CHAPTER THREE
KAREN
NOTE: The beginning of Karen's history has been presented in the Introduction.
“That experience with the prostitute in London really turned me on. After I flew home and had to go back to work in that stupid office, I just couldn't help thinking about it. It was really weird. But it was also frustrating in other ways, too. I couldn't talk about it to anybody. The whole thing was just too queer. I thought a little of going to a shrink, but I was afraid they'd cart me off to the looney bin, and, anyway, the whole thing was much too embarrassing and disgusting to tell anybody, even a psychiatrist. Anyway, I didn't go.
“I also thought of moving to New York. The city where I live is sort of medium-size, not quite big enough to be completely anonymous or to have enough freaky people. I thought a little of switching jobs and moving to Greenwich Village. I might meet somebody there like me.
“But then there was this other problem. It took me a long time to admit to myself that I got more of a charge out of being worked over by another woman than by a fellow. There were these fellows I mentioned earlier, my cousin, especially, and the times he stuck his wienie up my fanny when I was a kid. It still gets me really excited when I remember that, how it felt, and everything. But mostly I remember that time in London when the prostitute gave it to me back there with the dildoe. That was the best that had happened to me up until then. That meant I was a lesbian, and it really bothered me to have to admit that to myself. Maybe I'm bisexual, which isn't quite so bad. But I think that bisexual is almost the same as being homosexual. It's funny, but the homosexual part bothers me more than the fact that I'm queer that other way, too, that I want something up my rear and not the regular way. I've come to terms with it all since, though. I am what I am, and that's it.
“Anyway, I didn't move into New York but stayed here, and the longer I went the more frustrated I got. I wanted to repeat what happened in London, and I wanted to find another woman. I wanted a 'butch' to work me over, a strong dominant woman who would assault me anally and I wanted her to like it just as much as me. It couldn't be just a prostitute like in London. It had to be something real, something that I could share with another person.
“One day I happened to pick up one of those racy weekly papers, you know the kind that have freaky headlines like Dad Rapes Five-Year-Old Daughter. I don't think I'd have had nerve enough to buy one, but there was one lying on the seat of the bus and I just stuffed it into my purse when nobody was looking.
“When I got home I looked at it, just out of curiosity, and discovered that there were two pages of ads in it, a lot like the ones I'd seen in London, not ads from prostitutes, or at least they weren't supposed to be, but from freaky people and lonely people. I thought about those ads a lot, and finally decided to put one in myself. I decided that if an answer came I could just make up my mind what to do. No one would know anything about it.
“I didn't put the ad in right off, but I thought about it a lot. Finally, I wanted someone so bad that I just decided to plunge and see what happened. I wrote a little ad in which I said:
Young lady, dark-brown hair, brown eyes, five foot four, usually considered attractive would like to meet dominant woman. I am very submissive.
I put a dollar in the envelope like the instructions said and sent it to the paper to their Miss F-.
The ad didn't come out for quite a while. I got up nerve to buy the darned papers, though not at the place I usually get my magazines, and for three weeks I waited for it to appear. Finally, it did. There was my name and the name of the city and also a number. At first I wished I hadn't done it. Suppose somebody should find out. But I decided that that was stupid, because how could they?
“Well, then, after about a week, letters started coming in. I guess about fifteen came in all, most of them from men. I don't suppose there are many young women who put ads in these things. I just threw away the ones from men. Most of the ones from women weren't too satisfactory either. A couple of them were from fairly old women, forty-five or so, and one of the ones that came from younger ones talked about flagellation, which isn't really my thing. Two of the others were just from girls who were lonely. I felt sorry for them, but I didn't think they were what I was looking for.
“There was this one note, though, that I had a funny feeling about. The girl who wrote it said she was twenty-seven, and that she lived in New York. The letter really didn't say much, but it was a nice letter, and the handwriting was nice. From the words she used and all that, I was pretty sure that she was sort of refined, probably been to college, or at least was decently educated.
“I just couldn't write about what I'm like, and I didn't really have much idea what she was like from her letter, but I decided to take a chance and phone her. She gave me her phone number.
“'I'm calling from…,' I said on the phone. 'And it's about a letter I got.'
“'What letter is that?' she asked in a sort of suspicious tone of voice.
“'You said you were twenty-seven and firm but gentle…
“'Are you going to answer my letter?'
“'I–I thought maybe we might have lunch together or something in New York.'
“'All right,' she said.
“We made the date. I would take the bus to New York, Saturday and she would meet me at the bus terminal. Then we'd go someplace together for lunch and to get acquainted, and just take it from there. She had signed her note 'A Friend' and we decided that we wouldn't exchange names or anything like that until we'd gotten together.
“I could hardly wait for Saturday. It was really going to be an adventure. But, finally, it came. I put on my prettiest skirt, put a few things in an overnight bag, just in case, and caught the 8:17 for the city.
“'Hi,' she said when I got off the bus. I'd told her what I'd be wearing. It's easy for girls to get together. Nobody suspects. She was very pretty, taller than me, with long black hair, and dark eyes, slender. I'd hoped she would be pretty and she was.
“She looked at me sort of funny, and I could tell from the way she looked at me that she liked what she saw. I was glad about that, too, of course, although I'm conceited enough to think I didn't have to worry.
“We took a cab to the Village and to one of those little cafes that are sort of quiet, dark and intimate, a place where we could talk and feel easy. She made all the decisions, which was just the way I wanted it.
“Anyway, we started talking, and pretty soon she told me her name was Eileen and I said I was Karen. She was an art teacher at a college and had her own apartment over on the West Side. We talked about art and stuff, and a little bit about travel. She goes to Europe every summer. But both of us were sort of shy about getting into what we both knew was pounding away in our minds. I decided, though, if she was really a 'butch' she'd bring up anything and make all the advances.
“'How about coming up to my apartment for drinks?' she asked after we'd wandered around a gallery awhile. We spent some time poking around in those little galleries looking at new shows. Eileen knew her way around and most of the directors seemed to know her. Not a word was said about sex, and I really wondered if I was on the wrong track, but at that point I didn't care because I just liked her for herself now anyway. It was hard to imagine anybody like her being lonely; she was so pretty and also had a really charming personality. But if she really was lesby that would explain it, maybe.
“Finally we ended up at her apartment. It was really beautiful. She had to have a lot of money to furnish it the way she did, more than she could have earned as an art teacher. I soon found out that I was right about that part. Her family was rich and she'd gone to some pretty fancy schools.