She’s Not What She Appears to Be
Jasmine knew that evil lurked in every pore of her being. She knew that everyone would be truly horrified if they knew how she felt, what she thought. The way she’d fantasize about torturing and killing the most helpless creatures—little white kittens and small children. She would do it slowly, savoring each and every moment, every cut of the knife and the patterns on their flesh that she would trace in blood. But Jasmine couldn’t help what she was. After all, one enjoys what one enjoys. One feels the way one feels, and there’s no way to change it. Reason told Jasmine that her deepest and truest desires were impervious to reason. But she knew that she would have to keep herself hidden, always. Some people were shy and introverted, but then they would gradually show themselves, let little parts of their personalities show, let themselves be seen, even, eventually known by someone. For Jasmine, this was not an option. She could never be known or seen. For if she was, she would be destroyed, just like a vampire in an old-fashioned horror movie hunted down by frenzied villagers. She knew she would never be loved for who she was.
So, in order to survive, Jasmine would have to keep herself hidden all the time, even from herself. At first she seemed introverted, not revealing very much of herself. But soon people would become suspicious. They would suspect that she had another life that she hid. They were suspicious of someone that would not reveal themselves even a little. So Jasmine had to reveal little bits of a personality, share little facts about her likes and dislikes, her habits and hobbies. But she had to be very careful that what she revealed in no way indicated what she truly was. She realized that she would have to construct an entirely new persona for herself, somebody totally unlike herself, somebody that she would always have to appear to be.
Jasmine was selfish and cruel, so she would have to act as if she was the exact opposite. She practiced showing consideration for others, putting their needs and preferences before hers. She took up volunteer work: serving at soup kitchens, tutoring underprivileged children, visiting burn victims in hospitals. But of course, though she pretended to be motivated by sympathy and altruism, she secretly enjoyed witnessing the poverty, witless stupidity, and deformity of others—though she never let on to others or herself. She gave money to charities, but of course not all that she could have, because she had her secret selfish desires to feed, and that took money.
She dated, because she had insatiable sexual desires and a need to dominate and hurt people. But she didn’t let her dates know that. She pretended that she wanted marriage and a family and to be taken care of by a big, strong, capable man who would keep her in her place. In truth she had only contempt for all of that, but she went through the motions, asking to be fixed up by friends and placing wholesome, conventional personal ads in the local paper. The trick was to get rid of the hapless dupes whom she ruthlessly used for sex and the pleasure of humiliating them without letting them know what had really happened. She managed to do this in various ways: by giving elaborate versions of the “It’s not you, it’s me speech,” being busy with altruistic pursuits, causes, charities, pretend friends and invented family responsibilities, or seeming fucked-up in an irredeemable but adorable way, such as being emotionally wounded, or ambitious and driven, but for a noble goal.
Eventually she married. She manipulated her husband in order to have free reign with the credit cards for her extravagant shopping sprees, while keeping him convinced that she was the most wonderful, virtuous person in the world so that he would continue to worship her and she could continue to keep him at an emotional distance. She did this by continuing with her charities and being a generous gift giver, and also spending an inordinate amount of time on her appearance so he would always be in awe of her pulchritude. Eventually they had children, and she was a perfect mother and a model citizen. In actuality she hated her children and imagined torturing them in various ways including tearing them limb from limb while they screamed in pain and suffocating them under piles of writhing and venomous snakes. Her children knew nothing of this and adored her and believed that she adored them. They grew up into successful adults with a healthy amount of self-esteem and a sense of ethical responsibility. When she was on her death bed she was surrounded by her loving family. And as they held her hand and wept over her, she hated them as she always had. She died without anyone ever knowing who she truly was. In a way, she had succeeded in the use of her life strategy. In another way, maybe not.
