Sex, then, like everything else, is largely a mystery. That is what I
am trying to say. I do not pretend to be a great explorer in this
realm. My own adventures are as nothing compared to those of the
ordinary Don Juan. For a man of the big cities I think my exploits are
modest and altogether normal. As an artist, my adventures seem in no
way singular or remarkable. My explorations have, however, enabled me
to make a few discoveries which may one day bear fruit. Let us put it
this way--that I have charted certain islands which may serve as
stepping stones when the great routes are opened up.
There was a period in Paris, just after I had undergone a conversion,
when I was able to visualize with hallucinating clarity the whole
pattern of my past. I seemed possessed with the power to recall
anything and everything I chose to recall; even without wishing it, the
events and encounters which had happened long ago crowded upon my
consciousness with such force, such vividness, as to be almost
unbearable. Every thing that had happened to me acquired significance,
that is what I remember most about this experience. Every meeting or
chance encounter proved to be an event; every relationship fell into
its true place. Suddenly I felt able to look back upon the truly vast
horde of men, women and children I had known--animals too-- and see the
thing as a whole, see it as clearly and prophetically as one sees the
constellations on a clear winter's night. I could detect the orbits
which my planetary friends and acquaintances had described, and I could
also detect amidst these dizzying movements the erratic course which I
myself had traced--as nebula, sun, moon, satellite, meteor, comet . . .
and Stardust. I observed the periods of opposition and conjunction as
well as the periods of partial or total eclipse. I saw that there was a
deep and lasting connection between myself and all the other human
beings with whom it had been my lot--and my privilege!-- to come in
contact at one tune or another. What is still more important is that I
saw within the frame of the actual the potential being which I am. In
these lucid moments I saw myself as one of the most solitary and at the
same time one of the most companionable of men. It was as though, for a
brief interval, the curtain had dropped, the struggle halted. In the
great amphitheatre which I had supposed to be empty and meaningless
there unfolded before my eyes the tumultuous creation of which I was,
fortunately and at long last, a part.
I said men, women and children. . . . They were all there, all equally
important. I might have added--books, mountains, rivers, lakes, cities,
forests, creatures of the air and creatures of the deep. Names, places,
people, events, ideas, dreams, reveries, wishes, hopes, plans and
frustrations, all, when summoned, were as vivid and alive as they had
ever been. Everything fell into latitude and longitude, so to speak.
There were great tracts of fog, which was metaphysics; broad, flaming
belts, the religions; burning comets, whose tails spelled hope. And so
on. . . . And there was sex. But what was sex? Like the deity, it
was omnipresent. It pervaded everything. Perhaps the whole universe of
the past, to give an image for it, was none other than a mythological
monster from which the world, my world, had been whelped, but which
failed to disappear with the act of creation, remaining below,
supporting the world (and its own self) upon its back.
For me this singular experience now occupies a place in my memory
akin to that of the Flood in the depths of man's Unconscious. The day
the waters receded the mountain stood revealed. There was I, stranded
on the topmost peak, in the ark which I had built at the command of a
mysterious voice. Suddenly the doves flew forth, shattering the mists
with their flaming plumage. . . . All this, unbelievable if you like,
followed upon a catastrophe now so deeply buried as to be
unrememberable.
That mythological monster! Let me add a few recollections before it
loses form and substance. . . .
To begin with, it was as though I had come out of a deep trance. And,
like that figure of old, I found myself in the belly of a whale. The
color which bathed my retina was a warm gray. Everything I touched felt
delicious, as with the surgeon when he delves into our warm innards.
The climate was temperate, tending toward warmth rather than coolth. In
short, a typical uterine atmosphere replete with all the Babylonian
comforts of the effete. Born over-civilized, I felt thoroughly at ease.
All was familiar and pleasurable to my over-refined sensorium. I could
count with certitude on my black coffee, my liqueur, my Havana-Havana,
my silk dressing-gown, and all the other necessities of the man of
leisure. No grim struggle for existence, no bread and butter problems,
no social or psychological complexes to iron out. I was an emancipated
ne'er-do-well from the start. When there was nothing better to do I
would send out for the evening paper and, after a glance at the
headlines, I would sedulously devour the ads, the social gossip, the
theatre notices, and so on, down through the obituary recitatif.
For some strange reason I displayed an abnormal interest in the fauna
and flora of this uterine domain. I looked about me with the cool,
witless glance of the scientist. ("The daffy herbotomist," I dubbed
myself.) Within these labyrinthian folds I discovered innumerable
marvels . . . And now I must break off, since all this has served only
as a reminder, to speak of the first little cunt I ever examined.
I was about five or six at the time, and the incident took place in a
cellar. The after-image, which solidified at the appropriate tune in
the form of an incongruity,,! labeled "the man in the iron mask." Just
a few years ago, in riffling the pages of a book containing
reproductions of primitive masks, I stumbled upon a womb-like mask
which, when one lifted the flap, revealed the head of a full-grown man.
Perhaps the shock of seeing this full-blown head peering from the womb
was the first genuine response I had had to the question which voiced
itself that instant long ago when I had my first serious look at a
vagina. (In the Tropic of Cancer, it may be remembered, I
portrayed a companion who had never recovered from this obsession. He
is still, I believe, prying open one cunt after another in order, as he
puts it to himself, to get at the mystery it holds.)
It was a hairless world I gazed upon. The very absence of hair, so I
now think, served to stimulate the imagination, helped populate the
arid region which surrounded the place of mystery. We were concerned
less with what lay within than with the future vegetal decor which we
imagined would one day beautify this strange wasteland. Depending on
the time of the year, the age of the players, the place, as well as
other more complicated factors, the genitals of certain little
creatures seemed as variegated, when I think of it now, as the strange
entities which people the imaginative minds of occultists. What
presented itself to our impressionable minds was a nameless
phantasmagoria swarming with images which were real, tangible,
thinkable, yet nameless, for they were unconnected with the world of
experience wherein everything has a name, a place and a date. Thus it
was that certain little girls were referred to as possessing (hidden
beneath their skirts) such queer effects as magnolias, cologne bottles,
velvet buttons, rubber mice . . . God only knows what. That every
little girl had a crack was of course common knowledge. Now and then
rumor had it that such and such a one had no crack at all; of another
it might be said that she was a "morphodite." Morphodite was a strange
and frightening term which no one could clearly define. Sometimes it
implied the notion of double sex, sometimes other things, to wit, that
where the crack ought to be there was a cloven hoof or a row of warts.
Better not ask to see it!--that was the dominant thought.
A curious thing about this period was the conviction which obtained
among us that some of our little playmates were definitely bad, i.e.
incipient whores or sluts. Some girls already possessed a vile
vocabulary pertaining to this mysterious realm. Some would do forbidden
things, if given a little gift or a few coppers. There were others, I
must add, who were looked upon as angels, nothing less. They were that
angelic, in fact, that none of us ever thought of them as owning a
crack. These angelic creatures didn't even pee.
I make mention of these early attempts at characterization because
later in life, having witnessed the development of some of the "loose
ones," I was impressed by the accuracy of our observations.
Occasionally one of the angels also fell into the gutter, and remained
there. Usually, however, they met a different fate. Some led an unhappy
life, either through marrying the wrong man or not marrying at all,
some were stricken with mysterious illnesses, others were crucified by
their parents. Many whom we had dubbed sluts turned out to be excellent
human beings, jolly, flexible, generous, human to the core, though
often a bit the worse for wear.
Classified
New Travellers Companion
