Seeking The Woman



By Cate




Dear X,

Please forgive me.

You might remember how I told you about a woman with certain 
characteristics, usually coldness, self-centredness, a certain type 
of voice - secretary, supermarket check-out girl, doctor, or whatever,
this woman of my dreams, is real in that she  has made regular 
appearances all through my life in various guises.
I sometimes even see her in the street.   She is my ultimate 
"mistress", probably an amalgam of my mother, my sister, my 
cousin, various teachers, particularly nuns  and dragonesses I have 
come across throughout my life.   She will probably be there to close
my eyes when I die. I sought  her in you, I know.   I have been reading 
back through hundreds of thousands of words I had written you, 
passionate, submissive stuff.   But I sought love too, that was my 
mistake, and this woman doesn't DO love � it is something which she
will never give, is incapable of giving, because that is the source of her
power, and my need for that love is so great that I sought it in you.   I 
was not asking you to be her.   Lots of people have tried to be her and
have failed always.   Probably reading this you might think I got it out 
of some abstruse book about mythology or something, but it is only my
own personal view.   I know Hindu mythology has a terrifying goddess 
called Kali, "old, black and hideous" who maybe fulfils some function 
like that, but I know nothing much of this stuff.    Kali in a nun's
habit, or cut-off shorts, like you sometimes wear, or a Dior dress?.  
Hmm.   I think she does exist.    So what I am looking for is Kali  "lite" 
someone I can be intimate with, but with a hint of bossiness that some 
sick part of my psyche needs - no,  withdraw "sick" it has to be totally 
natural, maybe her  "representative on earth" as we used to say about 
someone or other -  the Pope?  How did he get into this?   Anyway,
enough for the moment.  

When I was having children, I was bored, pampered, reasonably well off.  
I was spoiled enough to fly to London to shop or have my hair done
every couple of months, usually staying over one or two nights.   
This is all true, by the way, as is all the background to this.   Let's 
just say I met someone.   Asking directions, had coffee, then dinner,
nothing else, but was given a phone number.   I was going again 
before Christmas, late November.   Met up again, went to a hotel.  I 
fell in love with him, or thought I did, but he didn't with me.     Then, 
over the next five or six years, this was the pattern.   I rang a number 
and was put through to a secretary.   She would ask me questions � 
she knew who I was- some of them quite embarrassing, hygiene 
things.   I always got the impression she thought I was lying.   She
would do things like leave long gaps after I said something before 
continuing with her next question.   And, of course, her appallingly 
snobby accent.   GBS said that all it takes for one Englishman to 
despise another is for one of them to open his mouth.   When you 
are Irish you have no chance at all.   Anyway, I would suggest a
particular day that would suit me, or a choice of several days, as 
I later learned I had to.   She never mentioned his name, but would 
let me know he was going somewhere with his wife on one of the 
days I had mentioned, something he had to go to at his daughters' 
boarding school on another, or be out of the country or whatever.   
 She was very, very cold,  even by London standards.   But I always
had the feeling that one wrong word, that if I gave her the slightest 
offence, I would be cut off  without redress and would never see 
him again.   In fact, looking  back, I knew that the most intense
 part of the experience was not  the time spent with him, but the 
telephone conversations with his secretary.   Somehow,
 imperceptibly, she had forced herself into  the foreground 
and taken her "rightful place" as mistress of  ceremonies 
and  I became a puppet dangling helplessly from her 
claws.   I would always end up, shaking and utterly humiliated, but 
clutching a piece of paper with a date written on it.  

He always picked me up outside the National Maritime Museum in 
Greenwich.   It was apparently convenient for him, but it was damned
 inconvenient for me.  We would go into the city and park, then visit 
Harvey Nicks, Harrods, Laura Ashley, Dior, and all the other places 
the painted ladies spent their afternoons.   I had money of my own, 
but he bought me lots of things, a winter coat, a dress, plain but 
expensive underwear, nothing I mightn't have bought myself,  except 
some jewellery, which I never took home, but which his secretary 
kept for me  and which he dressed me in when we met, or were going 
out for dinner � that is, if the secretary  had bothered to remember to 
 take it out of the bank.    He was really giving me gifts of money,
 because I would usually bring home the five hundred pounds or so 
I would have spent on a hotel or shopping.    And naturally I kept it.  
 At first I demurred, but later I became more confident, even greedy 
and sometimes even asked for things, and tried to gauge my value
 in money terms, which later, I found,  depreciated very rapidly.   
His wife was English, although he wasn't, and he was very proud 
of her, but she plainly didn't like sex, or at least the sort he liked.  
 He didn't like the Irish, and told me so, and was constantly critical
of my appearance and reduced me to tears on occasions.  Although
 he was rich he was only some sort of Mittel European scum himself, 
but I couldn't see it at the time.    I guessed he was in the arms trade,
 or something I despised, but this still didn't stop me.  Almost 
everything he said was abhorrent to me, all his opinions etc.   And I 
wasn't normally one to keep my mouth shut when I disagreed with 
someone.   I have always talked too much and he laughed at this, 
liked it, as he said very little himself.       Sometimes we went to 
clubs where they had strippers and prostitutes.   When not working 
they hung around the lobby is faded jeans and shirts.   They were 
all at least six feet tall and much better-looking than I was. 

 He never kissed me and I was only allowed to kiss him on the side 
of his face.  When we went to the hotel room I would undress while he 
showered.   He never let me shower.   He would then sit in an armchair 
and watch me.   I was in pretty good shape, but my belly was a bit 
plump, but attractive to those who like that sort of thing.
I would know everything was okay if he had a sort of half erection and 
then get on my knees and start to suck him off.   I wasn't under any 
illusion that I was "the other woman" or anything.   He probably had 
six more like me.   Sometimes he'd smoke one of his filthy little 
cheroots and talk about his wife, how she would go riding in the
 mornings on the Sussex Downs, her Charity work for Oxfam, blah, 
blah.   She probably never let him near her, if she had any sense, 
anyway.   He was actually an intolerable little snob at the back of it 
all, absolutely despicable, but what did that make me?

I remember being on my hands and knees on the bed, thinking of his 
wife, her blond hair spread on the pillow, probably dreaming about her 
horse!   I was a little older than him and he'd started calling me 
"old girl!" which I hated.   I knew bloody well his wife never had to 
kneel like this, feeling his erection probing her back passage, 
although I never let him enter me there.   It was the one thing in 
which I got my way..   He told me on more than one occasion that 
he was "riding a hack to spare a hunter" which I didn't fully 
understand until I looked it up. He never made love face to face, 
always like this, never kissed me, just nipped the back of my neck ,
or held the loose skin between his teeth, as he forced himself into 
me.   Needless to say, I never had an orgasm with him, although I 
was excited in a shameful sort of way, nor did it even occur to him
 I might have wanted to.      Needless to say, he didn't use a 
condom and one of my fantasies (the most shameful, perhaps) is
 that all my children were his as well, but that he never bothered 
to see them or ask about them.   That is the only bit I will definitely 
swear is not true, the rest of it you can guess at, or even ask, but 
I would like you to say what you think of it as a fantasy, and why 
should I have one like this?

I would usually wake up to find him on top of me again during the 
night, face down as usual, or he might even do it without waking me.
He didn't care whether I was conscious or not.   I forgot to mention 
I would masturbate in the morning when I woke up.   He would be 
gone and the floor would be littered with my discarded clothes and 
all the bags and boxes from the shops, and he would usually have
dropped a couple of �50 notes on the beside table for me.   
Whatever part of the fantasy I masturbate to, I imagine myself in 
that bed, crying with shame, masturbating, kissing the money he 
left me.    But I would think of the secretary too, her cold, intolerable 
voice.

Well, now that I've written it down it is painfully and blindingly 
obvious that this fantasy comes into the "I am a whore" category, 
of which I am sure there must be one.   Worse, it is an "I am a 
rotten, amateur whore" fantasy.    

And know what?   It is the women in this story who are the real villains.  
 Not just me, no matter how despicable I was.   But his blonde wife with 
her horses down in the South of England, the things she wouldn't let him 
do, so he did them to me.   And his snotty secretary, who pandered to 
him, who "procured" me for him, in full realisation of what she was doing, 
and who cut me off when it suited her.    Do you know that, in the end, all 
my erotic fantasies were directed towards her?   I telephoned her a couple
 of times and she was so cold and contemptuous it drove me wild.   
Because, don't you see, she knew all about me, what a miserable, 
snivelling little pissy-pants I was? I begged her to meet me, even talk to 
me, but she refused, very coldly.  I've been looking for her ever since.

I sought her in you - forgive me.   In the beginning you gave me love, 
but it wasn't enough, and I know I failed you, that the one time when it 
really mattered, I was incapable of bending to your will.   If I find this
woman, will it be the same with her?

I think I have found her.   You will be surprised, very surprised when I 
tell you about her.      She is cold, unloving, but she accepts me with all 
my faults, insofar as I can be useful to her, so she tolerates my 
submissiveness.      You will know what I mean when I say I have 
come full circle.-


All my love,  

Cate

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