Free Myra Breckinridge by Gore Vidal Page B

another fate for Mary-Ann. "As long as that young man wants her she won't have a career. And from what I've seen of him these last two years, he shows no sign of losing interest. Every girl in Atavistic Rhythm has made a play for Rusty, and no dice." Miss Cluff looked grim. "Women's rights are never won! Never! To think that a girl of her talent is prepared to waste her life--and genius--on a hulk, an oaf, a thing, a man!" "A mighty cute thing," giggled Heart of Darkness, but then recalled himself to add, more seriously, "and talented, too, possessing a natural animal magnetism, and of course highly photogenic as we all of us saw last spring, before Myra joined us, when he acted in a Rod Serling classic on the closed-circuit TV... Although I usually collect every comment testifying to Rusty's male attractiveness, adding bit by bit to the vivid mosaic that is Rusty the Man (soon to be shattered by me into a million fragments, that I may then rearrange him along other and more meaningful lines), I suddenly found myself morbidly eager to hear about Mary-Ann. Miss Cluff, eager to tell, told. And I believed her. Though mad as a hatter, Miss Cluff is every bit as toughminded about the arts as I am. And so I am tempted to believe her when she tells me that Mary-Ann has star quality. The columnist Sidney Skoisky has just entered the main part of the drugstore. Everyone stares at him. As well they might! With Louelia and Hedda gone, he is Mr. Movies. They say his office is upstairs.
    18
    I am home now. The blinds are raised and I have been staring for some minutes at the bespangled ten-times-lifesize girl as she slowly turns in front of the Ch�au Marmont. For me she is Hollywood, and mesmerizing. No further encounter with Rusty. He attended one Posture class but we did not speak and he was more than ever nervous and sullen in my presence. His T-shirt is still in my desk drawer, which now smells of him, a musky disturbing odor that makes me quite weak since, regretfully, I am not able to smell the original, for he keeps half a room's distance between us. I must soon make operative the second phase of my plan. Meanwhile, to my surprise, Mary-Ann has been unusually friendly. When I told her yesterday that Miss Cluff thought her very talented, she was enormously pleased. "Miss Cluff is nice to say that. And I do like singing but, like Rusty says, there's only room for one star in any bed... I mean family." She stammered, blushing deliciously at her error, which was no doubt a lovers' joke. "I'm sure that's what he would say. It's the usual male view." "But I like it. Honestly I do. I think the man's got to be boss so a girl knows where she is." "I'm afraid that's a slightly outmoded point of view." I was careful, however, not to sound too sharp. "Particularly now when the relationship between the sexes is changing so rapidly, and women are becoming aggressive and men passive and..." "Which I just hate!" Mary-Ann was unexpectedly vehement. Good. The subject has occurred to her before. Excellent. "I hate these boys who just drift around, taking pot and trips and not caring if--well, if it's a boy or a girl they're with. It's just terrible the way so many are now, and I guess that's why I'm so hung up on Rusty. He's all man." I thought with some amusement of "all man's" defenseless bottom, quivering at my touch. I have the power forever to alter her image of Rusty. But that is for later. Now I must win her friendship, even love. The plan requires it. Although Dr. Montag and I write each other at least once a week, I feel somewhat guilty for not having told him what I am up to (these notes will be your introduction, dear Randolph). On the other hand, we do discuss the one topic we most disagree on, the changing relationship between the sexes. Being Jewish as well as neoFreudian, he is not able to divest himself entirely of the Law of Moses. For the Jew, the family is everything; if it had not been, that religion which they so cherish (but