The New Womans Broken Heart
Andrea Dworkin
THE NEW WOMANS BROKEN HEART
By A ndrea Dworkin
WOMAN HATING
OUR BLOOD: PROPHECIES AND DISCOURSES
ON SEXUAL POLITICS
THE NEW WOMANS BROKEN HEART
Short Stories
Andrea Dworkin
Frog In The Well
430 Oakdale Road
East Palo Alto, California 94303
1980
THE NEW WOMANS BROKEN HEART
Copyright © 1980 by Andrea Dworkin
Copyright © 1975, 1977, 1978, 1979 by Andrea Dworkin
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this
book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written
permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address Elaine Markson Literary Agency, 44 Greenwich Avenue, New York, New York 10011.
“the simple story of a lesbian girlhood” was first published in
Christopher Street, Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1977, in an earlier version
under the title “The Simple Story of a Lesbian Childhood. ”
Copyright ©
1977 by Andrea Dworkin.
“bertha schneiders existential edge” was first published in Bitches and
Sad Ladies,
edited by Pat Rotter, Harper’s Magazine Press, 1975.
Copyright © 1975 by Andrea Dworkin.
“the new womans broken heart” was first published in Heresies, Vol. 2
No. 3, Spring 1979. Copyright © 1978, 1979 by Andrea Dworkin.
This is a work of fiction and any resemblance between the characters in this
book and real persons living or dead is coincidental.
FIRST EDITION
ISBN: 0-9603628-0-0
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 79-055919
Printed at Up Press, 1944 University Ave.,
East Palo Alto, CA 94303. (415) 328-3944
Typeset by GJGraphics, 2336 Palo Verde St.,
East Palo Alto, CA 94303. (415) 322-7188
No, Claudine, I do not shudder. All that is life, time
flowing on, the hoped-for miracle that may lie round the
next bend of the road. It is because of my faith in that
miracle that I am escaping.
Colette, Claudine and Annie
Acknowledgments
I thank especially Elaine Markson, Jeannette Koszuth, Sheryl Dare,
Susan Hester, John Stoltenberg, Eleanor Johnson, and Judah Kata-
loni for their unwavering support and faith.
I also thank the many friends whose lives, opinions, values, and accomplishments encouraged and inspired me during the years in which these stories were written.
I
also thank the many individuals who helped me to survive with
loans and gifts of money over the same period.
Andrea Dworkin
Contents
1
the simple story of a lesbian girlhood
1
2
bertha schneiders existential edge
6
3
how seasons pass
11
4
some awful facts, recounted by bertha schneider
15
5
the new womans broken heart
6
the wild cherries of lust
7
bertha schneiders unrelenting sadness
8
the slit
the simple story of a lesbian girlhood
it began quite possibly with Nancy Drew.
there she was.
her father Carson was a lawyer and her boyfriend Ned always wore
a suit.
she solved mysteries.
in particular I remember The Secret in the Old A ttic. there she
was, her hands tied behind her back, her feet tied together, thrown
on the floor of a deserted attic in the middle of the night, that was
because she had singlehandedly and against all odds discovered the
murderous villain who had committed unspeakable crimes. I cant
remember what they were but Nancy never underestimated or
overestimated. he wanted to kill her so (it seemed absolutely logical
then) he locked her in a pitch black attic with a black widow spider.
there she was, on the floor, struggling and twisting, at any moment,
any wrong move, she would be bitten by the black widow spider and
die a slow, lingering, agonizing death. she wasnt even afraid.
me, I was terrified. I had learned to be terrified in the 2nd grade,
Mrs. (as we said then) Jones class, when we did a science project—
the boys did theirs on spiders, we did ours on seashells. every time
the boys discovered a new poisonous or even a very ugly non-
poisonous spider they made creepy sounds. for about 8 years I
always felt at the foot of my bed for spiders and wore socks. naturally
I was relieved when, on the last page, Carson and Ned flung open the
door to the attic, turned on the light, and stomped on the black
widow spider which was just inches from her brave, abused body, she
never even screamed or cried.
there were also, of course, Cherry Ames Student Nurse and Ginny
Gordon Detective and Flossie of the Bobbsey Twins and Nan who
was I think another Bobbsey Twin (there were 2 sets), they always
had adventures and went out at night and had boyfriends and were
rescued just in the nick of time, they werent much as heroes go but
they were all I had.
sometime about the 6th grade I got into the heavy stuff. Scarlett
O’Hara and Marjorie Momingstar. I read Gone with the Wind at
least 22 times. I had total visual recall of every page. I could open it
up at will to any episode and begin crying immediately. I would sit in
my room, door locked, and cry—tears streaming down my cheeks,
body racked in agony, but quietly so my mother wouldnt hear and
take the book away, when Rhett carried her up those stairs. “My
dear, I don’t give a dam n, ” he said when finally, at last, she begged,
when Ashley died, when Tara was burned to the ground, how
Scarlett suffered and how I suffered, we were the same really, both
women of greatness. I saw my grand white house in rubble, myself in
ashes and sackcloth, destitute, humiliated, my slaves loved me (here
I quivered, knowing even then I was a jerk) and were forced to leave.
Rhett. Rhett. I was her, and I was him, and I was her being cruel to
him, and him being cruel to her, and all of us, suffering, heroic,
driven, by History no less. Melanie, or Melody, or whatever her name
was, pale, dull, and well behaved under every circumstance, appalled me. I skipped all the parts she was in.
Marjorie, the thrill of eating bacon for the 1st time, of course I had
eaten bacon all my life. I just hadnt ever before known how
dangerous it really was. Noel Airman. An Actor, soon he would be
balding, thats how old and evil he was. danger, sex. I could feel his
creepy decadence. I looked for it everywhere. I couldnt find it in the
grammar school I went to. he would corrupt her. he would corrupt
me. somewh
ere in the world there was a Noel Airman waiting to do
some dirty thing to me—IT they called it—that would degrade me. I
would never be able to be with decent people again. I might even go
to Hell. I would be an artist. I would be able to feel. I would know
everything. I ignored the 2nd part of the book where she married
that jerk, none of that for me. keeping kosher indeed.
also that same year. A. F. fell in love with me. he gave me a wooden
snake. I was supposed to scream in horror so I did even though I
quite liked it and later named it Herman, he wouldnt let me play
with the other boys, he grabbed my arms and pulled me out of all the
games, also Joel Christian and Agnes, he was at least 19. they necked
all the time, everywhere, during recess, they expelled him but she got
pregnant anyway.
the next year I went to camp.
with my best friend S.
we were one year too young to be counselors-in-training. it was humiliating. we were above going on hikes and making beaded purses.
Barry Greenberg was a counselor-in-training. he was tall and thin
and had a crew cut that stood up. he wore a bright red shirt that said
SAM’S MEAT MARKET, he worked there after school in the
winter.
we tried to follow him everywhere.
finally we even went bowling to see him. he always hit the pins but
we didnt dare, we always missed and giggled, we wore tight sweaters,
he was pretty bored and above it all.
then we went back to school, desperate for Barry Greenberg, in
love, suffering. Rhett. Noel. Barry Greenberg.
a few months later I slept at her house or she slept at mine, we put
on our pajamas and giggled for hours, we talked about Barry
Greenberg.
then I said, 111 be Barry Greenberg and I climbed on top of her and
I was Barry Greenberg, then she said, 111 be Barry Greenberg and
she climbed on top of me and she was Barry Greenberg, then I was
Barry Greenberg, then she was Barry Greenberg, then I was Barry
Greenberg, then she was Barry Greenberg. I might have been twice
in a row when she got tired, then the light broke and we lay together
drenched in sweat and love of Barry Greenberg, then we went to
school and danced together during recess to “Chantilly Lace” and
invented a new step where I swung her over me and she swung me
over her and we both turned around,
then we met Mary and everything changed.
Mary wasnt like us. we were both brilliant. Mary wasnt. we were
both in fact, according to ourselves, prodigies. Mary wasnt. we were
both Jewish. Mary wasnt. we were both too smart to be popular.
Mary wasnt.
we loved Mary immediately.
Mary was a conservative, that meant that she wore only beige and
blue and certain shades of green and peter pan collars and a circle
pin on the correct side (one side meant virgin, the other meant
whore, typically I never could remember which was which). S. and I
both wore sweaters and dark red neither of which was conservative,
we each wanted Mary to be our best friend,
so S. told Mary lies about me and Mary stopped speaking to me. I
suffered. Rhett. Noel. Mary, then I told Mary lies about S. and Mary
stopped speaking to her.
there was a confrontation. I won. I won Mary, it was strictly
platonic and ethereal. S. had a nervous breakdown and her mother
sent her to school in another city, when she was 15 she had an affair
with a painter, he fucked her and she became a woman, then she
became a Bunny in a Playboy Club, then she disappeared. Once S.
left, Mary seemed kind of dull.
then my best friend was Rona. she was afraid of me because by
then I was angry as well as smart. I wore only black by then, she had
read in Dear Abby that if you had a close friend and she didnt pluck
her eyebrows and they were hairy you should take her aside and tell
her to pluck her eyebrows. Rona and I had never spoken but since
she wanted me to be her friend she took me aside anyway and told
me to pluck my eyebrows. I did. then she was my best friend.
because I wore black and we both emulated Holden Caulfield as
much as possible we went to Ronas house every Wednesday night to
drink her parents booze, they went bowling. Rona had a boyfriend
who had a boyfriend, her boyfriend was tall, handsome, blond,
broad shouldered, and had been in the Navy, she wasnt allowed to
see him because her parents thought he was a creep and too mature
for her. her boyfriends boyfriend was (as we said then) a fag. he said
mean malicious things about everyone we knew and we thought he
was very clever. Ronas boyfriend of course was not a fag since he was
Ronas boyfriend, had been in the Navy, and was tall, handsome,
blond, and broad shouldered, he had even, Rona whispered, made
some girl pregnant and fucked a real whore.
the 4 of us would drink whatever we thought Ronas parents
wouldnt miss (we drank mostly from heavily tinted bottles) and
make lewd remarks to the best of our combined abilities and talk
about the disgusting fact that Rona and I were virgins, it disgusted
all of us but not equally, it particularly disgusted Ronas boyfriend
and her boyfriends boyfriend. they after all did everything, whatever
that was.
the next morning I would go to school wasted, superior, and
dangerous, and shout in the hall: damn this damn school, an outlaw
I was.
then we met Johnny, he was a real outlaw, he had 7 brothers and
sisters and was Catholic and went to a Catholic school, he made his
tuition turning tricks in bars in Philadelphia, and he smoked grass,
and he used morphine, he was our hero.
he came to visit us in school, beer spilled out of his pockets and we
hid him in the girls room and he drank his beer while we smoked the
grass he had brought for us.
once he was in a car crash and went through the windshield and
they took him to the hospital and shot him up with morphine and he
loved it so much that he did it again.
he said that he turned tricks in the bars in Philadelphia to make
his tuition so that he could go to Catholic school even though his
family was poor, he said that in a Catholic school they couldnt touch
his mind or fuck him up. he was our image of purity.
the night we graduated from high school Rona gave a party and
one of our teachers fucked one of our friends and she had a nervous
breakdown when he never called her again, until 2 years later when
he called her. then it got worse because he made her suck his cock all
the time and then would tell her that if she ever did it to anyone else
she would be a disgusting slut,
he didnt call Rona until she got married.
he and I had an even stormier story, before graduation he threatened to turn me in to the FBI for smoking grass and to take me to a hospital to watch junkies scream and vomit and he made a list for
me, he explained everything that would happen throughout life—
THERES ORAL INTERCOURSE THATS WHEN THE
WOMAN SUCKS THE COCK OF THE MAN AND
THERES ANAL INTERCOURSE THATS WHEN THE
<
br /> MAN FUCKS THE WOMAN IN THE ASS AND THEN
THERES REGULAR INTERCOURSE THATS WHEN
THE MAN FUCKS THE WOMAN IN THE VAGINA—
thats what sex is, he said, thats what happens, he drew pictures to illustrate his points,
he taught me everything I know.
I never believed a word he said.
he was, according to our unspoken mutual understanding, going
to be my first lover but he turned into such a jerk, traitor, and
villainous turncoat that I had to look elsewhere.
S. of course hadnt been.
now the thing about this story is that, like life, it just goes on and
on, or, like life as we know it, it did for about 8 years which was 250
or so men, women, and variations thereof later, then I thought it
time to reassess and perhaps invent,
at some point S. was.
at some point, in Amsterdam, or on Crete, in London, or maybe on
a boat somewhere S. was.
at some point whenever I lay on some floor or bed or the backseat
of some car drenched in sweat, watching the light break, it wasnt
Barry Greenberg, or Rhett, or Noel, or some rotten high school
teacher, it was S. pure and simple, who had a nervous breakdown,
got fucked by a painter, became a woman, then a Bunny, then disappeared. vanished into thin air, which is here, there, and everywhere.
bertha schneiders existential edge
first I gave up men.
it wasnt easy but it sure as hell was obvious, you may want to
know, woman to woman, what it was that made me decide, well, it
wasnt the times I was raped by strangers. I mean christ you do the
whole trip then, nightmares, cold sweats, fear and trembling and a
not inconsiderable amount of loathing as well—but one thing you
cant do is take it personally. I mean I always figured that, statistically at least, it had nothing to do with me, bertha schneider.
now the two I knew a little bit, that was different. I mean, I felt
there was something personal in it. the man from Rand, that well-
mannered smart ass, and some starving painter who limped for
christ sake. I mean, I figure I must have asked for it. I mean, Im
always reading that I must have asked for it, and in the movies