Denise Bryant - Mother and Daughter

The question posed by the title of this chapter is the same one that confronts almost any emotionally disturbed person under therapy. But it is a question that the patient must “discover” for himself with, of course, the professionally expert guidance of the psychiatrist or psychologist.

This was the vital question that faced Denise Bryant, a very attractive and personable 37 year old high school drama teacher the first day she sat down in my office. The story of Denise and how she found the answer to that question is presented here in approximately her own words:

He stayed locked in the bedroom with her all night long. My 45-year-old boyfriend, Bob, was dressed only in a thin pair of summer pajamas. My lovely 14-year-old daughter, Kathy, had on a pair of sheer blue baby-dolls. How could I, an intelligent woman with over five years of college education, believe that nothing happened?

It seems incredible when I look back on that night over four years ago, that I could have been so completely mesmerized, hypnotically influenced to such an extent by a man so profoundly evil as Bob. Yet Bob was neither the first nor last use at his will and for whatever perverted desires he wanted. My life story is one of strange passions. I say that I have been used by others- both male and female-to satisfy their evil lusts. But my own twisted needs of the flesh are equally to blame.

Where did it all start? Where did it begin? Why?

These are questions that have yet to be completely answered. And only recently have I begun to realize, through analysis, the important parts that my early environment and childhood relationships played in all of this. I have always been a strange person in many ways, a moody and emotional individual of changing moods. Deep involvement in sex has offered me an escape from responsibilities, escape from problems, an escape from life. That is why I have frequently shown all the outward indications of being a true nymphomaniac, insatiable while making love to several people, both at the same time and in turn.

When I first married at the age of 19, it was to flee from something I could not understand, the smothering love and overpowering influence of my dominating and beautiful mother. I was not pregnant when I was married. That happened sometime during the first week. I think I must have driven my husband crazy with my demands. He lost over ten pounds.

He was ready to leave me before Kathy was born. But he was basically a very good and responsible man. And he was also very much in love with me. His main problem was that he hated to see me suffer. It tortured him to watch me bring myself too climax time and again after he was exhausted, temporarily exhausted from three orgasms within two hours.

I prayed to have a son. I had no idea why at the time. I only knew that I wanted a son more than a daughter. The fear was there, but I could not recognize it until Kathy was born. When they told me I had a healthy seven pound little girl, I passed out. I was terrified. When I woke up, I had alternate chills and fever.

Mai, my husband, lasted with me for six years. The details of that period are hazy in my memory. He was a devoted father, but I felt that I loved Kathy more. She was such a beautiful little girl. I let her brown hair grow long and I spent hours combing it. I bathed her in scented soaps and doted over her as if she were the very reason for my existence.

At the same time, my demands upon Mai for more sex than any normal man can handle remained constant. I had to have it. I had the feeling that this was the only thing he owed me when we were alone together. Yet it was I who had the nervous breakdown when he left me. I went to some old family doctor who gave me pills and prescribed a rest.

My parents took care of both me and Kathy. Mai provided well for us with a monthly check. My mother adored Kathy, and my own crying need for love from a man, sexual love, began to be more important to me than my affection for my daughter. The old doctor was not a psychiatrist, but his advice was probably sound. He advised me to go back to college and get my degree. I had always wanted to study drama and then teach it in high school. My own drama teacher had been my ideal.

I was older than most of the other students, but the younger men pursued me as much as they did girls many years younger. I was also attractive because I was a divorcee, because I had money and a car and my own apartment, and if I like a young man he could come and live with me for a while… until I wore him out.

My main attraction, however has always been my looks and my sensuous personality. I don't think any person who needs sex and love as much as I always have can hide that desire. I can spot it in other people instantly, and I am sure that almost any virile male, and some special females, can detect it in me upon sight.

At 37 years of age, I do not look much different than I did in my twenties. This is not boasting necessarily, as I can prove it by photographs, some of them nude and in quite demonstrative postures. I have never posed commercially. These were all taken by men with whom I had serious affairs. I suppose I have been fortunate in that only once has anyone who knows me only as a “respectable” schoolteacher ever seen any of my nudes. And he was quite understanding when he approached me on the subject. The man was a ranking school board official, eager to take off my clothes and see for himself.

I am a little taller than the average woman, I think-five feet and five inches. My measurements are now 36-26-37, a couple of inches more in the waist and hips than when I was 25. And I weigh 125 now, as opposed to 119. My hair is very black and I wear it long usually, but sometimes in a stylish coif atop my head. One of the little things about my body that men find intriguing is the inverted shape of my nipples. My breasts are large and still quite firm, the areola surrounding the nipples large and projecting. Yet the nipples themselves are inverted and must be sucked on quite strongly before they will come out erect. This drives both me and my love partner into a sexual frenzy.

During those five years of college, I would spend summertime at home with my parents and Kathy, which curtailed a great deal of my sexual activity, but at the same time prepared me for the double life I would have to lead as a schoolteacher. I spent the extra year in study in order to earn a master's degree, almost a prerequisite to landing a position as a drama teacher in a good high school.

It was when I was almost through with that final year that Mai remarried and sought to gain custody of Kathy, who heretofore had been visiting him at Christmas time and for a month each summer. Kathy was ten and already showing signs of moodiness and restlessness in the strict environment of my parents, and particularly under the dominating influence of my mother, whose authority she openly rejected. The frictions at home had developed to a high degree.

I met Mai's wife and found her to be quite charming. We seemed to accept each other readily, each in our own role, I the ex-wife, she the quite proper wife and homemaker. I had a terrible fight with my mother over the decision, but I finally agreed to a custody arrangement with Mai. Kathy would live with him and his wife each school year from September to July, and spend two or three months of the summer with me.

I welcomed the new freedom I found, away from my parents, away from Kathy. My job was at a large high school in a good suburban neighborhood of a major metropolitan area in the East. At 29, I was still young, beautiful and sharply attractive, yet I created a facade of serious respectability at my work and for the countless social and professional affairs that demanded my attendance.