The Dream of the Broken Horses (22 page)

"All the people who envy me would pity me if they knew how screwed up I am."

PRESENTING SYMPTOMS
: Mrs. F, self-referred, described herself as deeply unhappy ("I see myself as a tragic figure"); suffering from erotomania ("I think I might be a nymphomaniac"); ego disturbed ("sometimes I feel like I don't know who I am"); perverted ("I have these kinky fantasies, which I guess is all right...except I try to live them out"); in spiritual pain ("I feel wounded in my sex"); and possessed by a terrifying enigmatic recurring dream ("it haunts my days, ruins my nights"). Mrs. F, summing up: "So, doctor, I'm one sick babe, right?"

FAMILY HISTORY
: Mrs. F had unusual parents. She described her father as "drop-dead handsome, a lady-killer. Women would take one look at him then go weak in the knees." Her father, Jack, was a racehorse trainer and self-described racetrack character and tout. People around the track called him "Blackjack" on account of his dark complexion and dashing good looks. Mrs. F described him as charming, easygoing, a philanderer, and "a man's man in that men instantly liked him and usually continued to like him even when they found out he was making it with their wives."

Mrs. F's mother was also a member of the gambling demimonde, an expert poker player and racetrack handicapper. Mrs. F described her as "pale and beautiful, a glacial ice goddess type." According to Mrs. F, her mother, unlike her father, was respected but not well liked. Mrs. F described her as tough, aloof, and extremely strict. Whenever she caught Mrs. F in a fib, she would slap her hard across the face, telling her "You're acting like your father's child" and/or "You want to know why you're a liar? Because you're from a bad seed."

Mrs. F's parents fought constantly and were divorced when she was seven. After that, she lived with her mother while seeing her father two weekends a month until, two years later, he relocated to another part of the country. Although her parents moved in the same racetrack circle, during that two-year period they rarely spoke and could barely bring themselves to be civil. Mrs. F recalled her mother constantly referring to her father as "that bastard," "that son of a bitch," etc. And although her father did not speak poorly of her mother, he would ask after her in such a way as to suggest barely concealed contempt.

A couple of years after Mrs. F's father left town, he stopped sending child-support payments. Nevertheless, Mrs. F's mother made enormous sacrifices to keep Mrs. F in the exclusive private girls' day school in which she was enrolled. In return, her mother required her to maintain top grades, excel in sports, and participate in extracurricular activities and student government. As Mrs. F put it: "She turned me into a supreme competitor. I was to compete in every possible field with the goal of achieving total victory in each. Nothing less would be tolerated. Even the slightest failure was punished." Beside such punishments as slaps and grounding, Mrs. F's mother's favorite disciplinary method was to withhold affection. "If she wasn't happy with me, she'd go glacial. Then she'd act like I was this object of revulsion, too disgusting even to be acknowledged."

Mrs. F believes her mother's sole objective those years was to groom her to make what her mother would term "a magnificent marriage." Later, when Mrs. F married into one of the wealthiest, most socially prominent families in her city, her mother changed her tack. The morning of her wedding day, she whispered into Mrs. F's ear: "I know you're marrying for money and position and in my eyes that makes you a whore."

Mrs. F stated that throughout her school years she loathed her mother while adoring the memory of her absent father, spending hours recalling their wonderful times together. Most of these memories centered around horses. Her father had taught her to ride, first putting her on a horse when she was three years old. "He was a wonderful teacher, kind, helpful, always calm. 'You'll be a great horsewoman,' he'd tell me. 'Maybe the first girl jock to win a major derby.' When I was five, he gave me my first horse, a filly with a white-tipped tail whom I named Banjo. He taught me how to groom her, care for her, and love her. He trained us together, me to ride her, she to be ridden by me. Oh, he was so proud!"

After Mrs. F's father left town, her mother wanted her to continue riding but in a different style. She took her out of the racetrack environment, enrolling her in a school of traditional equitation. Here the objective was not to learn how to race but to become a show equestrienne. The instructor, G, a middle-aged Hungarian refugee, taught the demanding art of dressage. G was the opposite of Mrs. F's father, strict, tense, an old-school disciplinarian. Mrs. F longed to ride fast and free again but under G's tutelage was not allowed to do so. And since Banjo had not been trained for dressage, her mother sold the horse, using the money to pay for her riding lessons. Of this betrayal, Mrs. F stated: "I've never forgiven her for that and I never will."

Although her mother insisted Mrs. F's father had abandoned her, Mrs. F always believed her father would reappear one day to rescue her from her mother's strict discipline. Although her father drifted around the country from track to track, he still managed to write occasionally, sending her notes around Christmas and on her birthdays. These communications tended to be brief and increasingly impersonal in tone. He never gave his phone number, and several times, when Mrs. F tried to call him, she discovered he was unlisted or had moved. She harbored the fantasy that one day she would run away from her mother, find her father, and that they would live together happily ever after. When despite numerous written pleas her father did not appear at her high school graduation, Mrs. F finally gave up the fantasy. By that time, having followed her mother's design, she was the second top student in academics in her class, captain of the field hockey and tennis teams, a member of the student council, easily the most honored girl in her school. "I was also the most envied," she said. "Mother always warned me that was the price I'd pay. 'They'll envy you when you beat them,' she told me, 'but still you'll hold the power.'"

Mrs. F recalled early sexual feelings dating from around the time her father moved out of the house. She found the atmosphere around the racetrack stables "sexy" and constantly schemed to spend time there with her dad. She liked the smell of the horses and the smell of the leather tack. She was also fascinated by the genitalia of male horses. It was at the stables, she believed, in an atmosphere fraught with talk of mares, stallions, and geldings, that she became conscious of and fascinated by gender differences. Here, too, it was possible to embrace horses without hearing recriminations that such embraces were improper. She believed this was important, as her mother often warned her about touching people and allowing herself to be touched. She remembers overhearing her mother angrily accuse her father of fondling her too much, and her father replying that he would continue to do so "'cause I don't want her to end up a frigid hard-ass like you"— or words to that effect.

After her father left, her mother took on a succession of lovers. These relationships rarely lasted more than a year. Just as Mrs. F would grow fond of one of these boyfriends, her mother would break up with him. The breakups were inevitably bitter. Her mother would berate the boyfriend, banish him from her presence, angrily tear up all photos of him, and command Mrs. F never to utter his name again.

Mrs. F's mother warned her about men, their rotten nature and ulterior motives. "Men," she told Mrs. F, "only want one thing. Once you give it to them, you're finished." Cautioning Mrs. F not to engage in premarital sexual activity, she admonished: "Remember, no one buys a used slip!"

Mrs. F's mother was a stickler for cleanliness. Donning rubber gloves, she thoroughly cleaned house every day. She assiduously trained Mrs. F in matters of personal hygiene and inspected her nails each morning before she left for school. On one occasion, when Mrs. F left a ring around the tub, she was forced to scour the entire bathroom again and again. Whenever Mrs. F dared to use foul language or speak of sex, she was instructed to wash out her mouth with soap. Mrs. F was taught that sex was dirty. Her mother told her: "Men are dirty and your father was the dirtiest of them all." She also told her that boys were her enemy and that in dance class, which Mrs. F's school held jointly with a nearby boys' academy, she should not allow boys to hold her too close or else "you'll feel their stupid things poking at you through their trousers." Mrs. F recalled that when her mother broached the subject of menstruation, "she did so with a lot of nose twitching and disgust."

On one occasion, when Mrs. F was twelve, her riding instructor, G, slapped her to punish an error she'd made in dressage. Mrs. F, outraged, fled class. When she reported the slap to her mother, her mother told her she'd already heard from G about the incident. "You weren't paying attention so he slapped you to wake you up," her mother said. "He has my permission to do so again if necessary."

Thereafter Mrs. F was terrified of G, whom, in any case, she had never liked. In retrospect, she believed G colluded with her mother, then took advantage of his authority over her by touching her in intimate ways. Though not overtly abusive, this touching was clearly sexual. Under the guise of correcting her posture, G would lightly grasp her buttocks and graze her budding breasts with his hands. He insisted she ride bareback "so you can feel the horses' withers in your wound." {When asked whether G really used the word "wound," Mrs. F insisted that he had. When asked whether it were possible G had actually said "womb," Mrs. F vigorously shook her head, replying, "I'm positive he called it my wound." Note the similarity in concept between her belief that G called her genital area her wound and perhaps the most vividly described of her presenting symptoms: "I feel injured in my sex."} He instructed her to grasp the horse with her knees, then "grind in with your crotch." He also instructed her not to wear underclothing beneath her jodhpurs during these bareback riding sessions "so you can make close contact, really feel the animal, control him with your body." Mrs. F found this latter statement disconcerting since she was riding a filly at the time. When closely questioned about this, she insisted her memory was correct. "G was formal and correct. He always addressed me as 'Miss' and of course riders are always aware of the gender of their horses. So when he spoke of controlling
'him
with your body' I took that as a deliberate reference to having sex."

Over the next year, she heard similar tales of intimate touching by G from other girls in her riding class. Realizing that with this information she now had power over G, she told him one day after class that she wished to speak to him in private:

"I was nearly fourteen. I had a good figure and knew males found me attractive. G suggested we talk in the tack room. Once inside, he closed the door. I told him all the girls were complaining about his touching and that if he didn't stop sooner or later one would tell her parents and then he'd be in a sea of trouble. He glared at me, told me he didn't know what I was talking about and I'd better be sure of my ground before making accusations. Something about his manner told me he was bluffing, that all I had to do was hold my own and stare him down. So I told him I was sure, that he wasn't to touch me anymore, and that if he did I'd make it my mission in life to see him ruined. He asked me if that was all. No, I told him, there was something else. I told him I still resented that he'd slapped me, and I wanted an apology for that. He looked at me curiously, smiled slightly, told me he could do better. 'You can slap me back,' he said, then paused. 'If you have the nerve.' Well, I don't know where I found the nerve, but somehow I did. I pulled back my arm and slapped him as hard as I could across his face. He took my slap, didn't flinch. 'Not bad,' he said afterwards, smiling, massaging his cheek. 'I like a girl who stands up for herself.'"

Mrs. F confessed that she'd taken great pleasure in delivering that slap, and not just because she'd had her revenge. "I felt physically warm and slick below. I got a sexual charge out of it, no question."

From that time until she went off to college four years later, she continued her riding lessons with G but on a new basis. Though G continued to instruct her, his manner with her became almost obsequious. And now that she no longer feared him, she learned much more from him than before. "He wasn't at all like Dad. He wasn't easygoing or fun, but he was a fine teacher, respectful and full of good advice. And now there was something between us, the light slap he'd given me years before and the very hard one I'd returned. Those two slaps were always in the background of our relationship."

Over the next few years, G attempted to train Mrs. F to Olympic standards. She rode well, won numerous competitions, accumulated numerous trophies and ribbons. But they both knew there was no way she could become an Olympic-level equestrienne without training on a champion-caliber horse. This was not to be. She had other interests, her mother didn't have the money, and she didn't want to be beholden to a wealthy sponsor.

In the spring of her senior year, she went for her final lesson with G. The lesson went well. She took all her jumps with great poise. Afterwards, G invited her into the tack room for a farewell toast. There he opened a bottle of champagne and poured them each a glass. "To a fine rider and magnificent woman," he said, clicking his glass against hers. They reminisced, laughed, she thanked him for his efforts with her, and he thanked her for her diligence and talent. Just as it was getting time to be on her way, he asked if she remembered the slap she'd given him in that very room. Over the years they'd never spoken of it. Now, suddenly, G brought it up.