Thirty - Jill Emerson [33]
But I always thought Burton was a big put-on. Sir Richard is sending us up, I thought. The dear boy’s having us all on. People can’t really dangle from the chandeliers and bugger one another while drinking glasses of spiced tea and masturbating pet dogs with their toes.
Well, we haven’t done precisely that, but I couldn’t swear that it’s not on tomorrow’s agenda. Already there are things I never dreamed I was capable of. There are ways of controlling one’s responses, of developing muscular control and physical agility. According to Eric, it is all a matter of discovering oneself, of making the acquaintance of one’s body.
All of this sounds desperately clinical, does it not? Like a class in karate or something. And at times it does seem quite cold and austere, and would be literally ridiculous but for the particular personality of this man and its effect upon me. I suspect that, were I not so completely his property whenever I am in his presence, there are moments when I would laugh. But the impulse never even occurs to me at the time.
And there are enough times when the passion is real enough and the classroom turns back into a bedroom like Cinderella’s coach at midnight. (Why did I put it that way, Doctor? Not at all like Cinderella’s coach at midnight, I don’t properly think. Verrrry interesting.)
He can set me on fire with a touch, a kiss, a glance. And when we fuck it is a shaking, shattering experience. Always. There does not seem to be such a thing as a casual take-it-or-leave-it fuck with Eric. Always starbursts, always mountain peaks, always the usual purple metaphors apply.
There’s often some pain, but I don’t seem to mind it at all these days. In fact—
Oh, well. Yesterday there was no pain, and I missed it.
It bothers me to write this.
April 20
I thought I saw Arnold on the street. A comic moment, I suppose. I ran up for a closer look, and the man turned and gave me a what-seems-to-be-wrong-with-you-little-girl look, and of course on second glance it did not look like Arnold at all, not at all. I muttered something and turned away, feeling out of sorts.
The two of them have entirely disappeared. No trace. I only hope, well, that nothing happened. Would he do anything awful?
I am positive he has killed people. I think he would kill people as people kill flies.
No, wrong. He’d take some pleasure in it.
April 24
“You’re a sadist,” I said.
“DeSade was a bore,” he said. “A madman with a single preoccupation and an extremely limited grasp of logic. I can’t imagine anyone reading him except for titillation, and there are so many more effective pornographers of that sort.”
I looked at him.
“A sadist? A disciple of his? Could you honestly believe that of me?”
“I meant you take pleasure from inflicting pain. Sadomasochism. That bag.”
“Everyone does,” he said briskly. “It has nothing to do with that French idiot.”
April 27
He tied me up and spanked me on the bottom with his bare hand. Spanked me.
As hard as he could. It wasn’t a game, and it still hurts hours later.
I came, just from that. A completely different type of orgasm from the usual. It burst upon me rather without warning. Very strange.
May 1
Another month.
Four of them gone in this my thirtieth year. Eight of them yet to go.
I haven’t felt much like writing in this book. (Or in anything else.) In the past couple of weeks my world has closed up. Or closed in on me. There are great stretches of time in which nothing seems to happen. When I am not with him I hardly seem to exist.
I force myself to eat, but still continue to lose weight. I have never been really thin before. Thin in the sense that another would look at me and say, “That girl is too thin, she ought to