The Voyeur's Motel Read online

  Under normal circumstances, Foos would have assigned this presentable but unexceptional-looking couple to a room without viewing vents, for nothing about either individual engaged his sexual curiosity; but Foos’s prudent nature inclined him to regard their dog differently. He should be watched, Foos decided, and so after the couple had agreed to the payment policy on pets, they received a key to Room 4.

  Later, in the attic, after Foos had spent an hour watching as the dog tried to sleep amid the argumentative voices of his masters, Foos wrote in The Voyeur’s Journal:

  During observation this evening, I see the same disgusting pattern repeating itself with these people.

  First, there is the disagreement over how much money they have spent on vacation; and how much is left!

  Then there is the wife bickering over how they are wasting time, not seeing the proper attractions, and all they do when they go on vacation is watch TV! Then, the wife complains about the room and why they have to stay in this dump, instead of some large tourist hotel. This infuriates me to a degree when someone refers to my motel as a dump! It is not first-class, but it is clean, and has had guests from all walks of life. She is just trying to pick a fight with her husband, but he is a passive individual and shows little or no emotion regarding her insults. She accuses him of not accomplishing anything as a social worker, and says he will never make enough money to please her doing “this stupid work.”

  Shortly thereafter, I notice the hound smelling around behind the large chair in the room and he proceeds to do his duty in a large pile behind the chair.

  The subjects notice the hound’s achievement, and make an effort to remove the excrement from the carpet. She says, “The manager will never know the dog went behind the chair, because the chair covers it, and besides, we’ve cleaned it so good he will never see it.” She goes on to say: “The last motel we stayed in never found out that he went on the carpet.”

  After this episode they retired to the bed, and were able to accomplish nothing except endless arguments between TV commercials. The next morning at 10 a.m. they came down to the office for their pet deposit. At this time, I asked them to accompany me to the room and proceeded with my inspection. I removed the large chair from the corner of the room, and pointed to an area of the carpet where I had seen their hound relieve himself last evening.

  I said, “See that spot?” They said, “No!” I said, “Your dog soiled the rug here, and I will have to shampoo the entire carpet because you allowed your dog to dirty the room.” They appeared stunned, but didn’t resist at the idea of the motel keeping the deposit. Before they checked out, I was up in the observation platform to listen to their critique. They were immersed in a discussion of how I knew the exact position their hound had relieved himself.

  They couldn’t believe it—maybe I had an extraordinary sense of smell, they pondered. Or perhaps I was gifted with extra-sensory perception. “His eyes must be able to see spots that we can’t see,” they assumed. “Maybe,” he said, “he is able to look in that window somehow, and was able to see the dog dirty the carpet.” She said, “He’s just a dumb-idiot manager who probably keeps all deposits for himself anyway, and was just lucky in pointing out a particular spot on the carpet.” With that statement, they departed the motel, with only the Voyeur knowing the correct presentation of facts and with a gentle chuckle emerging from within.

  Conclusion: My observations indicate that the majority of vacationers spend their time in misery. They fight about money; where to visit; where to eat; where to stay; all their aggressions somehow are immeasurably increased, and this is the time they discover they are not properly matched. Women especially have a difficult time adjusting to both the new surroundings and their husbands. Vacations produce all the anxieties within mankind to come forward during this time, and to perpetuate the worst of emotions. Most of these people seem to be very content when they are together in the motel’s office, paying for another day at the motel or while picking up literature and brochures.

  You can never really determine during their appearances in public that their private life is full of hell and unhappiness. I have pondered why it is absolutely mandatory for people to guard with all secrecy and never let it be known that their personal lives are unhappy and deplorable. This is the “plight of the human corpus,” and I’m sure provides the answer that if the misery of mankind were revealed all together spontaneously, mass genocide might correspondently follow.

  SEVEN

  A LARGE building complex within walking distance of the Manor House Motel was the Fitzsimons Army Medical Center, where President Dwight D. Eisenhower spent seven weeks recovering from his heart attack in 1955. During the 1960s and ‘70s it served as a temporary home for hundreds of injured Vietnam War veterans. Gerald Foos was only moderately against the war when he first built his observation platform in 1966, but as the war continued, he became deeply disturbed because he frequently saw for himself how painful and humiliating it was for crippled soldiers to have sex, or attempt to have sex, with their wives or girlfriends whenever they rented space for a day or more at his motel. In The Voyeur’s Journal, on June 15, 1970, he wrote:

  Checked into Room 4 this white male serviceman, who is in his early twenties and confined to a wheelchair, having lost his right leg in Vietnam. He was accompanied by his wife, also in her early twenties, about 5’3”, slim, and very pretty. She had come from their home in Michigan to visit him, after he had received a brief release from Fitzsimons. They rented the room for five days.

  Upon the initial observation, the male subject was still very upset and stressed regarding the loss of his right leg, below the knee, and is experiencing great difficulty in adjusting to his artificial leg. When the subject removed the artificial leg, the stub was completely raw, sore and open, and was causing him great pain and discomfort. . . .

  The subject went into great detail expressing how the service and society had forgotten men like him, and that the war in Vietnam was a terrible waste of men and materials. His wife agreed with him, and said, “Why didn’t you go to Canada like Mike did?”

  He said, “I definitely would have gone to Canada if I knew beforehand that the service was going to lie and misrepresent the facts, but I was too hung up on home, family, and country and lost perspective of the real issues.”

  Later that evening the voyeur from the observation vent observed them in the process of love-making. She opened two bottles of coke and handed him his drink and then she sat on the chair facing him, tucking up her legs, her mini-shift riding up and giving him and the Voyeur a clear view of her curvaceously tapered thighs. She was not wearing any underpants. . . .

  The male subject smiled in lewd appreciation, and hoisting his glass in toast, said, “Here’s to what makes the world go round!”

  “Sex . . . ?” She smiled.

  “No! Money! It’s the one thing people will do almost anything for. What do you think we are at war in Vietnam for? It’s for the god-damned money.”

  He took her, solidly, into his arms, and his lips sought for and found hers, and it was her moist, pink lips that came surging onto his mouth, searchingly, as his hands began to explore the soft contours of her body. Cupping the resilient mount of a small sculptured breast through the soft material of her dress, he kneaded it softly, and the natural and normal reactions began to materialize.

  The male subject slid his hand down across her flat stomach, then out along the smooth, whiteness of a finely tapered thigh, then he went under the short length of her dress, allowing his hand to massage and caress the curling fleeciness of her pubic hair. . . . The voyeur could see the erotic spasms of her body, and the tiny undulations of her loins up against his taunting fingers. He removed her mini-sheath to reveal the curves of her soft, small, womanly body. Her legs were splayed, obscenely, to the delight of the observing Voyeur. . . . Quickly, the male subject shed his clothing, leaving only his shorts to cover him
, partially. Inside his shorts, his massive erection was stirring. . . . Frantically, the male subject flexed his pelvis in between her thighs, and he removed his penis from the leg of his shorts, and in one powerful smooth thrust, he rammed his penis deep into her clasping vagina. . . .

  Several strokes later, the male subject’s orgasm came to him. With a groan, he slumped on top of her . . . She did not reach orgasm and was definitely unhappy about the disturbing situation. He rolled away from her to his side, and quickly scrambled off the bed on one leg. He said, “I hope you remember when I had two good legs.” . . .

  The Voyeur observed this couple periodically from time to time during the next five days, and they did not reconcile or adapt to the male subject’s losing his leg. It was hampering their relationship, and I believe his wife will never accept his disability, and this would eventually lead to divorce.

  A few years later, another wounded veteran—this one a paraplegic—checked in to the Manor House with his wife. Foos watched as the wife tried to help her husband out of his wheelchair and onto the bed.

  But he said sharply, “I can handle it. I don’t want any help or assis­tance.” He took off his shoes and trousers and said, “here you can empty my bag.” He apparently had no bladder control and had to be catheterized. She unhooked the tube connected to his penis and emptied the bag in the toilet. She then reattached the bag.

  She undressed and . . . held her breasts up in front of his face for observation, and he responded by gently kissing and sucking them. She said, “I have to take a shower.” During her shower, he remained motionless and watched TV. When she finished with her shower, she reclined on the bed beside him and laid real close, hugging and kissing him.

  He said, “Why do you continue to love me when I’m in this condition?” She said, “because you are still the person I married, and I remember our vows, in sickness and health.”

  He kissed her deeply, saying, “if it wasn’t for you, I don’t think I could survive.”

  The wife proceeded to unhook his catheter and masturbate him to erection.

  She rested her head on his abdomen, and began to carefully lick and suck his penis taking the entire shaft into her mouth. She did this for the better part of an hour and he definitely seemed to be able to have some perception of feeling, because he was getting the sexual pleasure facial expression and sticking his tongue out and licking his lips. She mounted him in the female superior position, and reached her own orgasm simultaneous with his. . . .

  Conclusion: Because of the close proximity of Fitzsimons Army Hospital to the motel, I have had the opportunity to observe many of the deplorable and regrettable tragedies of the Vietnam War. This subject was lucky. He has a loving and understanding wife.

  He will probably survive, but what becomes of the other hundreds of individuals who have no one? Observation of these sorrowful and disastrous subjects is a very difficult and unpleasant task, and consequently, all that remains is regret and pity. There is nothing more disturbing than hearing a subject disclose that he has been betrayed by his country.

  EIGHT

  THE VICTORIAN gentleman’s intent in My Secret Life was to write, as he himself explained, “without any regard for what the world calls decency,” and, while researching his memoir, he had what Professor Marcus called “a Leopold Bloomish ­experience—he spends some time spying on women defecating and urinating.”

  After I had read the first three or four sections of Foos’s The Voyeur’s Journal—he continued to send installments of the journal through the winter and spring of 1980—it seemed that, like the Victorian gentleman, Foos had great interest in trespassing and reporting on what occurs within the most private domain of daily activity: the bathroom.

  Donna checked in this attractive young lady from Lemon, Colorado, who said her husband was attending an Army Reserve gathering in town and they would be needing accommodations for the evening. She was assigned to Room 6.

  At about 4 p.m., after Donna had left for her nursing job, I went to the watchtower to observe this lady’s activity.

  Upon entering the room, she immediately turned on the television and departed for the bathroom to engage in noisy urination. She was a side-saddle sitter—in other words, sitting on the toilet sideways, or obliquely, in contrast to normal facing-the-front sitters.

  Individuals vary in their approach to the toilet seat. Some sit with their backs against the water closet. Some lean forward. Some so far forward, that I have seen at least one individual fall on his face in the midst of having a bowel movement. The strangest approach was an individual who always sat facing the water closet with his legs straddling the commode. He was able to rest his arms on the water closet from that position. Several individuals have been observed to never sit down on the toilet, just assumed a sort of squatting position over the commode, possibly in order not to acquire any germs. Every imaginable position or approach to the commode has been observed.

  After leaving the bathroom, the female subject undressed and exposed a beautiful body to the delighted eyes of the obsessive Voyeur. For the next hour and a half, this young female primped, adorned, arranged, and carefully dressed her hair, and was so finicky in her styling she could never quite get it correct. For the longest time, she took off and reinstalled a set of earrings and continued looking in admiration or condemnation at her image in the mirror.

  Suddenly, she would smile at herself, and then appear disgusted at her appearance.

  Finally, her husband joined her in the motel room, having come from his reserve meeting. They embraced and after discussing his reserve meeting, she became disturbed that he didn’t notice her new earrings, and that she had gotten her ears pierced. During these disagreeable moments he accused her of unnecessarily spending money for getting her ears pierced and buying the earrings. She became upset and explained that this was one of the reasons why she accompanied him to Denver, to get her ears pierced and buy the earrings. They soon left for dinner, and after returning they appeared to have rectified their earlier disagreement. They turned on the TV, and she undressed quickly while he went to the bathroom. She pulled the straps of her bra down over her shoulders, and then placed a long thick nightgown over her head and pulled the bra out from underneath. She got in bed and pulled the covers up to her chin.

  He came back and turned out all the lights and the TV, but left the bathroom door ajar, in which the light remained on. This afforded the opportunity to at least record some observation of this unhappy couple. After penetrating her without any foreplay or sufficient lubrication, he set the sex act in motion with vigorous thrusting and pulled the covers up to his neck so that no one could see his movements. She started complaining that he was hurting her, but he said, “You always say it hurts,” and he continued his thrusting until his orgasm resulted in approximately five minutes. She got no satisfaction whatsoever. Soon she was again complaining about him not noticing or approving of her earrings.

  Conclusion: This is real life. These are real people! I’m thoroughly disgusted that I alone must bear the burden of my observations. These subjects will never find happiness and divorce is inevitable. He doesn’t know the first thing about sex or its application. The only thing he knows is penetration and thrusting, to orgasm, under the covers with the lights out.

  My voyeurism has contributed immensely to my becoming a futilitarian, and I hate this conditioning of my soul. What is so distasteful is that the majority of subjects are in concert with these individuals in both design and plan. Many different approaches to life would be immediately implemented, if our society would have the opportunity to be Voyeur for a Day.

  NINE

  AS GERALD Foos reflected on his “burden” as a committed voyeur, one who spent endless hours in solitude, linked primarily to the world below through the holes in his ceiling, he saw himself as an entrapped figure. He had no control over what he saw nor escape from its influence. His mood swings va
ried from day to day, hour to hour, guided by his guests.

  Whether emotionally moved by the sight of a paralyzed veteran seeking sexual pleasure, or repulsed while watching the sidesaddle lady in bed with her boorish husband, Foos’s words in his journal increasingly expressed feelings of dissatisfaction with his prolonged idling in the attic.

  As I continued to read sections from his work ranging from the late 1960s into the mid-1970s, he appeared to be distancing himself from himself, changing from a first-person to a third-person narrator. Sometimes he referred to himself as “the Voyeur and Gerald,” and at other times just “the Voyeur.”

  Watching the sunset descending over the Rocky Mountains is something of a ritual for the Voyeur and Gerald. The sun sinks slowly below the horizon draping the mountains in veils of orange and red.

  With each sunset, it marks a new night of observation—as long as the guests in the rooms oblige. The Voyeur’s nights on the observation platform begin well enough, but before long the Voyeur begins frowning at the non-action in the guest rooms . . . After a night of many observations, the Voyeur would climb down from the platform and watch the breaking of the dawn. He lived on simple food, and when weary he sat down and wrote in his journal, recording the happenings. The Voyeur thought of how excellent the morning air smelled, and made out-of-the-way excursions along the outside corridor of the motel, into which compartments or rooms open along the narrow passageway, to accomplish his mission of determining whether or not lights were on in the rooms that the Voyeur had just observed. He was always aware of the goings-on in his motel, and the rooms which housed the observable guests, and he paused and hoped to get a glimpse of a guest coming from a room which he had observed during the night, and have perhaps a small conversation . . .