Thirty

  He is not what I’m looking for. I don’t know why, any more than I know what it is that I am looking for.

  Eric?

  Oh, shit, Eric’s a fantasy, let’s face it. I don’t know him. But what Eric is to me is what I think maybe I am looking for.

  I would love to blow Eric, and I don’t think I want to blow Arnold.

  I wonder what that has to do with it. I think it must have a lot to do with it. I know that was what I wanted to do with the kid who shoveled the driveway. He made me stop, he wanted to screw instead, but I hadn’t wanted to stop. I wanted the whole thing. I wanted to suck his cock, I wanted to suck him off. I am getting myself excited right now writing the words and hearing them inside my head. I wanted to suck him off.

  Howie always wanted me to do it and I did it some of the time but I didn’t enjoy it. Just as I know instinctively I wouldn’t enjoy it with Arnold.

  Why is this?

  March 1

  This is a sex diary. Believe it or not, I didn’t quite realize it until today, when I skimmed through it and read some of the earlier entries. I think I should make a point of not doing this in the future. It’s important to write all of this down, and sometime it will be important to read it (prefatory to incinerating it, I should think) but in the meantime I don’t want to read it because it’s not finished yet and reading it might keep me from writing any more, or might even lead me to stick the thing in the fire. Which was an impulse I had this afternoon, as a matter of fact.

  It’s funny. I have no trouble writing this stuff, but it’s like pulling teeth to read it. Agony. I’m naked on every page, and in more ways than one.

  But it’s a sex diary. No question about it. And it’s not as though that’s all I think about, or all I do. Far from it. There are other aspects to my life which seem to take up far more of my time and interest, but when I sit down with this book and get ready to put pen to paper these other matters aren’t there and sex is all that concerns me.

  I think—think? I damn well know—that I have sexual hangups which are presently coming out into the open. Which is what this whole separation business is I guess all about. So be it. The Sex Diary of Jan Giddings Kurland. Available wherever bad books are sold.

  I’m going out with Arnold tonight, so I suppose I’ll have something to write tomorrow.

  March 2

  Arnold is really weird!

  Who would have guessed it? Not I. He seemed (and truly is) so nice, so simpatico. Not that there is any reason why weird people should be other than nice and simpatico, but one has these stereotypes in mind.

  We had dinner, as planned. An Italian restaurant on I think it was Carmine Street. Checkered table cloths and Chianti bottles with dripped candles in them. The usual sort of thing. He talked me into having calamari, which is squid, which is octopus, which turned out to be ever so much more palatable than I had dared to anticipate. From now on when I go to restaurants I am going to try to pick out something I have never had before.

  After dinner we went not to a movie but to bed, and not to his bed but to mine. There was a long line in front of the movie, so we gave each other meaningful looks and I said something about my apartment not being very far away. He bought some wine and we went back and talked a little and necked a little and went to bed.

  The necking part was really great. It brought it all back. Being young and dating and just feeling each other and groping toward sex instead of getting undressed and putting on a diaphragm and getting in bed together and mechanically gliding into the old husband-and-wife number.

  When we wound up in bed it was like two happy kids playing with sex, very loose and sweet and nice. We sort of moved from position to position, and it was loose and lazy, no urgency. I think the wine probably had something to do with it. He was able to go what seemed an incredible length of time without coming and without losing his erection. We took turns being on top, he took me from the rear, we sat facing each other, and the whole thing was purely physical, pure bedroom gymnastics, with no complication of how did we feel about each other or where is our relationship going or any of that oppressive crap.

  I hadn’t thought, on the basis of the other night, that he was that good a lover. I think maybe there’s a certain amount of getting used to each other that people have to do before they can really groove on each other’s bodies.

  I could have come a couple of times before I finally did, but I waited, and we got there together. Strangely enough after all of that it was not overpowering, not designed to knock me unconscious or anything like that, but very enjoyable and clean feeling and happy making all the same.

  Revelation: Sometimes one (i.e., me) does not want to have a big orgasm because it is too much of a surrender of self. Of ego. The little part of you inside your head does not want to let go all the way. Question: Is that why women are frigid? That same kind of holding back?

  I am learning things about myself and the world. Maybe they are things everyone else already knows—I sometimes get that feeling, that I am in fact some sort of retarded child. But I am changing. I feel myself changing. Every day I find myself somehow no longer the child I was yesterday.

  Scary.

  But Arnold and his weirdness. Afterward we were lying on the bed together. I have naturally told him things about myself, not hiding anything in particular, merely being a little reticent about details. Now he begins to ask sex questions.

  “Can I ask you something, Jan? Ever make it with a girl?”

  “No.”

  “Honestly? Not even once?”

  “Of course not. I’m probably a lot of things, but not a lesbian. Why?”

  “I wondered.”

  “I impress you as a lesbian? I’m not sure that’s a compliment, love.”

  “Oh, as a matter of fact, you’re wrong.”

  “Really?”

  “Mmm-hmmm. Most really sensual women have had a homosexual experience somewhere along the line. High school or college. A drunken thing with a roommate or a crush on a teacher or some sort of thing.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your observation or Kinsey’s?”

  “I suppose mine, but I don’t think it’s original with me, or that it strikes a blow at established theories. Everybody’s supposed to be basically bisexual, you know.”

  “I’m sure I never felt anything that way.”

  “Maybe not. Ever have any experience with group sex?”

  “You mean wife swapping? Suburban sin clubs? I suppose some of that does go on—”

  “You better believe it does.”

  “But I never had firsthand evidence of it. In our crowd there was some occasional groping at parties and there may have been some affairs on the sly, but no Westport Roulette.”

  “Is that what they’re calling it now?”

  “Isn’t it? You know, with the keys in the hat?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Is that what you meant?”

  “Not exactly. I meant, you know, more than two people in the bed.”

  “Like an orgy?”

  “Well, like three.”

  “No, never.”

  Looking off into the distance, “I knew this girl with an absolute passion for going to bed with two men at once. She told me she had done it a couple of times and it was fantastically exciting to her.”

  “Two men at once?”

  “Yes.”

  “You mean one right after the other?”

  “I mean two at once.”

  “I don’t see exactly what sort of thing they would do.”

  “Well, use your imagination.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m stupid tonight. But they couldn’t both get into her at the very same time, could they? I don’t see—”

  “There is, how to say this, there is more than one aperture in a girl, love.”

  “Oh, one in the mouth.”

  “Or one here.”

  “I never thought of that.”

  “Hav
en’t you there?”

  “Never. It’s painful, isn’t it?”

  “Not if you know what you’re doing.”

  “I’m not sure I see the appeal.”

  “You weren’t sure about the calamari, either.”

  “Touché. I must admit I’m interested. I don’t know if I’m personally interested or if it’s just that I like to hear what different people do in bed. They would both make love to her?”

  “And to each other.”

  “Oh, then they were queer?”

  “Everybody’s bisexual, they say.”

  “Do you really believe that? I’m not sure I do.”

  “Well, that’s the new sexual freedom. The new morality. The kids coming along these days are very open about it. They do whatever feels good.”

  “I don’t think I could ever have anything to do with a girl.”

  “Maybe that’s your hangup.”

  “Maybe.”

  I put out a cigarette, and looked down at him, and he was quite urgently erect. “Oh,” I said, and he chuckled, and we made love quickly, just a rapid urgent bang, and I made it seconds before he did.

  Then, lying together facing each other, I looked at his now-little penis (his is absolutely tiny when it’s soft but respectable enough when it’s not, a complete transformation) and I thought how innocent it was now, how soft and innocent, and I looked up at his face, and all at once I knew.

  I didn’t stop to think it over or I might not have said anything, but instead voiced the thought as soon as it came along. I said, “You were one of the men. With that girl. You were one of the two men.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “It just came to me. I don’t know why. It’s true, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you would want me to do that. With you and another fellow.”

  “Maybe you would like to think about it.”

  “Oh, God. I really don’t know.”

  “It excites you, doesn’t it?”

  “Oh, damn it, yes, of course it does. Anything sexual excites me if it’s just a matter of thinking about it. I don’t think I could do it. I really don’t. I don’t even think I could let anybody screw me In the bottom, as far as that goes. I don’t think, oh, I don’t even know what I think. I can’t imagine being in bed with you and having you do things with another man. What do you do with him, anyway?”

  “The usual things.”

  “I just can’t take all this in, Arnold.”

  “Why don’t we have some wine and talk about something else?”

  “Yes, maybe we should do that.”

  And we did, and he hinted that he wouldn’t at all mind sleeping over, it being cold outside and all, and I said no, that I had to be independent now and that I had made up my mind that one part of my independence was that I would not spend the whole night with anyone. That this was one of the things I had been running from when I left my husband. I had not previously decided any such thing, but I didn’t want him to stay overnight I guess because I wanted to be alone when I woke up and also because I frankly didn’t want to hear any more about group sex until I had a little more chance to digest what he had told me.

  The independence aspect went down well, though. Made perfect sense to him and he seemed to respect me for it. He had a last slug of wine, lit himself a cigarette, and away he went into the night, leaving me with more new thoughts to echo around in my head than I had room for.

  He is really weird.

  Two men at once? I don’t think I could relate to that sort of scene.

  Or is it that I don’t want myself to enjoy something like that?

  March 3

  I am still recovering from the other night with Arnold. What a strange effect it’s been having.

  I find myself looking at people differently, and almost blushing for the thoughts I’ve been having. All sorts of thoughts. Sexual, of course.

  I will see two men deep in conversation, and in my mind they become a pair of faggots who do all sorts of unspeakable things to each other. And then I find myself enlarging on this and imagining things. Myself with them. Doing what?

  Everything.

  Or with a girl. I saw a girl on the street this morning. Dark haired and slender, much the same physical type as I, although I rarely see that sort of similarity in others. And I honestly didn’t have any sexual desires for her, not as far as I can tell, but I found myself, oh, thinking.

  What do girls do with each other? Primarily eat each other, I think, although I suppose they could have dozens of other things that they do and that I have never thought of.

  Being eaten is nice. If you can just give yourself up to it. If you can make yourself completely passive and just take a bath in feelings.

  Howard never liked to do it. He did it, but he didn’t like to. He did it, I think, out of a sense of duty, and not well. He did it until I got sufficiently passionate to be an interesting fuck, and then he would stop eating me and climb aboard, which usually was the last thing I wanted him to do. And I suppose he made it obvious that he didn’t like to do it, just as I suppose I made it obvious I didn’t care much about returning the favor, and neither of us did it very well, and so we didn’t do it very often, or want it one from the other very often.

  What a stinking shitty marriage. What an absolute complete farce of a marriage.

  Incredibly, I don’t miss him at all. Sometimes I wonder where he is, what he is doing, if he has found someone, if he has moved permanently to the city. As you might wonder about some old friend you hadn’t seen in years. But as far as caring about him or what he is doing, I don’t.

  At least I don’t think I do.

  Would it be different to be eaten by a girl? How?

  Could one just have that or would one be expected to return the favor? It would seem that there ought to be girls who would prefer to eat, while others like oneself would instead prefer to be eaten. Is there a whole body of rules of etiquette for this sort of thing?

  And why do I care?

  Do I?

  I don’t think I do. This is silly. I’m not a lesbian, I don’t want any girl or woman touching me, I don’t want any of that.

  Or do I?

  Sometimes it seems as though I just don’t know anything anymore. As though all I really get in my travels through whatever it precisely is through which I’m traveling is more confused than ever.

  If I have reached the point where I can write sentences like that last one I think it is time to stop.

  March 5

  Eric spoke to me this afternoon. I looked up from a Nero Wolfe mystery to smile at him, as I often do when he comes in, and he gave me the smile back and came over to my table.

  He said, “The Mother Hunt? I think I missed that one.”

  “You could borrow it when I’m done.”

  “I’d appreciate it. I enjoy Nero Wolfe. I prefer to believe that he exists, you know, and that some day I could be invited to that West Thirty-fifth Street brownstone for dinner. And then I would know that I had made a success of my life.”

  I laughed pleasantly. The one time I would have liked to say something bright, and all I could manage was a laugh. Eric smiled somewhat warmly and then went on to his usual table.

  Big deal.

  I wonder if he’s fucking that teenybopper.

  March 6

  I dragged The Mother Hunt to the coffee house. He never even showed up today. I’m seeing Arnold tomorrow.

  March 15

  Nine days since the last entry?

  Doesn’t seem that long.

  I’m a little depressed. Also maybe a little drunk. A little fuzzy in the head.

  Last night was terribly frustrating. Things were going along on a nice even keel, I was seeing Arnold a couple of times a week, and nothing was too exciting but everything was loose, easy. I don’t know.

  I’m having trouble making this come out on paper. I keep blocking and just staring at the page. I took a pill earlier today, one
of my antidepressants. I have been trying not to take them but I thought it would be better for me in the long run to take the pill than to cut my wrists.

  Not really.

  But I took it, and you shouldn’t drink when you’re on those things. They don’t go together very well.

  Last night we went to a party. A horrible place a couple of blocks from Arnold’s apartment, a really foul, filthy cockroach trap. Cracked plaster and broken pipes and genuine filth all over the place. Everybody seemed to be stoned, mostly I guess on pot but there were also some speed freaks.

  Frightening. I felt at least a hundred years old and hopelessly square.

  We didn’t stay long. Arnold smoked some grass. I didn’t. Why? Because I didn’t want to be high, I guess.

  We went back to his apartment and had a scene. I guess I provoked it. It was a marriage game—Let’s Have a Fight So We Won’t Have to Fuck.

  Stupid. Stupid and self-destructive. Why do something like that? We had a good relationship developing. It didn’t have a future but the last thing I need right now is a relationship with a future. Instead it looked as though it might have a long and pretty good present.

  I can’t write any more of this, I have to go to bed or something.

  March 16

  I have a hangover. Well, I came by it honestly. I got what I deserved.

  Eric returned the book and we talked about it. There is something about the way he looks at a person that suggests that he is having thoughts about one which are totally unrelated to what he is saying. As though while we chat blithely of Archie Goodwin and Nero Wolfe and the orchids on the roof, he is really looking right through my clothes and counting the hairs on my cunt and guessing what I am like in bed.

  He terrifies me. I can’t avoid the feeling that he could make me do absolutely anything he wanted. All he has to do is ask. Absolutely anything.

  I know why I had the fight with Arnold. Not to avoid going to bed with him. It was deeper than that. I was trying to break off the relationship permanently.