6

the story of my life

SEPTEMBER 1973

1947 I’m born April 18; my family thinks of itself as aristocratic, though it isn’t, since my grandmother (mother’s mother) came from Alsace-Lorraine to U.S.A. poor and in her later life married a wealthy man. They properly worship money as do all good Americans. They assure me that only the unworthy work. I will never have to work since I’m rich and will marry rich, that if I ever have to think about money it’s because I’ve come down in the world. They’re incredibly stingy with me. These conflicting early trainings make me proud and shy, confident that I’m by nature above other people and aware that everyone, especially my parents, hates me. These are the first roots I remember of my schizophrenia and paranoia.

As a baby I spit at whoever I feel like: whether or not the person’s rich. Whether or not the person’s insulted me.

1947-51 Early childhood in apartment 6C 57th Street and First Avenue. Manhattan. To continue, when my sister, a baby, snores too loud, I bite through her knee.

1951 My grandmother (mother’s mother) receives me in her house and nurtures my weaknesses; my selfishness, my pride, my obstinacy at getting what I want. My grandmother’s incredibly rich.

1952-1957 Educated by private tutor, the Black Virgin Mary, and I teach her to suck my cunt. She corresponds with many famous poets. My mind, my sole repository of freedom, is beginning to be born.

1957 Enter a private girls’ school for ladies and cheerfully submit to that training. It is there that I receive my final education, a retreat not unknown to you: there the most intelligent and insane artists have been educated.

1970 I begin to live solely according to my desires. I hate fighting, all use of weapons and show of courage since I’m only interested in operating sexually. I want to do only what my imaginations dictate.

I realize this is how I must live but as yet I don’t have the moral strength. For psychological (childhood) reasons I cannot work and I’m through fear of starvation dependent on my parents. I dislike my parents who hate me and simultaneously bind me to them; I hate even more their double way of life: the facade they want me to be, their more real void of desire. They are nothing. The family is always pretending they’re starving and they never follow their desires. I want to be totally unlike these creeps. I meet a beautiful woman who does not love me as I love her; she doesn’t understand that my actions must realize the images within my mind: the image of love and destruction of the self. She abandons me, the woman who lets me kiss her beautiful red cunt; and I do what my parents want, out of my weakness, I marry a woman whose family wealth will restore the riches of my parents. I compensate for this weakness of mine by more successfully satisfying myself, now by trying to find out systematically what my real desires are. Are the images in my thoughts and in my dreams indicators of my sexual desires; do I want to replicate just these events (images); do I want to do more; do I want to do nothing? I find out about my real self by systematically, in order of progressions away from “normality,” trying out each sexual act. I hire prostitutes because I feel that the people with whom I experiment should receive some compensation since they might not have the same desires and curiosity I have. Prostitutes have the experience to let me alone.

I am thrown in jail for trying to figure out my desires.

1971 I fall in love with a man (L) who uses me. I realize passions are too strong, and although holy, only finally destroy me. I hate this man derive great pleasure from my hatred.

1972 I hate these women and men who are totally sophisticated which means they care only for money and kick me and tear me apart each time I fall in love with one of them. I will now fall in love only with someone who is inexperienced ready to be taught the desirability of pure passion, as is natural before society overtakes her and makes her into another mercenary. My cunt is bright orange and smells good. I succumb again: I fall in love with a man who makes a fool of me, who

Too many painful memories here. I cannot write in this black prison.

1985 My mother (in-law) makes sure I’m forever imprisoned in jail. She doesn’t want me to disturb the pretty social facade she has created; her maniacal ivory tower. I live in a small stone room in which there is constant light, wet stone below my naked feet, against my upper and lower limbs, above my wild brown hair. Grey hair and skin. I’m not allowed to exercise because I might meet other prisoners and corrupt them. I grow fat all sorts of diseases huge fat white worms crawl squiggling out of my ass. My ass skin is red. No one cares for me or does anything to help me including my so-called wife who knows only how to cry. The more I despise her, the more she loves me and licks my absent feet, makes me despise her and myself more. Don’t say this.

In prison: In prison: I have nothing to do with people anymore. I live entirely in fantasies. Yet I remember all the people who’ve persecuted me: these memories underlie my mental pleasures. Now that I’m no longer able to fuck etc. I can throw away that crutch, that fear: I can fully investigate all forms of sexual desires, what are these forms; catalog them. Find out everything I can possibly think. Everything I can think comes from me, obviously, and is good; every action I can think of I should be free to do.

Am I really a criminal? Of course the people who shut me in this prison are wrong. I denied my mother love because she hated me but she also wanted me to love her so her hatred could destroy me more. I see so clearly I can’t stop my emotions from hurting me. I have to deal directly with my mother: every time she talks to me, my will wilts: I’m unable to tell her anything true, I silently take her abuse, I don’t talk back. I obey her unspoken commands hate myself. When she finishes talking to me, I say in my mind all the horrible words I hate you you hate me I’m never going to talk to you again I should have said to her hate myself for being weak not saying these final words to her. I become terribly scared. I become scared think that she’s going to take my brain away. The moment that she talked to me and I was unable to do anything but what I’ve always done: be her slave is the same moment I become a prostitute, want only to accept the abuse of other people. Sometimes I want to punish myself because I don’t understand all the emotions I feel toward my mother and why I feel them; I try to separate my memories from events I have fantasized or dreamt (impossible). I want to punish myself; I don’t want other people punishing me without my permission. These people are eternally injuring me and nothing can repair those injuries. I’m a person like they are, and I am separate and inviolable.

My mother wanted to make me exactly like her. I look like her: we both have large eyes, same bone structure, thick child’s skin, dark brown hair, purple lips. We’re both fond of our bodies and willful. From the first day I was born and hypocritically smiled, pretending I was happy, I opposed her: I set myself against her so that I should become someone else. She began outwardly to hate me when I began to menstruate. She wanted me to be nothing, like her.

Why do I constantly want to blame myself when I know others are at fault? I don’t understand this vestige of stupidity. I’ve done nothing to be treated like a vicious rat.

1789 On account of my pro-Revolutionary attitude, they move me from my prison at Vincennes where I possess some velvet clothes and light to write by to the loony-bin. I’m concerned with my personal freedom I’m not insane by my standards. I hate it. They allow me to take walks at stipulated times. My wife destroys three-quarters of my manuscripts when they move me into the loony-bin.

I move to New York because I write and want to meet writers. I have no money, no way of getting money, no friends in New York, no parents. I get Pelvic Inflammatory Disease, walk into Columbia Presbyterian clinic: woman vomits blood over floor, wood booths with tiny filthy white curtains for doctors’ rooms in front of wood chairs on wood floor filthy, doctor yells at one man you haven’t taken your medicine now you’re going to die of T.B. man is skeleton sit down not next to anyone we’ll call you man sits down next to me, nurse yells Mr. X your turn man two seats ahead of me wiggles back Mr. X your turn man makes attempt to move falls back in chair nurse comes over to man slaps him on the back Mr. X we can’t wait for you, man gets half-way out of chair doesn’t make it half hour later cop walks over to man “get out of here; no loitering around here” drags man out of clinic, nurse wheels figure wrapped in white mummy cloth blood tube tied to one mummy cloth arm over floor person vacuuming asks if he should move vacuum “no” bump bump over vacuum cords mummy jiggles blood and needle in mummy arm jiggles almost out of arm nurse changes his mind wheels cart back again corpse jumps up and down all this done three times, black guy and woman sitting to my side black woman starts yelling at man high on drug man twists her arm viciously almost breaks it, nurse-guard tells man he’s acting properly. Three hours later I’m now in shock slightly hallucinating doctor gives me four shots of penicillin in ass throws needle into my ass BAM “mmm that one got in O.K.” gives me endless bottles of synthetic opium and nembutal to shut me up. A month later I’m even sicker.

1790: April 2 My children visit me, tell me they have declared the billets de cachets which imprisoned me fourteen years ago invalid. I’m going to stay in Charenton the loony-bin until spring because I fear the democracy. They won’t imprison me next time: they’ll kill me. I fear everyone. This lovely peaceful democracy exists balanced between atrocity and fanaticism— but no more. Is it possible to come to the end of my fear? Black waters of ocean, black legs, black inner rooms. I can almost not see. I’m too fat and no one will fuck me. I love only what occurs in my mind. I’ve remade the outside prison inside me because there’s no difference between outside and inside my mind: they release me from prison and I’m still in prison. My wife wants to do away with me: she no longer likes leather.

I no longer want to marry anyone or live with any of my lovers. I want my family: my one brother who gives me some help, and a room in which I can think and masturbate and write, which is the only activity this evil society has left me capable of doing.

1791-1792 I produce my first plays. I become secretary of the revolutionary “Sections des Piques” I improve public hospitals, publish reports and addresses, try to cut down the number of human executions. The people plunder my home, destroy my family belongings, steal my remaining estates from me. I’m extremely poor.

In one of the acts in my sex show I become a young woman who is talking to a psychiatrist. I tell the psychiatrist how Santa Claus fell out of the chimney told me I should always be a good girl I talk baby talk I should always do what he tells me I slowly start taking off my blouse and rubbing my right hand over my right breast, I have to believe in Santa Claus. Suddenly, as I’m about to kiss my nipple, I stop; I see hundreds of men watching me. I’ve delusions: men follow me, men want to hurt me, men want to have sexual activities with me without my consent and desire to. The psychiatrist laughs at me. The men who are watching me as I writhe around on the bed start talking to me I joke back with them. The psychiatrist tells me I’ve hearing delusions; I cut off my hair; I’m Joan of Arc. I lead soldiers in drag and kill everyone. I become hot: I rip off my clothes, I begin to masturbate men make me ooo soo hot. The psychiatrist fucks me we both come five million times. OOOO O yes yes that’s it no no? o please o yes o please o come on faster . . . faster give it to me now NOW oooo (low) oooooo (higher) oooo oooo oah auahhh oahh. eha. (down again). All my diseases are gone.

1793 I’m made judge, then chairman of my section of the Revolutionary party. I’m not sure what I am. I become somewhat more secure. They throw furniture out of the windows, smash all the wood and marble they can, set the rest on fire. I have the chance to put to the guillotine my mother-in-law who had been the primary cause of my imprisonment; but I don’t. I’m interested in following my ideas into actions, my ideas are my desires, not in revenge. I watch the head being placed on the guillotine, mucus streaming out of the eyes, nose, and ears, until the face covered with dripping gook, the sharp diagonal knife descends. I have a knife in my hand: a living person stands next to me, I run the tip of the knife against the thick white skin. This is complete pain. On December 8, 1973, they arrest me for not believing in God.

I hate men and shave off my hair. I decide this is not the way to live. I write for that is the only thing I know how to do, and I dress in velvets, furs, silks: anything that approximates the thick softness of my skin.

1814 I go through my death:

April 11 Napoleon abdicates

I feel sick, snot wet watery the worst kind runs down the skin below my nose. The edges of my eyelids burn. I want to crawl under the grey sheet the white blanket, go to sleep.

May 3 Louis XVIII struts into Paris, takes over.

I sleep six hours not much sleep for one night I usually like to sleep ten to twelve hours wash my face go to radio show. I want to fuck someone who I can talk to.

May 31 M. Roulhac de Maupas replaces M. de Coulmier as Director of Charenton.

I replace the heads of the universities with jackals; I laugh and go back to sleep. I rub thick creams pale white into the thick skins of my leg. The white of the bathtub. I worship my body, hate whoever I think is trying to kill me. I open the red lips of my cunt and begin to laugh.

October 21 The Minister of the Interior asks the Director-General of the Police to try to move me into a State Prison away from the asylum.

My belly is slightly swollen and my eyes are dim. I’m born rich and cannot escape my birth (the ways I was told to perceive the world even before I was born. Seeing hearing smelling tasting feeling: all taught how to me.) I want people to wait on me: treat me with respect.

I begin to masturbate: I move the muscles in the upper part of my cunt so that the flesh around my clit rubs against the other flesh opposite it. I slowly spread my legs weights at my knees I watch my knees move away from each other until my body is magnetized to and from itself limbs turning against limbs fingers set against the glistening skins the skins of the lips which break let the blood through drip my fingers fall downward to the wet flesh the red burning cunt

December 2 I rub thick creams pale beautiful into my leg sticking upright into the air. I’m endlessly beautiful in my white bed. My dutiful son who’s stolen my money Donatien-Claude-Armand visits me and asks the new student-doctor to stay with me. Very sick. I want to see the Abbe tomorrow; I want to hate myself and destroy everything. My breathing is noisy and labored; I take a few sips of some hot liquid I die from either pulmonary congestion or adyamic and gangrenous fever about 9:50 A.M.

I’m trying to become other people because this is what I find interesting.

I was interested in “fame” as one end: (1) people whose work I want to find out about would talk to me, (2) I would somehow be able to pay for food rent etc. doing something connected, (3) artists I fall in love with would fuck me: these desires are fucking over my work (and me). So I say the desires out loud.

I’m trying to get away from self-expression but not from personal life. I hate creativity. I’m simply exploring other ways of dealing with events than ways my lousy habits—mainly installed by parents and institutions—have forced me to act. At this point, I’m over-sensitive and have a hard time talking to anyone. I can fuck more easily.

The least boring act for me is to find out why I’m alive and why I’m going to die, so I can decide how I can talk to people and how I can fuck.

If I begin respecting the money-rules my mother teaches me my teachers teach me, which I don’t respect, and if I see everyone in the world doing what he she selfishly wants irregardless of these rules, why shouldn’t I also satisfy my desires? Why shouldn’t I murder someone? My parents (mother, adopted father) are rich have disowned me and when they die I now starving will become rich, I could kill them. Or else: if American soldiers every day kill and maim millions of poor people like me and get praised for their actions, why shouldn’t I kill someone so I can have an orgasm? Of course they’re safer: I won’t be jailed and given a lobotomy if I become an American soldier instead of a murderess. Do what people tell you to do: don’t die. How do I know it’s absolutely wrong for me to murder someone? How do I know anything? Do I know anything? When I look at the white clouds passing across the black sky, moon behind these clouds drive me mad free psilocybin for everyone, yay yay, I look down at my outstretched hand; I have a silver knife in my hand; do the sky and the white clouds care? These considerations are totally stupid and naive. I’m stupid and naive. My thick skin is beautiful.

Permit me to conceal my name the names of my parents the place where my mother spread her legs, out I came: I am an aristocrat. I was born to be able to do whatever I want. When I’m barely two years old unable, of course, to fend for myself, my parents cast me out on to the street. Having been physically well-taken-care-of, that is, always enough diet margarine and diet bread always a doctor with tons of penicillin for my ass by my parents and mother’s mother between the ages of 0 and 2, I was totally unprepared for reality. No one wanted to give me a job, any job, much less a job suited for my advanced knowledge state, my five Ph.D.’s in the higher sciences; the shits simply wanted to fuck me. I had no money, no resources, I became sick with a dread sexual disease, mistreated by a doctor of the poor who called me a “whore”: I desperately needed everything I quickly learned that I was no favored son of the rich. Nor was anyone else.

Redo myself

I slobber down the right side fat white mouth goo goo goo goo “yes my dear that’s right” I’m a pudgy ball stick a knife in me and I bleed. I scream and I scream and I scream. I don’t scream; I keep that wrapped up inside of me and I smile. I smile at the evil people who are evil because they’re going to hit me so they don’t hit me. If they know how I really feel, especially about them, they’ll hit me. I begin to cry and the skin on my hands turns red. I remember yellow: bright hellow bright yellow. Yellow explodes into my thick skin. “What do you want dear how are you dear we don’t want anything to do with you dear you’re so cute woo woo woo goo-goo goo-goo goo-goo goo-goo goo-goo.” I want to hide. I’m a famous movie star, I’m six months old and I’m going to hide the shit out of my self. Stretch out one leg. Put my hand on that bump in the leg. Squish out the gushy stuff out of my ass yum roll around o yes I can orgasm o yes. Goo goo goo goo. I’m remaking I’m remaking myself proud.

“Well my dear,” Count Alexander looks at me and adjusts his golden monocle, “what can you do for me?” I know he can give me all his money.

“Oh sir,” I lisp, “I’m just a poor two-year-old and my parents hate me and threw me out on the street please have pity on me I don’t want to become a secretary because I don’t want to eat shit I want to eat cunt I’m too small and the laws no longer protect me because I’m not rich I’m to crazy to be a stupid secretary have pity on me beautiful sir, I’ve worked in a sex show I’ve taken tricks I’ve stripped, men have shoved dollar bills up my cunt with their fingers I don’t want to lose my virginity. I’m a sensitive, a true trembling artist, I always curtsy properly, please help me sir.”

“Why should I help you, creep?” says the Count adjusting his peacock robe.

“What are you talking about sir? I’m pure and innocent and stupid.” I want the Count to step on me, kick me in the sides a few times so I can hear those ribs crack, feel my childish lip split. Open. Then I can take all his money. No recriminations on either side.

I see peacocks walking across the thin shanks of my legs on to the bed on which I sit, sick. I wrap the black furs around my body. I know it’s night outside, and begin to think.

Only interest in the ideas of the Marquis

I no longer understand what I’m doing.

I become the Marquis de Sade.

No evil results if I fuck animals. All laws of all nations should allow us, rather, not stop us from creating our favorite perversions because Nature creates these desires for perversions in us before we create the actual perversions. That is, I feel I’m a freak because I want to fuck women, hamsters, trains, criminals, black leather I can’t speak to people I don’t want any one or group of humans to kill me because I do these things. I want everyone to love me. (No.) Let us examine murder.

Murder’s the worst. I’m going to do whatever I want. I’m going to speak the truth because this is the apocalypse. Is murder objectively evil? (This is a dopey question.) Humans aren’t any more important than any other animal. Obviously: because I fuck my hamster. This isn’t true: only men are capable of destroying forever the human and the living world.

What’s the difference between humans and other life on this sphere? When I die, I change form. If I murder, I change your form? Different nations have different customs about murder, killing children, enforcing public assassinations. I’m trying to destroy all laws, tell you not to follow laws, restrictions. “Murder” is not a general act. If the number of living people exceeds the amount of natural resources necessary for the maintenance of those people, it’s necessary to kill some of the people so all the people can live. It’s not necessary for American soldiers to kill men and women who are poor and live in foreign countries except for a few rich white men who get lots of money when an American soldier needs a new weapon. Necessary according to the rich men. It’s not necessary to kill a person who has just killed another person: “I grant you pardon” I say to my parents who, to divert themselves, have turned me into a paranoid schizo freak sex freak, “and I also pardon myself when I kill you.” Murder, finally, is a horror.

What should I do to please myself? A stranger with a weird sex maniac voice W asks me if I’m The Black Tarantula yes will I send him my books yes will I fuck him? I only fuck once a month then I fuck every one. Fear. I see bodies rolling in white feathers, thin layers of sweat across the skin, the muscles around my clit begin to move. I need four or five close friends, fuckers or not, around me because I’m scared to always follow my desires in this sick society. The only offense against my pleasure is suicide. I often stick razor blades in my wrists to punish myself. “Offense” is a stupid and meaningless word. Many early governments authorized suicide; the American government wants all poor people to die in the fastest ways possible. I’m trying to stick out my tongue at the Church. I can now do what I want and I want to be as courageous as possible. Everyone of the rich people who were guillotined asked voluntarily to be guillotined for sake of a future unionized nation. (Ugh.) Now let us worship our nation, fart over it, get involved in national politics. (Ugh.) I’m gentle: I’m scared of people; if I’m constantly terrorized and starved by laws, I cannot come.

I’ve clearly demonstrated that I no longer need to work. Fire and steel surround my flaming head. Let the thrones of Europe crumble of themselves; your delight will send them flying without your having to meddle at all.

All the above events taken from The Marquis de Sade The Complete Justine Philosophy in the Bedroom and Other Writings by Count Donatien Alphonse Francois de Sade, Portrait of de Sade by W. Lenning, and myself.