Andrea Dworkin: The New Womans Broken Heart

she saw a great man.

the one she loved was a consummate actor, a pretender, a

charlatan, a liar, and a cheat.

sensitive, she thought, a genius, delicate, not like other men. kind

and deep and searching, not like other men.

here it converged, her ambition and her longing, he had touched

her, deep, inside, forever.

she had come to New York wanting to meet this man or someone

just like him, someone with precisely those eyes, that stare, that intense focus, someone with that fame.

she had met him one winter when she was teaching voice, his climb

to the top had been ruthless and clever but not in the obvious way. he

was a deceiver, a manipulator, good at keeping things hidden, someone who always covered his tracks, a certain kind of animal, smelling what he needed and taking it, then covering up his tracks, not like

other men with a brutal sweep of the hand, no, not like that, instead

gently, quietly, effectively, finally,

he was a homosexual, or so he said.

their discussions were long and deep, about work in the theatre,

about the human voice, about pain, about suffering, about death.

they would sit in his almost empty apartment on straightbacked

chairs, hands just touching, he would pour wine and stare at her and

into her.

she did not forget everything, she remembered what she wanted,

she wanted this man to love her.

this was no ordinary man. he liked smart women, strong women,

women who could work and talk and think and earn money, he was

a collector of such women but that she did not know. I am the only

one, she thought, different from the rest, this man respects me, she

believed.

her heart went out to him. whatever she could do for him she did.

her work in voice became connected to his work in the theatre, she

taught his actors what he wanted them to know, those he did not

like, she eliminated from classes, those he was interested in, she

cultivated like flowers.

when he was sad or lonely, she would sit with him or lie with him.

when he was hungry, she would feed him or he would feed her.

nothing about this man was like other men. he would cook and

read poetry and speak only in the softest voice. I am the only one, she

thought, I am different, there is a place for me here,

and so she began to sleep with him and never made demands.

always, what he wanted, not what the others wanted, he did not tear

into her or delight in making her bleed.

sometimes they would eat together, and then she would go home,

sometimes he would read poetry, and then she would go home,

sometimes he would talk about his hard life of poverty and grief, and

how his mother had hated and betrayed him, and then she would go

home.

she did not notice that her life remained hidden from him. she did

not notice his cold indifference to her need to stay, or to talk about

her own grief and poverty, she told him nothing of her own mother,

or her murdered father, or the years of man after man and year after

year, she noticed only that he was different from the others and that

she was different from the others when she was with him.

then, he asked her to move in with him.

he took her hand tenderly and said that all his life he had wanted a

womans love and devotion, he said that they would be friends and

lovers, workers together on this project and that, he said that she was

not like other women, weak and dependent, and that he was not like

other men, arrogant and aggressive, he said that he would have his

own life and she would have hers, he said that he hoped she

understood that he was a homosexual and so he would continue to

have male lovers and of course they would each be free anyway to do

whatever they wanted, he said that he was a difficult person who had

had a hard life but that now he wanted to share his life, some of it,

with her. he warned her, over her protests, that he was a selfish person. he said that nothing much had worked out in his life with women and that he hoped this would be different now. he said that

he was willing to try if she was and on that heroic note, he stopped.

she moved in early the next morning, 3 suitcases of clothes and

assorted odds and ends, they had agreed that she would keep her

own apartment for a while, just in case her actual physical presence

did not really suit him. he said that they would not tell anyone quite

yet, in case it didnt work out.

the 3 suitcases seemed too final to him, so he sent her home again

and suggested that she return with just a few dresses that would not

cause much bother.

from the beginning she was determined to succeed, she made him

tea and coffee and tried to stay out of his way. to have no expectations, to make no demands, she smiled when she thought a smile would not be an intrusion and the rest of the time she practiced being self-sufficient, strong, independent, and marginally visible.

for 2 weeks they lived this way. in the day she taught and he had

appointments, she did not know who he saw or what they did. be an

ocean, she would tell her students, hands on their bellies as they

breathed in and out in waves, she would teach them how to breathe,

all the while unable to breathe herself, thoughts of where he was and

who he was with stuck in her chest.

she would arrive at his home at 6, in time for coffee or a drink,

then, he would go out. she did not know where, or with whom,

sometime after midnight he would return. I need to be alone, he

would say as he turned away from her on the bed or shut himself up

for hours in the bathroom, then, sometimes, he would roll on top of

her and bang away, then, he would sleep,

she had been asked not to answer the phone,

at the end of 2 weeks, he could not look at her anymore* his eyes

sought the floor, the walls, the plants, he had scheduled a meeting

with several theatre people for that afternoon, she was not invited, he

suggested to her that she take her clothes and leave, they had accumulated into a sloppy pile.

that night as she lay again in her own bed the tarantula was right by

her left shoulder, it seemed to rear itself up on one side and lunge

out at her, its hairy legs just brushing her shoulder, nothing was

there, she looked, she checked, she looked again, nothing was next

to her. but still it was there, right next to her, just beyond the edge of

her eye.

she did not remember when she had first seen it. her eyes had been

open, that was certain, they were open and still she saw it. it was in

front of her eyes, superimposed on everything she saw, or it was just

behind her and she seemed to see it out of the back of her head, if

she closed her eyes it would disappear for a moment then appear