Andrea Dworkin - Ice And Fire

don’t know.

*

Reader, I saved him: my husband. He can fuck now. He can

pulverize human bones.

*

I got away. How it will end, I don’t know.

84

I love life so fiercely, so desperately, that

nothing good can come of it: I mean the

physical facts of life, the sun, the grass,

youth. It’s a much more terrible vice than

cocaine, it costs me nothing, and there is an

endless abundance of it, with no limits: and

I devour, devour. How it will end, I don’t know.

Pasolini

*

Sad boy. Sex is so easy. I can open my legs and save you. It is

so little for me to do. I know so much.

Sad boy. Desperate child. Gentle soul. Too much respect.

Afraid to violate. But sex is violation. I read it in books. I

learned it somewhere. I show you how: and I devour, devour.

There is an endless abundance of it, with no limits. I am a

woman. This is what I was born to give. How it will end, I

don’t know.

*

Then I can’t understand anymore. This isn’t what I meant. I

am so hurt, the cuts, the sores, the bleeding, let me sleep. You

are hard now, my husband: let me sleep: I beg: an hour, a

minute. I love life so fiercely, so desperately: I mean the physical facts of life: I want to make you happy: I don’t want to die: the fists pounding, wild, enraged: sex was always so easy: it

costs me nothing, and there is an endless abundance of it, with

no limits: and I didn’t want you to suffer, to die. How it will

end now, I don’t know.

*

The bed: I show you everything: every wild game: soon we

drop the scripts and just tie the knots: how to penetrate: how

to move, when, even why: every nerve: pretending to pretend

so it isn’t real: pretending to pretend but since we do what we

pretend in what sense are we pretending? You pretend to tie

me up, but you tie me up. I am tired of it now. I do what you

need, tired of the repetition, you learn by rote, slowly, like in

the third grade, not tone deaf but no genius of your own: the

notes, one by one, so you can get hard. You get hard. Now

85

you’re not pretending. I don’t know how it will end. I am

waiting for it to end. I know what I want: to get to the end:

you will tell me when the game is finished: is it over? are you

hard?

*

He is normal now, not impotent and suicidal, but in a rage:

my normal, human husband who gets hard: he is in a rage,

like a mad dog. This isn’t what I meant. I love life so fiercely,

so desperately: I thought only good could come of it: sex is so

easy: there is an abundance of it, without limits: I teach him

what I know: he needed a little more confidence, so reader, I

married him. I didn’t know. I didn’t know. Believe me, not

them: the normal, human husband with normal, human rage:

little girl saints of sex with your philosophy, little darlings,

when what’s inside comes out, be somewhere hidden, chaste,

out of reach: it spilled over: it was rage: it was hate: it was sex:

he got hard: he beat me until I couldn’t even crawl: it costs me

nothing, and there is an endless abundance of it, with no limits:

I try to get away: how it will end, I don’t know. Until now I

devoured, devoured, I loved life so fiercely: now I think nothing

good can come of it: why didn’t someone say— oh, girl, it isn’t

so easy as it seems, be gone when what’s inside comes out:

impotence and suicide aren’t the worst things. His face isn’t

sad now: he is flowering outside, to others, they have never

seen him fatter, cockier, no grief, no little boy: the human

husband, all hard fuck and fists: and I cower: reader, I married

him: I saved him: how it will end, I don’t know.

*

You can see what he needed, you can see what I did. It’s no

secret now, not me alone. I got inside it when it was still a

secret. It is everywhere now. Watch the men at the films. Sneak

in. Watch them. See how they learn to tie the knots from the

pictures in the magazines. Impotent and suicidal. I taught him

not to be afraid to hurt: me. What’s inside comes out. I love

life so fiercely, so desperately, and I devour, devour, and how

it will end, I don’t know. Sex is so easy, and it costs me nothing,

and there is an endless abundance of it, with no limits: and I

devour, devour. I saved him. How it will end, I don’t know.

There will be a film called Snuff .

86

I love life so fiercely, so desperately, that

nothing good can come of it: I mean the

physical facts of life, the sun, the grass,

youth. It’s a much more terrible vice than

cocaine, it costs me nothing, and there is an

endless abundance of it, with no limits: and

I devour, devour. How it will end, I don’t know.

Pasolini

*

Sad, gentle face, comic. Unconsummated. My virgin. My little

boy. My innocent. Suicidal and impotent. I want you to know

what I know, being ground under: hard thighs: hard sweat:

hard cock: kisses to the marrow of the bone. I love life so

fiercely, so desperately. It costs me nothing, and there is an

endless abundance of it, with no limits, and I devour, devour. I

teach you. You get hard. You pulverize human bones. Finally I

know how it will end. Oh, I run, I run, little boy.

87

Coitus as punishment for the happiness of

being together.

Kafka

*

I lived another year in that Northern city of Old Europe. Terror

wipes you clean if you don’t die. I took everyone I liked: with

good cheer, a simple equanimity. There were houseboats,

saunas, old cobbled streets, huge mattresses on floors with

incense burning: long-haired boys and short-haired girls: I

knew their names: something about them: there was nothing

rough: I felt something in the thighs: I always felt something

coming from me or I did nothing: it was different: I had many

of them, whoever I wanted. I read books and took drugs. I

was happy.

I started to write, sentences, paragraphs, nothing whole. But

I started to write.

Slowly I saw: coitus is the punishment for being a writer

afraid of the cold passion of the task. There is no being together, just the slow learning of solitude. It is the discipline, the art. I began to learn it.