Chapter 2
Portrait of Marsha
"I don't know what to think anymore. In a way, maybe I don't even care what's right and what's wrong. So I've had a weirdo childhood-things have always been different for me. I'm just not like the other kids. And I never have been. Oh sure, maybe way back when I was five or six-maybe then I was like the other kids. But by the time my folks died, when I was eleven, everything changed.
"Things happen to you when you're an orphan. Some good things, some bad. I say what's done is done and leave it be. What's past is past. Forget it. Don't think about it. Now you come along and want me to tell you all about my background, all about being an orphan and what it's meant. Okay. Why not? But I hope you're not the type who shocks easily. It's not a pretty story. One thing I can tell you-to be a girl orphan is hell.
"To begin at the beginning, the first eleven years of my life were good years. My folks had money. They weren't wealthy, but we lived pretty good. Dad had been taking flying lessons and one day he suggested that all of us pile into his rented Cessna and he'd give us a ride over to Carson City. We'd make a day of it. Yes, I can still remember that whole incident; my mind's like a cassette tape about that period in my young life-I can play it over and over again, remember all the colors and smells, what my mom and dad said, and how I felt about it.
"It was going to be my first time up in a plane, any kind of plane, and of course I was very excited at the idea. To cut a long story short, Dad cracked up the Cessna. Wiped both my parents out. I was thrown clear of the wreckage, suffered a concussion and a broken leg, but that's all. No, that's not all! I suffered the loss of both my parents; I went through an experience frightening enough to scare the holy hell out of anybody. But on the record, it just says concussion and a broken leg. That's all.
"What's always seemed a bitter joke to me is that both of my parents were orphans, too. Orphans beget orphans. I've often wondered if there's some deep-rooted psychological compulsion for abandoned children to do the same thing to their children. My folks died when they were in their late thirties, and I've somehow always felt that I'd never live to see forty. I wonder if there isn't some kind of fixation that goes with a child's exposure to the shock of parental death; a feeling that the same thing will happen to the child, and subconsciously, he manages to have an accident or takes an overdose or something so that he, too, will die at about the same age as his parent-or parents. I wonder if that's why I don't expect to live to be forty years old.
"Anyway, when I was well enough to be released from the hospital, the question came up of where to send me. There wasn't much choice. I can't blame anybody. An orphan with no living relatives-not even a second-cousin off in Australia, nothing-has very little choice. So I was placed in St. Austine's, even though they knew I wasn't Catholic. The sisters were very nice to me, and made a lot of fuss over me. Mostly, I guess, because I was such a beautiful child. Mother had always said that I looked just like Liz Taylor when she was in National Velvet. I never saw the movie, so I don't know.
"Anyway, the sisters were very good to me, but after a while I sensed there was something wrong. We kept having an Open House when all sorts of people would wander into the visiting room and talk to all of us kids. They always made me feel like some used article in a thrift shop; some people would even pinch us sometimes, as if to be sure we were firm and ripe. It didn't take long for the word to get around-St. Austine's had been given a condemned-building notice. They didn't have the money to build a new orphanage, so all they could hope to do was find foster homes for all of us.
"I guess I'd been there about a year when I was sent to my first foster home. The Drews. I'll never forget the Drews. Mrs. Drew made it very clear, from the very first day, that she needed help with her twin babies and that they needed the extra money the state would pay them for taking me in. Talk about your slave labor! Mr. Drew paid very little attention to me. He was a short, tubby man, and always needed a shave. His breath smelled faintly of cheap whisky mixed with mint. I can still remember the way Mrs. Drew turned me around, feeling my arms and legs, looking at the insides of my eyelids like some cow on auction. 'Healthy kid, that's for sure.' She snorted. And the way Mr. Drew just grunted. 'Pretty enough, too.' That was that. If Sister Agnes had come in with a burning branding iron, I wouldn't have been surprised. I half expected to be carted out to their old car with bellowing calls of 'Ho!' like in the cattle drives in the movies.
"And Mrs. Drew hadn't been putting me on, either. The first day she showed me where everything was in their run-down clapboard house. It wasn't a dirty house, in the sense of people who just aren't clean, but dirty because it was obvious that Mrs. Drew couldn't cope with the raising of her twins-their laundry and ironing, the marketing-and keep her house immaculate as a hospital. Only the front parlor ever felt the vacuum-and even then, she never seemed to vacuum under the chairs, just around them. For weeks and weeks, I did just as I was told, moving mechanically, feeling very much like some alien princess in a nightmarish fairy story. They were not unkind to me, they merely treated me like some robot obeying their bidding.
"When the social worker came out on her routine visit, I calmly explained that I wasn't happy. She asked me about maltreatment, but I had to deny that. I just wasn't happy. Then she confided in me that I wasn't supposed to know all these things, and that maybe I was too young to fully understand, but the truth of the matter was simply that my father's estate was tied up. He had carried ample life insurance, but under the terms of his will, my mother was the only person who could be the executrix. Obviously, he'd never planned on both of them going at the same time. I would get the money, of course, but not before I was twenty-one. In the meantime, I was a ward of the state and there was nothing to be done about it. The social worker advised me to just hang in there, and that eventually I'd be independent and quite well fixed.
"Do you know how far away twenty-one sounds to a twelve-year-old? Have you any idea? It was life imprisonment! Cinderella never lifted a broom with a heavier sigh of bitter resignation!
"Then, about a couple of months later it happened. I suppose it was inevitable. Such things seem to be. It was a Saturday night and, as usual, Mr. Drew was plastered by six in the evening. What was not usual was that Mrs. Drew had gone to Denver to see her ailing sister, and wouldn't be back for three days. A girl of twelve is really quite mature emotionally; she knows her duties and responsibilities and is perfectly capable of performing them. That Saturday, I'd prepared Mr. Drew's dinner and we sat in silence eating our meal. The TV was on and he was watching the 9th inning of some old baseball game. When we'd finished, I cleared the table and began washing the dishes. I was lost in a world of my own, working out a special project for school in my mind, the kind of project I enjoyed most: drawing. We had been studying King Arthur and each of us had to come up with a drawing, in any medium, which we felt best represented the spirit of the story. I'd already decided to make a collage instead of just a crayon drawing, but choosing the right materials would be quite a problem-especially living with the Drews. They didn't even subscribe to a magazine! There was almost nothing at their house for me to work from. I must have been so preoccupied with this project that I didn't hear Mr. Drew come into the kitchen and stand very near to me-quietly leaning on the washing machine, watching me.
"'How's that busted leg of yours, kid? The one they said you'd busted when your folks committed suicide."
"I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound of his voice, rasping and faintly contemptuous. 'My parents did not attempt suicide-the crash had been an accident, even the coroner had agreed to that.' My words were out before I realized what I had said. I suppose in a way I felt all my frustration and loneliness well up and spill over in a tidal wave of emotion. I dis tinctly recall that I couldn't see anything for what seemed to be an hour. The next thing I knew, I had hurled myself at him, beating him with my small fists, and screaming at him that he was a liar. I kicked and bit for all I was worth.
"He overpowered me almost at once. Reeking of cheap whiskey, he dragged my struggling body into his bedroom and tossed me onto the bed like a discarded rag. Before I could get my bearings-much less my wits-about me, Mr. Drew had taken four of his neckties from the closet and, despite all my efforts, had both of my wrists securely tied to the bedposts. Still laughing and mumbling to himself, he bound each of my ankles to the bedposts, leaving me very much like someone just placed on the rack for torture. I remember that I was crying, almost strangling in my rage, feeling helpless, lost and loathing this stupid nut who had bought me as his slave.
"I'd never felt such a murderous hate before. I remember that the exertion had left Mr. Drew huffing for breath, and I remember wishing he'd have a heart attack and drop dead! It would please me to know that he'd tied up the only person who could have gone for help.
"But I shouldn't have wasted my fantasies on the old fart. I stared in horror as he began to undo his pants, folding them neatly over the worn chair next to the twins' cribs.
"'Think you're smart, don't ya,' he snarled at me. 'Think cause you'll be rich someday that you're better'n us, huh?'
"I was too damned scared watching him undress to even consider answering his ignorant questions.
"'Got yourself a real pretty face, and a bunch of nice fancy manners-"Yes sir, Mr. Drew; no m'am, Mrs. Drew!"-and really think you're the Queen of Sheeba, huh? Well, I've got news for you, Miss Fancypants. My missus got you out of that poor folks' orphanage to help her out with the chores, but you ain't done nothin' for me yet! Nothin' at all!'
"While he was babbling all of this, he'd removed his trousers, undershorts, shoes and socks. His tubby, short body was completely naked from the waist down, exposing his bulging belly, his pasty white skin, and his flabby rounded short legs with fine black hairs covering them like an ape's. And, of course, his cock.
"There he stood. Yelling at me. Telling me off. Showing all his colors-and his fat cock. He'd been fondling it, giving himself a hard on, and telling me off all the while. I suppose I knew what he was going to do next. The animal in us, I guess, always knows about these things. I was terrified, but in an awful sort of way, I think that I was glad. Glad because what he was about to do would give me the ammunition to get away from the Drews and their nasty little Drews.
"Mr. Drew walked up to the side of the bed. Kneeling down, he belted me across the face with his chubby hand. I yelled, of course. He told me to shut up, belted me again, and I howled again. I don't know what the hell else he expected a kid to do after she's been struck-say thank you? Then he began pinching my body, hard. Ripping my frock off, he kept mumbling to himself that a girl my age should have some tits on her. But I had nothing, nothing at all. I was a late bloomer in the breast department and I was flat as a boy at that point in my life. This fact angered old Drew considerably, and he struck me again, as if I'd purposely denied him this joy. Then, sulking and muttering that at least I'd have to have a twat worth screwing, he yanked my panties from my body and his mouth worked strangely, twitching and bubbling, while he fixed his bleary eyes on my hairless young cunt.
"'You ain't even a woman yet, you dumb kid! Hardly worth the effort! Look at ya, look at what ya ain't got yet! No tits, no hair. What the fuck you good for?' Then he grinned dumbly. 'Yeah. Fuckin'; that's all!'
"Then he crawled across me and, kneeling between my outstretched legs, he began to wave his angry prick at me. 'See this, Miss Fancypants? I'm going to fuck the living shit out of that dumb baby cunt of yours 'cause that's all it's good for. I'm going to show you what it's all about, Miss Prissy."
"With that verbal foreplay, dumb Drew heaved his body over mine and began to jab at my virgin pussy with his burning cock. I could feel his hand around its shaft, trying to guide his short, fat and ugly dong into my young body. I could hear him muttering and cursing as he poked and shoved but couldn't quite manage to insert it into my vagina. His whiskey breath upon my face nearly made me vomit, and his weight upon my body nearly crushed me. But I endured his fumblings with as much dignity as I could muster. Obviously I had no choice. Tied up the way I was, old Drew was going to take my cherry and there wasn't a goddamned thing I could do about it!
"Then he pulled the lips of my cunt apart with his hands and wedged his cock between the folds to hold the area open. He took hold of his cock and pushed it into the entire length of my pussy until he found the hole, and then he shoved it in with a screech of animal lust. I screamed and began to sob loudly. The pain was incredible. If he'd taken a sharp stake and driven it into my pussy, it couldn't have been more painful. Pinned and tied as I was, I submitted helplessly as Mr. Drew began fucking me.
"Through my tears, I could see his naked, fat ass pumping at my cunt, smell the stale whiskey on his breath, felt his slimy body slipping across mine with dank sweat. Despite the agonizing pain he was putting me through, and the humiliation of suffering this lecherous drunk's assault, I kept telling myself over and over that it couldn't last very long and it would be the last time he ever bothered me again.
"'Gonna fuck Miss Prissy's cunt real good, gonna get my rocks off right up Miss Fancypants' snatch. Fuckin' her real good, ain't I, Marsha, fuckin' her real good."
"Disgusting old fart. It was bad enough he was doing it, but did he have to describe it as well? I felt his fat prick shoving up inside me, stretching my flesh beyond endurance, beyond its young capacity, and I knew that I was bleeding badly. I could feel a sticky hot puddle beneath my buttocks and I knew it was my own blood. Perhaps if I hadn't hated him so much, I could have puked all over him and been done with it. But instead, my hatred stopped me from passing out into a peaceful oblivion and I felt every merciless thrust of his stocky, fat body.
"Fortunately, he didn't last very long. Though it felt like hours of torture, I realize now it wasn't more than maybe three or four minutes at the most. He grunted savagely, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, and he shot his come into my cunt-his filthy degenerate sperm into a twelve-year-old girl's virgin body.
"He left me tied up that night. I cried myself to sleep more in humiliation and anger than anything else. Oh, I was in raw pain physically, but the rape was mental as well. I knew that the penalty in that state for rape was death. And I knew that I would never rest until I saw that creature's death certificate. I believe the death penalty should always be given to any man who rapes a girl under the age of twentyone ... or maybe there shouldn't even be an age limit at all-one rape, one death.
"As it was, however, I had to content myself with testifying against him and with the reading of his death in the newspaper. I remember I smiled when I read it, I experienced an enormous sense of relief that there was some kind of justice in this world after all. By that time, I'd already been placed in the home of new foster parents, the Putnams. They knew about my horrible experience, of course, and Mrs. Putnam was the sort of person who thought that if you didn't think about a thing, it never happened. Mr. Putnam was quite different, though."
The incestuous attachment which Marsha feels toward her current foster father is, perhaps, a necessary and, indeed, beneficial requisite to developing a mature adult sexual response. Prior to her relationship with Frank, this case history reveals a continuous flight from heterosexuality resulting from a series of traumatic experiences with previous foster fathers.
The most traumatic of these experiences occurred during her pre-adolescent period when she was assaulted and raped by her first foster father.
Texts dealing with psycho-analytical studies in criminal or deviant behavior, such as The Sexual Criminal by J. Paul de River, M.D. and Anthony Storr's Sexual Deviation, previously cited, stress the important fact that sexual violence toward children-especially rape-is, fortunately, quite rare. These acts are usually a result of severe mental disorders, brain damage, or alcoholism. The alcoholic syndrome was present in the account of Mr. Drew's brutal assault on Marsha; in addition to that, strong elements of sadism were also manifested. Our opinion that Marsha is lucky to have been spared a worse fate is echoed by criminal psychologists investigating the case. It would appear that Mr. Drew was quite capable of murder.
However, the psychological damage inflict-ed on Marsha is not to be underestimated. The years following this trauma were marked by long periods of severe depression amply illustrated through her artistic temperament by fantasies directed against the opposite sex.
Unfortunately, this trauma was not to be her last exposure to deviant male behavior. There is much truth to the observation that Marsha experienced more in her sixteen years than a great many women experience in a lifetime. It is, therefore, not improbable in this case that the subject would develop a strong aversion to heterosexual relations. Moreover, if it were not for the compensating factor of her artistic pursuits, this heterosexual aversion may easily have evolved into overt homosexuality.
Another extremely unfortunate aspect to this type of sexual contact with aberrant male individuals is that it conditions the child not only to expect the worst from all older men, but to regard gestures of affection as being of a sexual nature. As Anthony Storr points out, this type of conditioning can cause the child to have serious problems of adjustment in its post-adolescent life:
When one partner is in reality both larger and more dominant there is a strong risk that any erotic advance which he makes may seem to the child to be an assault rather than an expression of affection; and, even if the adult does not actively use force, the child may become frightened that he will do so. To small children, adults who are in any way uncontrolled are likely to be frightening, whether they are angry, drunk, or sexually excited. There is, therefore, a danger that, as a result of sexual contacts with adults, sex will become unnecessarily frightening to the child and may interfere with its capacity to enjoy lovemaking in later life. This is particularly likely to happen if the adult who makes the overture is the child's parent, and most psychiatrists will have seen cases of frigidity in women which resulted from an incestuous advance on the part of the father. It is not difficult to produce a condition in a girl in which any subsequent advance from a male is repudiated because it is regarded as an attack rather than an invitiation.
It is important to note some of the general attitudes adopted by the child as a result of her chaotic background and history of maltreatment. Marsha has failed to attach herself to many of the avant-garde social and political movements usually associated with persons of her temperament and her intellectual capacity.
Significant from the point of view of this analysis is her attitude toward the woman's liberation movement. At first she dismissed the cause as being worthless, stating that she valued art history over "sex history" because she already "knew everything" there is to know about the latter. Women, she believes, have always been dominated by men, and now the time has come for revenge and a reversal of roles. Women's lib would only free women to compete with men on an equal basis, and this conflicts with her stated aim, which is to dominate and control men. She describes herself, rather cynically, as a "feminine supremacist." This typifies her views on sexual matters in general.
Marsha believes that all men desire her physically, and that her prerogative to deny them sexual gratification is a source of personal power. In connection with this, we might also note her use of obscene language. Ferenczi points out that the use of obscenities among cultivated persons is more akin to a gesture, rather than merely a verbal image. Thus, Marsha's use of obscene words to describe sexual acts may represent her unconscious attempt to degrade what once were infantile objects of pleasure (the sexual organs), as well as her parents, with whom she associates that pleasure. In other words, the utterance of obscenities are, in some cases, an expression of repressed hostility directed toward the parental figures.
Although the theory is somewhat complex, it does correspond in Marsha's case to her feelings of "being let down" by her real parents who were killed. On another level,' she feels that her parents, who were also orphans, wanted to die, so as to beget another orphan. Ferenczi also notes that the use of obscenities often correspond to traumatic occurrences. Marsha suffered a double blow: first the loss of her parents, followed by a brutal rape.
From a societal standpoint, her relationship with her third foster father, which study follows, could be considered degenerate; from a clinical point of view, however, it would seem advantageous to encourage it. He is providing the first real guidance, sexual and otherwise, in a life marked by cruel and distorted behavior.
"Mr. Putnam was a dapper fellow and a stereotype reverse of old man Drew. Putnam was immaculate about his person, precise in manner, often complacent. He was the head teller in the payroll department of a leading industrial plant in our town, and awed with his own sense of responsibility. He left for work promptly at 7:45 every single morning of the week-not 7:43 or 7:47, but 7:45. He could kiss his wife farewell, straighten his garters, and glide through the front door of the house as if challenging an insurmountable blizzard. I found him very amusing the first week or two. For one thing, he was so unbelievable for a flesh-and-blood human being.
"During one of Mrs. Putnam's Saturday absences-she played bridge every Saturday afternoon-he summoned me into the parlor to have a serious chat. Really. There's no way of phrasing it; I was 'summoned' to 'chat.' Seat-ed across from him, Mr. Putnam cleared his throat and began his perverted Clarence Darrow interview. 'You've been with us for over a month now, Marsha, are you quite adjusted to our life and ways?'
"'Yes sir,' I answered demurely.
"'And what of the ordeal you suffered at your, ah, at your previous foster home? Are you quite over the shock of that?'
"I didn't know quite how to answer him. One can never be truly objective about such things, I suppose. When I failed to reply immediately, Mr. Putnam bent closer to me and peered intently into my eyes. 'That's to say, Marsha, have you overcome your terror of all men?'
"Well, I hadn't realized that I'd ever developed a terror of all men. Who was he to ascribe such a conclusion? But even then, I must have known subconsciously where to dot the i's and cross the t's. 'Men like Mr. Drew still frighten me,' I answered softly, a mounting dread growing inside my entire nervous system.
"'Yes, yes, I see,' Putnam affirmed needlessly. 'But not of men in general?'
"I shook my head. Frankly, it hadn't yet occurred to me to consider what old man Drew had done to me as typical of all men; why would it?
"'You realize, Marsha, that you are an extraordinarily beautiful girl, don't you? That all men will pursue you, want to have you physically?'
"'I hadn't thought about it, Mr. Putnam,' I replied and it was the truth, too.
"'Oh yes, m'dear. True, true. You have a remote quality that is absolutely irresistible to most men. Beauty and aloofness. An unbeatable combination in the game of love and conquest. Yes, yes. But there are all kinds of men, m'dear. All kinds. Drew was a fool. Rape is never really necessary. Do you know what a fetish is, m'dear?'
"'An obsession of some kind, isn't it?'
"'Hmm. In a way, in a way. Actually, it's a sexual aberration, a transference of sexual gratification from the standard preferences. Some men have a fetish for feet, for example, as opposed to the breasts or the vulva more commonly desired. Or ears, or hair, or even some article of clothing."
"He paused and emphasized that last bit significantly, and without knowing how or why, I knew that I was in for another Mr. Drew-a variation of the same theme. And sure enough, Mr. Putnam revealed it to me that afternoon. He had a thing about panties, about having someone watch him jack off, and on occasion, to be sucked off by a young girl. In this case, the young girl was me.
"As he explained his sexual preference to me, I saw that there was little recourse open to me. I could object and make my life a living hell, or I could cooperate and expect favorable treatment. Mr. Putnam made it perfectly clear that he was only approaching me because I'd already lost my cherry, that I was already a doomed person-I had nothing else to lose. He asked me to remove my panties-not demand or pull them off himself, but ask. I did. I watched him as he lifted the crotch to his nose, inhaled deeply, and saw the almost instant bulge in his pants.
"'Would you be so kind as to suck me off?' Mr. Putnam suggested.
"I can recall vividly how deliberately he undid his fly and brought forth his burgeoning cock. It was surprisingly large for so slender a man, and incredibly ugly with its angry inflammation and bulging veins. I experienced a moment of repulsion and terror, but that was replaced with a strange calm, a kind of life-saving resignation, and I knelt on the floor before his huge cock as if he was about to knight me.
"'Kiss it, Marsha, first with your lips and then with your tongue. Run your tongue all over it, the underside, the base, the head. Let me feel your sweet little fingers holding my shaft, cupping my balls. Yes, yes, m'dear, that's lovely, keep that up...."
"I gave myself over to the task with a whore's disinterest. My mind wandered to the books of art reproductions in our school library; to the analagous work of Grant Wood and Andrew Wyeth, to Cezanne's Mill at Pontoise-so serene and pastoral, yet busy with the forces of nature in juxtaposition with man's stubbornness to harness nature to his own will.
"I sucked Putnam's cock, listening to him breathe in the smell of my young pussy from my panties, and I envisioned him as Hogarth might have seen him....I felt his massive tool in my mouth, hot and rigid against my lips, and revelled in the fantasy world of Chagall, in the understatement of Modigliani. I knew that Mr. Putnam was about to shoot his sperm when he placed one hand at the back of my head and began to shove his cock into my mouth with a pumping motion which became more and more insistent with every pistoning stroke. I began to think of roaring trains in tunnels, of Olympic oil drills raping the earth's womb, and as his burning come began to spurt against my throat, I thought of pounding, deafening waterfalls.
"And it was over. Our little tete-a-tete was concluded. Mr. Putnam returned my panties to me; the crotch was sopping wet from his saliva and his teeth had punctured the material in several places, I was dismissed cordially, with almost a 'We must do this again soon' attitude. I had not been physically hurt, not trussed up like some captured animal. All I had to do was let him play with my panties from time to time, and suck his cock for him. After Drew, this seemed a very modest price to pay for peace and harmony in my life.
"In a way, Mr. Putnam was kind to me. He occasionally bought me little gifts-candy, or some inexpensive little bit of costume jewelry. I was with the Putnam's for quite a few months before Mrs. Putnam came home early from a bridge game and discovered us during one of our little 'sessions.' She went straight out of her head, berserk, and ultimately had to be commited. Of course, this meant a new foster home for me. I was almost sorry to have to leave the Putnams-they were so predictable that life had taken on something of a comfortable routine for me.
"After that, I was in several more foster homes. In all truthfulness and candor, in each and every one of those homes I was sexually molested by the husband or a son or some other older male in the family where I had no choice but to endure it. And by then, I had begun to feel that all men were the same. They wanted sex. Nothing more, nothing less. Sex was their reason for living and getting their rocks off was more important than world famine or wars. And I had learned that they cared precious little how they got their sex, just as long as they got it. I realized very quickly that the seat of the male intellect is in his balls. Now, I don't mean to belabor a point, but there again, I felt that there was no real disillusionment involved-I'd had the ultimate disillusion when my parents died. It was a fact, pure and simple. There it was. Like a mountain or an ocean-neither good or bad, just a fact. If I was to survive, I had to accept it.
"By the time I was fourteen, my passion for the world of art transcended all other considerations. I didn't think about boys as other girls my age did, or dates, or any other subject in school. In my school, ninth graders were permitted a few electives and, needless to say, I took art history and drawing. I spent hours and hours at the public library, studying paintings which the school library would not stock because of nudity or some other idiotic reason. I devoured Rubens, but felt nothing for Boucher except disdain. I went through a period of adoring Degas, but soon realized the superficiality of his mind by comparison to Gauguin or even Toulouse-Lautrec's posters; and I was captivated by the matter-of-fact Matisse. Utrillo's work held me for a short while, until I realized that his subject matter was romantic, not that he was. Braque, Leger, and Picasso-except in his pre-blue period-were of little interest to me. I have never felt that the purpose of art could be served by obscurity; art should help us to perceive with greater depth and understanding, not cloud the issue even more than it already is. Yes, looking back, I can see where Matisse and Modigliani had the greatest effect upon me-they were both capable of comment without censure.
"Also I began to read voluminously, primarily biographies of artists or other creative people. I needed to understand them, to put their lives into a framework wherein I could identify with them. I could not relate to the people I met in school or my foster families and their strange lusts to glorify ignobility. I studied hard at school to keep my other grades up, but I gave my soul to art. Knowing that one day I would have a goodly amount of money, I envisioned myself surrounded by beautiful art books and original canvasses-perhaps even a villa on the Spanish Riviera, beautiful enough for a monarch, rich with treasures from throughout the world. I would, by then, be a truly beautiful woman, with men throwing themselves at my feet, but denied my approval or my company. I'd paint myself in the nude over and over again so that all men could see the object of their desire and suffer because they could never possess me. I want to have my freedom, both as a woman and as a human being. The only way a woman can ever achieve that is to have money. I've seen too many households, watched too many female students overlooked in favor of the male. I want much more than that.
"Please don't make the mistake of thinking that I've been listening to too many women's liberationists. ... I've nothing in common with those people. They want equality. Let them have it. I want supremacy! Total, uncompromising supremacy and autonomy! Let others be content with equal pay or whatever it is they're yelling about; that's not what I want for myself. I can still remember, when I was living with the Zacharys, when Mrs. Zachary told me all about some old movie star. We'd watch all her old movies on TV and Mrs. Zachary would tell me all the movie magazine gossip that had revolved around her life at that time. Mrs. Zachary thought she was shameless and secretly basked in the movie star's antics. I, on the other hand, could quite understand what that movie star wanted-power, especially power over men.
"I think that maybe we're a little alike. I don't seek to destroy in revenge, but I'm perfectly willing to admit that I seek control, a status where never again will I ever have to submit to any man for anything. Even my father's lack of foresight in his will must be erased-because of it I've been raped and sexually humiliated over and over again. I doubt if any man can ever possibly know how a woman's mind works.
"Naturally, this era of adolescence was reflected in my art work at school. If we didn't have specific, assigned subjects to draw, I was invariably drawn to the morbid-to death and suffering, to line drawings of men's faces in physical or emotional anguish. It pleased me to dwell on this side of life, to use men to illustrate great pain and suffering. Now, of course, whenever I look at these early efforts, I laugh at how amateurish the work was. My anatomy left a great deal to be desired-which is one of the reasons I'm taking physiology now-and I had an excessively heavy hand with charcoal, almost as if I couldn't stand any blank spots on the paper.
"I became the object of considerable discussion at school. Apparently, my art teacher became concerned with my obsession with suffering and discussed it with the principal. In the meantime, one of the gifted children recruiters had visited our school and had thought my talents exceptional. Between them all, it was decided that my obsession was natural in view of what had happened to me in my life, and that if properly guided, I would outgrow it. It was also agreed that I had too much talent to be left in a public school. It was at this time once again that a new foster home was being sought for me.
And that's where Frank came into my life.
"Frank was vice president for our town's biggest bank, and active in local children's charities. The authorities felt he would make an ideal foster parent, so they decided that perhaps an exception to the foster home rules could be made if Frank would employ a live-in cook or other female employee. As Frank says, and I agree with him the more I think about it, the only reason they went to all that trouble was because they knew that I had a considerable amount of money coming to me eventually and hopefully I'd keep it flowing within the township limits.
"The first time I met Frank was like something out of The Seventh Veil. The brooding older bachelor and the talented young girl-except that I was not shy and Frank has never been such an inscrutable dictator. He's strict, yes, but he always explains his reasons to me. When all the arrangements were agreed upon, Frank moved from his bachelor apartment into a large house on the outskirts of town. lie employed a cook, a cleaning lady, and a female tutor, Miss Appleton, whom I quickly learned was his mistress. I rarely saw Frank in those first few months. And I immediately resented Miss Appleton-tutor, indeed!
"Frank kept me so busy I could hardly keep track of the time. I took private instruction in Italian as he wanted us to spend our summers in Florence, studying the great artists. Eventually he would send me there to further my career in art. Afterward, I would be sent to Paris.
"As the time sped by, I grew increasingly restless knowing that there was something wrong, but not quite sure of what. After all, I had everything I could possibly have wanted. My whole life was geared toward the study of art. By then, my body was busy with an art project of its own, converting the child into a woman, rounding me out generously. Then one chilly afternoon in the fall, I realized what was bothering me. Never once had Frank ever made any physical overtures toward me; he'd not even made any subtle verbal references! Nothing!
"Miss Appleton usually had weekends off where, I had surmised, Frank would join her for an outing together without me around. That following weekend, however, I played sick in order to keep him home. I'd never been sick in my life other than a common cold or some childhood disease, so when I said I felt ill, Frank was genuinely concerned. He cancelled his weekend plans, but Miss Appleton took her time off anyway.
"That evening, Frank brought me dinner on a tray in my bedroom, with cook following him carrying his dinner so he could keep me company. We talked-I mean really talked-like two human beings, not just master and pupil, or owner and slave. Later in the evening, he permitted me to join him in a brandy and taught me how to snip the end of his cigar-an aromatic panetella that enhanced his dark good looks.
"'Frank, I'd like to ask you something,' I began, a bit apprehensively but not truly shy.
"'Yes, Marsha?'
"'Why is it that you've never tried to fuck me?' It was out before I knew it and the scowl on his face spoke volumes.
"'Where'd you learn to use language like that?'
"'From my foster fathers. They always used that word, especially when they were having their orgasms."
"'Look, I know about Drew, about the rape and all that. But you've said "foster fathers" plural. Were there more rapes?'
"'Oh, not rape....at least, not like Drew. They all wanted to fuck me, or have me suck their cocks, or something else like that. I quickly learned that an orphan girl doesn't have much choice-it's either give in to them, or get raped again or maybe worse. But you've been, well, different from them, probably because of Miss Appleton...."
"'What?'
"Frank was doing everything in his power to remain calm and controlled, but I could see that he was deeply shocked. I told him then about old Putnam, and the others. I explained it very quietly, not wishing to upset him any further. When I'd finished, Frank poured us both fresh cognacs and sighed deeply. Slouched in the chair, he stared pensively out the window. Finally, he glanced at me and there was a new expression in his eyes, one I'd never seen before.
"'You're just barely fifteen and you've already gone through more than most people know about in their entire lives. No wonder your work leans so heavily on the macabre, is so brutally dark-that's all you've ever known. It also explains why you always choose men for your subjects. Do you hate men, Marsha?'
"'No,' I answered. 'I'm not sure quite how I' feel about them, but I don't hate them. In a funny sort of way, I think I almost pity them. That's all."
"Have you never known physical pleasure, Marsha? To want to have intercourse with a man? Have you ever had an orgasm of your own? Known the joys of your own body?'
"I shook my head and couldn't help a small smile. I'd never known that a girl was supposed to enjoy sex too. I thought it was just something that men had to do, but that it offered nothing for a girl but a husband to take care of her. I guess Frank sensed my surprise, because he smiled rather ruefully, then came to sit on the edge of my bed, his fingers toying with the bow at the top of my lounging top.
"'You know that you're a minor, and what the penalty is for an adult male to seduce a minor?'
"I nodded gravely, but already my stomach was tightening in anticipation.
"'And you know that you're a beautiful young woman, don't you? Well, Marsha, I've two choices and you must help me decide which is the right one. I can pretend you never confided in me and hope that eventually you'll meet a nice young man who'll erase all the rotten memories in your head. Or, I can reeducate you myself. But if you decide on me, you must be fully aware of the consequences if we're found out.
"'You could marry me,' I said only half kidding.
"'I could, but I don't want to even talk about it. If you want me, it will have to be understood that I may never marry you. I'm not about to make some sympathetic commitment to you. Either way, it does not reflect upon my love for you-only the quality of that love. Big brother, or husband, I still have learned to love you and nothing can change that. Nothing. If we have intercourse together, it's because we both want it-not because there's any price to pay or any obligation for either of us. Has it occurred to you that I could fall madly in love with you, but that you wouldn't want me as a husband? There can be no promises for either of us, Marsha."
"I wrapped my arms around Frank's neck and brought his face close to mine. While he'd been talking, I suddenly realized that I'd never been kissed by a man. I'd been raped, and I'd sucked cock, and fucked, but I'd never been kissed.
"Frank placed his full lips on mine and it sent thousands of tiny tingles through all my body. He kissed gently at first, then gradually slid his tongue across my lips and into my mouth, exploring that cavity methodically with his tongue while his hand undid my chemise and slipped underneath it to cup my breast. My body felt on fire from his touch! He massaged my breast tenderly, lovingly, teasing my nipple into a hardened knob with his thumb until my other breast was jealous.
"Gradually, he'd brought my breast into the open, away from my nightclothes, and breaking our kiss, he bent his head and began to kiss my nipple. I felt as if molten lava had been funneled from my nipple all down my spine. While he kissed and licked at my breast, I managed to squirm out of my nightclothes. When my body was free, I leaned back luxuriously and closed my eyes, giving myself up entirely to the wonderful sensations Frank was creating within me. Kneading the breast he was kissing, Frank played and toyed with the other one with his free hand, then shifted his hungry mouth from one nipple to the other, pushing my breasts toward each other as if they were part of a sacrificial offering to his mouth. I'd never known how exquisite my breasts could feel, how loved and wanted, or how hot I could get wanting a man to take my body.
"I kept trying to remind myself that I'd had, after all, two brandies-something to which I was totally unaccustomed-but there was no denying Frank's aptitude in lovemaking. His hands roamed across my body freely, touching my flesh softly but enough to give me chilling goose bumps. Occasionally, he'd let his mouth and tongue wander from my breasts and he'd nuzzle in the hollow of my shoulder, lavishing sweet wet kisses upon me there or on my neck. My ears, my lips, all of me ached to be kissed by Frank, to feel his mouth and his gently scratching beard upon my skin.
"Frank paused once to lean over and turn off the light by my bed, leaving the room in a soft glow of moonlight, and then he swiftly disrobed and got under the covers with me, instantly resuming his lovemaking. Only then I could feel his strong muscular body along mine, feel his arms around me, his chest with the fine hairs tickling my nipples, and his penis-which burned stiffly against my abdomen. Frank was ready. And so was I.
"But he had no intentions of just giving me a few kisses and a quick fuck; Frank was a lover. I attempted to take his throbbing cock in my hand at one point, but he wouldn't let me and whispered something about enjoying myself for a change.
"His mouth and hands never rested and I marvelled at his endurance-though I've since learned better. When he softly grasped my buttocks I felt like a peeled orange, ready and exposed for his cock, and wanting him to take me, to put his generous prick up inside of me and fuck me. But not Frank. Instead, he slowly massaged my cheeks, and kissed my abdomen, my belly button, my loins. My body arched and ached with wanting, and then I felt his hands gently pushing my legs apart. I opened my eyes briefly and saw his dark head nestled at my crotch, felt his lips grazing at the vee of my legs. Then, I closed my eyes, spreading my long white legs for him to do as he wished. I was his, totally his whenever he wanted me.
"His mouth showered tiny kisses on my thighs, on the flesh near my pussy and I thought I'd go insane from the intense heat he'd created inside my body. Then his lips surrounded my vulva and he began to tongue my pussy. I groaned loudly, both in fantastic pleasure and also in a feeling of tremendous relief, a feeling of being a woman having a man make love to her, not just fucking her. Frank's tongue never stopped working on my cunt, kissing the folds of my flesh, darting inside my vagina, dipping into my anal orifice, then lapping deliriously up to my clitoris. I was in agonizing joy, in excruciating pleasure! I'd never known anything like this could possibly exist. Tears gathered in my tightly closed eyes as wave after wave of beautiful sensation swept throughout my body.
"Twice Frank brought me to orgasm sucking my cunt. Two incredibily beautiful, intense, shuddering orgasms. At that point in time, I think I would have died for him-and I hated Miss Appleton beyond belief!
"Then Frank rolled over on his back, his rigid cock making a tent of the sheet he'd pulled over him while he had a cigarette. I'd snuggled up to his body with his arm beneath my head and I was so contented I could have purred. But there was his cock, waving in front of my eyes, and seeing it made me want him again, want him inside of me. To love me as tenderly with his cock as he had with his tongue, but inside of me, really up there all the way. I began to play with his penis, to tease it with my hand, 'Do you want me to suck it for you, Frank?'
"He smiled and said, 'No, darling. This is your night. Everything will be for your pleasure only. You can suck it some other time. Why don't you straddle me and use my cock as you wish? Anything that brings you pleasure."
"I was only too delighted to do just exactly that. I raised up and used the sheet as a mantilla across my shoulders at first. I let my legs fall on either side of his hips, and grazed his chest with my breasts, tickling him with my stiff little nipples. I could feel his hard cock pushing against my snatch, knocking to get in, but it felt so good just pressing against my pussy like that I waited a little while. Then, anxious as he undoubtedly was, I could no longer resist having that beautiful shaft up inside my cunt. I took it with my right hand and slowly began to push it up into my hole, at the same time lowering myself gradually down its length. I was amazed at how marvelous it felt, how powerful I felt to have such total control over his prick.
"I began to ride up and down his cock, leaning forward to kiss him or to push my breasts against his chest or to let him suckle them, yet all the while rotating my hips and feeling his hot member pushing in and out of my grasping cunt. How long we played like that, I'm not sure. Finally I felt all my blood rushing to my clitoris, felt the soles of my feet burning as if hot coals had been placed upon them, felt my stomach muscles begin to contract, and all of me seemed to explode in a blinding release of orgasm. And I felt Frank's cock bobbing within me, shooting gobs of come into me, expending his lust within my wanting body.
"I fell across his chest like a rag doll, completely sated, ready to adore this man who'd just made such a new woman out of me.
"Now, of course, our relationship is a little calmer. He has abandoned Miss Appleton-at least, as far as I know. But it's plain that no commitment will be made for quite some time. We make love frequently, but it is always at Frank's own good time-not when I want to. He must be the master in everything he does. Sometimes I hate him for it. But in bed, I adore him for it.
"Now that I'm sixteen I see things a little differently from those early days with old Drew and Putnam. I'm not sure what, if anything, will ever happen with Frank and me. But I do know that he holds my career above everything else in my life, and that nothing will interfere with that until I'm of age and have my own money. Perhaps what Frank needs is a little competition; a boyfriend to threaten his security. Maybe I'll meet someone interesting when we're in Florence this summer. We'll see. I'm not done with Frank yet."
Among the more bizarre sexual approaches which Marsha recalls occurred with her second foster father, who demonstrated a form of deviant behavior almost exclusively practiced by males, known as fetishism. Although this type of aberration contributed greatly to her distrust and fear of the opposite sex, it is not generally considered by authorities to be sadistic or harmful in nature. Marsha rather aptly portrayed the typical fetishist in her description of her foster father.
The word fetish, according to Storr, originally applied to magically endowed objects worshipped by primitive peoples. The word has since taken on a wider meaning and, according to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, connotes "something irrationally reverenced."
Storr points out that most men are fetishists to one degree or another. The most obvious proof of this contention lies in the study of feminine fashion. Fashion depends upon the shifting of erotic focus from one point of the body to another. The part to which the masculine eye is first drawn is supposed to symbolize the totality of the woman desired. For a fetishist, however, the interest remains obsessively fixed. In the case of Marsha's relations to Mr. P., the erotic interest was centered in her undergarments, augmented by fellatio or masturbation. However, at no time were Marsha's genitals touched. This often occurs with fetishists who have a tendency to fear castration.
Following this series of sexual approaches by foster fathers, Marsha finally seems to have balanced some of her previous sexual attitudes through her relations with Frank. It is also interesting to note the arousal of her latent oedipal strivings with regard to Miss A., her tutor and maternal rival. In the initial stages of her relations with Frank, this emerging Electra complex posed a possible threat; but with Miss A. no longer in the picture, Marsha appears headed in the direction of normal adult relations indicated quite positively in her budding interest in boys her own age.