A Madwoman's Diary

by Lawrence Block

  Oh, I understand, Marcelle.

  Seduced her.

  That was what it was, although God knows she was ready for it, God knows she was anxious to be seduced and, consciously or unconsciously, expected it. But I could have left her untouched (except by her own dim long-fingered hands, soft fingertips on those hands, so soft). I could have played her game according to her script and she would have been happy enough.

  Didn’t.

  Sucked those perky tips and kissed that spicy mouth and sucked that cunt and made her come however much she wanted not to. Felt like a man seducing a girl. Felt strong and capable, good feeling, strange feeling, me so accustomed to the role of ingenue and now playing the sophisticate. Ate her and made her love it, poor baby. And got her tongue inside of me and made her love that part of it as well. Oh, Marcelle, with your spicy mouth pressed to me!

  Arnold was saying that he …

  17 June—Thursday

  If you knew me, Arnold.

  God. What would I be to you if you knew me? Would you hate me? I somehow think not. Would you still want me? And for what reasons? Would you perhaps only lust for me, so hot at the thought of Jennifer that you lose sight entirely of Arlene?

  I wonder.

  I would not want that last. It tempts me sometimes, Arnold. To become Jennifer for you and have to accept her even as you forget Arlene. But one of the things I treasure in you, Arnold, is that you know only Arlene and love the Arlene you know.

  I seem to be writing this to you. Odd, that I am doing this. Odd and unfamiliar. All of this heretofore has been written to myself, or to my typewriter, or at least to some unknown and perhaps unknowable eye. I never wrote to Bill. I never thought of any of the persons Jennifer has met as being recipients of the thoughts unfolded here. And yet I find myself now, probably for the first time, addressing all of this to you.

  Not that it matters. You’ll never see any of this, Arnold, but I am thinking (and typing) these thoughts to you, messages never to be sent, let alone received.

  Arnold and Arlene, Jeff and Jennifer.

  If all of me knew all of you, if all of you knew all of me, then precisely where would we wind up?

  Always the beautiful answer that asks the more beautiful question—

  18 June—Friday

  Today my Post Office box was full of letters.

  None of them from strangers. Seven of them from people I have met, have balled, have had sex with. And who would like me to get in touch. They supply their phone numbers in the event I have lost them. They remind me what a good time we had, and hint at what a better time we’ll have.

  No.

  I don’t want to see any of them again.

  No new mail. I suppose I should run the ad again, as I have more or less ceased getting replies from the last insertion. Or I could call some of the people whose original letters I never got around to answering.

  Not now, though.

  20 June—Sunday

  An odd weekend.

  Odd for now, typical of what once was. A weekend of doing puzzles in the Times, of sitting around reading, of having no human contact whatsoever. Not long ago all my weekends are like this, and now it almost seems as though I have come full circle. Earlier today I wondered if this would be a new pattern, or more accurately the resumption of an old pattern; if once again all my weekends would be spent alone.

  I want it to be tomorrow and am unwilling to speculate precisely why this is so.

  21 June—Monday

  Arnold, I should have had less to drink tonight. I think I stayed sober enough at dinner, or at least sober enough in outward appearance. You must have known I was high. I wonder, though, if you know just how high I was.

  I felt at times as though we were carrying on two conversations at once, an audible one and a private one of mind-talk. I want you, your eyes kept saying.

  How did my eyes answer, Arnold? I honestly do not know. Because they spoke to you and not to me.

  You are not a handsome man but I like the way you look to me. You are not a well-schooled man, you are not well- spoken, but I love your voice in my ears. I have known men who are younger and slimmer and better-dressed and glibber, and I have had their cocks in my hands and mouth and cunt, and their eyes have never talked to me as yours do.

  Oh, Arnold, I don’t know what I …

  This is silly and I am drunk, extra drinks since I came home and did not need those drinks. Drank with you and failed to show up for a date with a man in Greenwich Village telling myself it was because I was drunk and did not want to meet him drunk but actually it was because I did not want to go, did not want to go at all, wanted only to come home here and have a couple more drinks and go to bed, but instead I am not going to bed, I am sitting here at S C E 110, I am sitting here typing and hitting mostly the wrong keys and God only knows if what I am typing would be readable, not that it matters because it is not for reading, and here I am running on and on like this for no earthly purpose at all and what I really want to do is turn out the fucking lights and go to bed, but if I lie down I will probably vomit and if there’s one thing I hate it’s to vomit, which is probably not that unusual come to think of it because I suspect it’s rather a standard thing for people not to like to vomit because what’s there to like, after all, and I think I will stop writing this right now because I can’t stand it and what I really want is not to be writing this but to turn out the lights and go to bed with Arnold.

  I didn’t mean that the fucking typewriter it wrote that all by itself and I did not mean it not a bit.

  Or did I?

  22 June—Tuesday

  How could anyone bear to be an alcoholic? How could anyone have a morning like this every day? Even my hair hurts.

  24 June—Thursday

  Last night I …

  Last night Arnold and I …

  Oh, dear.

  I got up from this chair just now and walked over to the radiator. And looked under the cover and saw nothing but the rusted tray in which one may, if so inclined, place water which evaporating will humidify a dcsiccated winter day. There Is no water in that tray.

  Neither is there a pile of paper, paper which reposed there for a matter of months, pure innocent virgin white paper which some fool had ruined by typing drivel upon. Drivel on every sheet, sheet upon sheet of paper, week after week of paper-ruining, and all of that paper gone as the fool persists in her folly.

  Gone.While the fool sits here, ruining more paper. Her diary is gone and she continues to diarize.

  I am so afraid.

  Dinner and a play.

  I had mentioned the play. I don’t know what I mentioned about it, but Monday night when we had dinner I said something about having read a review of the play and it sounded interesting, and this afternoon he took me aside and said he’d gotten tickets.

  And so we went. The play was …

  Oh who cares how the play was?

  I hardly paid attention to it myself. Two acts, and during the second act we held hands. My hand found his, and we held hands.

  I guess I made up my mind then. Insofar as I made up my mind at all. I don’t think there was ever a point where my mind was literally made up. More that by then everything was set in motion, and I followed the script without ever looking at my lines in advance.

  Well, / know what I mean.

  Left the theater, talked about the play. Stood on West 47th Street sharing a cigarette. I had run out and we passed one of his back and forth, kissing each other through the cigarette as Paul and Gregory fucked each other through me. Did I write about Paul and Gregory? Two faggots who wanted to …

  Oh, it doesn’t matter about Paul and Gregory. “Where would you like to go for dinner, Arlene?”

  “Anywhere.”

  “Steak? Chinese? Italian? Name it.”

  “Actually I’m not very hungry.”

  “Want something light?”

  “Could we just have drinks somewhere?”

  “Sure, if that’s all
you want. Come to think of it, I’m not that hungry myself. This place okay?”

  We went to the Spindletop two doors down from the theater. Tall long-stemmed waitresses with leotards and mesh stockings and plastic hair. I drank stingers and he drank Scotch on the rocks.

  Two drinks each, and I said, “Would you like to go some place with me?”

  “Wherever you say.”

  “There’s an apartment.”

  “An apartment?”

  “In Chelsea.”

  “Sure. Who lives there, friends of yours?”

  “Nobody lives there.”

  What did he think? I’ll always wonder. Whatever he thought, he kept it to himself. Pushed back his chair, put money on the table, took my arm. Out of the Spindletop and into a cab. His car was in a lot down the block but he knew not to bother with the car, knew the car would be there to be picked up later, knew I ought to be taken to the apartment directly.

  I gave the driver my address.

  Holding hands in the cab. Thought he might kiss me then and it would have been all right but hoped he wouldn’t and God bless him he didn’t, just held my hand and squeezed it now and then and I squeezed back.

  Oh Jesus Jesus.

  Cab pulled up in front of my door. “Right around the corner from your friends.” he said. “The friends you stay with when you don’t go back to Brooklyn.”

  No answer from me. Into my building and up to my apartment and he waiting for me to ring the bell, but no ringing of the bell because I of course have my key. Trouble fitting it into the lock, fingers so nervous and shaky, and he takes the key from me and unlocks the door.

  “This is a beautiful place.”

  “I like it.”

  “Whose is it?”

  “A typewriter lives here. And a philodendron.”

  We kissed. For a moment we each held something back, and then the moment passed and we didn’t. His arms around me, his tongue in my mouth, his hand dropping to cup my bottom and press me close.

  Oh, Arnold.

  Jeff.

  Kiss ended. A step back and hands behind my back and worked the zipper and dropped the dress to the floor. Stepped out, kicked shoes loose. No bra, no pants, nothing but me, burning in his eyes.

  Hands so nervous and shaky, and God took the key from my fingers and stuck it in my head and turned off at last my brain.

  Won’t write about it.

  Can’t write about it.

  Can write about everything else but not IT, not Arnold and Arlene and Jeff and Jennifer, not us in bed, can’t write about it, won’t write about it.

  All for him, that was the idea, all for him, everything for him, and not thanks for the drinks thanks for the dinner thanks for the play not thanks for the job thanks for the raise not thanks for anything. Thanks for you for being you, everything for you, everything, and all of me caught in it, owned by it, part of it, with it and of it, and my brain turned off off! and my body turned on on! and me alive and with it and of it and for it and all for him, all, all, and then suddenly surprisingly impossibly …

  All for me too.

  “Don’t go.”

  “All right.”

  “Sleep with me.”

  “Yes.”

  “No one ever slept with me.”

  “Won’t your mother expect you at home?”

  “So much to tell you.”

  “Huh?”

  “She won’t expect me. Your wife—”

  “Don’t worry.”

  “Good.”

  “Arlene, I—”

  “No. Oh my darling, I can’t talk or listen. I cannot. Don’t talk, don’t make me talk.”

  “Sure.”

  “Just hold me all night. Just do everything you want with me, just show me what you want me to do with you. Both of us in the darkness and doing everything and not talking, oh my darling.”

  Slept so nicely. Woke two, three times, reached to see if he was there.

  He always was.

  Slept so nicely.

  Woke, and he asleep. How warm and soft and helpless. Curled on his side, baby in the womb, sweet.

  Woke him in my mouth. Woke him up, up, up. Arnold come for breakfast, how sweet.

  He showered, returned. I showered and he was dressed when I came back wet and naked. Dried my hands and went to the radiator and took off the cover. Looked at the stack of paper and closed the cover and turned to him.

  Said, “Arnold, you have to know me. Jeff has to know Jennifer. Arnold, my mother is dead and this is my apartment and, oh I can’t talk, I honestly cannot talk. Arnold, you have to read this. No, don’t talk, please don’t say anything, just let me.”

  Opened the cover again, got out the pages. Handed the thick stack to him.

  “I’m in these pages,” I said.

  His eyes.

  “I’m in these pages, this is where I live, in these pages, this is all the persons I have been and all the places I have gone and what I have seen and been and done there. Arnold, listen to me. Take this with you. I’ll stay here. Take this with you and read it. Read all of it because that’s where I am and I want you to know me. I am afraid but I am more afraid not to be known by you.”

  My own eyes closed now.

  “Take this with you. I’ll stay here. Read this, read all of it. And then decide.”

  “Decide?”

  “Whether or not to call me. If you don’t call me, I’ll never call you. Just a minute.” I find a pen, scribble my unlisted number on the top sheet of paper. Odd that I know the number. Never gave it out, never dialed it myself. The number sat all these months in a corner of my mind, waiting for me to need it.

  “It’s all up to you,” I said. “And don’t answer now because you can’t answer now, you don’t know me enough. You have to read it first. And then it’s up to you. Kiss me. Yes, oh yes. Now go.”

  And turned away and closed my eyes and stood like a statue until he was gone and the door shut behind him.

  A long time staring, a long time sitting and doing nothing, thinking nothing.

  Then sat at this typewriter and rolled another automatic sheet into its carriage.

  Because my diary is gone. It has gone away and left me behind, and I must work hurriedly to fill up the void beneath my radiator cover. I must hurry and type up thousands more sheets of paper and let those sheets share my empty life, my forever empty life.

  Glad I did it. Glad glad glad I did it. Glad I brought him home into this apartment where no one has ever been but me. Glad I brought him here and took him to bed.

  Last night in bed beside him thought I might die in my sleep and thought too that it was all right if I did.

  What will he think when he reads of Arlene? When Jeff learns of Jennifer?

  God, what will he think?

  Better that he knows and hates me than that he goes on knowing only part of me. Better that I am for once in my life naked in one man’s eyes, even if that man never sets those eyes upon me again.

  Better.

  Tears in my eyes that won’t come out, a lump in my throat too big to swallow. Oh, to come that close. To have that much and watch it walk out and hear the door close behind it. To have that much and not have it.

  For he will never call.

  And why should he? He’s reading the words of a crazy person, but he’s a good man, too good a man to laugh, too good a man to feel anything but sorrow. But an intelligent man. Intelligent enough to burn the idiot pages and put the idiot girl reluctantly but firmly out out out of his life for once and for all.

  Better this way. A far far better thing that I do than I have ever done, the best of times and the worst of times, oh, Christ, I don’t think …

  The phone is ringing…

  A New Afterword by the Author

  Jill Emerson began her career with a pair of sensitive lesbian novels in the mid-sixties and next wrote three determinedly erotic paperback originals for Berkley Books. If the books had one thing in common, besides their eager embrace of Am
erican literature’s new sexual freedom, it was to be found in their structure. I had come to find the traditional novel limiting in its artificiality; I was drawn to books that that moved beyond the standard first- or third-person narrative.

  Jill’s first work for Berkley, Three, took the form of a diary. Her second, Threesome, was structurally the most ambitious of all; its three narrators, who comprise a sexual mÈnage ‡ trois, have decided to collaborate on a novelization of their own experience, and the book we are reading is the one they are writing.

  For a third book, I chose a return to the diary. The keeper of this diary is a young woman, discontented and more than a tad neurotic. I don’t know that it’s fair to call her mad, in either sense of the word, but I hung the title A Madwoman’s Diary on it all the same. I’m sure I was echoing the title of Sue Kaufman’s excellent novel Diary of a Mad Housewife, which I’d read and been hugely impressed by a couple of years earlier. I don’t know that Ms. Kaufman’s heroine could truly be described as mad either, but the title had worked well for her, and I reworded it and took it for my own.

  If I took the title from one author, I stole the plot and character from another. I obtained my protagonist, my titular madwoman, not from another novel but rather from a work of nonfiction, specifically a collection of psychosexual case histories. Her background, her emotional makeup, her sexual acting out, indeed all the elements of the life she led, moved seamlessly from this case history into my novel.

  Plagiarism? Well, I can see how you might think so, but I could argue otherwise. Because how can one steal what one already owns?

  See, the collection of case histories was my work. It was I who had written up all the case histories in the volume, had in fact made them up out of whole cloth. The fabrication of human lives is after all part of the job description of a writer of fiction. That’s what we do, and that’s what I was doing when I wrote the various works of John Warren Wells.