The Voyeur in the observation tower reached for his notebook and recorded another example of a motel guest’s greed.
Conclusion: After subjecting fifteen registered guests to this test—a number that included a minister, a lawyer, a few businessmen, a couple of working people, a vacationing couple, a middle-class married woman, and one man who was unemployed—only two of the entire list returned the suitcase to the office unopened. One was a doctor. The other was the middle-class married woman. The minister and the others all opened the suitcase and then tried to dispose of it in different ways. The minister pushed the suitcase out of the bathroom window and tossed it into the hedges. The doctor, in fact, made an attempt to open it, but then changed his mind. And so of the fifteen test cases, only the woman was not tempted by greed.
The Voyeur rests his case.
EIGHTEEN
IN THE Voyeur’s category of “honest, but unhappy people,” a great majority of his subjects were out-of-town married couples who, during their brief stay at the Manor House Motel, so filled his ears with their complaints or indications of long-term marital stress that he constantly reminded himself of how lucky he was to have Donna as a wife.
“Without her understanding and unprejudiced attitude, my observation laboratory would never have become a reality. My wife,” Gerald wrote, made “every effort to understand the motivations behind” his voyeurism. She “has not criticized or condemned me for this perversion. Thus has she helped rationalize my conviction that voyeurism is a natural state of being, and this desire is present in all men.”
In her pretty and perky blonde embodiment he had an adoring and faithful spouse, an in-house nurse, a coconspirator with regard to his prying propensities, a prurient presence in the attic when she was off duty from the hospital, a trustworthy manager of their family finances, a loving mother to their two children, and, also worthy of mention, his private secretary and scribe whenever he was too tired or bored to put on paper some of the tedious scenes and situations he witnessed through the slats.
When he wished to avoid taking pencil in hand, he would dictate his observations to Donna, who knew shorthand (having learned it in high school), and soon she would supply him with a transcript that he would later copy in his own hand and include in The Voyeur’s Journal.
Donna also assisted him in compiling the facts and percentage figures that he posted in his annual report, bringing to this task the same high standards in accuracy that she maintained when jotting down medical data at her hospital.
Since Gerald Foos was frequently carried away by fantasies of his significant scientific status, imagining Donna and himself as white-coated colleagues of the renowned couple that ran the Masters & Johnson Institute in St. Louis, his written report often conveyed the professional tone of a sexual therapist or marriage counselor, particularly in the final sentences that formed his “Conclusion.” A typical “Conclusion” appeared at the bottom of what he wrote about a romantically disengaged older couple from Joplin, Missouri, who chose to stay in Room 7, one with two double beds.
Since I did not have anything better to do, I decided to observe this unattractive couple. Upon check-in, I noticed that the husband didn’t show any emotion. He was an auto factory manager in his mid-40s, 5’8”, well-groomed, wore glasses. His wife was also in her mid-40s, slender at 105 lbs, and she had a small mouth. As they entered the room, I noticed that the husband had the same grim expression he had in the office. She went first to the bathroom, then came out and said: “Let’s go to dinner.”
They came back at 9:30 and discussed a movie they had seen, and she proceeded to undress, taking off her bra by pulling the back around to the front, and then putting her nightgown on first, and then pulling the bra out from beneath. They retired to separate beds while watching TV. Much later he moved over to her bed and attempted to fondle and caress her; but when his wife became amorous it seemed to kill any prospect of his getting an erection.
His wife said: “You haven’t been able to do anything in three weeks, so why do you continue to try doing it from this God-damned motel room?”
He made no reply.