The great revelation for me here is her suspicion that it was Waldo Channing who sent her the article, money, and condom. It makes sense. For one thing, he'd have easy access to old newspaper clippings. For another, he had sufficient malice of heart and financial ability to blow a thousand bucks on a vicious gesture. But if it was Waldo, what was he trying to convey? Or was Barbara right, was it just his way of pulling her back into his orbit, coaxing her to confide her latest sexual escapade, which they could then dish together with complicit smiles?
On Thursday, August 7, she has lunch with Waldo at The Elms. She reports this encounter and subsequent lovemaking session with Jack Cody in what I feel is an increasingly alarming cynicism:
Thursday
Lunch today at The Elms: W his usual bubbly, mean self. On Elaine: ‘She really ought to get some wrinkle cream. She's looking like an awful prune.’ On A's pupsy-baby: ‘She's one of those Bettyboob types. You know – lotsa boob but not much to bet on!’
After I came over, he whispered: ‘He's looking kind of peaked these days. Must be he's not getting enough sex.’
Ha! ha! ha!
‘I put the rubber someone sent me on him and J didn't like it one bit,’ I told him. W giggled, but I detected a certain quivering in his eyeball, the left one, the ‘tell’ Andy used to say always gave away W's intentions to their poker group
‘Look,’ I told him, ‘whoever's got it in for me had better watch out because I'm going to find the little creep. I've got detectives working on it right now, and when I find out who he is, I'm going to expose him to the world.’
The old left eyeball started vibrating again. He tightened up so much I was sure I'd found my man. ‘What can detectives do? How can they tell?’ ‘All sorts of ways,’ I told him. ‘Fingerprints on the paper, saliva on the stamps. Plus some other angles I can't tell you about. Don't worry, I'll find him out.’
More quivering. Great sport!
‘I'm surprised you keep saying ‘him.’ I just assumed it was a woman,’ W said.
‘You said you thought it was Jack.’
‘I was wrong. Now I sense a feminine hand at work.’
‘You mean it's all so catty, is that it, W?’
‘Well put, love. Very well put.’
I laughed in a very special way to suggest several layers of private amusement. That unnerved him more. He excused himself before coffee, said he had to get back to town and file his column.
Soon as he left, J and I went upstairs. ‘It's definitely W,’ I told J. ‘And now he's running scared.’
‘He's pathetic.’
‘Vicious-pathetic.’
‘So what're you going to do about it?"
‘Wait a while, see how far he goes. I read there's a saying: “revenge is a dish best eaten cold.”’
We made love and J was tender with me, more tender than I can ever remember him being. When I closed my eyes, I imagined he was T. He could have been. It was T's touch, T sensuous and grazing on my skin, T's tongue wagging its way into me. For a moment, I thought I was going mad, mixing my lovers up.
On the way home, I pounded the steering wheel. If J can make love as tenderly as T, then what do I need T for? But maybe T can make love as harshly as J. Could I train him to? Could I cross-train these guys, make them interchangeable?
Must ask R about this.
What kind of a slut am I? I wonder. Am I nuts or just perverse?
Fascinating! And I find I'm beginning to respect her for dealing with Waldo in such a magnificent sangfroid. Seems to me she beats him at his own game.
But the following day, August 8, she receives another envelope. If Waldo sent it, he probably did so prior to their Thursday lunch.
Friday
A rubber tied in the middle full of – yuk! I immediately threw it in the trash. Then I called W, told him what had just arrived. ‘If it really is semen,’ I told him, ‘I'm sure it isn't his.’ ‘Now why do you say that, love?’ ‘‘Cause I'm sure he's impotent, an impotent little toad. He couldn't produce a bag of scum if he wanted to. It's probably diluted mayonnaise.’
Long silence. ‘I've been thinking about this since we spoke yesterday, and the more I've thought about it the clearer it is to me it has to be a woman.’
‘Now why do you say that?’ I asked, taking a page from R.
‘It's more than just being catty, love. There's something definitely female-cruel about those letters. Diabolically cruel, I might add. Strikes me this person is some kind of witch.’
"Well, dear, I think it's a man, and he's probably a fruit, too. You know what they're like W. I mean, a man as worldly as you.’
‘Are you trying to tell me something, love?’
‘I'm just saying I know it's a man, a pathetic sick excuse for one. Sending me a scumbag filled with yuk! Did he think I'd feel threatened? Me! Barb Fulraine! No, dear, it only makes me laugh!’
‘Well, love, go tell your shrink all about it.’ Pause. ‘I wonder if it's him. Maybe he's got a crush on you. Wouldn't surprise me, you know, since everyone else around seems to.’
On Monday, August 11, more neurotic fissures open up in her already fragile analytic relationship with Dad:
Monday
At session, told R about the second condom, why I think it's W who sent it, what we've said to each other back and forth, and what I think he's trying to do.
‘He wants me to confide in him, tell him all my secrets. He can't stand it that I come here. He considers you his rival. That's why he said it wouldn't surprise him if you were the sender.’
‘Do you think the man's dangerous?’
‘No. What he's doing is cowardly.’
‘Now you're trying to infuriate him?’
‘That's right. I want to provoke him, make him go too far. Then, if I'm successful, I'll have him cold. I might even be able to file criminal charges against him.’
‘I think sometimes in our sessions you've tried to provoke me, make me go too far.’
‘Why would I want to do that?’
‘I think it's the way you play people. You mentioned that there's been some trouble between T and you. Want to talk about it?’
‘No! I want to talk about my dream. Rather, I want you to talk about it. Solve it for me, Dr. R! Release me from it! Do that and I'll be forever in your debt.’
He tried. I was truly touched, even though I didn't buy much of what he said. It all goes back, he believes, to Mom and Blackjack. Pretty good hunch, I guess. When we parted, I saw something caring and sorrowful in his eyes. Touched again, I thanked him for all he's done for me. ‘Sometimes I get so mad at you,’ I told him, ‘but you know it's not personal. It's my rage at my father transposed to you. Anyway, I just want you to know how grateful I am for all the efforts you've made with me and for putting up with all my shit.’
‘Thank you for saying that,’ he said.
In the car driving home, it suddenly occurred to me that my horsemanship is such an important part of my identity that it's inevitable that anything important to me would be dramatized in my dreams in terms of riding and horses. I also thought that maybe this analysis idea wasn't so smart after all, that I'm going to have to reconsider going on with it after the first of the year and that maybe I'd do just as well going back to card readers and psychics.
Tuesday
This time the little squirt went too far! And gave himself away! He sent a baggie containing tender, long, blond girlish head hairs mixed with short, rough, curly black ones, the latter presumably pubic. By this he's telling me my worst fear has been realized – Belle's being used as a sex slave in a brothel. But what the little stinker doesn't know is that there're only three people on this earth with whom I've shared my fear: J, R, and himself! So that settles it. W deserves to be strung up by his balls, but that would be too good for him. He'd love all the attention he'd get, the martyrdom.