Read Online How to Save Your Own Life by Erica Jong - Free Book Online Page A

delightful laugh—which is fortunate, since she often has a very sharp tongue. Without the laugh, she might be totally terrifying.
    â€œLook—that bastard came into the hospital dressed up as a doctor and molested five women. But nobody gave a fuck until he molested a white woman. Then the shit hit the fan.”
    I smile at Gretchen, her knee-jerk radicalism. She grins back.
    â€œWell, what are we going to do? Let the fuckers get away with it? Believe me, he’ll be out in six months and doing it again. Maybe to you or me. I’d give him a karate chop so fast he wouldn’t know what hit him—the son of a bitch. Okay. Check it out and call me back. Good. I know. Bye.” She presses the other button on her phone. “Hello? Mrs. Brown? You’re going to have to come down to my office and tell me the whole story in detail so we can nail the son of a bitch, okay? Do you know how to get here? You take the Lexington Avenue subway to Sixty-eighth Street and then you walk three blocks downtown and two blocks west. You have the address? Good. Tomorrow? Well, if I’m out to lunch, make yourself comfortable here. I should be back soon. Okay. Bye.” And then to me: “God— you look like the roof just caved in. What the fuck happened?”
    â€œI’m leaving Bennett.”
    â€œI’ve heard that before.”
    â€œThis time it’s true.”
    Gretchen laughs. “I’ll believe it when you change the locks.”
    â€œDo you know what the son of a bitch did?”
    â€œJoined the Tong? Quit analysis? Took a male lover? Actually talked to you?”
    â€œVery funny. Actually, he did talk for the first time in eight years and you know what he told me?”
    â€œThat he’s actually a robot? I suspected it all along.”
    â€œNo, you idiot. He had a lover for years. In Heidelberg. And after. The sanctimonious son of a bitch. Remember all his outrage about your open marriage? Remember how guilty he tried to make us both feel about going to London? Well, it turns out he even got laid during the time we were away—even though we never did.
    Gretchen laughs. “I always wondered why you were so sure he didn’t. They’re all pigs underneath, you know. Even my illustrious Alan—with his cute vasectomy scar and his men’s c.r. group. You can take it as a rule of thumb. Pigs is pigs.”
    â€œBut Bennett was so straight.”
    â€œNot straight. Just rigid, uptight, and boring. They all cheat sooner or later. You might as well have one who isn’t a bore the rest of the time.”
    â€œI guess.” I look down, about to cry.
    â€œLook—don’t flagellate yourself about it—at least you know now. At least you don’t have to delude yourself anymore. You always did this shtik about how virtuous he was and how bad you were. At least you can cut that crap now.”
    â€œWhat a colossal waste of energy. All that guilt. Christ.”
    â€œI know. But it’s better this way, isn’t it? Maybe you can leave the shmuck now. And that useless analyst you go to.”
    â€œShe’s not so bad. She’s pretty good in fact.”
    â€œThen why are you so stuck? You’ve been going round and round with the same old Freudian garbage for years now. You’ll never get any where with that. And you’ll never move from A to B married to that deadpan.”
    â€œYou know what kills me?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œThe way I needed to see him as my daddy and protector, the way I needed the illusion of being protected. Why do we do that? We all do it, you know. Even you.”
    â€œWell, I’m reconciled to the fact that I’ll always be with men. I’ll never make it as a lesbian—but at least I don’t Uncle Tom it up the way you do.”
    This hurts. “I don’t think I Uncle Tom it up.”
    â€œBullshit. Of course you do. Whenever Bennett enters the room, you start