The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer (7 page)

I want to forget the things that suddenly come to me... Something very bad is happening... Why is it happening to me?

I think it is real. I think it is real!

After I see Donna, maybe I can tell you about what I am remembering. I had forgotten so much... but I can't tell if I am better off knowing or not really knowing at all.

Please still be my friend, Donna, please!

L

June 21,1986

Dear Diary,

I spent the day with Donna yesterday. For a long time she wouldn't even really say anything to me. When I started crying, I ran out of her house and just kept running. I was so glad when she came after me, and she was crying too. I told her as much as I could. That I was worried about being good because I had been having bad dreams, very bad dreams, and I wasn't just kidding her when I said I wasn't sleeping at all. I told her I wished we could talk about the night with the guys at the stream, but it always seems like she hates me or something, or I'll have an awful dream and think that what happened was bad. I told her I needed to hear what she thought about that night. I needed to know if she thinks we should be punished for it, or if I should, because I did more than she did... I just needed to know!

Donna told me that she was afraid I wasn't talking to her because I was mad that she hadn't gone as far with the guys as I had, and that I didn't like her anymore because of it! I asked her how she could think that when we had such a nice hug when the evening was over, and I still remember that hug as one of the clearest, nicest parts of the whole night! I told her I was just very confused, and I told her I didn't know half the time whether I should be enjoying it as much as I was, or if I should have been feeling bad.

Donna said the only reason she got out of the water was that she wasn't sure what she felt right doing, even though all of the boys were nice. And then she cried and looked at me, very strange, and said something that really made me feel weird. She said that another reason she didn't get more into it was that she was afraid to because I seemed too good at it right away, and she didn't know what she should be doing, or how to do it. She wanted to know if it just came naturally to me, or if I had been seeing a boy and hadn't told her.

I couldn't answer her for a long time. I don't think I knew the answer. What did she mean, good at it? I told her I remembered feeling sexy, and very happy that they liked me and wanted me, but half of that, if not more, was the boys' doing, not mine. Plus we were drunk that night, and it just felt so good to do things I had wondered about for so long... She stopped me there and said that she thought about boys like that too. I asked her how she thought of them, like what they were doing when she dreamed of them, and she said they were taking her dancing, or seeing her at school and letting her ride in their cars. She said she was thinking about being with older boys who treated her like she was a princess, and at night they would come into this big, beautiful bed and lie next to her, and they would talk and kiss, and sometimes they would make love.

She said she didn't really like going that far because it seemed too rough for the rest of the daydream. She thinks about sex, though, she said. But it is the kind of sex that goes really slow like in soap operas. She said she sees it in slow motion and she can hear music playing, and they roll around, she and this boy, very slow, until it fades out of her head. She said she hoped that my fantasies were as sexy as hers are.

Oh, God, Diary, everything was fine until we talked about that! I just had to tell her that my fantasies were exactly the same as hers, and that we should never have argued, and I said I was sorry if I hurt her feelings. I should have been more open with her, and that I was only worried that she had begun to hate me for going so far that night. She said she thought I was very brave, and that if it felt good to me, then I should think of it as a good thing.
But what about the fantasies she has!
I was about to die when I heard how pure and sweet and gentle they were. Why doesn't she think the things I do! I was so hoping we had the same thoughts... I was depending on it.

I know she was telling the truth because of how she told me, and by how embarrassed she got when she talked about this boy getting into bed with her. She is so pure, I just can't believe it. I think that the times that I have to go into the woods at night have poisoned me.

I would be like Donna, I'll bet, if I were still just skipping through the trees, instead of... what happens now. But... I would never ever ever wish for what happens now! I wish for things that make me feel sexy and playful, things that don't take me to do all the work, things like someone else trying to please me, instead of me always trying to make everyone else happy.

I wish there was a place you could go where someone would answer all of your questions, and tell you if you were doing the right thing or not. How am I supposed to know when I can't even talk about things really? I just keep saying the same things again and again. I am running in circles, and it is time that I stop.

Donna and I are friends still, and I still love her, but things feel different to me. I can't think the way she does, or even try to anymore. I will think what I feel, and I will try to make people see things the way I do. I wish I had a marijuana cigarette right now. It feels like I haven't laughed for years and years and years.

Thank you for listening.

Laura

June 22,1986

Dear Diary,

I am just going to write and not think too hard about it and maybe I can remember more. I just woke up; it is 4:12 A.M.

I don't remember when it started, but he has always had long hair. He knows everything about me and knows how to frighten me more than any of the dreams I have already told you about.

He first started to play with me. We would chase each other through the woods, and he would always find me... but I could never find him. He would come up from behind me and grab my shoulders and ask me my name. I would tell him it was Laura Palmer, and he would let go and turn me around and laugh.

When I think about it, he wasn't playing the way he should have been. He was being very mean to me, and he was scaring me all the time. I think he likes it when I am frightened. He makes me feel that way every time he takes me with him. He likes to embarrass me by pulling down my panties and putting his fingers inside, deep. When he knows it hurts me, he pulls them out and smells his hand. He always tells me I smell like bad things. He screams out loud into the trees that I smell, and that I am dirty, and he doesn't know why he even likes me. He says if I didn't beg him to come all of the time, he would never come back.

I never beg him to come. Never. I wish him far away from here. I swear it.

When I started to get older, he would tell me things about myself that I didn't know. I don't think he was telling the truth. I think he was lying to me and making it up as he went along. He always knew exactly what scared me, and just the things to say to make me cry. Then he would take my neck... and squeeze. He squeezed my neck hard until I stopped crying. He would let go just before I would faint... I think I was fainting... sometimes that still happens. Everything goes tingly and dark, and my head spins inside and I can't see anything, and I have to stop crying or he'll keep squeezing.

Sometimes he says, "What's this down here?... What's this down here, Laura Palmer?" He always says my whole name like he won't get close to me like that, but he will every other way. Sometimes I would come home bleeding. I would bleed and I couldn't tell anyone, so I would sit up all night in my bathroom, all alone, and wait for it to stop coming out. Sometimes he would cut me between my legs, and other times he would cut me inside my mouth. Always tiny little cuts, hundreds of tiny little cuts. I had to use a flashlight in the bathroom or else my parents might wake up and see the light, and I'd be in worse trouble then.

Some nights he would make me sticky. Rub himself very fast, and he would say that I had to hold the sticky in my hands, close my eyes, and recite this little poem while I licked my hands clean.

I only remember a little. This hasn't happened for a long time, the sticky. He made me say:

The little bitch

Is awfully sorry

The little bitch

Drinks you up

(I can't remember more, except the last line.)

In this seed is death indeed.

He wants me to like it, when he is with me. He wants me to say that I am dirty and that I have an odor. I should be thrown into the river so that I will be clean.

I am so careful to smell clean, all the time. I always wash between my legs, and I always go to sleep in fresh panties, in case he makes me come with him. I always worry he will come for me, and I won't have clean panties. He says I'm lucky he even stays to spend time around me. He says that he is the only man who will ever want to touch me.

He comes to the window, and I see him. I always see him, and he is always smiling like we are going to have a good time together. I am so close to calling my parents for help, but I am afraid of what would happen. I can't let anyone know about him. If I keep seeing him, he might get tired of me and go away. Maybe if I stopped fighting him, he would not like to visit me anymore. If I weren't afraid. If I could just not feel afraid...

I have never thought about him like this ever before.

I hope that if there is a God, he will understand that I am trying to keep clean, and if this is a test that he is giving me, I'll find a way to pass it. I bet it is a test. I bet God wants me to prove that I can take orders, or maybe that I am not afraid to die and come be with him. Maybe BOB knows God, and that is why he always knows what I am feeling inside. God must be telling him what to do to me. God wants me not to be afraid, maybe, of being dirty. If I'm not afraid, he'll take me to heaven.

I hope so.

L

July 25,1986

Dear Diary,

I have been trying very hard not to be afraid.

I am seeing a boy I told you about once before. I didn't like him then, but now I think he is just right for me. He reminds me very much of the boy on the wall of the Book House. He dresses the same way, but he does not have a motorcycle. I am fourteen now. I didn't let anyone celebrate my birthday. I made Mom promise she wouldn't plan anything. I told her at the kitchen table the day before that I had a lot of thinking to do about my life. I just wanted to spend my birthday alone. I wanted to walk alone, and maybe take Troy out for a ride: I made sure she knew I didn't want to hurt her feelings, but I just needed to spend some time alone. She fussed for a while and kept asking me why I couldn't spend the following day by myself. I finally told her that I was feeling confused and I wanted to come home on the night of my birthday with everything sorted out. I wasn't going to go far, I promised her that. I just wanted to go. I promised her that next year and the following year, sweet sixteen, I will have a party of one kind or another.

So I spent my birthday alone. I went out to where I go with BOB. It was light out, and everything seemed like an awful dream, until I saw a piece of rope lying at the back of the base of his favorite tree. I got a chill, but forced it away. I tried to look carefully at the tree, to find something that would explain why he picked this place, this tree. There was nothing. I made sure I was alone before I did what I had planned.

I looked very carefully, and when I knew I was alone, I pulled a marijuana cigarette from my pocket. I made Bobby get one for me. He wanted to share but I told him he couldn't. We could do some together later, maybe. I smoked it very slowly and started thinking about sex. About men, all kinds of them, inside me.

I tried to think of things that BOB would like. I pulled a pair of my panties out of my pocket and rubbed them on the tree. I wore them just before I left to come here, so I knew the smell of me would be strong m not afraid anymore either that I smell bad. I know I don't. I think I smell like a girl should.

When I put my panties to my own nose and breathe in, I imagine a girl in front of me, and how a man would want to touch her. Get up close. BOB calls it pussy. I want to touch, can you hear me, BOB! When I smell it, I am not afraid, I told myself. I said it out loud many times while I was there, smoking and thinking of all sorts of ways I could touch Bobby... Things I would like to make him do. I thought every thought I could that would call BOB to come. I think he was' there, but he was hiding.

So I got very stoned, all by myself, and pushed myself onto the dirt, sliding onto the leaves and pine needles on the ground, and I looked up into the great tree. I wanted the tree to watch me, memorize the face of the new little girl who came to lie down. The old one is gone. She had to go off. I only use her voice sometimes; it is so much easier to get what I want when I say it sweetly, and like a little girl. I took off my clothes and began to touch my breasts, lick my fingers, and then rub my nipples with the wetness. I made circles the way the boys do with their tongues. I made noises when it felt good. I cried out when I pinched them hard and made them pink.

The wind began to come up, and I felt it move over my bare chest, and I remember saying, "Ohh, whoever that is, I like that... Yes... I like that very much..." I felt myself get a little wet inside my panties. ... so I undressed completely and I talked to BOB out loud, while I touched my secret button. I said, "BOB... Bobby... Laura has a sweet muffin here for you... Nice and clean and... mmmmmmm... I'll bet it tastes good too... Come out, BOB... come out and play..." The wind picked up, but I never saw BOB.

I came like I never have before. My body just couldn't stop, and I had to grab on to the tree, peel off bark in one place, grab again, dig in with my nails... and then it slowed. I was so warm with the marijuana and my little show for the woods that I almost took a nap, there, lying naked. But I couldn't do that. I won this one. He hadn't shown up. Night or day doesn't count. I showed him I wasn't afraid. I touched myself under his tree. I called to him and made him the fool. I'm going to pass this test... you'll see. If BOB wants nasty, all I need is a little time.
I can be the bad girl he wants.