David Wallace - Brief Interviews with Hideous Men

Q.

‘Yes but the order is less important than that there is an order, and that they comply. Underthings are always last. I am intensely but unconventionally excited. My manner is brusque and commanding but not menacing. It is no-nonsense. Some appear nervous, some affect to appear nervous. A few roll their eyes or make small dry jokes to reassure themselves that they are merely [f.f.] playing along . They are to fold their clothes and place them at the foot of the bed and to recline and lie supine and to erase all vestige of affect or expression from their face as I remove my own clothing.’

Q.

‘Sometimes, sometimes not. The excitement is intense but not specifically genital. My own undressing has been matter-of-fact. Neither ceremonial nor hurried. I radiate command. A few chicken out part of the way through, but very, very few. Those who wish to go, go. The confinement is very abstract. The thongs are black satin, mail-order. You would be surprised. As they comply with each request, command, I utter little phrases of positive reinforcement, such as, for instance, Good and That’s a good girl . I tell them that the knots are double-slips and will tighten automatically if they struggle or resist. In fact they are not. In fact there is no such thing as a double-slip knot. The crucial moment occurs when they lie nude before me, bound tightly at wrists and ankles to the bed’s four posts. Unknown to them, the bedposts are decorative and not at all sturdy and could no doubt be snapped by a determined effort to free themselves. I say, You are now entirely in my power . Recall that she is nude and bound to the bedposts, spread-eagled. I am standing unclothed at the foot of the bed. I then consciously alter the expression on my face and ask, Are you frightened? Depending on their own demeanor here, I sometimes alter this to, Aren’t you frightened? This is the crucial moment. This is the moment of truth. The entire ritual — perhaps ceremony would be better, more evocative, because we — of course the whole thing from proposal onward is about ceremony — and the climax is the subject’s response to this prompt. To Are you frightened? What is required is a twin acknowledgment. She is to acknowledge that she is wholly in my power at this moment. And she must also say she trusts me. She must acknowledge that she is not afraid I will betray or abuse the power I’ve been ceded. The excitement is at its absolute peak during this interchange, reaching a sustained climax which persists for exactly as long as it takes me to extract these assurances from her.’

Q.

‘Pardon me?’

Q.

‘I’ve already told you. I weep. It is then that I weep. Have you been paying even the slightest attention, slouched over there? I lie down beside them and weep and explain to them the psychological origins of the game and the needs it serves in me. I open my innermost psyche to them and beg compassion. Rare is the subject who is not deeply, deeply moved. They comfort me as best they can, restricted as they are by the bonds I’ve made.’

Q.

‘Whether it ends in actual intercourse depends. It’s unpredictable. There’s simply no way to tell.’

Q….

‘Sometimes one just has to go with the mood.’

B.I. #51 11-97

FORT DODGE IA

‘I always think, “What if I can’t?” Then I always think, “Oh shit, don’t think that.” Because thinking about it can make it happen. Not like it’s happened that often. But I get scared about it. We all do. Anybody tells you they don’t they’re full of it. They’re always scared it might happen. Then I always think, “I wouldn’t even be worried about it if she wasn’t here.” Then I get pissed off. It’s like I think she’s expecting something. That if she wasn’t lying there expecting it and wondering and, like, evaluating, it wouldn’t have even occurred to me. Then I get almost kind of pissed off. I’ll get so pissed off, I’ll stop even giving a shit about can I or not. It’s like I want to show her up. It’s like, “OK, bitch, you asked for it.” Then everything goes fine.’

B.I. #19 10-96

NEWPORT OR

‘Why? Why. Well, it’s not just that you’re beautiful. Even though you are. It’s that you’re so darn smart . There. That’s why. Beautiful girls are a dime a dozen, but not — hey, let’s face it, genuinely smart people are rare. Of either sex. You know that. I think for me, it’s your smartness more than anything else.’

Q.

‘Ha. That’s possible, I suppose, from your point of view. I suppose it could be. Except think about it a minute: would that possibility have even occurred to a girl who wasn’t so darn smart? Would a dumb girl have had the sense to suspect that?’

Q.

‘So in a way you’ve proved my point. So you can believe I mean it and not dismiss it as just some kind of come-on. Right?’

Q….

‘So c’mere.’

B.I. #46 07-97

NUTLEY NJ

‘Alls I’m — or think about the Holocaust. Was the Holocaust a good thing? No way. Does anybody think it was good it happened? No way. But did you ever read Victor Frankl? Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning? It’s a great, great book. Frankl was in a camp in the Holocaust and the book comes out of that experience, it’s about his experience in the human Dark Side and preserving his human identity in the face of the camp’s degradation and violence and suffering total ripping away his identity. It’s a totally great book and now think about it, if there wasn’t a Holocaust there wouldn’t be a Man’s Search for Meaning .’

Q.

‘Alls I was trying to say is you have got to be careful of taking a knee-jerk attitude about violence and degradation in the case of women also. Having a knee-jerk attitude about anything is a total mistake, that’s what I’m saying. But I’m saying especially in the case of women, where it adds up to this very limited condescending thing of saying they’re fragile or breakable things and can be destroyed so easily. Like we have to wrap them in cotton and protect them more than everybody else. That it’s knee-jerk and condescending. I’m talking about dignity and respect, not treating them like they’re fragile little dolls or whatever. Everybody gets hurt and violated and broken sometimes, why are women so special?’

Q.

‘Alls I’m saying is who are we to say getting incested or abused or violated or whatever or any of those things can’t also have their positive aspects for a human being in the long run. Not that it necessarily does all the time, but who are we to say it never does, in a knee-jerk way? Not that anybody ever ought to get raped or abused, not that it’s not totally terrible and negative and wrong while it’s going on, no question. Nobody’d ever say that. But that’s while it’s going on. The rape or violation or incest or abuse, while it’s going on. What about afterwards? What about down the line, what about the bigger picture then of the way her mind deals with what happened to her, adjusts to deal with it, the way what happened becomes part of who she is? Alls I’m saying, it’s not impossible there are cases where it can enlarge you. Make you more than you were before. More of a complete human being. Like Victor Frankl. Or that saying about how whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. You think whoever it was that said that was for a woman getting raped? No way. He just wasn’t being knee-jerk.’

Q….

‘I’m not saying there’s no such thing as a victim. Alls I’m saying is we tend to sometimes be so narrow-minded about the myriads of different things that go into making somebody into who he is. I’m saying we get so knee-jerk and condescending about rights and perfect fairness and protecting people we don’t stop and remember nobody’s just a victim and nothing is just negative and just unfair — almost nothing is like that. Alls — how it’s possible even the worst things that can happen to you can end up being positive factors in who you are. What you are, being a full human being instead of just a — think about getting gang-raped and degraded and beaten down to within an inch of your life for example. Nobody’s going to say that’s a good thing, I’m not saying that, nobody’s going to say the sick bastards that did it shouldn’t go to jail. Nobody’s suggesting she was liking it while it was happening or that it should have happened. But let’s put two things into the perspective here. One is, afterwards she knows something about herself she didn’t know before.’