Fist of the Spider Woman (3 page)

She will creep back to her bed. But her home can no longer be her home, she knows, for there the air is dry. She must go where the air is moist.

Postulation on the Violent Works of the Marquis de Sade

Elizabeth Bachinsky

“I am said to have a hard heart, a very bad one indeed; but is that fault really mine? or is it not rather from Nature we have our vices as well as our perfections?”

—Marquis de Sade,
120 Days of Sodom

Marquis, right now, a woman in Toronto

is pushing a length of pipe into a man

who is paying her to hate him. It's a strange

appropriation to finance a woman's hatred,

but it's also hard work to put a pipe inside

a man. After he's left her bachelor apartment,

she'll roll her drop sheet back and hose it down

in the tub. She'll peel away her tall plastic

boots and rub her calves. Her shoulders

and her jaw will be sore. She'll take a bath

and, afterwards, she'll make a pot of soup

and eat it while she watches HBO.

What's her transgression, or for that matter,

his? His torture's self-imposed; she'll spend time

in Venice for her holidays, get more time

off than a Safeway clerk will ever have.

It's too easy to call her a victim

and he her oppressor. His pleasure

and her commerce are entwined.

Perhaps it's preferable they marry

so she'll no longer require a paycheque,

but an allowance? This ain't the fifties,

man, though we've still got that atom bomb.

Imagine! That tool exists which, as you say,

“could so assail the sun to snatch it from

the universe and use that star to burn the world.”

My terror is terror's ubiquity.

War: it's not murder, it's industry

and a pretty swell career besides.

Think of those sitting on death row

who await appointments with machines,

their last sensation that of a needle's

prick in the vein or a hand to secure

their restraints. It's no sweet sexual game

for the inmate or for the soldier who

might never know their killer's face but who

can put death on their calendar like a

holiday. There is difference between

what is real and what is fantasy.

Marquis, I see you in your cell;

it's cozy, despite the racket in the streets—

all around you, papers and books spread

open like mouths to mouth your fiction.

Outside, the revolution raves while you

have every comfort a man could desire

but freedom, yet there's more—even freedom

is a curse for you. Bourgeois, your own find

you reprehensible, and yet you are far

from a man of the people. Where does one

live when one fits nowhere but in fiction

and insanity? Even today

that's what we call our in-betweens: insane.

We give them lithium and bus passes and hope

they melt into the crowd. I think that, in my time,

you may have loved as you desired. That one

for whom your whip made passage through

the night? She lives, anticipates her agony

one blow at a time—and how she wears her stripes!

Such is the nature of our theatre, to paint

the coward's face with bravery, the bold pallid

with fear.

Further Postulation on the Violent Works of the Marquis de Sade

Elizabeth Bachinsky

“My passions, concentrated on a single point, resemble the rays of a sun assembled by a magnifying glass: they immediately set fire to whatever object they find in their way.”

— Marquis de Sade,
Juliette

It's true, I loathe what you would have me love

and, in my loathing, goad your glee the more.

Marquis, my heart, the heart you'd have me have

takes pleasure from such crime there is no salve

to soothe it. Would you have me spell the gore?

It's true, I loathe what you would have me love.

Perhaps you'd like to know that, though we've lived

in such different times, there is no end to terror,

Marquis. My heart, the heart you'd have me have

erased, still quickens. Half the planet starves,

while half the planet fattens; we murder whores.

I can't help loathe what you would have me love:

a vision of the world so dark I'd crave

to be beaten so as not to see the stars.

Marquis, my heart, the heart you'd have me have

must never find its voice. We are not slaves

to vice as kindled wood is slave to fire.

Here is truth. I loathe what you would have me love,

Marquis. My heart can't be the heart you'd have me have.

Conspiracy of Fuckers

Nomy Lamm

“I feel it pressing in on me, this web of fear, trying to own my heart, my sex, my identity …” My fingers bang on the typewriter keys, pressing out the urgency of the moment. This is the introduction to the ninth issue of my zine,
Conspiracy of Fuckers.
It's been almost a year since the last issue came out, and I've been promising a new one for at least six months. I fear that this kind of writing could get me arrested in this era of surveillance and dictatorship, but I refuse to be silenced. I refuse to let go of what I see as my reality.

Ring!
The phone cuts into my reverie.

I should be expecting it, but my heart jumps into my throat and my hands flutter in the air around my chest, my space interrupted. I want to assume that this is a government agent, wanting to derail me from the important manifesto I'm writing. I laugh at myself for taking myself so seriously, and then I get mad at myself for laughing. It
is
serious. I don't know if what I write will ever change anything, but I have to do it to survive. It's all connected.

“Hello?”

“Okay, I have one for you, he's a real nice man. His name is Hugh Billings, he's going to call you because he can't let his wife hear the phone ring.” It's the dispatcher for Gentle Tones, the phone-sex company I work for. The most low-tech dinosaur of an operation, they actually have us call the clients instead of connecting us through a computer system. I work for them only because they don't ask for social security numbers, so I don't have to report my wages. I'm not even sure the dispatcher knows my real name; she always calls me Desiree, the alias I use with the callers.

“I'm not really cool with you giving out my home phone number,” I tell the dispatcher.

“Well, I could give the call to another girl, but this guy is a regular and he could be a good one for you. Are you sure you want to miss out on it? You might not get another call tonight.” She's so manipulative.

“Fine, fine.” I hang up and wait for the phone to ring, pounding out the next piece of my manifesto.
“
We dare not hope to change our misfortune, instead clinging to the hope of feeling something, anything more than what we are told is real
…”

The phone rings.

“Hello?” My voice jumps up half an octave with a little bit of that sleepy gravel I use to make myself sound sexy.

“Heya,” I'm greeted by a lilting condescension, hushed, like he's hiding in the basement. “How are you tonight?”

“Mm, I'm good,” I purr.

“I bet you're a bad girl,” he sputters, and I giggle. “Are you a bad girl?”

“Yeah, I'm a bad little girl.”

“Uhhh, I thought so.” I can feel him stroking himself with this thought. “I bet you're so young, you don't even have any hair on your pussy. I bet you're touching that little bald pussy right now.”

“Mm, you're right, I am,” I giggle, secretly rolling my eyes.

“How young?”

“Hmm?”

“How young are you?”

“Eleven?” I won't go younger than that.

“Oooh, you're so bad,” he chides. Slap, slap, slap
,
I hear in the background. “I can just picture you in your room on the bed playing with that little pussy.”

“You wanna watch me play with it?” Despite myself, I reach down and start to touch myself My clit is fat and hard, sticking out like a little cock head. I rub it and suck in my breath, moaning for him.

“I love watching you through the door, just slightly open, just a crack. You're lying on your pink canopy bed, you don't know I'm watching you. Oh, you're just so cute, touching yourself.

Can you feel it? Do you feel my eyes on you?”

“Mmm, yeah.” I feel myself start to space out to avoid the fear that invades my body at the thought of being watched. The shades are down, but I know there are cracks that someone could see through if they wanted to. I look around the room, orienting myself to the familiar things around me. The blue velvet couch.

The pink metal typewriter. My cane, leaning against the radiator. The metal brace I strap around my knee to keep it from popping out of joint. I don't look toward the windows.

“Oh, my little girl.” I can hear him collapsing in on himself, his voice going far away. “I'm watching you. I can see you. Such a dirty little slut. I love watching my baby girl touch herself.”

“Oh, daddy,” the word slips out so easy and simple. “I want your big hard cock. I want you in my pussy.”

He moans. “I knew it. Daddy's little slut. Showing off for daddy, you're such a bad girl. I should punish you for turning me on like this.”

“Oh, daddy, don't hurt me, I didn't mean it.”

“I'm gonna teach you a lesson, you little slut.”

I wish I could type without him hearing me. I feel words bursting out of me. Resistance: “You can try to force it out of me, but you can't touch my power. Me and my girlfriends, my comrades, my people, we are going to bring this shit-hole patriarchy down.

We are going to align ourselves with the animals and trees and the wind, and after your sorry, self-hating shell of an excuse for a person implodes, we will be here, living in the sunlight and dancing in the dirt.”

“Spread those little legs.”

“No, daddy, no.”

“I said, spread those legs.”

“No!”

“Do it!” he growls. “I'm gonna force myself inside that tight little cunt. Oh god, it's so tight. Oh, fuck, so tight and wet and soft. Uh, I love fucking my little girl.”

“Oh, daddy, fuck me, fuck me, daddy.” I gasp half-heartedly, rubbing my clit, which I imagine to be a cock, sliding inside a tight hole.

“You're gonna make your daddy come, baby. You wanna make me come?”

Ding.

This is the sound of the bell I ring to clear the air after a call, to let go of whatever misgivings I have about the interaction, and go on with my real work.

“We are not going to shrivel under the weight of their pressure. We will harden and brighten, become more focused and intentional, until the force of this brilliance is released and able to become one with its source, which is ultimately love.”

I want to cry, but it's stuck inside. Does writing these words actually make me feel less trapped? Does it make me less alone? I have to believe in those people who tell me they get something out of my writing. I have to hope that the fascists won't kill us for seeing what's happening.

I get two more seven-minute calls before my shift ends at two a.m. That makes my income for the night an even twenty dollars. I don't know how to make this profitable for myself when I can barely stand most of my clients. I don't mind the quickies, but the regulars and the guys who want to stay on the phone for hours at a time—the ones who bring in the money—I feel them sucking my spirit. The more they call, the more vulnerable I feel, and I start sabotaging, trying to make them not like me. My last paycheque barely cleared a hundred dollars. I don't know how I will make rent next month.

I climb into bed and cuddle up to my teddy bear, Elfy. I got him when I was six, and in the hospital for the third or fourth time. He has always been my confidant. He knows everything about me, he holds my secrets, he keeps me safe.

CASE #10442289073628MDM84667

NAME: Regina Venquist, a.k.a. “Reggie Vanquish,” a.k.a. “Vagina Vanguard”

AGE: 29

RACE : Caucasian (possible Semitic background)

HEIGHT: 5'7"

WEIGHT: 195 lb

DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS : Walks with a cane, wears a leg brace (knee injury due to childhood accident, never corrected despite numerous attempts at reconstruction). Short hair, masculine appearance.

THREAT LEVEL : Extremist potential. Considers herself to be a part of a “revolution” by and for homosexuals.

ILLEGAL ACTIVITY: Distribution of written materials intended to incite anti-government action. Receipt of undocumented funds. Drug use. Sexual deviancy.

PLAN OF ACTION : To be determined.

GOAL : Neutralization.

Where am I? I wake up confused. My head feels like a long hallway with footsteps echoing. The hospital. No. I'm here, in my room. I feel watched. I lean over and turn on my light, searching the room with my eyes. Nothing is out of place, but something feels … different. I wrap myself in my robe and hobble out into the living room with Elfy tucked under my arm. “Did you see anything?” I ask him, as I plop down in front of my typewriter. He stares at me with a weird look on his face, but says nothing.

“I feel them watching me,” I type. “I can't tell anymore if it's paranoia or reality. There's nobody I can trust to ask. It's true that the government is watching us, tapping our phones, tracking our movements, our purchases, our activities, looking for clues into our weaknesses. It's true that the corporations are not separate from the government, and that any threat to the machine of war, the machine of production, is reason enough to neutralize us.”

Neutralize. That's exactly what they want to do. Make us neutral so that we can't advocate for ourselves, can't fight, can't impact or change anything. My body tingles with connections being made. I feel powerful, but scared.