Carrie Fisher - Postcards from the Edge

“I was so confused that I could have made a ‘slut’ out of a ‘what,’ and I knew he’d said some pretty reprehensible things, but now I was thinking, maybe I did, too. And the night before I’d sworn I’d never speak to him again unless he apologized, and he didn’t apologize and yet there we were having this conversation. And I thought, ‘I love this guy,’ and then I thought, ‘No, I don’t, I’ve got a crush on him.’

“He asked me out to lunch, and I said I couldn’t come. I told him I had low self-esteem, not no self-esteem. Then he called me that night and joked about how we’d broken up. He asked what I was wearing, and I told him I had on a huge ball gown with bowling shoes and a scuba mask and a red wig, and no underwear. We were very funny, and it was like it was new again, only it hadn’t had that much time to get old. But it had gotten old. We had taken it to its illogical conclusion, but it wasn’t finished.

“On Sunday afternoon he called to ask if he could come over that night and watch this awards show with me, and I said okay. I was still keeping a little bit cool, which I’m sure attracted him. He can’t resist people who can resist him. So he came over and we heated up food badly together, and he said he’d missed me and it was great. So he slept over again, and we had some sex.

“This time, though, he got away with a shatteringly low amount of foreplay. In fact, he told me this joke: What is Irish foreplay? It’s when the guy says, ‘Brace yourself, Bridget.’ Then he wanted us to stay in bed all morning, but I had to come here.

“The thing is, I hope I’m not pregnant, because I have a feeling I could get pregnant easily. I mentioned this to him and he said he wouldn’t mind going to the abortion with me if I was. I guess that’s how guys are thoughtful in the eighties—they accompany girls to their abortions. That’s the new manners. It seems so awkward, though, to see each other for a week and then you go and have an abortion together. Maybe I should just have a child…

“What worries me is, what if this guy is really the one for me, and I just haven’t had enough therapy yet for me to be comfortable with having found him? How long do you think this whole process is going to take? Do you think we should have double-length sessions? It’s like, not only am I changing cabins on the Titanic , I’m dating the crew.

“Maybe I should be coming every day…”

“There’s a lot of pressure to get this new film done in time for Christmas. And what I do when I have a lot of work pressure is, I try to relax, and how I like to relax is… Well, I used to like to get loaded, but now I like to go out with women. Certainly this comes as no shock to you after all these years. I’m not looking for a girlfriend, but I’m going out with girls and keeping my mind open to the right girl if I could meet one.

“It really pisses me off, I met this one girl last week, this actress, Suzanne Vale, and… You know, I’m very up-front about not wanting to get into a committed thing. And girls always go along with this at first, and then suddenly they’re into this relationship thing. Right away it’s ‘Who else are you seeing?’ And if you’re seeing anyone else they call you promiscuous, or a womanizer. I hardly think that sleeping with two or three, maybe four girls a week—rarely more than four—makes me a ‘womanizer.’

“I’m very selective. I only go out with certain types of girls: beautiful or voluptuous. And it’s not that I go out with them just to have sex, but I don’t think you should get into a serious relationship without testing out the sex area. I mean, if that doesn’t work… So, I say this to this girl and she says, ‘What do you mean? Is this like a litmus test, and if your dick comes out of her blue then you know you’ve found a girlfriend?’ I mean, that’s absurd! The point I was trying to make is that if the sexual area doesn’t work, then you shouldn’t really pursue any of the other ones, because you can’t really repair it.

“It’s starting to get on my nerves that I have this reputation for being sexually compulsive. I like sex a lot, I admit it. But, you know, I like food a lot, too, and nobody calls me a foodaholic. I just don’t like that people are always putting a label on you. Women expect you to come on to them. It’s like, if I didn’t, they’d think I was a fag or something. Impotent. Well, it’s not like I couldn’t handle it if somebody thought I was impotent, but I don’t like the idea of people thinking that.

“I’m not defensive, I’m angry . I don’t think I’m defensive. That’s what she said. I don’t know… Everything goes so fast, you know? And I always wait for them to slow it down, and they never do. I thought maybe this girl was going to be different, ’cause she did say she wouldn’t sleep with me right away. She came back to my house, and then she said she wouldn’t sleep with me, and I thought, ‘Well, good. Maybe somebody is finally going to slow the whole proceeding down.’ I could see she was a very intense girl, and everything seemed like it could get very sped up, so I was relieved she was going to be the one to put some brakes on. I don’t know how to do that myself. It’s a skill I’d like to develop, but as of yet I don’t have it, so I usually look to the girls to slow it down. Possibly I should be the one who says, ‘No, no, never mind my boner, let’s not have sex,’ but it’s against my nature. My dick wants what it wants, and then I want what it wants.

“You may be a shrink, but you’re also a guy. You know what I’m talking about. I see a woman mailing a letter, and I see from the way her breast is curved under her sweater that there’s no bra and I want to bend her over a car and have her. You know, you see these movies of prehistoric people who just bend people over and, Bam! I wish it was like that. It’s an appetite men have as mammals, damn it. I’ve always meant to do some more reading on it.

“I don’t know, maybe I’ll be able to have a relationship one day. Or maybe I’m not made for relationships. There are probably some people who aren’t. But, you know, I’m thirty-five now and I’m slowing down… Well, actually I’m not slowing down, I’m just… I’m not slowing down. But I think I should just let my process continue and…

“The thing is, it’s all so interesting. Every part of the sex act is interesting. How they undress, how they look during it, their reaction to it, all of it. And I think I’m really sensitive. It would be hard for me to believe a woman could fake an orgasm with me. I’m that in tune with what’s happening with them, like a safecracker.

“I could write a travel brochure about women’s bodies. I like when a woman is backlit and you can see what’s under her clothes. I like it if she moves a certain way and something is revealed. I like something to suddenly appear that didn’t seem to be there. I like to be surprised in the area of flesh. I don’t necessarily like to be surprised in the area of brain, although I must say this girl did interest me that way. At one point she said something like that I should fuck bimbos and have the cigarette with her, which was a funny line. She says some very funny stuff.

“In another sense, though, she’s the same as all the others. When she said she wouldn’t have sex that first night, I asked her to stay over anyway, thinking that maybe in the morning if I acted a little distant… And sure enough, Bam! Girls just can’t handle that distance business. Even smart girls aren’t so smart about that. And she’s very possessive. I mean, this girl is a little nuts. She called me up one day and I had this very abrupt message—‘What!?!’—on my machine, ’cause I was in a bad mood that day, and she thought it said, ‘Slut!’ She thought I was calling her a slut. I mean, talk about projection.