Great Expectations

by Kathy Acker

  My consciousness is letting loose every kind of emotion.

  You will masturbate in front of me.

  You are a whore.

  All women are whores.

  BLOOD SEEPS OUT OF ONE OF THE GIRLS’ CUNTS WHILE HER LEGS ARE SPREAD OPEN

  Hatless, wearing practically no makeup, her hair totally free, she looks like a well-brought-up little girl, dressed as she is in a very full wool tweed little boys’ trousers and a box-cut matching jacket, or little hand-knit pale blue or red sweaters, tiny collars around the neck, flopping over full-cut velvet trousers, pale blue silk slippers tied around her ankles, or her evening narrow black knee-length dress. Everywhere Sir S takes her people think she’s his daughter and her addressing him in the most formal terms while he acts familiarly with her underlines this mistake. Sitting in an all-night restaurant during the early morning hours before gray light starts to appear walking past the few trees that exist at the lower end of Fifth Avenue while the evening sky is unable to turn completely black, an old woman in the restaurant begins to talk to them the people on the street smile at them.

  Once in a while he stops next to a concrete building and puts his arms around her and kisses her and tells her he loves her. THE FUTURE: once he invites her to lunch with two of his Italian compatriots. This is the first time he’s invited her to meet any of his friends. Then he shows up an hour before he said he was going to.

  He has the keys to her place. She’s naked. She’s just finished meditating. She realizes he’s carrying what looks like a golf club bag. He tells her to open his bag.

  The whips are pink silk and pale black fur and one plaster and leather with tiny double and triple knots so there’re no expectations and dolls and a long light brown whip that looks like the tail of a thin animal.

  The minute he touches her she begins to come.

  For the first time he asks her what her taste is.

  She can’t answer.

  He tells her she’s going to help him destroy her. Whips don’t exist and are ridiculous. Who could confuse orgasm with pain?

  The three girls, in the school bathroom cold tiled floor, are giggling.

  It’s the first time he’s taken her out and not treated her like a piece of shit.

  The Swords Point Upwards

  The man and the woman are sitting in the first restaurant he’s ever taken her to. One of the man’s friends is sitting in an armchair to her right, another to her left. The one on the left is tall, red-haired, gray-eyed, 25 years old. The man is telling his two friends he invited them to have dinner with the woman so they could do whatever they want with her in no uncertain terms because she’s the most unnameable unthinkable spit spit. She realizes that she is at the same time a little girl absolutely pure nothing wrong just what she wants, and this unnameable dirt this thing. This is not a possible situation. This identity doesn’t exist.

  Her grandmother lifts up her pink organdy skirt to show the hotel headwaiter, “Look what my granddaughter’s wearing! Her first new girdle! And only six years old!”

  The first man doesn’t recognize her humanity. All the men she has don’t recognize her humanity. Kneel down suck off our cocks. While you’re sucking them off, use the fingers of both hands with those quick feather ways you do. Then they all go away as quickly as possible while she’s swallowing their cum.

  The young boys being completely overwhelmed by her strength—her calm existing in such contradiction—tell her they want her to tell them everything. They give themselves over to her as if they’re clay, not human. They fuck again and again. They can’t get enough fucking. Then they turn on her. They hate her guts because she allowed them to be weak. They want to beat her up.

  The following day, scared she’ll leave him, he tells her the red-haired boy says he wants to marry her and so take her away from this unbearable contradiction in which she’s living.

  It’s always her decision. She tells him she wants to become another, as if at this point it’s even a question of a decision, though it always is.

  Animality

  Sparrow-hawk, falcon, owl, fox, lion, bull: nothing but animal masks, but scaled to the size of the human head, made of real fur and feathers, the eye crowned with lashes when the, actual animal has lashes, as the lion has, and with pelts and feathers falling to the person-wearing-them’s shoulders. A molded, hardened cardboard frame placed between the outer facing and the skins’ inner lining keep the mask shape rigid. The most striking and the one she thinks transforms her the most is the owl mask because tan and tawny fathers whose colors are her cunt hairs make it; the feathery cape almost totally hides her shoulders, descending halfway down the back, and the front to the beginning of the breasts’ swell.

  “But O, and I hope you’ll forgive me, you’ll be taken on a leash.”

  Natalie returns holding the chain and pliers which Sir S uses to force open the last link. He fastens it to the second link of the chain stuck in her cunt. After she remasks herself, Sir S tells Natalie to take hold of the end of the chain and walk around the room, ahead of her. (being chained to the text)

  “Well I must say,” he remarks, “the Commander’s right, all the hair’ll have to be removed. Meanwhile keep wearing your chain.”

  What shocks and upsets the girl at the depilatory parlor the following day, more than the irons and the black-and-blue marks on her lower back, are the brand new whip marks. No matter how many times she repeats attempts to explain, if not what her fate (decision) is, at least that she’s happy; there’s no way of reassuring this girl or allaying her feelings of disgust and terror. No matter how much she thanks these people how polite just like a little girl she acts when she’s leaving this parlor where for hours she’s lain her legs spread as wide as possible not to get fucked but to get love, it doesn’t matter how much money she gives all of them; she feels they’re rejecting her rather than her walking out of a business appointment. She realizes that there’s something shocking in the contrast between the fur on her belly and the feathers on her mask just as she realizes that this air of an Egyptian statue which the mask lends her, and which her broad shoulder narrow waist and muscled legs serve only to emphasize, demands her flesh be absolutely hairless.

  Stared at them with eyes opened wide, deaf to human language and dumb. People seeing her, with expressions of horror and contempt turn and flee. Sir S is using O model to demonstrate. Stone wax unhuman. Daybreak is awakening the asleep. Unfasten chains, remove masks.

  The Beginning

  As you and Sir S are walking out of the subway station, up to the street, a young cop or a young man who looks like a cop, as soon as he sees Sir S, steps forward from a large black Mercedes whose doors are locked. He bows, opens the rear car door, and steps aside. After you’ve settled in the back seat, your luggage in the front seat, Sir S’ lips lightly brush your right cheek and he closes the door.

  The car starts suddenly, so fast you don’t know enough to grab him to call out. Although you throw yourself against the moving back window, he’s gone forever you feel frenzy.

  The car is rapidly moving westward into the countryside. You are oblivious to the outside world because you are crying.

  The terrorist driver is tilting his seat so it’s almost horizontal to pull your legs on to the front seat. Your legs are pressing the ceiling as he’s plunging his huge cock into you. He doesn’t stop for an hour. He moans loudly when he comes.

  The driver is 25 years old. He has a thin narrow face, large black eyes. He looks very sensitive and at the edge of being weak. His mouth never approaches your mouth. There is a basic agreement that the act of kissing is far more explosive than that of fucking.

  When he finishes fucking you, you pull down your skirt and then button your thin hand-crocheted linen sweater through whose lace delicate puckers of nipples can be seen. You carefully place red lipstick over your lips.

  If you want to, you can reach out and grab armfuls of red foxgloves.

  “The driver raped you. You’re
two hours late. You let him rape you.”

  “Everything happens as Sir S says. Is he going to come?”

  “I think so. I don’t know when.”

  The tenseness felt in all your muscles when you’re asking this question slowly dissolves and you look at this woman gratefully: how lovely she is, how sparkling with her hair streaked with gray. She’s wearing over black pants and a matching blouse, an antique Chinese jacket.

  Obviously the rules which govern the dress and conduct of the terrorists don’t apply to her.

  “Today I want to have lunch with you. Go wash yourself. At 3 o’clock sharp I’ll be back.”

  You silently follow her; you’re floating on cloud nine: Sir S says he’ll see you again.

  In this female terrorist house which is disguised as a girls’ school, you’re free to move around. You’re standing on the Delancey Street corner. It’s raining lightly. You know you’re older than the other girls. A man might not want you cause the skin on your face’s slightly wrinkled. Men want young tight fresh girl skin. They want new. They want to own. They want to be amazed. You’re gonna have to work three times as hard as the other girls to get your men. This work is creating an image which men will strongly crave. This image has to be composed (partly) of your strong points and has to picture something some men beyond rationality want. You have to keep up this image to survive.

  You put all thoughts away. Thoughts can be present in those hiatuses when you’re not a machine moving to survive. You are a perfect whore so you’re not human.

  Get off this. “Hi honey, I can do anything.” Your hips wiggle far wider than any other whore’s hips. You’re stealing outright from the restaurants you’re sitting in you’re laughing in those faces of big businessmen who look like pigs when a bum’s pulling a knife on you you say, “Honey, it’s too short.” Nothing can touch (hurt) you when you’re moving this fast: a perfect image: closed.

  This’ why you’re the best whore in the world. You have to make this image harder. While you’re a whore, you can love someone. While you’re a whore, it’s impossible for anyone to love you.

  Sir S wants you to prostitute to bring him money.

  “Listen, O, I’ve heard quite enough. If Sir S wants you to go to bed for money, he’s certainly free to do so. It’s not your concern. Go to sleep now, baby, shut up. As for your other duties and obligations, we use the sister system here. Noelle will be your sister, and she’ll explain all the procedures to you.”

  The whores spend most of their time with other whores and live in a steamy, hot atmosphere, a dressing room (perhaps one pimp who is a cardboard figure over whom they obsess just like the pupils in an all-girls’ school and the one male religion teacher), here at the edge of being touchable. Their knowledge of how vulnerable each of them is defines their ways of talking to each other and creates a bond, the strongest interfemale bond women know, between them.

  Women’s sexuality isn’t goal-oriented, is all-over. Women will do anything, not for sex, but for love, because sex isn’t a thing to them, it’s all over undefined, every movement motion to them is a sexual oh. This is why women can be sexually honest and faithful. This is why women look up to things, are amazed by things. Women hate things the most.

  Running the tip of his riding crop over the skin of your breasts.

  “Why didn’t you bring your whips tonight? At least you can slap my face.”

  Takes hold of your large nipples and pulls.

  Calls you “a whore.”

  You’re tightening around the flesh pole that fills and burns you. The pole doesn’t move out.

  “Caress me with your mouth.”

  You enjoy prostituting with this stranger.

  She kisses the tip of one of your breasts through the black lacework covering it.

  “They won’t tell me their names,” she says. “But they look nice, don’t they?”

  The men are embarrassed and vulgar. Their third drink has made them drunk.

  They take a table for four. Just as they’re finishing dinner, the man who took you last night walks into the restaurant. He discreetly signals and sits by himself.

  “Shall we go upstairs?”

  One of the hotel waiters shows you to a room. Without being asked, you walk over to your customer to offer him your breasts. You’re slightly astonished to see how easy it is to offer your tits to this unknown man.

  He tells you to undress, then stops you. Your irons impress him. As he’s pulling his cock out of your asshole he says, “If you’re really good, I’ll give you a fat tip.”

  There’s no possibility that anyone’ll love you anymore or that love matters. Because there’s no hope of realizing what you want, you’re a dead person and you’re having sex.

  He leaves before you’re out of bed, leaves a handful of bills on a small white table. You walk back to the house after having neatly folded the bills and stuffed them in your cleavage.

  Your chains are disappearing.

  You can decide now whether to get dressed or not.

  You can decide now whether to work for money or not.

  You can decide now who to talk to.

  He still whips you every day. When you complain another girl says, “You want to be whipped so why are you being querulous? You’re not Justine.”

  Who you are is obvious. There’s no one else but you. If you want to get whipped, like being whipped, girl.

  You own me.

  You control me.

  I have nothing to do with you.

  You’re a murderer.

  There’s no such thing as a terrorist: there’re only murderers.

  I’m a masochist.

  This is a real revolution.

  Sometimes men bring straight women into the brothel. These straight women act like they’re not looking down on the whores they see and yet, underneath this fake understanding or liberality, pure fascination lies. Fascination can involve no such intellectual judgment. These women tremble in front of the whores. Their eyes secretly follow around the corners of the doorways. Their eyes pin themselves on the long upper thighs, the cunt hair that might show, is it wet? How does she act when she’s … with a MAN? Does she spread her legs very wide? What tricks does she use to make the man love her? Is she real? Is her underwear filthy? Does she drink piss in her mouth? Is she just an orgasming machine? Is she just a sink-into-flesh machine? What’s it like to be without brains? Not to have any worries about how to get along in life how to keep up respect (among men) how to manage my career and children how to maintain my image and underneath the image …? What’s it like to live in that one (animal) place?

  I’m not like HER? I’m a person. The beautiful woman adjusts her face. Her left hand lightly brushes over the top of her man’s hand to show she and he are real: she’s his woman because they’re a twosome: real people in a real working world unlike these HOLES who DON’T EXIST.

  You’re watching the girls in the brothel:

  A slender but well-proportioned girl, all white against the cunt-blood hangings, shaking, bearing on her hips for the first time the purple crop furrows. Her lover is a thin young man who’s holding her, by her shoulders, back on the bed, the way Rene had held you, and watching with obvious pleasure and agony as you open your sweet burning belly to a man you’ve never seen beneath whose weight the girl’s moaning.

  They belong exclusively to members of the Club; they give themselves up to unknown men; as soon as they’re ready, their lovers prostitute them in the outer world for no reason at all.

  Other girls prostitute only for money, don’t have pimps, and will never leave prison.

  One girl is left in the brothel six months, then taken out forever.

  Jeanne lived in the brothel a year, left, then returned.

  Noelle stayed for two months, left for three months, returned totally broke.

  Yvonne and Julienne who like you get whipped several times a day will not leave.

  A man’s making love to you.

&nbs
p; He’s giving you a ring, a collar, and two diamond bracelets instead of your irons.

  He’s saying he’s going to take you to Africa and America.

  “No! No!” you scream. You can’t bear to have anyone love you. You can’t bear another person’s consciousness. You don’t want anyone in your distorted desolated life.

  “You’re now free,” the streaked-with-gray-haired terrorist says to you. “We can remove your irons, your collar, and bracelets, and even erase the brand. You have the diamonds, you can go home.”

  You don’t cry; you don’t show any sign of bitterness. Nor do you answer her.

  “But if you prefer,” she goes on, “you can stay here.”

  The jellyfish is the rapist. When O was 17 years old her father tried to rape her when she told him he couldn’t rape her he weeps, “Your mother won’t fuck me, those boys don’t respect you enough, I’m the only man who’s respecting you.” This night O has a nightmare. A huge jellyfish glop who’s shaped into an-at-least-six-story worm is chasing her down the main sand-filled cowboy street. All of her WANTS to get away, but her body isn’t obeying her mind. Like she feels she’s caught in quicksand so her body is her quicksand.

  Nightmare: her body mirrors/becomes her father’s desire. This is the nightmare.

  Then O had a number of S&M relationships with guys who dug their fingernails into her flesh slapped her face then jellyfish wanted to become her whinedabouttheirproblems wanted to become her. Then O almost killed herself by developing an ovarian infection.

  Men are rapists because rape rope is something O doesn’t want. Why do people kill? A person kills, not from impotence but because he or she doesn’t see what he or she is doing. O had to either deny her father’s sex and have no father or fuck her father and have a father. This event led O to believe that a man would love her only if she did something she didn’t want to do. How can I talk about ignorance, what ignorance unknowing is?

  A young prince enjoying the company of an enchanting woman; he receives a cup of wine, elixir of life, out of her hands.

  Probably Timurid period, 15th century.

  The period corrresponding roughly to the 15th century takes its name from the great conqueror Timur or Tamerlane, whose armies overran the Near East between 1365 and his death in 1405, and whose descendants held court in Persia for the next hundred years. The classic style introduced by Ahmad Musa had reached its apex under the Jalayrid Sultan Ahmad, who ruled at Baghdad till its conquest by Timur. After that his artists seemed to have taken service with the Timurid princes, especially Iskandar Sultan under whose patronage the Timurid style may be said to have been formed: