Eleanor (Ellie) Farnsworth grew up in a proper family - proper table manners, proper demeanor, and above all proper behavior. Her father was insistent upon doing the right thing at the right time in the right place and was known for his modesty, good humor, and generous respects for others.
Her mother was no different - a proper lady always well coiffed, demure, lovely and of good, proper, conservative taste. She had been chairwoman of the hospital auxiliary, a charming hostess, and a personable, attentive friend.
How was it then that Ellie turned out to be such a scratchy, irritable, cranky, unpleasant child? It certainly wasn't genes - how could it be with that parentage and a family history that went back to the Earl of Northumberland, a man of great aristocratic posture and influence; and his many heirs and legatees.
Of course in any family there are some bad eggs in the basket, and great-uncle Charles had been one. A wastrel, layabout, ne'er-do-well who fouled the family image so badly that his Aunt Tilly had tried to get him institutionalized - without success it must be mentioned. Old Charlie was not as stupid as he looked and parlayed a good piece of his inheritance into loose financial swaps and made millions, enough to shut up Aunt Tilly good and proper.
No one thought that any of Charlie's bloodline got mixed up with Ellie's. Besides she wasn't a bad girl, a defiant, rubbery one; but simply an ornery, prickly, and unpleasant one. The girl was such a pill that her father even entertained thoughts about his wife's fidelity - that Alvin Harding or Bret Lincoln. There certainly had been opportunity and likelihood.
In any case, the only thing that came to mind was Kate, the shrew in Shakespeare's play - a nasty, difficult, vile girl who made life difficult for everyone around her. Fiction to be sure, but such women are not unheard of. For example, no one could stand Libby Fox, a bitch - a real cunt - and she certainly came from a good family until they disowned her.
'What are we going to do with her?', asked Annabelle Farnsworth of her husband who had not one sane, responsible idea to offer except 'evolution', not the Darwinian kind but maturity. Ugly ducklings become swans, don't they, he said to the frustration of his wife whose propriety was at loose ends.
'Wait until she gets out in the real world', Harper Farnsworth said. 'That'll clear the decks for running', his favorite metaphor when faced with a conundrum.
In any case growing up didn't help at all, and she became the toughest, rawest, nastiest cunt in the Barfield Country Day School, leader of a coven of bitchy girls who made it their business to humiliated, piss on, and demean every boy that crossed their paths.
In high school they were truants, miscreants, and impossibly rude and bullying harpies. They were an ugly lot, untamed, and dirty - with one exception, Ellie Farnsworth who, despite her seemingly thorny personality was a young woman of extraordinary beauty. She might be a Goth vixen in spirit, but a true, unalloyed physical beauty. Men could not take their eyes off her, wanted her, and would do anything to win her charms.
Nothing doing, for Ellie had become a harden succubus, a man-hater, and a devilishly cruel tormentor. Now, she wasn't a dyke, not by any means, and although she never admitted it, dreamed of Mr. Right, although in her crude fantasies he did not have a face or a profession but just a large prick which she wanted deep inside her and came repeatedly with the thought.
She was a woman of no particular political or philosophical interest, so she was unconcerned about leaving the cunt cabal as she pursued her much more fundamental and primitive desires. Not surprisingly, however, not only was there no Mr. Right in her sights, but men, having been pussy whipped and discarded for so long, went nowhere near her. They looked, licked, and drooled like every other man who saw her, but kept their distance.
Where was Petruchio, Ellie wondered, the gallant aristocrat who tamed the shrewish Kate? Where was he?
Now, female sexuality being what it is - i.e. even the shrewish, nastiest woman wants a man, a home, and a family - she hung up her spurs, added some skin toner, highlighter, and eye shadow; trimmed and shaped her hair, and bought a morning, afternoon, and evening ensemble. As she looked at the engineer boots, diesel dyke chains and studded leather she had affected, and stood before her vanity mirror, she felt both liberated and a complete charlatan. This was not her.
Everyone compromises to cover, justify, or accommodate necessity; and so Ellie sought middle ground, a place between nastiness, maidenhood, and motherhood. She would become Belle de Nuit, Catherine Deneuve's high class call girl - a tart, a loose woman, a slit. A Jane Fonda Klute hooker, a controller of men, an investor in new sexual instruments, a daredevil, an adventurer.
And so it was that Ellie Farnsworth became Madame de Richelieu's highest-paid Washington call girl, tart of all tarts, busy every night of the year or when she wanted, a ruler, an emotional dominatrix, an incomparable sexually ambitious Delilah.
Women of genius like Ellie - for that was exactly what she was. All the crankiness, nastiness, and bitchy villainy were just byproducts. The world was as she found it, and if she had to live in an indifferent, cloyingly deceptive world, then she would dominate anyone and anything that rattled or rolled her way.
It took a man of similar instincts, intelligence, and emotional bravado to tame her; and she was lucky, for such men are few and far between - men who were looking for nothing, expected nothing, and knew that emotional highway robbery was the only validation they needed to make their way.
It happened in Akron - why not Akron, one might ask? As good as any for murder, sex, or prudery; and he and she settled down, not exactly the primrose trellis, blonde little ones, pot roast and mashed potatoes life that could have easily been the anti-fantasy she might well have envisioned; but neither the S&M whips and spikes that could just as easily have been her decor.
Brilliance is everywhere, public, admired, and envied; but Ellie and he were beneath that particular radar, two of a kind which had no other kinds, an especial, often frightful couple that couldn't be seen in public on many days, but on others were models of temperance and lighthearted enthusiasm.
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