PARTISAN REVIEW
485
Shelley. He'll try to take me in his arms and he'll cry over me, he'll
make me cry again . . . I want to forget him, I want to forget
Shelley.... I cut off her hair to spite her and I went without
eating to spite her, to make her thin, very thin, to make her dizzy
from not eating, to kill her!
PETER : You did right. You got her weight down to ninety-five
pounds; you're very chic now, like a model! I prefer girls as thin
as possible, so thin I can fit their delicate little wrists between my
teeth, I prefer skin transparent like yours, it's the latest style! And
your hair is long enough like that. I'll cut it a little with a razor
in a few days. There are some men who like girls that are boys,
and some men who like boys that are really girls; the market must
be accommodated. How else can we make contact with other people
except by accommodating them . . . ? We need our bodies for that.
We need our bodies for communion with others. The age craves
communion! We can't deny our deepest impulses! We want free–
dom and love and a
creative sensual contact
with one another–
how we hate the machine world, the age of technology, the age of
lies, the age of identity and perfection! Why did you want to
be
Shelley, then, why did you want to kill me? Did you want to re–
turn to your old self, to that particular body and that particular
name, did you want to forget me, did you want to belong again to
your father and a woman said to be your mother, why did you
want all that again when it never pleased you . . . did it? You
hated it!
SHELLEY: Yes, I hated it. ...
PETER: You hated your father and your mother. Your father espe–
cially.
SHELLEY: Yes, I hated them! Him especially . . . because he loved
me more than she did. . . . He kept after me with his love, he
wanted to own me, he wants to take me back with him.... My
father is a doctor. He wants to cure everyone. He wants to clean
them up, he wants to fix things, he wants to put bandages on ev–
erything, sterilize everything, he wanted me always to wash my
hands after I went to the bathroom, he was always spying on me!
He wouldn't let me alone! He loved me too much! He wouldn't
let me be like the water coming out of that faucet, trickling away,
emptying itself out. ...
PETER
(to the audience):
I had no father, myself. I named myself.
