The rest are all possibilities. And thirteen out of fourteen is a damned good average, I would think. Interesting how many of the letters include at least a phrase or two weighing the possibility that I am actually a phony of some sort, and then going on to say that they will presume I’m on the up-and-up, at least in terms of the first letter.
I should have done this ages ago. Placed an ad, that is. This way I get replies from people who want what I want instead of having to write blindly to people who are less than enthusiastic about my scene.
Jennifer, new worlds are opening up for you!
Surprising that I got that much response. I never would have thought there were that many people hot for having someone watch them. I guess it isn’t a main kick for the people who answered me. They mention that they enjoy being watched, but it doesn’t seem to be their major preoccupation. More that they’re generally open to new things, and that the idea of having willowy me sitting around watching and playing with myself strikes them as more fun, say, than a hot poker up the ass.
My language has either loosened up or deteriorated markedly in the past two months. Depending on how you want to look at it.
I feel positively wealthy. I sit with my fourteen letters in my hands and ruffle through them, feeling like Scrooge McDuck romping in his money bin. What an abundance of riches! All but a couple of them have included photos and phone numbers. The photos are properly innocent things, head and shoulders shots, which I find reassuring; I would be a little put off at the thought of meeting someone sufficiently moronic to send actionable photos through the mails to an unknown recipient. I read the letters and look at the photographs and consider the phone numbers and realize that the possibilities are, if not endless, at least far less closely bounded than they were before. I could, at any moment, on any whim, call this one or that one or this one or that one—
Last night I read all the letters (there were only eleven of them then) and looked at all the photographs, and was immediately supplied with material for a hundred fantasies. Last night I delayed my own private coming far into the night, purposely postponing it so that I could let my mind (and Jennifer’s fantasy-flesh) roam at free rein through realms of mental lust.
And tonight?
Tonight there is every temptation to do the same. So much temptation. What frightens me, what truly bothers me, is how appallingly easy it would be for me to use these letters and pictures as fantasy food until they fall apart without ever following up on any of them.
Oh, it would be so easy to do. So very easy. Right now it is easy to tell myself that I am meeting with Bill tomorrow — my usual Wednesday appointment, my weekly visit to my sexual therapist. And, because I am meeting with Bill tomorrow, it would seem that there would be no need to have active sex tonight. Better by far to let well enough alone and crawl into bed with a headful of ideas and a handful of fingers.
The bother is that I keep telling myself I am progressing and things like this make me wonder how true it is. I am more active. I am doing more. But the same hangups seem to be present and seem to push me in the same old ways.
Perhaps they never go away. Perhaps, indeed, they are not supposed to go away. It is one’s hangups that define a person (I think I read that, or an equivalent thereof, somewhere or other) and removing them is like removing the skeleton from the body. Neuroses are the skeleton of the personality.
The trick, then, is to live as you want to in spite of your hangups. To have the urge to crawl into a solitary bed, but to recognize that urge for what it is and get up and out and do something about it.
Which, damn it to hell, is precisely what I intend to do right now. It’s too late to call some of them, but it’s not too late to call all of them, and if I make enough calls I should be able to find someone congenial who would like company tonight.
Goodnight, beloved Smith-Corona Electra 110. I have to make a couple of telephone calls.
Pleasant dreams.
21 April — Wednesday
It’s terribly late.
(Why am I lying to my typewriter? It’s not even midnight, and I just got back from Bill’s, and I’m saying that it’s terribly late because I want to get right to bed and don’t feel much like writing anything just now. But it’s not terribly late and I’m not terribly tired and I might as well do this more or less right.)
Went to Bill’s. Nice lazy time. We got undressed and played with ourselves and with each other and told each other stories. He had more stories to tell but for a change I had something to contribute. Told him about the dyke in the Village the other week. Also about the two gay boys last night. I don’t know whether or not I told him about Wayne and Maureen. I seem to remember thinking about them, but may not have gotten around to telling him about them.
Then he ate me for a while, and then I told him I was on the pill and that it was about time we actually got around to screwing, and he obliged.
I suppose it went all right. I don’t know exactly. I was glad it was happening and it felt good but that was about all. Didn’t get hot or come or anything.
Enough.
22 April — Thursday
Two more leaves on the philodendron.
Spikes, both of them, and soon one and then the other will unfold into angular heart-shaped leaves, large and bright green and beautiful, gradually darkening as they age, and other spikes will sprout and unfold, and this will go on and on, with the plant getting larger and larger, more and more and ever more leaves on it. Next spring it will be ready for a larger pot. I have read about potting it, repotting it — one removes it gently from its present pot, spreads out the roots, fits them into the new and larger pot, gradually tamps soil around them, waters the whole thing thoroughly, tamps more dirt, waters again, and lets the thing get itself together in its new home.
You get to do this every spring as the plant gets larger and larger.
And then I suppose eventually it dies. The book doesn’t say anything about them dying of old age sooner or later, but everything does, doesn’t it? Nothing is eternal, not even a philodendron.
Of course it could be eternal in a sense. You can take cuttings from the thing now and then, and root the cuttings in water and then plant them, and presto! you have a new philodendron plant, a son or daughter of the old plant, or an equivalent of the old plant, or whatever you want to call it.
You can fill up your house with philodendrons that way. Have the whole kitchen cluttered with glasses of water each containing a cutting or two. Litter the apartment with pots of plants, and repot each plant in the spring, and throw away the old plants when they die, and...
Shit shit shit shit shit
Oh, what is the point of all of this, of any of this, for me or for all the philodendrons in the world? What on earth is the point of it all? Life goes on and death goes on and nothing adds up to anything.
I cannot look on the bright side because I do not think there is one. The bright side is done with mirrors, silvered glass, and is no more real than the world Alice found. Walk through mirrors and find a world with a bright side where things make sense, but on this side of the mirror everything adds up to nothing at all.
23 April — Friday
Called in sick today. Dear Mr. Karlman, please excuse my absence today on grounds of illness. I am sick, Mr. K. I am worldsick, dying of weltschmertz. I am a good listener, Mr. K., as long as I do not have to listen to the pounding of the surf within my own tired head.