The number 3463 would stay etched in her memory forever: it meant she was fatherless, and always would be. Norma Jeane wasn’t just Marilyn Monroe. She was fully aware of the effect she had on men. She was strategic, and intelligent. She wasn’t just a booth babe or a pin-up - she was a work of art, formed and perfected like any other. She was both artist and sculpture. She was proud, deep in her soul, and even though they saw her as prey she knew the power she wielded. A hand on her ass, why not? As long as it was useful. They accosted her not just with their eyes, but with their films à clef, their dreams and ambitions. Touch away, but offer me something in return. Touch, but promise me fame on a silver platter. It didn’t matter; this sumptuous body was a work of art onto which men could superimpose their desires, their fantasies, and their feminine ideal. She was Venus, the goddess of love. Marilyn never lost heart, walking through the studios looking for the best roles and the most influential men to take her under their protection. In her first role she’d been an extra. It wasn’t a bad role. She’d learned her two-word line by heart, and said it well: “Hi, Rad!” That was her first appearance, in Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay!
Still she hoped. She wanted a real film role. She, so perfect, so impossibly seductive…if they would only turn the cameras on her. She stole every scene and every heart, and sometimes it didn’t stop there. She was an A-bomb, a cold war all of her own. The world needed to feel her power, her ambition, and her sensitivity. And not just her sex appeal. They called her the blonde, the blonde bombshell, and worse. She’d had more than enough of it all. Marilyn had always felt alone, and abandoned. She was born and left to rot in an orphanage in Los Angeles, father unknown, and registered under number 3436. She was an orphan to her bones. They treated her like a good-for-nothing. Producers always offered her the dumbest roles, things they’d never dream of giving to Jean Harlow or Ava Gardner. They weren’t belittled like Marilyn was. They didn’t get pushed around. But Marilyn didn’t want to come across as stuck up, snooty or a diva. She didn’t have the patience to hold out, or another career to fall back on. And why hold out? It felt so good to be desired.
Her deepest fantasy was to sleep with her father. She dreamed about it night and day, to be naked before him, and tell him to do what he wanted with her. It would be her revenge, her solace. The man who’d got Gladys, her mother, pregnant and then wanted nothing to do with his daughter. How she would love to make him the slave to her fantasy. Ask him to make love to her, to show him that he could do as he pleased with his daughter. Her belief was ardent: her father must pay for his sins.
“Scudda Hoo!” the first man mocked.
“Scudda Hay!” laughed the second, pulling Marilyn towards him.
“You two... you make fun of me, but I know it’s because you like me. You like these legs, and my chest too. Come on honey, or else tonight you’ll go home without...”
“Without what?” the first jock laughed.
“Without shooting your shot,” the second one snickered.
The two men pushed Marilyn Monroe into the pool. God but she was beautiful. How could she be so perfect? She was a bombshell. Marilyn resurfaced and smiled at them. She owed her beauty to an old man who called himself Dr Hyde. She’d arrived at his clinic in tears, sobbing like a lost child. She wasn’t enough as she was. She was ashamed. She was a dumb blonde. After she met Doctor Hyde, things started to change. A touch off the chin, then the nose, then her hair. The list was long. The old man fell in love with his creation, but disappeared a year later.
Marilyn had become a femme fatale. Marilyn was now Monroe!
“Jump in, sweetie! You too, my little kitten. Come swim with me!” she called to one of the men. The two men refused to jump in the pool. Their fantasies had faded; for the past week they’d been excited at the prospect of being photographed with Marilyn Monroe. Now that it was done, they were coming down from the high, disappointed and depressed. Marilyn swam a length underwater. She emerged from the clear blue water gleaming like a dolphin. She was beautiful, almost otherworldly. She liked to provoke.
“Come on! You wouldn’t leave me hanging like that, would you? Come on my loves...”
Alan Alfredo Geday