Thrilling revenge of the male, that the female is so easily destroyed. The way you can break a crystal glass under your feet. The way you can smudge a watercolor—it will never be the same again. Crumple a butterfly’s wings in your fist.

Miss Golden Dream’s beauty makes you sick, really. Your weakness thrown in your face—resentment, humiliation, shame that this afternoon you will be in a frenzy to bid millions of dollars for an animated PlastiPlutoniumLuxe doll in fierce bidding with other males in which your dread is that you will be impotent and fail—for only one of you is the most wealthy, the Alpha Male—and he will “collect” me.

For Marilyn will be auctioned—sold—to the highest bidder. Never any doubt, that is the promise—Marilyn will come into the possession of the highest bidder.

Money will go to strangers, not to Marilyn. But Marilyn is not bitter. Look at that fresh young face glowing with happiness, which is a kind of innocence! Nothing to do with money, nor with questioning the motives of others.

Love me, Daddy! I will love you.

Every man who’d ever loved me abused me. Not bitter! Just a fact.

Sometimes it was push, shove, pummel, punch. Sometimes it was cold, vicious-shouted verbal abuse. Tramp! Whore!

Oh, yes! Piteous. But you will be the exception.

But you will not abuse me, will you? Not you.

As you will not topple drunkenly down a flight of stairs fleeing in terror from your PlastiPlutoniumLuxe bride with the hard-clamping arms and legs, fall screaming, thumping against steps and break your neck. You will not suffer a heart attack in our marital bed as the hard-clamping arms and legs grip you like a python, you will not die of an untraceable organic toxin from the dazzling red lipstick smile—you are special.

And so, you deserve me. Blond bombshell who’s also girl-next-door. Ever alive, exactly as she was in 1949—precisely replicated chromosomes, identical cells down to the teeny-weeniest organelle. See! I am breathing, my eyelids are fluttering, my gaze is fixed upon you.

We’d be happy together! Have fun together! Just you and me.

Tell me what you like best, and I will do it. And do it, and do it.

I will keep every secret of yours. I will suck you dry, the loose, flabby sac of you eviscerated and your brittle bones turned to soup. And you will scream in ecstasy, I promise.

Remember, Daddy, all you’ve got to do is make a bid for Miss Golden Dreams. And keep bidding. Don’t ever stop bidding. Up—up—up, until your rivals fall behind, defeated. The lowest estimate for Miss Golden Dreams at today’s auction is only twenty-two million.

Highest?—Daddy, there is no highest.

WANTING

1.

Badly she wants a man.

Or, she wants a man badly.

Or, she wants a man. Badly.

2.