Andrea Dworkin - Ice And Fire

Joe begins to shake. Hey man I didn’t know she was your girl

man hey I didn’t mean you no shit man. He fumbles with his pants.

He fumbles with his shirt. He starts sweating bad. Hey man if I

know she was your girl man hey I wouldn’t touch man it was just

a joke man. W says, don’t I know you from somewhere man? Joe

says, yeah man, I buy some smack from you but times is hard

man. W says well you come to see me man if you need anything

but I don’t want my woman here bothered. You understand, W

says with quiet seriousness and authority, this is my woman. You

treat her with respect man you understand she belongs to me.

Hey man I didn’t mean nothing by it man.

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Joe fumbles and sweats. They talk smack. Joe is sloppy and

scared, W is austere and serious. W shows Joe to the door.

Then he comes back.

I thank him. It isn’t enough. He tears into me. He bites my

clitoris and bites it and bites it until I wish I was dead. He

fucks. He bites my clitoris more, over and over, for hours, I

want to die. The pain is shooting through my brain. I am

chewed and bitten and maimed. I am bleeding. He leaves. I

hurt so bad I can’t even crawl. He leaves the front door wide

open.

*

From now on N and I never sleep at the same time: one of us

is always awake with a knife in her hand. We lie down on the

narrow mattress together, never alone, and one sleeps and one

stays awake, knife in hand, knife clutched, ready to use. She

sleeps a few hours, I listen to every sound: knife in my hand.

The sweat is cold now always: no matter how the summer

heat boils and steams and hangs like fire in the air. I sleep a

few hours, wake up in a cold sweat, always to find her wide

awake, eyes wide open, alert, watching the room: anything

moves, it dies. I count on her. I count on the knife. I think I

can use it on myself, if there are too many of them.

*

We know they will come back. I knew Joe would turn me over

to the others when he was done that night or some other. We

know we can’t keep them out. They know. We wait. We don’t

sleep very much at all.

*

I am staggeringly hurt: body and mind.

*

N and I are inside, sitting on the mattress. She is writing in her

notebook. I am staring at the wall. I can walk now. There is a

knock on the door. It is W. He is invited in. I don’t talk. I sit.

N sits. He stands, very tall, then sits. He brings out some grass.

He is soft-spoken and courteous. He rolls a joint. We smoke.

He and N exchange pleasantries. We smoke. I don’t talk. He

speaks directly to me. I stare. I haven’t been talking much but now

I don’t talk at all. He saved me. I can’t think of anything to

say. I think I say thank you. We smoke. My body is slowly

getting numb, hard to move, nearly immobile. Each arm, each

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leg, is very heavy, like a ton of wet sand. I can’t move. I don’t

talk. We smoke. They talk. They talk about witchcraft, the

occult, drugs. I don’t follow it. He talks to her. I hear it. He

excludes me but refers to me. He talks only to her. You young

women need my protection. I could come here once or twice a

week, get you young women a real bed, you shouldn’t be

sleeping on this mattress on the floor, so you really both sleep

here do you? and you and I could have some real fun with

her, we can do things of real depth, different things, unusual

things that call on deep energies, there are many things you

and I could do with her. I don’t look at him but I know I am

her. I can’t talk. I can’t move. My brain is some dead slug.

Everything is heavy, like a ton of wet sand. My muscles don’t

move. My legs don’t work. I remember crawling after he

chewed me up, and the pain. We could do many things with

her, he says, and there are mysteries we could discover together,

she is the perfect instrument for us to discover these mysteries,

she is so pliant, there are so many subtleties. He talks about a

big bed, and I think he wants to watch N hurt me: he is saying

they will do it to me, he is saying he will give us regular money

every week, he is talking about a big bed and tying me up, I

can’t feel anything but the pain between my legs hanging somewhere in the center of my dead brain: telling me to run, run: but I can barely move: I concentrate every living ounce of will

and energy on moving, one leg at a time, the other leg, slowly,

to get up. It takes nearly forever. I stand up. My mouth moves.

A sound comes out, loud. No. It sounds like a whisper. I walk,

a ton of wet sand inching along a desert, into the kitchen,

collapsing on the table. N says: you heard her. He says he will

leave the grass and come back some other time. The offer still

holds. N can call him anytime. But he will come back anyway.

She should think about it.

All night we talk about a ring of occultists N has heard

about and all the women they have tortured to death and their

witchcraft rites and the way they use sex and drugs ending in

death. She is sure this is true. We are afraid: we think it is a

paranoid fantasy but we believe it anyway: we know somewhere there are these dead women. We do not move all night.

The smoke has nearly paralyzed us. We fall asleep sitting up.

In the morning N examines the grass to see why we couldn’t

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move. She sniffs it and rubs it between her fingers, scrutinizes

it. There are tiny fragments of glass in the weed: pieces of

glass vials. The grass has been soaked in morphine.

I am scared. So is she, I think. I want to disappear. There is

no money. I am too afraid for the streets. We are running out

of speed. I cower on the mattress. She writes in her notebook.

*

I go to a junkie doctor in the Village for a prescription. I can’t

do the streets. He rubs his hands all over me. He is sweaty

despite the air conditioning and old and pale yellow and fat.

He rubs his hands up and down my arms and all over my

breasts and my neck and up and down my legs, between my

thighs. He rubs his hands all over my bare skin and all over my

clothes. I sit still. He stares at me. He watches me as he rubs

his hands all over. I am going to give you the prescription, he

says, but the next time you come you understand what I want

don’t you? I stare at him. In the office there is a desk with a

chair behind it and an examining table, the one I am sitting

on. Here, I suppose, right where I am now. Do you understand