. . .

YOUR LAST FEW EMAILS have enraged me but the message finally got through. Women who ignore you or are cruel to you are “swell.” Pamela doesn’t respond, breaks her promises, forgets to come see you, but she’s “terrific.” Elizabeth wants everything her own way, won’t let you talk, slaps your hand when you touch the chicken, she’s “so hard to understand” but she’s “wonderful.” Now you tell me about the twins who make you sing the same song over and over, pinch your butt until it’s riddled with bruises. They prefer each other over you in bed . . . Hah! You’re “crazy about them.”

Funny the way you described yourself with your old flame Irma: the whip stretched across her breasts, her boots in your armpits. I saw you that way recently in a dream: you were stripped, supine, shivering, and whimpering. You loved it.


Finally, FINALLY, I get it. So that’s what excites you, that’s what gives you the “stimulation” you need. Why didn’t you just say so? Too damn easy I guess. Too damn boring. You want to be weak with desire but you don’t want to know about it. O.K. I understand. Woman is superior, Woman understands all. Woman will administer justice not mercy. Woman will give you what you desire and deserve.

I have a friend here who reminds me of you—a petty self-willed tyrant whom women pursue. He doesn’t really want to be pursued, I know. I alone exercise restraint. I can see myself more clearly as I was with you. A patient silent cow giving always the milk of my over-solicitous kindness even when it made you sick, even when you threw it back in my face. Your thirst, I can tell, is for that liquid more golden, bitter, toxic. It is possible to change, I can change, I have changed. Over now, a new me, never again the same.

Of course, none of this matters for you because we won’t see each other again for a very long time. When we do, you won’t recognize me. I have grown younger, stronger, thick-limbed, and powerful. You will of course desire me ferociously but I will prevail. I will frustrate, abuse, and disregard you. No more commerce with the Seven Deadly Virtues. “He who loves is the inferior and must suffer for it.” Guess who said that? A man.

I say this, “He who cannot love feels guilty and wants to be made to pay for it.” The peculiar pathology of the male is that he senses that he is inferior to Woman—biologically, mentally, emotionally—and he desires to be constantly reminded of that fact. Only brief moments of intermittent reinforcement—the most insidious kind—are allowed. Man is moved in pursuit or flight.

Please, if you do write again, send only intimate details of your sex life, especially with the twins. I have always been more interested in your body than in your so-called mind. Even so, your body isn’t the greatest but, well, it sometimes suits my tastes. . . .

I must go . . . slip into my furs. A customer. He’s a sly one. Heads up the department of transuranic recovery. He doesn’t talk much about his work. He’s up to his neck in coverups but with me he always strips to the bone. He likes me to twist and stretch his balls, with pliers. It’s a lark for me but you can bet he pays for it dearly.

Indifferently,
— Princess Magdalena

DEAR MALE FRIEND © Melody Sumner Carnahan / Burning Books
from Carnahan's book One Inch Equals Twenty-Five Miles