Edward Limonov - His Butler’s Story (1980-1981)

Once she dropped by with Bridget, Martha, and Douglas, Douglas out of breath from dragging in a box of French wine, and the girls carrying between them about twenty bottles of different kinds of alcohol quite essential to any decent home. A small loan from Mr. Grey, who would never notice this drop in his sea of bottles. I couldn't even begin to count all the stuff Jenny dragged over to the apartment, including such things as linen and even a huge quantity of various Mister Cleans and Spic-'n'-Spans and the other poisonous liquids and powders with which my new homeland is so richly endowed.

But I got the bed myself. I too had certain practical talents, not to mention a super I knew in a huge stone box on West End Avenue.

I even went so far as to get myself a Christmas tree. I didn't have anything on it except for lights, that being as far as my money would go, unfortunately, but it didn't matter. The main thing was that I had my own Christmas tree reaching to the ceiling as in my childhood. It was as if a war had ended and everything was beautiful once more and life was set right again. I put the Christmas tree in the corner of my study, or my office, as I called it, and frequently turned on the lights and lay down by it, by my own tree, and enjoyed it. I had a home. Not a hole into which a tormented animal retires only to sleep, but a home. For the first time in many difficult years. A home.

It's natural that when you acquire an apartment, you acquire expenses too, and so I took whatever work I could find — anything to keep from sliding back into the past and its mode of life. And when Seva, a photographer I knew, asked me to help him turn some empty industrial space he had just rented on Madison Avenue in the twenties into a loft for four dollars an hour, I happily agreed, and we started knocking down partitions. Jenny was very glad I had found work. She was in fact an exact clone of my mother, who had always been very happy too when after getting stuck in some shit, I found myself a regular job. Even if it was difficult, dirty, mindless work.

After breaking down the partitions, we began putting up new walls, after which there was plastering and painting to do. As a consequence of the close working relationship that developed between us, Seva once asked me to go with him and his wife to a party given by a photographer friend of his, a woman who also taught at the School of Visual Arts. I went with Seva, since I have never turned down a party, neither then nor now, and we had a lot to drink.

Sarah was a pupil of the lady photographer, and I remember she was the first to talk, provoking me and laughing at me… The result was that we left together. It was a rainy New York winter evening, and I suggested she come with me. And she did…

The most distinctive tiling about my new girl was her wig. In the process of fucking or, if you prefer, the sex act, I was suddenly amazed to see that her wig had slipped down over her eyes. Or more accurately, I was astonished to see that her scalp had slipped down over her eyes, and at once realized that it was a wig. Unembarrassed, Sarah rearranged the wig with one hand; the other was busy holding my balls. We fucked all night lying on the floor by the Christmas tree, on a mattress brought in from the bedroom. Sarah's cunt wasn't too big, her skin was white, and the little Jew humped like a nanny goat. Twenty-two years old, a little shorter than me, hook-nosed, slender, and with large dark eyes, she was a true daughter of the Jewish race, a seeker of adventure and collector of the most diverse experiences, including even the lesbian kind, and was ready at any moment to go wherever you liked. All she needed was to grab her small but voluminous shoulder bag.

Around midday we crawled out of bed and went down to the Village, having decided to get something to eat there. Snow was falling, fluffy and light just like in Moscow, falling and melting on the dark New York sidewalks, while the inadequately dressed New Yorkers pulled their hoods over their heads, or wrapped themselves in scarves, or opened their umbrellas. Our insolent New York children packed the wet snow into snowballs and threw them at people. The skeleton of the Great City stood out vividly against the snow storm.

Sarah and I walked arm in arm, and she gazed at me lovingly the whole time — you know, with that satisfied and sated look a woman gives you when you have fucked her well, have fucked her unbelievably well. I was her man, her male, in the most direct and unashamed sense of the word, her prick that had taken and untied die knot of her passions and tensions, so that they had all flowed out of her, leaving nothing behind, and it was good for her to be with me, and she was calm and easy, and her body didn't torment her anymore. How do I know all this? I saw it all in her loving gaze. I know that fawning feminine gaze.

We came to a little restaurant called Johnny Day's I've visited many times — unlike inquisitive New Yorkers, I'm conservative — and where we ordered steaks and Beaujolais Villages and talked animatedly. After all, we still didn't know each other and there was a lot to talk about, although during the conversation too I caught that fawning, submissive look again from time to time. I enjoyed myself, I'll admit — we drank two bottles of Beaujolais and I sat there and made up some boastful lies, I remember, and she knew I was making it all up, but we didn't care. We were "having a good time" — I love that charming expression — and laughing, while outside the large picture window of Johnny Day's, the snow was falling.

After lunch we rolled out of the restaurant into the snow. Women are boastful too, and Sarah immediately dragged me off to show to one of her friends, a photographer and sadist. She wanted to parade me in front of the sadist, of course, and to show the sadist off to me. I didn't refuse her that pleasure, especially since the sadist lived close by and we could walk there.

"The walls of his studio are black. Don't be scared, but he has chains and whips hanging on the walls," Sarah told me hurriedly, starting to run ahead in the snow and looking back at my face.

"Do I really look like somebody who's afraid of chains and whips?" I asked her, laughing.

"No," said Sarah, "but I didn't feel too brave myself the first time I went there, and I'm not afraid of anything either."

There really were both chains and whips. The sadist was a stocky fellow of middle age and very tired-looking.

"Are you a photographer?" he asked me almost at the front door.

"Sorry, no," I said. "I'm a writer."

"A writer," the sadist repeated with evident satisfaction and asked me to sit down. "You're a lucky man," he continued. "Write your books and remember that you're very lucky. You're not in this shitty business — photography, I mean. I detest it."

At that moment a half-dressed honey-blonde model with butterflies painted on her cheeks emerged from a barely noticeable door, also black, and said:

"Raphael, I can't do what he wants me to. For this money let him get somebody else. I'm leaving!" And she disappeared through another door.

"Calm down, baby," Raphael called after her. "You think I want to do anything for the money I get?" He turned to Sarah. "I take it this guy is your new boyfriend?"

And not waiting for her to answer, he addressed me. "You aren't an American, what are you? No, wait, let me guess. French?" he said, doubtfully.

"No," I said, "Russian."

"Ah, a Russian… a Russian… You're lucky, Sarah; they say Russians are very good lovers. Does he fuck you good?" asked Raphael, turning toward Sarah on his revolving chair. I forgot to mention he was sitting on a revolving metal chair.

"God, Raphael," Sarah said, "why do you have to be so obnoxious?"

"I'm a tired old professional sadist who earns his living in the shitty business of photography. The shittiest business imaginable. You're only a young cunt," he said. "How old are you, twenty-three?"