to slouch. I began to get over this in college but never quite stood right, I don’t think, and maybe my posture is better now or maybe it’s something in my face, but whatever it is, men are looking at me more frequently on the street. It can’t all be my imagination, or my noticing things I haven’t noticed before. I just must be prettier than I used to be. What a good feeling that is, the feeling that one is getting prettier. That one is becoming a more attractive person.)

  Never occurred to me to dress for Bill. To dress especially for Bill. Because he made it so obvious he would take me as I am, I guess.

  Also the idea that it’s Maureen who will see me first. And women judge you that way more than men do.

  Went to a few of the Village boutiques. Cashed my paycheck at the bank and spent almost all of it on two skirt and top outfits and a one-piece hot pants and top. I nev
er would have bought anything like them before. Short skirts, hot pants, bold colors, sharp patterns—not my kind of thing at all.

  Couldn’t wait to get home and try them on again. Tried them all on and struck poses in front of the mirror. Took the last of them off and struck nude poses in front of the mirror. And stood there giggling inanely.

  I think I’ll go to a beauty parlor tomorrow afternoon. I like my hair the way it is but I can get a wash-and-set. Shouldn’t cost much. I’ve got enough in the bank to cover the rent easily enough.

  Funny thought—no sooner do I think about saving money for furniture than I wipe out the savings in advance buying clothes.

  Of course I won’t wear any of the new outfits to the office.

  The concert tonight? I have time. I think I’ll go, but be just as happy not meeting anyone. In fact I don’t want to meet anyone, or at least I think I don’t. You know what it is? I want to think to myself that I’m looking to meet someone, but I also hope nothing happens.

  What to wear? Not the hot pants. Maybe I’ll wear the hot pants tomorrow night. Tonight—I don’t know. I think my old blue A-line will do. No point in rushing things, is there?

  27 March—Saturday

  Actually the date is wrong, to be technical. It’s past midnight so it’s officially Sunday morning. Just walked in the door exhausted and no time to write anything. This is just a compulsive note so I won’t miss a day.

  28 March—Sunday

  There was no one at the concert I recognized. A couple of men seemed to be eyeing me but I’m not sure. Unattractive anyway. One of them had no chin. Not his fault, but why doesn’t he hide it with a beard?

  Stopped for a cup of coffee on one of the crooked West Village streets afterward. Not sure precisely where I was. Sat alone and a boy asked if I minded if he shared my table. Long hair and a beard and hippie clothes, so it was hard to tell his age, but I would guess about nineteen or twenty.

  Started a conversation with me. Asked if I had an old man. Seemed an odd question but I said no, my father died years ago. He said he meant did I have a husband or a man I was living with. Said I didn’t.

  Asked me if I would like to go back to his place. “Smoke, drink some wine, see if we can get it together.” Perfectly straightforward. Said no, I didn’t think so. He nodded and said it was cool and maybe he would see me around sometime, and got up and went and sat at another table.

  Had this urge to flee the place immediately, but decided he was right, it was cool, and I sat and took my time finishing my coffee and smoked a cigarette and then paid my check and left. No one else approached me.

  He was so open about it, so casual about it. I must have seemed incredibly square in his eyes.

  I wonder what it would have been like if I went with him. Doubt I’ll ever see him again. Doubt I could find that particular coffee house if I went looking for it.

  Just as well I came home alone.

  I got up from the typewriter and read the Times for awhile. I guess I don’t feel like writing about Wayne and Maureen tonight or I wouldn’t have already bothered reporting on Friday night at such length. Wrote about the one because I didn’t want to write about the other—why do I keep doing that?

  No, more to it. Also had the conversation with the boy on my mind and wanted to get it down.

  Wayne and Maureen.

  No, I think I’ll wait until tomorrow. There’s no rush. And if I don’t get to it tomorrow, or ever, that’s all right, too.

  The object isn’t to put down everything. The object is to put down what I want to put down when I want to put it down.

  If I can write sentences like that, today is definitely not the time to write about Wayne and Maureen. Now is the time to get into a nice hot tub and soak for a few hours and have maybe two drinks before dinner and another drink after and get to bed early. A good night’s sleep would not hurt. Got so little sleep last night, late to bed and awake automatically at eight-thirty, and I have to face Monday morning tomorrow, never that easy to face but easier on a sound sleep.

  Night-night, Smith-Corona Electra 110. I am turning off your little yellow light and putting you to bed.

  29 March—Monday

  Checked my Post Office box during my lunch hour. Nothing. Maybe I ought to call up that “bored housewife’ and see what she’s all about.

  Not now, though. One calls bored housewives during the afternoon, when their boring husbands are not at home. Even I know that much.

  Should I answer some more ads? Sent six letters, got three replies, two unsuitable. Did get to meet Wayne and Maureen out of the deal, and I’m glad of that. But it’s highly unlikely I’ll see them again. I enjoyed it and so did they, but they were not precisely what I was looking for and I was not at all what they were looking for. One suitable but imperfect meeting out of six letters, one meeting with no future in it, and in return I’ve sent Jennifer’s name all over the place. Jennifer’s name and not mine, but even so I feel a sense of exposure. Three people didn’t answer my letters, gave nothing of themselves, and they know that there is a maniacal voyeur on the loose named Jennifer Starr.

  Answer might be to run my own ad. Attract the kind of people who are interested in my thing.

  Do I dare?

  And putting Jennifer’s name in the ad would be even more public, somehow. There must be a way around it. I can think of several but want time to decide just how I feel about it and just how much chance there is of things working out ideally in this fashion.

  Wayne and Maureen.

  Mr. Karlman asked me out to dinner again. Told him I couldn’t accept.

  “Then have a drink with me after work. The little place around the corner. Arlene, I’m a wreck these days. I just need someone to talk to. You listen good. What does a headshrinker charge to listen to your troubles? Twenty-five an hour? I’ll keep you no more than half an hour and pay you twelve-and-a-half bucks. That’s professional rates and you can be just like them and not say a word.”

  “Oh, you’re joking, Mr. K.”

  “I’m dead serious.”

  “Well, I couldn’t possibly take money for listening to you talk.”

  “Then do it for free. Up to you.”

  “I just don’t know.”

  “I’m such an ogre it would turn your stomach to sit with me for half an hour in a public place? I know I’m not Paul Newman—”

  “The thing is, if you told me something personal, then later on you might worry that you had told me too much. And then it might make you uncomfortable having me around the office every day.”

  “You worried about your job?”

  “I guess so.”

  “You get a ten-dollar increase starting with this coming Friday’s paycheck. That’s if you have a drink with me or not. You had a raise coming, you’d of got one if you ever asked for it. What more do you want? You want a three- year contract, noncancellable? I’ll draw it up, I know enough law to draw it up. That way if I’m uncomfortable which I won’t be it’ll cost me twenty thousand dollars to get rid of you. You want me to draw it up?”

  “Oh, I’m being silly about this. I’ll have a drink with you, of course I will. But I really can’t stay more than half an hour, forty-five minutes at the most.”

  So I stayed for close to two hours. I really hardly said a word. Now I feel like a complete bitch for giving him such a hard time about having a drink with him. All he wanted was a listener, and he really needed one.

  Poor bastard.

  He loves his wife but he can’t stand her.

  How does he love her? Let him, poor bastard, count the ways. He loves her because she is the mother of his children, whom he in turn loves without knowing, as one loves the purple mountain plains while singing America The Beautiful. He loves her because of all the impossible years the two of them have spent together, a bond of contrition the two of them share, like that shared by veterans of a given war, or concentration camp victims. He loves her because loving her defines him; she is his wife, and with
out her he is cut loose, an island, floating in a sea that terrifies him.

  Poor bastard.

  He doesn’t hate her. Doesn’t hate her at all, and this is fortunate in some ways and unfortunate in others. Unfortunate in that, not hating her, he is unable to foist any venom upon her—and thus must feel guilty for all the ways in which he does not love her.

  And he has a girl friend. Mr. K., Mr. Karlman, has a girl friend.

  Whom he also doesn’t love, but pretends to.

  And who in turn pretends to believe it.

  What a mess. What a truly total mess. The wife does not exist. The girl friend has been deluded, and has deluded herself, into feeling that she is loved. So she wants Karlman to divorce the wife and marry her, and Karlman knows he does not want to be divorced, and resents the girl friend as he has previously resented the wife, and hates himself for both resentments.

  “Arlene, I look at myself and what do I see? A man who is young but not so young. You look at the word middle-aged and it’s an impossible word. What does it mean? It means finished. A middle-aged man is someone cut down by a heart attack in what the obituaries call the prime of life, and when you read the obituaries you figure the poor bastard, he was done with life, middle-aged, he was over the hill, he was done with life.

  “But I don’t feel done with life. I feel as though I’ve been waiting all these years, being a good person, being first a good son to my parents and then a good husband to my wife and finally a good father to my children, always waiting, always biding my time, always wondering when it gets to be my turn, and then all of a sudden I’m what they call middle-aged and there’s no future in it, no tomorrow in it, not even a today in it, and you’re suddenly supposed to sit around praying for a heart attack that will take you out of it.

  “I don’t want to die. I don’t want it to be over. I don’t want to sit in front of God and he says, Karlman, you had your chance and what did you do with it? And I say, God, begging your pardon, I kept waiting for it to be my turn and all of a sudden it was over. I missed my chance, God, and I regret it.