Chapter 30

I’ve been in Texassince Sunday. Tonight, as I walked through campus, I noticed how beautiful it is by lamplight. I was walking because I was lonely. Nevertheless, I knew once I was home, alone, I would no longer be lonely. I cannot meet people, women especially. My old fears have returned. Everyone I know is gone. I am alone. Lonely. I was lonely when Donna was here, only at least I was not alone and lonely. I was not going out, trying to meet people, making myself more lonely. Buddha was right. Life is suffering. Artists celebrate life. Artists find life beautiful. Suffering is beautiful to an artist. All artists suffer and are aware of their suffering more than the average man who does indeed lead a life of quiet desperation.

Sarah is more aware of her own suffering because of Michel. Because of Michel, she will become a great writer. She is more aware of her suffering and is therefore more capable of beauty, as beauty is all that is left after such intense flames. At least the flames weren’t so hot that beauty, too, was destroyed.

Michel, I have learned, knows nothing of true suffering. He knows nothing of loneliness. His creativity cannot come from suffering -- instead it must come from cruelty. His own cruelty. A cruelty that creates suffering in others. Which means I am wrong. His creativity can come from suffering -- only it is from the suffering of others, suffering he creates. This is the theater in which he works.

The Marquis de Sade gained great pleasure from the suffering of others, paying prostitutes to come with him to out-of-the-way places so he could sodomize and beat them until they escaped to report him to the police, who arrested him and placed him in jail where he wrote his great works of libertinism. Michel at least does not do that. Jackie lies face-down on the bed, wrists and ankles ties with silk ties -- Loony Tunes on her right wrist, chaotic patterns on her left and either ankle, as Michel sodomizes her, thrusting grunts from her throat. This is her choice, her idea. Her ass is red from being spanked -- again, her choice, her idea. The more cruel Michel is, the more Jackie is turned on. She revels in pain-heightened pleasure, making the moment more immediate. Nothing is more important than the moment, than this orgasm, than this pain. The bed is pulled away from the wall so it won’t smash holes in it. Michel grabs her hair and pulls her head back. He has no need of de Sade’s prostitutes. He has no need to force his desires on anyone. Jackie is more than willing to oblige.

Later, when Michel is with Jessie, he doesn’t feel the need to tie her down or spank her -- though he does do the rest. The very fact that he is having sex with an eleven-year-old girl is so sufficiently cruel he feels no need to add to it.