And what did I realize?
Easier to attribute thoughts to another person than to tune in upon your own. What I saw, I guess, is that he was a constant in my life and had to mean more to me than a guide through uncharted realms, especially as we inevitably began to run out of such realms. If what we had was going to grow, he had to become a person rather than a role. And he could only become a person if I was willing and able to reveal myself to him.
And I was not.
Nor would it have done any good if I had. Because my mystery was a large portion of my charm — such as it was — and knowing more about me would only make him want me less. We were something important to each other at a particular point in time, and as each of us began to become more nearly real for the other, we simultaneously each became less of what the other wanted and needed.
(How I struggle to make these words make sense. And find myself telling myself, from time to time, that it does not matter whether or not the words make sense. For I am writing only for myself, and if I understand what I am thinking, it is not necessary for me to couch my phrases so that they would be intelligible to another. But I am not sure that’s true. When man evolved, words must have preceded thoughts. The word, renowned as the father to the deed, is surely the midwife if not the parent of thought. One cannot think without the words to think in. And one cannot have one’s mind straight on a subject unless one can fit the words to it. If it doesn’t make sense, one has not yet become sensible about it.)
Bill and I, running out of each other, and hence running out on each other. It is clear to me that I could have made him privy to my secrets. It is something I could have done, and could have done so with the advance assumption that, if it ruined things between us, if it made either of us uncomfortable with the other, we could simply break off and see each other not at all. And, since we were already on the point of seeing each other not at all, there was nothing risked.
But I could not take off those clothes. And did not want to, whether I could or not
And so it stopped for us.
Not all at once. A little at a time. Evenings of mutual boredom, tedium, genteel sexual monotony. We performed, and as we were each of us more conscious in any instance of our individual roles of performer than of audience, we were technically adept enough about it. He tried to please me and I tried to give the appearance of being pleased. I tried to please him and he similarly played the gentleman, taking evident delight in my attentions. But there was nothing there, and in one conversation, less awkward than I would have thought it would have had to be, we agreed that it had been fun, dear one, but it was time to end it.
Another reason: I was becoming, at this stage in time, a creature who could only enjoy people once. Who had no repeat encounters. Bill, the one person throughout this time whom I saw again and again, the one sexual partner who enjoyed my company for more than a single evening, thus jarred with the new turn my life was taking.
Exit Bill.
Enter Arnold.
With whom I have no sex.
Weird, that.
Because the one-sidedness of my relationship with Bill is mirrored by the one-sidedness of my relationship with Arnold. I know he wants to make love to me, and I know that the only thing which prevents him from trying to make love to me is his fear that he will lose me. I wonder if this is true. How would I react?
I enjoy kissing him. I like his looks, feel a warm affection for his body. I suppose, insofar as I love, that I love him.
I oddly trust him.
And yet—
Thought: That our fears are identical. That each of us is keeping the relationship essentially as it is because what we have is too dear to us to be jeopardized. Better to have what we have than to risk it. Perhaps he would hate me if we slept together. Perhaps I would hate him. Perhaps we would, in some chemical way, turn each other off. Why risk what we have for the doubtful paradise of what we might have?
Indeed.
For what could we have? I don’t want to marry him. He has a wife and children, and one set thereof is as much as any man needs. And I have been a wife, and do not want the role again, and prefer my philodendron (which grows in so gratifying a manner) to children (which generally don’t). Better to play our present roles forever, looking but not touching, wanting but not achieving, than to get each other only to discover we did not honestly want each other in the first place.
Two lovers transfixed on a Grecian urn. Forever will Arnold love, and I be fair.
Or am I fair?
Sometimes I feel depressingly unfair.
15 June — Tuesday
It was her first time.
Marcelle, a slim and intense young thing. Very large eyes which she deliberately enlarges with pounds of eye shadow. Dark complexion, tiny ears, crinkly black pubic hair, the subtle scent of sandalwood. Had been with men but hadn’t liked it. Preferred playing with herself. Was never with a girl, and did not consciously think she would want to be with a girl, but wanted — something.
Could we not be all girls together? Could we not get together and have a dirty conversation, and share verbal fantasies with one another, and perhaps we could get hot and play with ourselves, and it would be the special certainty of masturbation with the reassurance of sharing the experience, and do you understand that, Jennifer, or do I sound crazy to you?
Oh, I understand, Marcelle.
Seduced her.
That was what it was, although God knows she was ready for it, God knows she was anxious to be seduced and, consciously or unconsciously, expected it. But I could have left her untouched (except by her own dim long-fingered hands, soft fingertips on those hands, so soft). I could have played her game according to her script and she would have been happy enough.
Didn’t.
Sucked those perky tips and kissed that spicy mouth and sucked that cunt and made her come however much she wanted not to. Felt like a man seducing a girl. Felt strong and capable, good feeling, strange feeling, me so accustomed to the role of ingenue and now playing the sophisticate. Ate her and made her love it, poor baby. And got her tongue inside of me and made her love that part of it as well. Oh, Marcelle, with your spicy mouth pressed to me!
Arnold was saying that he...
17 June — Thursday
If you knew me, Arnold.
God. What would I be to you if you knew me? Would you hate me? I somehow think not. Would you still want me? And for what reasons? Would you perhaps only lust for me, so hot at the thought of Jennifer that you lose sight entirely of Arlene?
I wonder.
I would not want that last. It tempts me sometimes, Arnold. To become Jennifer for you and have to accept her even as you forget Arlene. But one of the things I treasure in you, Arnold, is that you know only Arlene and love the Arlene you know.
I seem to be writing this to you. Odd, that I am doing this. Odd and unfamiliar. All of this heretofore has been written to myself, or to my typewriter, or at least to some unknown and perhaps unknowable eye. I never wrote to Bill. I never thought of any of the persons Jennifer has met as being recipients of the thoughts unfolded here. And yet I find myself now, probably for the first time, addressing all of this to you.
Not that it matters. You’ll never see any of this, Arnold, but I am thinking (and typing) these thoughts to you, messages never to be sent, let alone received.
Arnold and Arlene, Jeff and Jennifer.
If all of me knew all of you, if all of you knew all of me, then precisely where would we wind up?
Always the beautiful answer that asks the more beautiful question—
18 June — Friday