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| Joyce Maynard, writer |
Headache |
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This time, when I walk into [J.D. Salinger's] house, I know where I'm headed.
Jerry's bedroom is not particularly large. There is nothing much in it but a queen-sized bed, a night table with homeopathic journals on it, a mirror, a dresser . . .
I'm standing at the foot of the bed, in another one of my short little-girl dresses. He pulls it over my head. No bra on my thin body. I have no need for one. Only cotton underpants. He takes those off.
Standing now in his bedroom, letting him take my clothes off me, I observe the scene as if it were one of the movies he screens for me in his living room.
I have never seen a naked man. Now that I do, I want to curl up on his lap. I want him to wrap his arms around me. I want him to hold me. All this he does. Then I am lying flat on the bed, his body looming over me, pushing my legs apart.
When we attempt intercourse, the muscles of my vagina simply clamp shut and will not release. After a few minutes, we have to stop. I am weeping, less from the pain in my genitals than the pain in my head, which feels ready to burst.
I get up from the bed and stagger to the bathroom to pour water on my face. I have never had a headache like this before. (Cornish, NH, 1972)
from At Home in the World: A Memoir by Joyce Maynard (Picador, 1998)
© 2000 Nerve.com, Inc.
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