I Am Curious (Thirty)

March 24

I wrote all that yesterday as soon as I got home from Eric’s apartment. I had to put it down just that way, just as it occurred. I read it again now and it is right. I thought I might not get it right, but it worked. I had to do it in the present tense, as if I was putting myself back into it and describing it as if it were a film.

I must keep this diary. He does not know about it. He must not know about it.

I cannot believe that anything like yesterday has ever happened to anyone in the world before. Of course this is a conceit on my part, but what I experienced was inconceivable.

I wonder what was in the drink. What drug. And how much of what took place was caused by the drug. I asked, but he did not answer me.

After I awoke I showered, then looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. My perception was still affected by the drug, but I could still see that I did in fact look somehow different. There were new hollows under my eyes and in my cheeks. I had a slight haunted look about me.

And it seemed to me that I looked quite beautiful. One might do an article on it. The Cosmetic Properties of Bestial Fucking. For the great mass of women with no access to Eric, one might prescribe a bucolic interlude with a stallion.

The lady jokes—

Before I left I asked him what he wanted of me.

“To show you everything. To show you yourself, to watch you grow.”

“When will you want to see me?”

“From time to time. You might be at home in the afternoons. From two-thirty to three, for example. If I want to see you I will call you then.”

“I’ll give you my number.”

“I have it.”

I didn’t ask how he’d gotten it. The telephone is still in the sculptor’s name. There are any number of ways he could have gotten the number, I suppose.

“What will we—”

“Yes?”

“What will we do?”

“Everything.”

“Will it always hurt?”

He laughed, then broke it off. “No, of course not. Nothing is without purpose. I had to reach you today, in new ways.”

“You reached me.”

“You will learn new things about your body, Jan. About yourself. It won’t usually hurt.”

I nodded.

“But what if it would?”

I considered. “I would still do what you want me to do.”

“Why?”

“Because I... have to.”

“That’s right, Jan. You may go now.”

He has not called today. It is after three now and he has not called, which presumably means that he does not want me today. And I do not even know if I am glad or sorry.

I do not understand any of this. I cannot understand it. Things are happening to me that I do not understand. Who is he? What is he? What does he do for a living? What does he want from me? Obviously he has done this sort of thing with other girls in the past. My God, the man is Superfuck himself, he could get any girl he wanted any time he wanted and have her crawling through hoops in an instant. It’s not just me, it can’t be. But who the hell is he?

And what does he do with his women when he’s done with them?

What do I do, for example, if someone like Arnold calls? What do I tell him? Does Eric want me to see other people? To have sex with other people? I don’t know. But I do know that I will probably do whatever he wants me to do.

What is it about him?

I could leave. Right now, turn my back on this, go. I would not even need to pack. There is nothing here that I have that is so important.

I could go back. To the house, to the car, to the husband. I could do this. He might take me back, he might not, it doesn’t matter, the house and friends always belong to the wife. I could go back, and he could live with me or not, his choice, or even my choice if I wanted it to be that way. But either way I could be out of this apartment, neighborhood, life, away from Eric.

If I want.

Or could I?

I’ve known for some time that it is a sex thing that drives me. That I am compulsive, that this is some kind of compulsive behavior pattern I am going through. I have ideas as to why this is happening and where it is going, a batch of ideas, some in conflict, and I have put some of them down here and there in this book, and I have had others that I have not put down.

But I did not expect this. This person. I am afraid of him. He is too strong. If I belong so utterly to him, how can I belong to myself? How can I have any of me left?