The Book Discovered

This was but one, of course, of the erotic stories that laced my diary. I managed for two or three months to keep writing. Most of the stories seemed to center around a theme of my controlling the universe: especially in order to switch bodies or body parts with the other members of the household. Once or twice I added the two officer’s Cox into my writing, just for variety. But I fixated on that book, and fixated my writing especially on the obtainment of female bodies and body parts for my own pleasure. In one story I even turned myself completely female, and made all the other member’s of Nevermore male-- in their nether regions. I had them use me at my own request. It has been said that men often try to take control of creation by claiming the reproductive abilities of women as their own. Looking back, that might have been my fixation: Miss Gilda would not have my child, as she was not my wife, and though she was my mistress, she still believed in a mother-father-child relationship. My wife, for her part, wanted absolutely nothing to do with children. My guess is that I internalized this desire and expressed it through this writing. In one story this came out through the writing with my inhabiting the body of Cox II, who became pregnant through artificial insemination and then became very horny imagining herself as a sex object: once again I was a woman, surrounded and being used, by all my friends both male and female. The center of attention.

I did not think of this at the time, though, at the very least I supposed I was becoming a greater writer. Whether this is true or not you can judge for yourself in this very poor, shattered telling that I am relating back to you now. I should have written this all down at the time. I should have at least put the story to paper closer to the events I am relating. But it is only with this distance that I am able to relate to you, faithfully, with every intention of telling the truth, everything that happened within that mansion.

The book became my whole existence. And then, one day, I could think of writing no more. I had not filled the book, but the pen had dried up, and every time I sat down with the intention of writing something I instead flipped back to the various stories I had previously penned. I became obsessed instead with re-reading the stories. I even spent a whole day, once, simply in bed, pouring back through my notes about the dolls and their movements in the house and masturbation to my fantasias of control. For that isat each story moved towards: I was the central figure in every story, and I needed for some reason to control every aspect of reality. I suppose, now, that was the real lesson of the dollhouse, to show me that the aspect of control that I wished was not possible: that on this earth things happen despite every attempt to keep everything as a frieze.

It is not strange to me, now, to think about the way in which the conservative element on this planet do not truly want progress or regress. Instead, they want to take a picture of a time when they felt safety, when they felt in control, and they want to live within that picture forever, frozen in time forever. The only safe place is in a frozen frame. But pictures fade, and in that old memento mori motif, there is a reason the tomb reads Et in Arcadia, Ego. Even in Arcadia, legendary paradise on Earth, **** and change exist. All things become **** in the end.

In my days at Nevermore, however, I was the same: I wanted to control everything about the house. My position as the head of the household, of course, allowed me to live out that fantasy, even in the day to day business. No one shopped without asking me. If someone went out they needed to obtain my permission. I was some strange kind of childish father figure, obsessed with everything that happened in my house, and wanting to play it out as a rehearsal.

I believe it was my clinging to the book of my fantasies itself that brought the conflicts within the house to a head. I had been very, very careful not to let the book out of my sight. But,after those three months of furious writing, and a further few months of reading and masturbating over what I had written, I began to become much less cautious about the book. It happened that one day I left it, unlocked, on the kitchen counter. I had been called away, I think, to deal with issues relating to the factory that my business was building in the area.

When I was away, it transpired that each member of the houehold came upon the book and flipped through it. They each found something objectionable about it, of course. It was not a book that was meant for their consumption: hence, I had been so very careful about it beforehand. But it was not my concern, at least not that day. I must admit I was somewhat relieved to have a chance to get away from Nevermore, a house originally meant as a perfect retreat, but that had slowly become a drain on my energy.

When I was away during that day I was never more productive, enver more happy, than when I toured the factory and attempted to solve the problem, which turned out to be a labor dispute about the hours the workers were required to commit to. This was because the population of the area was very small indeed, and we needed workers to fill in until we could get the go ahead to build company housing and bring more people to work. I had been raised in a city that believed in a square deal, where each person worked according to their ability, and all received a fair amount of time for their own pursuits. So, when the problem was brought up to me, I wanted to really dig in and find a way to make the locals happy in their new jobs.

I placed a call to Robert. After I said hello, he immediately asked me about the book.

“What book?” I asked.

“Your little porn book,” he said. “It’s disgusting. You have to get rid of it.”