Any Woman's Blues by Erica Jong Page A

have dulled to mud. My titian curls are nondescript wisps on my once rosy cheeks. I open my bathrobe and check my body. Even my breasts are defeated and seem to sag. The big pink nipples loved and praised by all men, from Snack to Dart, appear to have shrunk in defeat. And my caesarean scar, now faded to a pale zipper of flesh above my reddish bush, is angry and inflamed again. I turn around to see red welts on my buttocks. My heart lurches in my chest. How did I get these? I have no recollection.
    A burning smell reaches my nostrils. I run to the kitchen and find the oatmeal pot smoking and burning on the stove. An acrid odor of burnt cereal fills my nose. I turn off the stove and clatter the oatmeal pot into the sink. It hisses evilly. I run cold water into the pot and a cloud of oatmeal smoke assaults my nose. Who wanted oatmeal anyway?
    The phone rings.
    “Hey, what’s up?” It’s Emmie (who, for the moment, is as close as I can come to the voice of my sane mind).
    “I burned the fucking oatmeal,” I say.
    “What happened with Dart last night?”
    “He left. First he got me all relaxed and gooey and warm and open to him, and then he left—the bastard. I’d like to cut his cock off and stuff it in his mouth. I’d like to kill him—kill all of them. They’re Martians. They can’t just fuck us. They have to open us up, make us love them, fuck us, and then they leave. I’m ready to join the Lesbian Commune. C’mon, Emmie—want to be my girl?” (The Lesbian Commune is an old joke with us. It’s where we’re heading when we finally give up on men. Soon, in short.)
    “Wait a minute. Back up. Tell me what really happened.”
    And I try, I patiently try to explain all that happened with me and Dart between his arrival and his departure. I tell her everything, leaving out only the red welts on the buttocks and the parade of empty bottles. Leaving out everything, in short.
    “So how did you feel when you got up this morning?” she asks.
    “Why?”
    “Just tell me.”
    “I woke up in a panic, after having these terrible dreams. The first thing I felt was despair—my whole life seemed mad, crazed, out of control. I felt suicidal. Then I began to pull myself together, and I had visions of myself floating through the cosmos in my bed. . . .” I start to cry. “Emmie, I can’t live like this anymore. I can’t stand it. Everything is pain, pain, pain. ”
    “Why, do you suppose?”
    “Because life is pain, pain, pain.”
    “And wonderful. A gift. A blessing.”
    “Don’t feed me that simple Pollyanna shit—”
    “It’s simple, but it isn’t shit. You can choose how you see your life. Whether you live in Eeyore’s gloomy place or in sunshine. Whose choice is it if not yours? What other reason for this passage than joy?”
    “Crap.”
    “Do you know why people love your work? Because of the joy, the life force that comes through—”
    “What work? I can’t work, I don’t work. All I do is sit here and think about Dart. And drink.”
    “Leila, do you want to stop? Is that what this is about? Do you really want to stop and get your life back?”
    “Yes.”
    “Think about it. There’s no law that says you have to get your life back. You can go on the way you’re going. You can kill yourself if you want to. I’d miss you—but you have that right. You can leave your twins the legacy of another suicidal woman artist, or you can do something different.”
    “How?”
    “Will you let me show you how? Will you trust me?”
    “What choice do I have? I can’t stay here. ”
    “Then wait for me. I’m driving right up.”
     
     
    Waiting for Emmie, I drink a whole bottle of Pinot Grigio. At first it relaxes me and makes me feel calm and spacey while I listen to Bessie Smith, but then, when the blurry feeling gives way to a pounding headache, I begin to think of ways to do myself in. I could open my veins in the bathtub—all that red blood marbleizing the clear water. I could do a film-still