Mario Puzo - Fools die

Why do men always doubt that you love them? Why do men always doubt you are true to them? Why do men always leave you? Oh, Christ. why is it so painful? I can’t love them anymore. It hurts me so and they are such pricks. Such bastards. They hurt you as carelessly as children, but you can forgive children, you don’t mind. Even though they both make you cry. But not anymore, not men, not children.

Lovers are so cruel, more loving, more cruel. Not the Casanovas, Don Juans, the “cunt men” as men always call them. Not those creeps. I mean the men who truly love you. Oh, you really love and they say they do and I know it’s true. And I know how they will hurt me worse than any other man in the world. I want to say, “Don’t say you love me.” I want to say, “I don’t love you.”

Once when Merlyn said he loved me, I wanted to cry because I truly loved him and I knew that he would be so cruel later when we both really knew each other, when all the illusions were gone, and when I loved him most, he would love me so much less.

I want to live in a world where men will never love women as they love them now. I want to live in a world where I will never love a man as I love him now. I want to live in a world where love never changes.

Oh, God, let me live in dreams; when I die, send me to a paradise of lies, undiscoverable and self-forgiven, and a lover will love me forever or not at all. Give me deceivers so sweet they will never cause me pain with true love, and let me deceive them with all my soul. Let us be deceivers never discovered, always forgiven. So that we can believe in each other. Let us be separated by wars and pestilence, death, madness but not by the passing of time. Deliver me from goodness, let me not regress into innocence. Let me be free.

I told him once that I had fucked my hairdresser and you should have seen the look on his face. The cool contempt. That’s how men are. They fuck their secretaries, that’s OK. But they put down a woman who fucks her hairdresser. And yet it’s more understandable, what we do. A hairdresser does something personal. He has to use his hands on us and some of them have great hands. And they know women. I fucked my hairdresser only once. He was always telling me how good he was in bed and one day I was horny and I said OK and he came up that night and he fucked me just that once. While he was fucking me, I saw him watching me turn on. It was a power thing with him. He did all his little tricks with his tongue and his hands and special words, and I have to say it was a good fuck. But it was such a coldhearted fuck. When I came, I expected him to hold up a mirror to see how he did the back of my head. When he asked me if I liked it, I said it was terrific. He said we had to do it again sometime and I said sure. But he never asked me again even though I would have said no. So I guess I wasn’t too great either.

Now what the hell is the harm in that? Why do men when they hear a story like that just put a woman down as a cunt? They would do it in a shot, every son of a bitch. It didn’t mean a thing. It didn’t make me any less a person. Sure, I fucked a creep. How many men, the best of them, fuck creepy women and not just once either?

I have to fight against regressing into innocence. When a man loves me, I want to be faithful to him and never fuck anybody else for the rest of my life. I want to do everything for him, but I know now that it never lasts with him or me. They start putting you down, they start making you love them less. In a million different ways.

The love of my life, the son of a bitch, I really loved him and he really loved me, I’ll give him that. But I hated the way he loved me. I was his sanctuary, I was where he ran when the world was too much for him. He always said he felt safe with me alone in our hotel rooms, our different suites like different landscapes. Different walls, strange beds, prehistoric sofas, rugs with different colored bloods, but always our naked bodies the same. But that’s not even true and this is funny. Once I surprised him and it was really funny. I had the big tit operation. I always wanted bigger tits-nice and round and standing up-and I finally did it. And he loved them. I told him I did it especially for him and it was partly true. But I did it so I would be less shy when I read for a part that required some nudity. Producers sometimes look at your tits. And I guess I did it for Alice too. But I told him I did it just for him and the bastard had better appreciate them. And so he did. And so he did. I always loved the way he loved me. That was always the best part of it. He really loved me-my flesh-and always told me it was special flesh, and finally I believed he couldn’t possibly make love to anyone else but me. I regressed into that innocence.

But it was never true. It is, finally, never true. Nothing is. Even my reasons. Like another reason. I love women’s tits and why is that unnatural? I love to suck another woman’s tits and why does that disgust men? They find it so comforting-don’t they think women do? We were all babies once together. Infants.

Is that why women cry so much? That they can never be that again? Infants? Men can be. That’s true, that’s really true. Men can be infants again. Women can’t. Fathers can be infants again. Mothers can’t.

He always said that he felt safe. And I knew what he meant. When we were alone together, I could see the strain go out of his face. His eyes became softer. And when we were lying down together warm and naked, soft skin touching, and I put my arms around him and truly loved him, I could hear him sigh like a cat purring. And I knew that for that short time he was truly happy. And that I could do that was truly magical. And that I was the only human being in the world who could make him feel like that made me feel so worthwhile. That I really meant something. I wasn’t just a cunt to fuck. I wasn’t just somebody to talk to and be intelligent with. I was truly a witch, a love witch, a good witch, and it was terrific. At that moment we both could die happy, literally, truly die happy. We could face death and not be afraid. But only for that short time. Nothing lasts. Nothing ever will. And so we deliberately shorten it, make the end come faster, I can see that now. One day he just said, “I don’t feel safe anymore,” and I never loved him again.

I’m no Molly Bloom. That son of a bitch Joyce. While she was saying yes, yes, yes, her husband was saying no, no, no. I won’t fuck any man who says no. Never, not anymore.

– -

Merlyn was sleeping. Janelle got out of bed and pulled an armchair up to the window. She lit a cigarette and stared out. As she was smoking, she heard Merlyn thrash around the bed in a restless dreaming sleep. He was muttering something, but she didn’t care. Fuck him. And every other man.

MERLYN

Janelle had on boxing gloves, dull red with white laces. She stood facing me, in the classic boxing stance, left extended, right hand cocked for the knockout punch. She wore white satin trunks. On her feet were black sneakers, slip-ons, no laces. Her beautiful face was grim. The delicately cut, sensuous mouth was pressed tight, her white chin tucked against her shoulder. She looked menacing. But I was fascinated by her bare breasts, creamy white and round nipples red, taut with an adrenaline that came not from love but the desire for combat.

I smiled at her. She didn’t smile back. Her left flicked out and caught me on the mouth and I said, “Ah, Janelle.” She hit me with two more hard lefts. They hurt like hell, and I could feel blood filling the gap beneath my tongue. She danced away from me. I put my hands out and they too had red gloves on them. I slid forward on sneakered feet and hitched up my trunks. At that moment Janelle darted in on me and hit me with a solid right hand. I actually saw green and blue stars as if I were in a comic strip. She danced away again, her breasts bobbing, the dancing red nipples mesmerizing.