Forbidden Flowers (3 page)

In memory, there is security. One of the first signs that infants are maturing is the ability to allow mother out of their sight without tears of fear or rage. The baby has begun to believe in the reality of memory – to recognize there is a correspondence between her inner world and the reality “out there.” Remembered figures do not vanish into a void, but come back.

In time, the baby is freed by this inner certainty and reliance upon memory; she comes to enjoy her periods of solitude. Secure in a base of remembered happiness, the little child can turn her attention forward to learning new things: how to crawl around her crib, perform experiments with her toys and/or body, the pleasures of watching patterns of light cross the ceiling.

So it is in our sexual years. Whenever periods of sexual boredom, anxiety, or frustration come along, we tend to return to childhood scenes of remembered erotic happiness. These 15

will be images or events that happen to the baby that are of an erotic nature. Something is imagined or felt by the little girl, something comes into view that stimulates her. The child does not yet know, nor does she need to know, that these are specifically sexual feelings. She only knows that they make her
feel
good
… excited, stimulated, flushed with life. Nobody has yet told her she is not to touch herself “down there” … that she is not supposed to look at this or think that or do any of the other 999 things that “nice little girls” do not do. She goes over the stimulating incident again and again in memory, almost as a form of sympathetic magic to make the experience recur; it is the same form of primitive logic that made the cavemen draw pictures of deer when they wanted to meet them on the hunt.

This is truly our Age of Innocence. The knowledge of good and evil (conventionally viewed) had not yet been forced upon us. Is it any wonder that we withdraw to these happy memories, these simple joys, during our grown-up times of stress, frustration, or boredom? We were safe and felt alive then; memory allows us again to draw upon these emotions in fantasy.

Unfortunately, it is a period of childhood that does not last long. Very soon the little girl begins to notice that when she says this or does that her parents frown or quickly change the subject. The long series of don’ts are laid on her; the very lack of explanation behind these illogical commands make them more frightening and ominous. She becomes aware that various aspects of her thought or behavior are not to be mentioned.

She learns concealment and evasion – but in her mind, at least,
she does not stop having these ideas that make her feel good
.

They are too exciting to give up. Guilt and silence turn her memories into fantasies. Again and again, I receive the wildest, most ravenously erotic fantasies from women who begin by writing, “I was very strictly brought up by puritanical parents

… .”

But while guilt is a heavy load to carry, it is not without in-nate benefits too; it adds a terrific charge of daring and defiance to sex, of forbidden thrills and excitement to heretofore innocent memories. In the last fantasy that closes this chapter, 16

Joyce writes, “I think 'that what makes all my sexual activity so enjoyable to me is that my parents were so strict with me when I was growing up.” Behind the silence with which she faces the world, the child begins to play over and over again with her taboo ideas, elaborating, adding elements that heighten their erotic charge, changing details with infinite care to ever – increase the orgasmic effect. In our outlawed memories, our first fantasies begin.

Like Joyce, Dorothy too begins her letter by discussing her

“strict upbringing.” She can remember lying in bed as a child and thinking about her fantasies. “I was never able to banish these deliciously nasty thoughts from my mind,” she writes.

What heightened her pleasure in these erotic scenarios was to imagine them while she could hear her mother moving around in another part of the house. Right under her mother's nose, so to speak, she could play with these forbidden thoughts. In the secrecy of her mind, she could be sexually defiant.

Carla's letter is not so much the work of an imagination like Dorothy's as it is a collection of resummoned actualities. This loving evocation of the past can be defined as sexual fantasy too: it is the substitution of a remembered scene for present reality. “I like to go over my memories when I have nothing else to do,” writes Carla. “It gives me a warm feeling to remember all the people in my life, because I liked so many of them.”

I have found that this kind of fantasy, which sticks very close to actual events of the past, is almost always the mark of someone with low levels of sexual anxiety and/or guilt. When memories carry too heavy a charge of psychic pain, the fantasizer usually drops or disguises them, putting an emotional distance between herself and the ideas that excite her. She makes up imaginary events, uses imaginary people to express her eroticism; she can almost be said to see herself in the third person in heal fantasy scenes – all this incredible sex is not happening
me
it is happening to
her.

I hasten to add here that this does not mean that imaginary fantasies are the work of puritanical or guilt ridden minds. I would say instead that they are the work of creative minds that 17

need strategies other than memory over a distance of time to overcome inhibitions. Dorothy's fantasies may be more the works of imagination than Carla's, but nobody reading Dorothy's six scenarios could feel they were invented by an inhibited woman.

What is most interesting about Carla's letter to me is that while her memories of past (and present) sexual experiences would shock or horrify most, people, Carla herself speaks of them all very fondly, with total acceptance of every man, every sexual encounter – with less guilt about breaking even the incest barrier than most women would feel about kissing a stranger at a party. She speaks of her memories with no bra-vado, no shouts of defiance that might make us feel she was protesting too much. “This is how I am,” her letter seems to say, “this is what I do, neither more nor less.” It is her life of which she always speaks, and it does not occur to her for one second that she does not have every right in the world to do with it what she will.

Dorothy

I have just finished reading your book,
My Secret Garden
, and I can truly state that it has changed my life for the better. It took my husband and I four evenings to read it, and those four nights produced the most fantastic sex of our entire married life. I had no idea that knowing about other women's sexual fantasies would turn him on so, and now I think I have the courage to describe some of my own to him, which I've never done before. You see, I had a very strict upbringing. Actually, I suppose it was no more strict than most women's, certainly no worse than that of the other girls I grew up with. But looking back now, I can see it's a miracle that I grew up with any feelings of sexuality whatsoever, given the fact that the atmosphere around our home was that sex just wasn't nice.

Let me say that I'm twenty-six, have been married for a year to a wonderful man I lived with for a year before we married, have no children, and I have a good job as an executive secre-18

tary. My husband and I are middle class, both with college educations.

I know now that I have always engaged in sexual fantasy, but up until this point, I felt very guilty and ashamed of my fantasies, and even tried very hard to keep from having them. I can remember how guilty I felt as a little girl when I went to church with my parents, and knew what a terrible little sinner I was for having had those wicked thoughts during the week. I used to pray for salvation (although no one in my family was terribly religious … it's just that I was terribly sexual, I suppose). However, I was never able to banish these deliciously nasty thoughts from my mind; lying in bed as a child and thinking about them, even as I heard my mother moving about the house, made them all the more thrilling. Many of my fantasies stem from these early childhood daydreams, and have never lost their impact. Now, your delightful book has finally enabled me to relax with a guilt-free conscience and enjoy them. As I have jotted down the basic themes before starting this letter, I see that I have at least six basic fantasies – each one involves a different position, and I adapt the appropriate fantasy to coincide with the particular position I'm actually in bed. Below are a couple of my favorites: 1. (I use this one while being manipulated by hand before intercourse.) It's in the 1800s, and I am a beautiful, homeless, penniless young maiden on a voyage by ship to America. The ship's captain (handsome, rugged, much older) has agreed to take me, even though I have no money for my passage. After we are underway, though, I soon realize that there
will
be a payment demanded of me, and I am helpless to resist. (Do I want to be thrown overboard in the middle of the Atlantic?) I am the only woman aboard a ship of rugged, lusty, men, and they all stare at me with desire and longing for my exquisite body. The captain, however, saves me for himself. Since he knows I am a virgin and doesn't want to actually deflower me (I justify this dubious morality of his by making the setting in a very non permissive time in history), my requirement is to always be by his side, where he can lift my long skirt with on hand and enter me slowly and passionately with his fingers 19

while he is otherwise engaged in commanding his ship. I, of course, am embarrassed and mortified and I wriggle around as if to get away from his hand but he only continues with more force and stronger manipulation of my clitoris, until finally I am so excited and turned on (against my will) that I scream out, “Oh fuck me, FUCK ME!” and the whole crew of the ship gathers around to look and comment in amazement at this de-mure little maiden panting and screaming, with their captain's hand up her dress. At this point, I've usually had an excellent orgasm, and do
indeed
speak those words, to which my hubby happily accommodates, as that is what he has been waiting for.

He has no idea what has been going on in my head to bring me to such a frenzy – he only knows his fingers drive me
wild!

2. (This is for the male-superior position.) I am a schoolteacher in a rural school, and several young, lusty farm boys have cornered me in the one-room schoolhouse after school.

Their purpose is a bet: one of the boys (a huge, fair-haired brute with an enormous cock) has bet the others that he can fuck me until I beg for more. They throw me down across my own desk on my back, pull up my dress, pull off my panties, and while the other boys are holding my arms and legs, this big stud goes to work, ramming it in, accompanied by the taunts and encouragements of his friends. (Such as “Shove it in!”

“Give it to her!” “Make her scream!”) All the time he's saying,

“Come, baby, come cream on me!” while he massages my body with his huge hands. The boys holding my legs spread them wider apart so that he can get deeper into my struggling, writhing body, and he keeps on thrusting away, all the time using his filthiest words, imploring me in a strong but gentle voice to come all over him. I prolong this part as long as it takes me to reach my climax, and it's always a blockbuster. In fact, writing this down seems to bring the whole image flowing back to mind so strongly, I'm really getting turned on. These images had never entered my mind before except during sex.

As I said before, I have a different fantasy. for everything including cunnilingus and fellatio, but I'm not going to write them all down or I'd end up writing a book myself. I will say they include such participants as a horse, a dog, Indians, a 20

doctor, and a headmaster in a girl's school. I change roles in each one, and sometimes I'm beautiful and sophisticated, while in others I am childish or simpleminded. Each one is elaborate; but so familiar and dear to me that the right one just pops into my mind without my even consciously willing it. I've truly always thought of these fantasies as my “private little world,” and I use them also while masturbating. They make sex more vivid and meaningful for me, and I don't think I could bear to be without them.

As I said before, thanks to your wonderful book, I'm no longer going to try.

I absolutely promise that these fantasies are legitimate, and I'd be glad to write them all down for you if you should want me to, so the name and address are legit also. I look eagerly forward to your next book, and I do hope I may have been of some small help – you've helped me more than I can tell you.

Carla and Tom

Since my brother and I read your book,
My Secret Garden
, we have felt great relief to know we were not the only brother and sister who fuck. May we add our bit to your next book? I hope it will help others like us. Tom and I don't consider what we're doing “unnatural” at all. Being in bed with him seems like the most natural thing of all.

I like to go over my memories when I have nothing else to do. It gives me a warm feeling to remember all the people in my life, because I liked so many of them. I remember when I was six that my mother used to scold me when she caught me playing with my cunt, but I always had the desire to expose myself to the little boys who came over to play in our yard. I would take off my panties, and I remember several times the older boys would take me into a corner and play with my cunt.

Some boys took all their clothes off one day and laid me down on their shirts and pants and worked their fingers up me. I liked it, but it made me sore. I didn't say anything to my mother, because she would stop the boys from coming over to play at our house. The first time a bigger boy took me into the 21

back seat of a car in a garage, he removed all my clothes and spread my legs so far apart I thought he would split me apart.

He kept getting closer and closer, and I thought he was examining me. I like the idea that he wanted to see my cunt so closely, but he suddenly proved my reading of what he was up to wrong: he got his mouth into my cunt and was darting his tongue in and out like a snake. I loved it so much that when he wanted to stop I begged him to do it some more. He promised to come over often and do this to me. We found places like our attic, garage, or sheds in the woods. I was very sad the day his family moved to another part of the state, but before he left, he taught me a nice game. He used a weiner to jack me off with and then told me to eat the weiner so that nobody would ever discover I had a weiner in my bedroom. When he moved away, I used to do this and think of him.