Brando_ Songs My Mother Taught Me - Marlon Brando [58]
After she entered the room, she sat on a small ottoman and her first words to me were, “I bet you could beat up anybody.”
“Nobody can beat up anybody,” I said. “There’s always somebody who can beat you up, and he’s probably just around the corner at the next tavern.”
She argued with me. “Oh, no, no, no. You can beat anybody up. Don’t say you can’t, because I know you can.”
“Well, all right,” I said, “I can beat anybody up. Now what?”
“Do you need any money?”
“No,” I said.
“Because if you do, I have lots.” She pulled a wad of hundred-dollar bills out of her purse that would have choked a rhino—at least the top bills were hundreds—and offered them to me.
“I really don’t need any money.”
As she sat there, I tried to size her up. She was in her early twenties and wearing a jacket with a fringe on it; she was possibly Italian, big-busted and attractive. She said her name was Maria, and I asked her more questions.
She answered a few, then interrupted me. “I want to ask you a question. You won’t be mad at me if I ask you something, will you?”
“No, of course not.”
“Are you sure you won’t be mad?”
I said: “I promise you I won’t be mad.”
She said: “Can I do something?”
“Well, what is it?”
“May I wash your feet?”
I did about a twelve count after the question, then said, “You want to wash my feet?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It’s just something I want to do. I don’t know why.”
I found myself saying, “Yes.”
She went into the kitchen, filled a big basin with warm water and then began washing my feet. I was surprised, a little frightened and unfortunately a little excited, but curious at the same time. I wanted to see how far she’d go. There is nothing more seductive than understanding the dynamics of the human mind and its odd ways.
Maria washed my feet slowly, deliberately, reverentially, and then dried them lovingly with her hair. Unfortunately it felt wonderful. Of course I understood what was going on; she was fantasizing that I was Jesus and that she was Mary Magdalene. As I looked down at her, the carnal aspect of my personality began to take over, and when she sat on my bed, it overwhelmed anything that was reasonable, rational, moral or decent in me. Without anticipating it, I put my hands on her breasts. I realized I was going over the falls in a barrel. The first thing I knew I was groping with her on the bed, and she was terrified because she was very passionate, and in the grip of her delusion must have thought she was being seduced by Jesus Christ.
When it passes a certain point, the penis has its own agenda that has nothing to do with you, especially in those days when I was young, uncontrolled, passionate and determined. One is led around by one’s lust and a lot of one’s decisions are not made by one’s brain. When I penetrated Maria, she said, “I’m dying, I’m dying …”
“No, you’re not,” I said. “You’re living. This is the first time you’ve ever come to life.” I realized she was having an orgasm, and I reassured her that it was all right. She was, I had discovered, a virgin.
Afterward I felt remorse and asked myself how I could have done this; I had just seduced a girl who thought I was Jesus and who wanted to eat my body. I told her, “I think you need help.”
I suggested the name of a psychiatrist, and after a lot of salesmanship persuaded her to go see him. A week or two later, I called him because I knew I was involved in something that could be very dangerous.
“There’s nothing I can do for her,” he said. “She’s fixated on you, and the only reason she came to see me was because you instructed her to. She doesn’t want help. She wants you.” He went on to say that her disturbances were of