Margaux Fragoso: Tiger, Tiger. (Excerpt)
(Blog still under construction – translation by Google, not yet seen through by myself. Please note: Citations are retranslated from the German Version to English.)
There are many autobiographies of sexually abused children. They probably reached their peak in the late 1980s and 1990s. One of the earliest and best-known was „I Didn’t Cry When Father Died“ (1986 ) . In 2011, Margaux Fragoso found new tones in „Tiger, Tiger,“ as the title of this article suggests. It is the story of a childhood in which sex occurred within the context of an elective affinity. The relationship lasted 15 years, and the writing of the book then took another 9 years, at her lover’s request. Fragoso received some support from her university, where she had taken a creative writing course, and it goes without saying that she also harbored a certain literary ambition for this work. This, on the other hand, was also unsettling. Even more so was the frank description of the sexual interactions.
“Her first sexual encounter with Peter at the age of eight was described by the New York Times as ‘perhaps the most indecent thing published in any of the major books of the last 10 years.’ Commentators in the US and Canada have questioned the veracity of her confessions because her memoir reads more like a novel or a love story.” 3
But her publishers had no doubts about the book’s authenticity: „We have a diary she wrote when she was 12. It is an account of their relationship, written in her childlike handwriting. You can imagine it contains some pretty disturbing stuff. We also have letters he wrote to her, spanning many years.“ 4
Fragoso, whose short stories and poems had already appeared in the Literary Review and other journals before her major success, defended the abundance of sex in her book. “I didn’t want to write about sex, but I was encouraged to do so by editors and creative writing teachers because in earlier drafts, without this terrifying sexuality, it read like a romance. ” 5
The sexual acts are described with clinical precision, hardly in an erotic way. However, they appear embedded in a fundamental attitude of ambivalence that pervades the entire book. This establishes a counterpoint to „I Didn’t Cry…“, the dominant work for a long time, although presumably not in conscious opposition to it.
Margaux was born in 1979 in Union City, New Jersey, where she also grew up. She met her future lover one spring day when, at the age of seven, she was holding her mother’s hand at a slightly older, somewhat muddy neighborhood swimming pool. There, at the far end of the pool, she noticed a man splashing, laughing, and playing ball with two boys. The younger of the two, nine or ten years old, immediately caught the seven-year-old’s eye. „He was very handsome… his legs, arms, and hands possessed a delicate agility, and there was a sensitivity in his expression rarely seen in a boy.“ Ricky, as he was called, would accompany her throughout her childhood, though he almost never spoke a word to her. But the father also won her affection. „When he looked in my direction, I saw that his eyes shone aquamarine.“ She noticed that he was old, but still radiated a lot of energy. Above all, he didn’t seem grown up . Fragoso writes that he could have stood in a line of a hundred men of similar stature, and she would still have gone up to him and asked him if she could play with him.
The girl crossed the entire pool and asked him that very question, and immediately he splashed water in her face and frolicked with her as if she were one of his children. Then he introduced himself, along with the children and his wife, to Margaux’s mother, and promised to invite them both to his home, which he promptly did. 34
Peter’s house was a kind of whimsical, colorful place with rabbits, iguanas, a catfish, a tortoise, a caiman whose belly he used to stroke, and Paws, the large, woolly dog. A pungent, magical world. Back home, Margaux immediately wanted to call Peter and arrange the next visit. Mommy agreed. She complimented Peter on how good he was with children. The phone call resulted in two appointments, one on a Monday and one on a Friday, confirmed. The relationship was established.
Margaux’s living situation back then was rather depressing. But soon her family moved to a larger house a little further away. Her father , whom she called Poppa , became even harder to bear. He had exhausted his financial means and, as a result, became even more of a control freak, worried about the house. He was also an alcoholic and a know-it – all complainer who loved to lecture people about his wise views and principles. He gave Margaux little freedom.
Mommy increasingly showed signs of developing a mental illness, which meant she had to go to the hospital more often. Poppa had to pay the price for this, leaving Mommy with feelings of guilt and inferiority. As she confided to Peter, she was convinced that no one else would take her, not least because of her weight. In his company and Margaux’s, she found the necessary distance to make fun of Poppa.
Margaux was considered a dreamer at home. She loved to make up stories, which wasn’t well understood by most people. Peter, however, understood her perfectly. And he had plenty of time to play with her.
As the winter evenings drew on, they spent more time indoors. Margaux would then play jigsaw puzzles with Peter; they had 1000 pieces. If she found one, Peter would reward her with a kiss on the lips when no one was looking.
What she liked most about Peter was that he hardly ever had any rules . Sometimes she imagined that her mother, who usually accompanied her to Peter’s, would simply disappear, and she would be alone with Peter, day and night.
Little Mama
Some of the stray cats had learned that there was food and milk in Peter’s cellar. One of them wandered around with a big belly for weeks until Peter and Margaux caught her nursing a litter of kittens one day. Peter named her Little Mama. He liked how Margaux played lovingly with them, and he thought she would probably like to go out with a big belly and become a mother herself. He liked little girls with bellies because they looked pregnant.
The first few times they went down to the cellar together, Peter asked if he could caress her and kiss her on the mouth . Eventually, they did this “ like adults .” Margaux was bothered by the difficulty breathing and let herself sink to the floor. She was now Snow White, while Peter continued his games far beyond “normal.” He began to caress her face, her bottom, her neck, the “place between my legs.” He always somehow managed to get her to allow further touching. When she let herself fall to the floor to show that his advances were gradually becoming too intrusive, he pretended to skin her like a big-game hunter skinning his prey . “Convinced that I was truly dead, I no longer felt the overwhelming sensations.” [85]
The Suzuki experience
As the weather warmed up, Peter suggested they play in their underwear. She found it strange and also liberating. Pointing out that wild animals don’t wear clothes, he encouraged her to take off her panties, which she did easily. She became increasingly absorbed in imitating the animals. She growled and licked the handlebars of the Suzuki motorcycle parked nearby. When she climbed onto it naked once more, Peter started the engine. “I felt a roaring, burning sensation rise from the engine… propagating through the cracked leather seat and piercing me… I gripped the handlebars, could hardly stand it, my eyes were watering, I said something strange, that I felt like Little Mama having her kittens; then this melting, searing, insane sensation exploded inside me like a sack of… pollen swirling through the air… Dazed, I got off the motorcycle, almost fell over, and wondered what had just happened to me.” [84]
* * *
Margaux’s temper tantrums had been a recurring issue for some time. She had also started lying to Peter. Peter told her he didn’t like lies. Both of these things allowed her to exert a certain amount of power over him. Peter eventually persuaded her to make a pact that required both of them to completely renounce lying. Margaux subsequently took the pact very seriously. Nevertheless, she remained cheeky.
Peter had told Margaux several times that she made him completely happy , and once that he would marry her when she turned eighteen . She calculated that it would only be ten more years and was pleased because married couples saw each other every day, not just Mondays and Fridays. “Sometimes he would hum to himself, which meant he was imagining me naked.” Occasionally, this would make her angry. 94
The promise
Once, Peter led her down a path to the cellar that they had never taken together before. Apparently, he wanted to show her Fiver , the sick rabbit. Then he suddenly turned, took her hands in his, and asked her, „Darling, are you going to keep your promise now?“ She didn’t know which promise, and couldn’t remember any. Somehow, he steered the conversation toward making babies, and he reminded her of his own „baby-maker“ that he had shown her. She couldn’t recall. But he pointed out how wonderfully the different organs of men and women fit together. Then he launched into one of his favorite topics, which he called „the lying and messed-up society.“ [96]
She didn’t quite understand his words, but concluded that, like her, he despised rules and disliked it when adults excluded children from everything important.
Then he reminded her again of her supposed promise. She had promised to do „anything“ for him. Now he pulled down his trousers. He wasn’t wearing underwear. He told her to pretend his penis was an ice cream cone. But she didn’t want to, because then she’d be licking pee. She simply couldn’t bring herself to kiss it either. Peter sulked and withdrew. He opened the cellar door and was about to leave.
„No, wait Peter, wait!“ She clung to his T-shirt.
„Let me go!“
„I can try it!…“
„You don’t like me because I’m an old man. You think I’m ugly.“ [104]
Karen “my sister”
When Margaux returned from a three-week vacation in Puerto Rico with Poppa, she realized her time as the only girl in Peter’s house was over. Karen was now her sister. Margaux was eight years old, Karen six. Margaux didn’t understand Peter’s need for children.
Since she had disappointed Peter—keyword: “promise”—he hadn’t gone down to the cellar with her again. On the one hand, this relieved her, but on the other, thoughts arose that made her nervous. Could it be that he was going down with Karen? Was Karen doing what she had been too cowardly to do? Margaux couldn’t bear the thought that there was anything special between the two of them. Added to that was the fact that Karen lived in the house, while she was only visiting. She consoled herself with the thought that only she had the potential to become his wife and the mother of his children. And finally, only she was allowed to ride the motorcycle with Peter; Karen was too small. [108]
* * *
Although Margaux suffered because of her short haircut, as the other girls laughed at her for it, Poppa took her to the hairdresser, where she was given an even shorter cut. Peter called this child abuse. Margaux hardly spoke to Poppa after that. One day, she threw the plate of food Poppa had cooked on the floor. He threatened her with his fist, and when she tried to push away, he called her a coward. Since then, they have ignored each other.
To that end, she now spent nights crafting paper ladybugs, which she gave to Peter. He kept them in a chest she had made for him in shop class. Their trips on his motorcycle took them further and further afield, and she accepted the „fish kisses,“ where they barely touched. She had also grown accustomed to the other types of kisses. Only the Bazooka Joe, where the same piece of gum was chewed alternately by one person and then the other, was something she didn’t like. But over time, she simply didn’t feel anything anymore. [131]
The gift – “this thing”
Then they sat together under a weeping willow, somewhere outside the city. Peter put his arm around her and gently reminded her that his birthday was coming up soon. He could give her a suggestion for a gift that wouldn’t cost anything. [133]
„Well, it’s something I’ve wanted for a long time… It’s something that people who love each other, like you and me, people who want to get married one day, do as a sign of their love.“
„Peter, do you want me to do this thing?“
„Only if you want it and if you are ready for it.“
„I need to think about it, Peter.“
When Peter’s birthday party was over, Karen wanted to watch E.T. Peter left her to Momma; Margaux winked at him, that was the signal. She went down the cellar stairs with him, walking ahead, leading Peter by the hand. Peter became nervous.
„Are you sure? Don’t do anything you don’t want to. We can go back… We don’t have to do this.“
„It’s your birthday today. I want to give it to you as a present.“
Once at the bottom, she stood motionless, waiting for the tingling and prickling sensation that would tell her when her body fell asleep.
„Maybe we should go back upstairs… You don’t seem very happy.“
She shrugged.
„I mean, you don’t have to do anything at all. Just being with you is enough for me. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.“
She remained silent. She “concentrated on appearing happy and relaxed.”
„I mean, what would you like to do now?“
„You say it! I’ll do anything you want. It’s your birthday today…“
Suddenly he wrapped his arms around her.
„I love you so much… We are the only people in the world who matter: you and I.“
She pulled down his pants… His penis didn’t look as frightening as last time. It was a natural part of his body, nothing embarrassing. She touched it, and it grew larger. The skin became smoother.
„I realized I was controlling him… I kissed him on the spot with the closed eye. There was no pee…“
“Can you suck on it like a lollipop?” [143]
Stories from books she had read long ago came to Margaux’s mind. One was called The Eternal Lollipop. In another book, a mouse drank from a glass of milk. „Suddenly I didn’t know if I wasn’t a mouse too…“ She didn’t know where she was. Finally, she realized she was looking at a thumbnail. Peter’s thumbnail. She realized she was looking up at Peter’s face. Immediately, he stroked her hair.
„I love you… You’d better stop now, darling… You’re so beautiful. So beautiful and loving… Thank you, my love…“
„Now you owe me one, Peter!“ she said.
„Come on, let’s go back upstairs,“ said Peter. He suddenly looked nervous.
As they walked upstairs, he casually reminded her of their agreement to keep it secret . Margaux reacted angrily: „I can keep a secret!“ But he wanted to show her how to keep a secret. He took her hand in his, placed his little finger on her lips as if inserting it into a lock, then placed the imaginary key in her hand. „As long as you have this key with you… you have nothing to worry about.“ He kissed her on the forehead, and Margaux said, „I will defend this key with my life.“
Then all she could think about was escape. She lost a sneaker, scurried under the table, he grabbed for her, she kicked at his hands. “ Get out of here… or I’ll kill you! “ He pulled the sneaker out from behind his back, and she loved him again and began to cry. He wanted to leave.
„Don’t leave me!“
„Why are you crying?“
“ I cried… because I hated him . He had shaken me, that brief thought of wanting to kill him. I had wanted to see him die… but I couldn’t tell him that.”
„I’m crying because I hit my head.“
Then it rained kisses.
The separation
In 1988, Margaux was nine years old and had just begun to develop breasts. She was no longer allowed to see Peter . He had kissed her at the swimming pool, and the lifeguard had seen it. Margaux defended herself. „Peter is more like my father than Poppa .“
Just two weeks after the separation, she began having destructive fits of rage. She was often mentally absent. After seven months, she had lost a significant amount of weight and showed signs of bulimia (anorexia).
Margaux witnessed a nighttime argument between Momma and Poppa. Poppa admitted to having girlfriends. Momma had to go back to the hospital. As soon as she left, Poppa started going out with Margaux, taking her to bars.
Margaux received a card from Peter for Easter. Then, a year later, Momma returned. She wanted Margaux to call Peter. Margaux and Momma tricked Poppa together. For Margaux, this meant she had a secret that belonged only to her and Momma.
Margaux was now in the fifth grade. She befriended a girl. She confided in her that a grown man had fallen in love with her and made her a woman. The friendship took place mainly over the phone. When Poppa heard Margaux on the phone, he sometimes shouted that he couldn’t stand her voice anymore.
The reunion
After a two-year separation, Margaux went back to Peter’s with her mother. He hugged her tightly, and she pressed her face to his chest, „as I always had… I felt like I was in a romance film with Peter in the lead role.“ Then he said to her, „…I can’t live without you. Don’t you feel the same?“ 207
“Yes,” she heard herself say, and loved him again as if they had never been apart . From then on, they saw each other regularly again. Her mother soon noticed that Margaux had gained some weight. She wore super-tight jeans and a gray bodysuit with the zipper always open so that her cleavage, which she thought was remarkable for an eleven-year-old, was visible. She wore a B-cup. She hadn’t gotten her first period yet.
The deal
Margaux got her first period after her 12th birthday . Peter wanted a French kiss (not for that reason). She had already given him many, and now she demanded 50 cents because he was old. “I loved him…” but she didn’t like the touch of tongues. She tried to imagine Ricky, which didn’t work because he didn’t have stubble. The 50 cents were meant to give her a sense of satisfaction for having given him so many free French kisses when she was “too young” to know her worth.
Margaux realized that Peter no longer had any teeth; he wasn’t wearing his dentures. This didn’t matter to Margaux; what was important to her was that she and Mommy now went to Peter’s house together every morning at nine o’clock during the school holidays. They no longer ate meals with Poppa. And Margaux was now allowed to ride with Peter on his motorcycle all the way to New York City . Mommy expressed understanding for Margaux’s love for Peter [though she still had no idea how deep this relationship actually went]. Margaux appreciated this. Instead of trying to break her will, as Poppa had attempted, Mommy let her go so that Margaux could live her own life.
The consideration
As they once again descended the cellar stairs together, which Margaux knew so well, he explained that this time he wanted to do something for her . He told her how, as a pubescent boy, he had been subjected to cunnilingus by his older sisters, which disgusted him to this day. He then tried, in many small, tender steps, to undress Margaux and lick her. Margaux was talkative and fidgety. Then she really wanted to concentrate, but she felt uncomfortable in the damp, cold, dark cellar. “ I loved him and I hated myself because I just couldn’t come.“
Then to Peter:
„You did so well, but once again I can’t manage anything.“
Then she repeated that she would never do anything that could get him into trouble. She would sooner slit her own throat than betray him.
Days later, he suddenly unbuttoned the top button of her jeans, slipped his hand between her legs, and began rubbing. When she dried, Peter put Vaseline on his finger. She imagined Ricky „…touching the hot engine between my legs… somewhere where, I now knew, it was hot and wet—a real sensation that blew my mind away.“
Since it was summer, “…my life revolved around crop tops, short shorts… tank tops and bustiers.” Peter accused her of drawing even more attention to the two of them. He also claimed that if he left her alone for even a second, some guy would immediately be standing next to her and start chatting her up.
Peter had sounded as if he had considered her too young at 12, “…but when we had sex [apparently with some regularity], 12 was quite grown-up in Peter’s eyes. Even eight had been old.” 251
* * *
In September, Margaux started seventh grade at a different school. She missed her friends there, who had never truly accepted her into their circle. Margaux was withdrawn and shy, and considered a freak. She continued her phone conversations with Winnie, her friend from her previous school. She told Winnie that Ricky had performed oral sex on her, and vice versa. Winnie always wanted to know what semen tasted like. Margaux: „Like popsicles.“ In reality, Peter had asked her to swallow his semen, and she had wanted to prove that she wasn’t afraid of it. She later justified this to herself by framing it as an event with Ricky and continuing to communicate it that way. 251
She and Peter were now talking more and more about „sleeping together“. What prevented them was the difficulty of remaining unobserved in the house.
For her thirteenth birthday , Peter bought her black leggings and a sailor dress meant for a younger girl. It was too tight and too short, “…but since I liked to dress sexily, that didn’t bother me.” Peter didn’t stop photographing her in it. He filled a new album with the pictures, but Margaux was bothered that he never hung up an enlargement to replace the one showing her when she was eight. 260
In history class, she wrote love letters to Peter. Her classmates wanted to know if she was still a virgin. 263
Mommy was struck by another bout of her illness. She had a schizophrenic episode and had to be hospitalized. Alone with Poppa in the kitchen, Margaux noticed that he was in a good mood.
From then on, Margaux went to Peter’s alone. On her way there, she was constantly harassed by boys. She writes that she needed this. Peter wrote her a four-page love letter every day. He demanded that she shave her pubic area. 280
Margaux Fragoso
Nina
It was during this time that Nina entered the picture, a paper doll and fantasy figure created by Margaux ; a quintessence of various real women, including those Poppa had flirted with in bars when Momma was ill. “Nina was everything my mother wasn’t. She was teasing, robust, and attractive, not wicked but indecent, not cold but depraved. She was a hot piece of ass, she was butter. A real sex goddess… a slut… she was younger than me, older than me.” Had she not been like that, Peter might have felt guilty about some of his actions. “ She was in the world to make Peter happy . Nina got a crash course in male gratification by… watching indiscriminate porn in which women did all the things men wanted.” 285
The pornography offered Margaux comfort because it showed her that what she was doing with Peter was normal. When she was with Peter, she never had to think about her mother. Peter told her she had to live in the here and now. But the storytelling continued. Now the stories with Nina were added. They were “…a playground to act out her sexual fantasies with boys her own age . One of them had to wear an electric collar that Nina could control remotely. Every day he had to perform oral sex on her.” 288
In addition, there was actual sex with Peter. She describes in detail how she gave him blow jobs as a daily routine . When Peter sometimes pushed her head down, her jaw hurt, but she welcomed it because it made him come faster.
She preferred to lie on her stomach so he could lie on top of her from behind and rub against her buttocks until he came. This required the least effort and strength, and she was tired because Peter asked for a sexual favor almost every day since her mother no longer accompanied her. If she didn’t comply, he would start crying, claiming she didn’t love him, or he would assert that she found him old and ugly. 289
Until Nina, the queen and regent, came, she felt like a disposable package, something you could throw away once you unwrapped the contents. Nina ruled over everything. She told Margaux she was beautiful, and she believed it. “ She told me I had power, and I believed it .” 291
Around the same time as Nina, Peter’s alter ego, Mr. Nasty , was also created . She was supposed to address him as „Mister.“ Peter taught her the dialogue he wanted her to say. Something like this:
“ May I suck on your huge man thing? „
„Maybe it’s too big for your small mouth. „
„But I can open it really wide. For my daddy. „
…
„I like the pain when Daddy fucks me because I’ve been so naughty. „
She played prostitutes, orphans, belly dancers, angels, nymphs, and geishas. Peter was a client, a father, a doctor, a priest, a king, and the infamous Mr. Nasty.
Sometimes she asked Peter to lick her, because she felt it would at least make up for it. But since that one time in the cellar, he had never tried to perform oral sex on her again. He claimed he couldn’t. Back then she had been younger; now she was the same age as those women who had forced him to do it when he was a boy. 292
Peter „compensated“ her for the sex in other ways, by fulfilling small everyday wishes. For example, they watched three movies in a row that she had rented from the video store, even though he was only interested in one. Or by treating her to a large vanilla milkshake. She insisted on things like this so he wouldn’t think she was doing it for fun .
„Nina would like you to rub her between her legs.“ She took his hand. Nina was only aroused by fantasies in which men were submissive to women . Margaux would have liked to be a dominatrix. 307
The scale tipped
And vice versa:
“Peter, do you know what I want right now? For me to lie on my stomach and for you to come on top of me.” “I knew Peter wouldn’t do it… [now]. But precisely because he didn’t want to right now, I wanted it all the more. Besides, I wanted him to feel guilty when he came on top of me, so that he would then cuddle and hug me. I knew our system of exchange was unfair, but this way I got the affection from Peter that I needed…” 309
Margaux was often haunted by sadistic, or rather masochistic, fantasies. In winter, she saw icicles hanging from the roofs, some as sharp as sickles. When she saw these pointed things, she had to look away, otherwise she imagined herself gouging out her own eye in front of the mirror and watching the contents of the eye burst. 319
* * *
Her mother had to go back to the hospital, for the third time this year. Peter went with her. In the emergency room, Mommy confided in him about painful memories from her childhood. He had become a kind of companion and confidant.
In winter, Margaux slowly began to feel that the scales were tipping, that Peter owed her more joy than he was actually giving her . She demanded that he stop going out with Ines, his partner. Every Sunday, Margaux would burst into tears because she couldn’t bear the loneliness when he preferred Ines to her [Ines was Peter’s partner]. Yet Ines did nothing for him, not even sex. Margaux berated Peter until he cried. 321
The following year was the year of her fourteenth birthday . For Peter, every birthday was a small step toward the apocalypse of their friendship. He said that ever since she had turned twelve and started menstruating, her vagina had a certain odor. And because he had been abused back then, he was no longer able to lick her. She didn’t dare remind him that, unlike him, she simply endured many things : pain and boredom while she satisfied him.
Although he declared his love for her daily in letters, she felt she always needed new proof of it. 323
Then they were married . In an empty church. Margaux wore a pure white dress, Peter read from the Bible, they exchanged vows, and Peter placed the ring on her finger. She was still a virgin. 332
Mothering
Peter could no longer ride his motorcycle. In addition to the chronic pain from his spinal injury, he had likely developed arthritis. This didn’t improve the atmosphere between the two of them.
Their arguments became more frequent and aggressive because he demanded sex from Margaux every other day without offering her anything in return , and even made her feel guilty. A few times Peter had choked her. When he then expressed remorse and wished he were dead, Margaux reassured him that she would rather die with him, whereupon Peter again assured her of his love. He simply couldn’t bear it when she held a knife to his throat and threatened to press charges, he explained. Margaux writes that she could never have done that because she would never have betrayed the only person in the world who truly cared about her . 340
Peter’s vitality was steadily declining. When they returned from their walks, Margaux would rub his back with baby oil, or he would lie on the heating pad. She mothered him . In her eyes, the oral sex and massages were simply part of his care, and her life gained „meaning and purpose, whereas otherwise there would have been emptiness.“ She was fourteen now, but she felt like she was forty. 344
* * *
Peter had promised not to be intimate again . His flimsy justification: because otherwise the temptation would be too great for him. He kept his word all winter. For Margaux, the benefit of this new game was questionable. She missed his hugs now. His kisses “ were terribly missed.“ There were also no more pornographic films or risqué novels. Margaux missed the girls from them. 356
It annoyed her that Peter alone could decide whether or not intimacy took place, and she longed to be held in someone’s arms. 358
Mommy attempted suicide – not her first. Margaux was convinced that she would have been normal without Poppa. She often visited her in the psychiatric hospital with Peter, which was very stressful. She couldn’t have managed without Peter’s presence. Poppa insisted on these visits, in Margaux’s opinion only for the outward appearance they made on others. That was the only thing that mattered to him. Margaux was now 15.
The social worker
Peter wanted Margaux to do things like ride a carousel or solve a puzzle, even though she was now 16 and far too old for such games. She was still a virgin. Age was becoming more and more of a problem in the other direction, too. At Margaux’s request, Peter had tried to remedy her virginity, but her vaginal muscles had involuntarily tensed up. She didn’t dare tell him that he looked older than most men in their sixties . 379
Around that time, a social worker was assigned to investigate their relationship. Before her visit, Peter and Margaux threw away everything that could have incriminated her: all their notebooks, photo albums, the clothes Margaux had stored at Peter’s, the novels, love letters, videos and pornography, and literature about young girls and older men. What Margaux only now learns about him is that he had spent two days in jail during the two years they hadn’t seen each other. The investigation against him at the time had been inconclusive. 380
The woman wanted to know if Peter had ever touched her, what they talked about, how they spent their time together. All the while, she looked Margaux straight in the eye. Finally, she said things like, „It’s up to you to protect other girls“ [by betraying Peter], which Margaux dismissed as a joke. She writes, “ I was already protecting other girls because I gave him what he wanted . That way , he didn’t have to hurt any really little girls. I was a big girl and knew how to handle it.“
“You’re hiding something from me,” said the social worker, and gave up. [385]
Poppa then examined her, after defending Margaux before the social worker, about whether there had been anything about Peter. He threatened to forget Margaux completely and abandon her to the streets if there had been anything about Peter. Margaux later wrote that Poppa wanted to take away the only person who accepted her as she was. [390]
Palisade Park. A natural landmark and recreational area in the urban region where Peter and Margaux lived. Here, the cliffs above the Hudson River are seen from below. Their favorite spot was probably at the top.
Around that time, she and Peter often took trips to Palisade Park, 40 kilometers away. There, she was overcome by the feeling of being on a ship drifting further and further away from reality. By then, she had virtually no contact with anyone except Peter and his dog, Paws. She had last received lessons from two paid tutors who came to her home, both of whom she liked very much, but whom she now missed. After she turned sixteen, the administration had stopped paying them. She studied for her university entrance exams, which she passed, but had no idea what to do with them. She rarely saw other teenagers anymore, so she wasn’t reminded of the parties, dates, and disco nights she was missing. 392
Disputes and desire for children
But arguments with Peter were becoming increasingly frequent . Like that time late one evening in the car, after Peter had said he didn’t want to try sleeping with her again . She screamed at him, saying that he had promised, but unlike him, she had kept her promise on his birthday , even though she was only eight . That made him a child molester . Then Peter punched her in the face. She was bleeding. 394
One December evening in Peter’s room, Margaux was taking her basal body temperature to make sure she was ovulating. Peter lowered the bed, and she lay there stark naked, her pubic hair shaved, her hair braided into two pigtails to make her look more girlish. As Peter approached with an expression of sadness, his freckled body white and old, she felt every muscle and nerve in her tense up. 397
„Darling, please relax,“ he said as he tried to penetrate her.
„I’m only eight years old, Daddy, I want you. You have a magic wand, Daddy. I want your magic wand inside me. I want to have a baby with you.“
She was now exactly twice as old as when she first said sentences like these.
She felt that the circle that had begun back then had to close. Although she wasn’t aroused, she was happy to have Peter inside her because this attempt to create new life justified the countless gifts she had given Peter over the years. It was as if the problems of an eight-year-old who had become a sexual being long before her time were finally being resolved by her now taking responsibility for the new meaning of sexuality. Finally, Peter came inside her; at the very moment she had asked him to. 400
The suicide attempt
At the end of the month, she discovered a red stain in her underwear, which meant that the hoped-for child had not come to pass. In her mind, this told her that her body was “…too corrupted to conceive new life.” That dark, musty cellar had stolen her life. In that place, she had given up, destroyed her will for Peter’s sake, and now she had none left. “My will was dead, so I might as well be dead.” 400
She wrote a two-page farewell letter, a final expression of respect for Poppa, and wondered if she would now regain her honor. Then she swallowed all the medication she could find in her parents‘ house. 401
When she regained consciousness in the hospital ward, she felt alone. She overheard conversations of rape victims blaming their rapists. Seeing the anger in their stories, she realized that Peter was a child molester and that everyone here would hate him. “ Yet I loved him and had saved him from prison. What did that make me? ” 406
After being released from the psychiatric hospital, she threw away all her medication. She could no longer feel emotions. Her interest in writing her novels had vanished. For years, Peter and Margaux had bought a paperback every week, from which she would read aloud for hours each evening. Now, in the state the medication had induced, she could no longer enjoy literature.
Then Paws , Peter’s beloved and psychologically important dog, died. Peter needed even more medication; his system had long been poisoned by a large number of them. Peter was a war veteran, though not in the strictest sense. He had enlisted as a laborer in the Korean War, where he suffered a back injury in a work accident that caused him pain for the rest of his life. The psychotropic drugs he now needed, in addition to or in greater quantities, destroyed what little remained of his sexual desire. Margaux: “ The bad Peter, the one from the cellar, was finally gone. “ 408
* * *
She was 17 now . She went to college, where she majored in early childhood education. She made friends, both girls and boys, who were interested in her. She might grab coffee with them or go out on Sundays. But she told them she wasn’t ready yet, that she hadn’t processed what her last boyfriend had done to her. Looking back, she doesn’t think that was a lie at all, even though it wasn’t her actual boyfriend she was referring to. She finds the description “ a kind of father who had sex with me “ more accurate.
She approached new friendships cautiously. She often felt that she had been drained of everything in recent years. 410
Peter rarely saw her anymore. But when she felt overwhelmed by her new circle of friends, she longed for Peter’s room, for the car, and for Paws. 411
In the spring, she transferred to a university, where studying became her drug. This was accompanied by brief love affairs with painters and musicians, which naturally aroused Peter’s jealousy and made him even more aware of his age.
One of these love stories became more serious. But Margaux still felt bound by her wedding promise to Peter . His love letters now contained memories of Margaux at twelve, eleven, eight, and seven years old. He often spoke of suicide. When she came home from university one day, Peter had left her mother with an entire pillowcase full of notebooks containing all his love letters and photos from the past fourteen years, for Margaux. She collapsed. Her mother comforted her: „Peter and you, you two always argued, but you always made up.“
Days later, Margaux sat huddled on the floor of a phone booth at the university and called Peter. Now 21, she felt as if she were nine again, or seven. The next day, Peter picked her up at the usual time, and they set off on their afternoon drive. Every Thursday, they drove 80 kilometers to a large rock, their favorite spot in Palisade Park , the popular recreation area.
suicide
Peter had repeatedly threatened suicide . Margaux was worried; she felt she had to watch over him. The day he went through with it, she was at university taking her final English III exam. She had never really believed his threats. Peter had delivered a thick envelope to her house and then disappeared. Besides many loose sheets of paper in which he said goodbye, the envelope contained a sketch of the car’s location and the ignition key. The police found Peter’s body at the foot of „their“ rock, as Margaux puts it in the book—the rock where they both used to sit. 440
Margaux blamed herself, but also wondered if she had been denying herself all these years. And: how many of the preferences she considered her own were truly hers? Where did Peter end, and where did she begin?
She reread his farewell letters and his love letters to understand how much his life had been a tribute to her . Everything she had inherited from him was proof that she was the person he loved most . 446
Her mother commented: “He had always been your advocate. When your father put you down, he built you up again.” She was convinced that he was now in heaven and Margaux’s personal guardian angel. 447
* * *
The end of the story is not yet the end of the narrative. Fragoso lets it fade away in several stages. For a few pages, Poppa has the floor. Finally, Peter’s car receives a final tribute. Peter had bought it with the help of a loan from Poppa, and with money that actually belonged to Margaux. Margaux drove it into a storm. She drove into a huge puddle, the depth of which she had underestimated, and Peter’s car died with a final sputter. Margaux—how symbolic!—could not free herself from Peter’s car; the fire brigade helped her.
What follows are memories, flashbacks, supported by countless photographs. Of Margaux’s narrative, which is not always brilliant from a literary point of view, this is perhaps the most successful passage. A sparkling, breathtaking revue of the most beautiful images , written in a flying rhythm. It gives the reader, one last time, a condensed and ethereal glimpse of the magical, surreal atmosphere of those 15 years.
„On the way back from Coney Island, Peter parks the Suzuki under a bridge during a downpour, and we make out amidst… discarded trash. Under the bridge, where no one can see us, we are more daring. Daring in Peter’s room with the door locked. On the deserted beach.“
„There, the sky over Coney Island is pink… We’re ice skating on the hard rink… Now I’m reading him Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. There we are in church: he’s reciting Psalm 23. I’m the only married girl in my eighth grade class. There I am on the back of the motorbike, my hair coming loose from my ponytail. There we are lying in a meadow in the national park… waiting for the stars to turn on their laser beams. … Pictures in albums, pictures in the wooden box I made him in shop class. There I am at seven, doing cartwheels, a pink and white dress falling over my head… There I am at twenty, sucking on a grape-flavored lollipop… Me laughing in the sun, me with my fingers in the enchanted pond… Countless pictures of me with the rusty watering can… In the hammock, my head on Peter’s chest; he’s twisting my hair around his finger. In another [picture], my head rests on his arm, his face looking at me“ In profile, my eyes are clouded with emotion, his eyes clear and fresh like early morning. In a photograph I’ve never seen before, Karen and I are sitting in the bathtub… The photographer, of course, remains invisible. He is somewhere beyond our line of sight, somewhere in the barren hills… in the dark lake, in the laughing forest. He invents words and their accompanying music; he is a jack-of-all-trades, and he is beautiful. He loves us so much.” 455
These are her last words in the narrative of her childhood, a narrative in which she recounts everything as she saw, felt, and judged it as a child . It is the end of the romance .
The Afterword
Then comes the afterword – and with it, the disillusionment. It reads like an explanation, as if she, as the author, herself owed the unraveling of the riddle that her story represents. Then follow a few hastily tossed-off tips intended to help prevent similar cases.
The explanation delves deeply into her origins. Her mother, too, had been a victim of sexual abuse. Her grandparents, she claims, were unable to deal with it openly enough. They insisted on silence, and Margaux’s own story, she asserts, proves this was wrong. For Peter’s world, too, drew its seductive power from secrets. Silence and repression, however, are precisely the reactions pedophiles rely on. With this, she overlooks the fact that her mother was far from suspicious of Peter; quite the opposite. She believed she had found in him the ideal educator and father figure for her daughter. In doing so, she repressed the fact that she was trying to satisfy her own unmet needs with Peter. This resulted in a parallel situation for mother and daughter regarding Peter, and this formed the backdrop for the silent conspiracy between the two—the conspiracy against her own husband and father. The mother didn’t „conceal“ anything, because she knew nothing to conceal. The friendly, relaxed atmosphere in Peter’s company helped her bear the reality that her illness and her marriage imposed upon her. This blinded her.
Fragoso then presents a final approach. As she herself writes, she only came across a text in the final stages of working on her book that confirmed a long-held suspicion. A transcript of a conversation with a prison psychologist, “ Conversations with a Pedophile,“ became proof for her „…that a sex offender looks out for children from broken homes like hers, but also…“ for children from normal families. And then follows her quintessence from the whole thing:
„Pedophiles are masters of deception because they are masters of self-deception: they convince themselves that their actions harm no one.“ 459
The sentence has embarked on a journey around the world. The book has been translated into 20 languages.
And the sentence made sense.
__________________
And now my afterword:
Fragoso’s romantic memoirs, or diary-like romance, offer a profound glimpse into the life of an extremely age-gap couple, such as the one she shared with Peter, who was 44 years her senior. Reviews often highlight, with dismay or approval, the comparatively accurate depiction of the sexual episodes. However, another dimension, on which Fragoso consistently provides very clear information, is rarely addressed: that of power . Some scenes or recurring themes in the book are a tug-of-war between two vastly different power players, one of whom, however, the younger man is also quite capable of gaining power. For example, by inducing guilt in the older man, which was intended to elicit tenderness from him („Besides, I wanted him to feel guilty when he came on me, so that he would then hug and cuddle me…“ p. 309). Peter, in turn, with the same intention of inducing guilt, accused Margaux of despising him because of his age, which elicited a certain degree of leniency from her.
The game of power also grants the inherently weaker child varying degrees of freedom, which can make it easier for them to endure their position and help them maximize their gains. In this sense, Fragoso’s insight into this process is informative.
The same passage also contains a reference to another dimension in which the dynamic progressed and can be understood in retrospect. In the continuation of the above quote, Fragoso mentions the concept of ‚exchange‘:
„I knew our barter system was unfair, but that’s how I got the affection from Peter that I needed …“
This was long after she had passed the age of 12. The increasing arguments prove that the exchange was becoming less and less balanced for both of them. This was because, for each of them, the other’s physical attractiveness had diminished. (Bizarrely, from then on, each of them increasingly perceived the other as too old.) Even before this, the balance between giving and receiving was skewed because Peter refused to give Margaux what he, in turn, demanded of her—and she, conversely, had not failed him: oral sex. This imbalance characterized their relationship over the years and was endured by both of them—because they were attached to each other, because there would have been less and less of a substitute for Peter, and because Margaux far preferred this relationship, with all its burdensome conditions, to retreating to her parents‘ home . Overall, the benefit she derived from this relationship was indeed far greater than the benefit she could have expected from her Poppa.
Margaux makes the unmistakably clear statement in the book that Poppa “… wanted to take away the only person who accepted her as she was.”
The high value that Peter held for her, according to Margaux’s own confession, explains her unwavering will to keep her secret: because she would never have betrayed the only person in the world who truly cared about her . 340
Despite the absence of Poppa, Margaux didn’t completely lack a father figure, even if Peter’s portrayal of this role is often distorted. Margaux describes him as “ a kind of father who had sex with me .“
Margaux’s mother compares these two fathers in terms of their power relationship with Margaux: „He [Peter; mb] had always been your advocate. When your father put you down, he built you up again. „
That doesn’t justify Peter’s violations of the rules, however.
_________________________
Wikipedia: The book title refers to a game the perpetrator, 44 years her senior, played with her, and also alludes to the question in William Blake’s poem „The Tiger“ about whether the predator shares the same creator as its prey. Translated into 20 languages, *Tiger, Tiger* remained Fragoso’s only book, as she died of ovarian cancer at the age of 38. She left behind a daughter of about 12 years old.
New Jersey City University has been awarding the Margaux Fragoso Literary Courage Award to writing students since 2018.
PS
“Louise DeSalvo’s “Even in Death, La Bella Figura”: A Meditation on Honor, Respect, and the Silences That Bind” (pp. 37-49), in: Nancy Caronia and Edvige Giunta (eds.): Personal Effects. Essays on Memoir, Teaching, and Culture in the Work of Louise DeSalvo . Fordham University Press, Bronx (NY) 2015
Writing as a Way of Healing: How Telling Our Stories Transforms Our Lives
She originally wrote “Tiger, Tiger” as a novel before reworking it as a memoir, drawing on journals she kept as a child and on letters from Curran.
“There was very little reflection in the voice,” Edvige Giunta, a teacher of Ms. Fragoso’s at New Jersey City University, said in an interview. „A reflective voice would have diminished the brutal reality. It was a literary literary choice . . . I would hate for Margaux Fragoso to be remembered just as a survivor of childhood molestation. She was a writer.“
Her first marriage, to Steve McGowan, ended in divorce. Survivors include her husband since 2010, Tom O’Connor, an English professor at Tulane University in New Orleans, and a daughter from her first marriage, Alicia McGowan, both of Mandeville, La.
___________________________
1 Galey, Iris, I couldn’t cry when Daddy died. London 1986
2 Margaux Fragoso: “Tiger, Tiger”. Translated from the American English by Andrea Fischer. Frankfurter Verlags-Anstalt, Frankfurt am Main 2011. 341 pp.
3 Unless otherwise noted, the above text follows the review in the Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1363538/Truth-fiction-A-young-girls-graphic-account-15-year-relationship-paedophile-age-seven.html
4 Daily Mail.
5 Daily Mail.
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February 21, 2026
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