Feel a compulsion to fill in all the blanks now, bring the nonexistent reader up to date on all that has happened since I stopped putting my life on these pages. Then I did this and then I did that and he said and she said and I went and I saw and I felt and I was and I am.
No.
Wouldn’t know where to start. Have to write it when it’s hot, not seek to recall it after it’s cooled off. No point to that. The pages are for my eyes only, and my own eyes will never play over them. It is not a book to be read but a book — call it that, the word seems to fit — a book to be written, an existential document, each page of which has served its purpose forever by the time it leaves the typewriter.
Could I then throw away each page after each day’s writing? Could I write this diary as Penelope made her shawl, knitting all day, ripping out stitches all night?
I think not. There is a security in the growing stack of papers, and it would hurt as much to destroy them as it would to read them. Neither my eyes nor another’s shall ever read them, and yet this does not mean they do not exist. Bishop Berkeley wondered if a tree falling in the forest could be said to make a sound if no ear was close, enough to hear it. That hearing might define sound, as reading defines writing. But I think not. Though I would be hard put just now to explain myself.
I am always hard put to explain myself. I write this day after day in an attempt to explain myself to myself, and the explanation is foredoomed because I never read what I have written.
And never shall.
I sat down tonight with something specific to write, but it shall remain unwritten until tomorrow.
I wonder why.
24 May — Monday
“I love you, Jennifer.”
“No you don’t, Greg. Or you, Paul. Neither of you loves me. Nobody loves anybody.”
“We all know that. Let’s lie and say we love each other.”
“Why lie?”
“It might not be a lie, Jennifer. There are ways I love you. Ways Greg loves you. Ways Greg and I love each other. The word doesn’t hurt when there’s no promise in it, no demand, no this-for-that. You know us and we know you. No woman ever knew me before. Love you, Jennifer.”
“Love you, Jennifer.”
“Love you, Greg. That’s a lie. Paul, I’ll lie and say I love you.”
“Lies or truth, we love each other. I must love you, you touch my stomach and it doesn’t tickle. My body knows you. The flesh on my stomach is the litmus paper of love, Jennifer. Love makes me unticklish. Kiss me. Oh, yes.”
“And we’re both going to make love to you, Jennifer. Paul and I, both at once, making love to you.”
“Yes.”
“Sharing you.”
“Yes, sharing you. Fucking you, you angel. Fucking each other with your good woman’s body.”
“Yes.”
“Oh, do. Ah, yes, yes. Ah, yes, do.”
Not tonight, not last night. A few days ago all this happened. Wonder how real the conversation is that I’ve typed. How much is as it happened, how much is as it has been filtered by my mind and worn smooth by time.
Ought to be close, anyway.
Sit here summoning up the memory of this incident and seeking to transfer it to the page, the pages, seeking to feed it into the typewriter and make it come out on the paper, and for an odd and I think new reason.
Not because the scene is so vividly in mind. Not because there are things about it I want to discuss with myself, or to record, or to understand. The incident itself was chosen carefully after several minutes of studying blank paper, and I picked it less for its impact upon me than for its pure erotic value.
I want to write something sexy.
Don’t know why, don’t care why. Doesn’t fucking matter. Want to recreate the episode in words and get the full absolute flavor of it in print. Odd, because not for me to read, no, not for anyone to read. Why is a question to ask later or never, and better never than later. Why is a crooked letter. Why is — bullshit.
Forget why. And forget all the other bullshit that clutters my head in the course of sex and my paper in the course of writing about sex. Concentrate purely on what, not why or how but what. Be a camera and tell what the lens sees. Nothing but a camera, a camera which records without interpreting, a camera not guided by a skilled director but mounted immobile on a tripod, taking it all in and making no comments on what it sees.
I am in a king-size bed, lying on my back, one leg straight out before me, the other leg bent at the knee, its toes resting on the calf of the straight leg, my thighs slightly apart. Paul is on my right. He lies on his side, facing toward me, his hand on my...
No.
Get rid of I, get rid of me. Third person throughout. Just say what happens.
Arlene is in a king-size bed, lying on her back, one leg straight out before her, the other leg bent at the knee, its toes resting on the...
No.
Jennifer is in a king-size bed, lying on her back, one leg straight out before her, the other leg bent at the knee, its toes resting on the calf of the straight leg, her thighs slightly apart. Paul is on her right. He lies on his side, facing toward her, his hand on her shoulder, his mouth at her neck. Gregory, on her left, also faces her. His body is positioned slightly lower on the bed so that his head rests on her upper arm, his mouth a few inches from her breast. One of his hands rests on one of her thighs, the thigh of the leg that is bent at the knee.
Paul kisses her neck, small tentative nibbling kisses at first. Then he begins to let his tongue run over her soft skin. He pauses in his licking to tell her how soft she is, commenting again and again on the smoothness of her skin, the appeal of its texture. As he licks and kisses her throat, his left hand settles on her hip, rubs, strokes. His hand moves downward until it touches the top of her triangle of pubic hair, then reverses its direction and moves over her hip, across her abdomen, crossing the bottom of her rib cage and reaching her right breast. On the way a finger brushes lightly over her navel and she quivers at the touch. When his hand fits itself gently around her breast a small sigh escapes her lips. His hand is still for an instant, then gently begins to knead her breast flesh. Her nipple goes rigid against the palm of his hand and she sighs again.
On her other side, Gregory strokes her leg, down toward the knee, then upward toward her loins. The flesh on the insides of her thighs is silk-smooth and very sensitive. Each time his fingers move higher and the muscles in her thighs begin to work involuntarily, flexing automatically as his hand moves closer and closer to her loins, then relaxing as it halts and heads downward toward her knee. His head moves closer and his tongue darts out to touch the nipple of her left breast. She draws in breath sharply. The hand on her leg moves higher than ever and her hips give a tiny thrust, trying to meet it. But the hand draws away even as the mouth comes forward to reach for her breast. She feels his penis, hard and large, pressing against the meaty exterior of her thigh. With a silent sob she turns toward him, and his lips part to take in the tip of her breast even as his hand moves the final few inches to touch her loins.
She is on her side now, facing Gregory, clutching his head to her breast. He is sucking urgently at her nipple while he rolls her clitoris deftly between thumb and forefinger. Her juices flow. Still toying with her clitoris, another finger steals into her vagina and strokes her.