Sensuous

24 June — Thursday

Last night I...

Last night Arnold and I...

Oh, dear.

I got up from this chair just now and walked over to the radiator. And looked under the cover and saw nothing but the rusted tray in which one may, if so inclined, place water which evaporating will humidify a dcsiccated winter day. There Is no water in that tray.

Neither is there a pile of paper, paper which reposed there for a matter of months, pure innocent virgin white paper which some fool had ruined by typing drivel upon. Drivel on every sheet, sheet upon sheet of paper, week after week of paper-ruining, and all of that paper gone as the fool persists in her folly.

Gone.While the fool sits here, ruining more paper. Her diary is gone and she continues to diarize.

I am so afraid.

Dinner and a play.

I had mentioned the play. I don’t know what I mentioned about it, but Monday night when we had dinner I said something about having read a review of the play and it sounded interesting, and this afternoon he took me aside and said he’d gotten tickets.

And so we went. The play was...

Oh who cares how the play was?

I hardly paid attention to it myself. Two acts, and during the second act we held hands. My hand found his, and we held hands.

I guess I made up my mind then. Insofar as I made up my mind at all. I don’t think there was ever a point where my mind was literally made up. More that by then everything was set in motion, and I followed the script without ever looking at my lines in advance.

Well, / know what I mean.

Left the theater, talked about the play. Stood on West 47th Street sharing a cigarette. I had run out and we passed one of his back and forth, kissing each other through the cigarette as Paul and Gregory fucked each other through me. Did I write about Paul and Gregory? Two faggots who wanted to...

Oh, it doesn’t matter about Paul and Gregory. “Where would you like to go for dinner, Arlene?”

“Anywhere.”

“Steak? Chinese? Italian? Name it.”

“Actually I’m not very hungry.”

“Want something light?”

“Could we just have drinks somewhere?”

“Sure, if that’s all you want. Come to think of it, I’m not that hungry myself. This place okay?”

We went to the Spindletop two doors down from the theater. Tall long-stemmed waitresses with leotards and mesh stockings and plastic hair. I drank stingers and he drank Scotch on the rocks.

Two drinks each, and I said, “Would you like to go some place with me?”

“Wherever you say.”

“There’s an apartment.”

“An apartment?”

“In Chelsea.”

“Sure. Who lives there, friends of yours?”

“Nobody lives there.”

What did he think? I’ll always wonder. Whatever he thought, he kept it to himself. Pushed back his chair, put money on the table, took my arm. Out of the Spindletop and into a cab. His car was in a lot down the block but he knew not to bother with the car, knew the car would be there to be picked up later, knew I ought to be taken to the apartment directly.

I gave the driver my address.

Holding hands in the cab. Thought he might kiss me then and it would have been all right but hoped he wouldn’t and God bless him he didn’t, just held my hand and squeezed it now and then and I squeezed back.

Oh Jesus Jesus.

Cab pulled up in front of my door. “Right around the corner from your friends.” he said. “The friends you stay with when you don’t go back to Brooklyn.”

No answer from me. Into my building and up to my apartment and he waiting for me to ring the bell, but no ringing of the bell because I of course have my key. Trouble fitting it into the lock, fingers so nervous and shaky, and he takes the key from me and unlocks the door.

“This is a beautiful place.”

“I like it.”

“Whose is it?”

“A typewriter lives here. And a philodendron.”

We kissed. For a moment we each held something back, and then the moment passed and we didn’t. His arms around me, his tongue in my mouth, his hand dropping to cup my bottom and press me close.

Oh, Arnold.

Jeff.

Kiss ended. A step back and hands behind my back and worked the zipper and dropped the dress to the floor. Stepped out, kicked shoes loose. No bra, no pants, nothing but me, burning in his eyes.

Hands so nervous and shaky, and God took the key from my fingers and stuck it in my head and turned off at last my brain.

Won’t write about it.

Can’t write about it.

Can write about everything else but not IT, not Arnold and Arlene and Jeff and Jennifer, not us in bed, can’t write about it, won’t write about it.

All for him, that was the idea, all for him, everything for him, and not thanks for the drinks thanks for the dinner thanks for the play not thanks for the job thanks for the raise not thanks for anything. Thanks for you for being you, everything for you, everything, and all of me caught in it, owned by it, part of it, with it and of it, and my brain turned off off! and my body turned on on! and me alive and with it and of it and for it and all for him, all, all, and then suddenly surprisingly impossibly...

All for me too.

“Don’t go.”

“All right.”

“Sleep with me.”

“Yes.”

“No one ever slept with me.”

“Won’t your mother expect you at home?”

“So much to tell you.”

“Huh?”

“She won’t expect me. Your wife—”

“Don’t worry.”

“Good.”

“Arlene, I—”

“No. Oh my darling, I can’t talk or listen. I cannot. Don’t talk, don’t make me talk.”

“Sure.”

“Just hold me all night. Just do everything you want with me, just show me what you want me to do with you. Both of us in the darkness and doing everything and not talking, oh my darling.”

Slept so nicely. Woke two, three times, reached to see if he was there.

He always was.

Slept so nicely.

Woke, and he asleep. How warm and soft and helpless. Curled on his side, baby in the womb, sweet.

Woke him in my mouth. Woke him up, up, up. Arnold come for breakfast, how sweet.

He showered, returned. I showered and he was dressed when I came back wet and naked. Dried my hands and went to the radiator and took off the cover. Looked at the stack of paper and closed the cover and turned to him.

Said, “Arnold, you have to know me. Jeff has to know Jennifer. Arnold, my mother is dead and this is my apartment and, oh I can’t talk, I honestly cannot talk. Arnold, you have to read this. No, don’t talk, please don’t say anything, just let me.”

Opened the cover again, got out the pages. Handed the thick stack to him.

“I’m in these pages,” I said.

His eyes.

“I’m in these pages, this is where I live, in these pages, this is all the persons I have been and all the places I have gone and what I have seen and been and done there. Arnold, listen to me. Take this with you. I’ll stay here. Take this with you and read it. Read all of it because that’s where I am and I want you to know me. I am afraid but I am more afraid not to be known by you.”

My own eyes closed now.

“Take this with you. I’ll stay here. Read this, read all of it. And then decide.”

“Decide?”

“Whether or not to call me. If you don’t call me, I’ll never call you. Just a minute.” I find a pen, scribble my unlisted number on the top sheet of paper. Odd that I know the number. Never gave it out, never dialed it myself. The number sat all these months in a corner of my mind, waiting for me to need it.

“It’s all up to you,” I said. “And don’t answer now because you can’t answer now, you don’t know me enough. You have to read it first. And then it’s up to you. Kiss me. Yes, oh yes. Now go.”

And turned away and closed my eyes and stood like a statue until he was gone and the door shut behind him.

A long time staring, a long time sitting and doing nothing, thinking nothing.

Then sat at this typewriter and rolled another automatic sheet into its carriage.

Because my diary is gone. It has gone away and left me behind, and I must work hurriedly to fill up the void beneath my radiator cover. I must hurry and type up thousands more sheets of paper and let those sheets share my empty life, my forever empty life.

Glad I did it. Glad glad glad I did it. Glad I brought him home into this apartment where no one has ever been but me. Glad I brought him here and took him to bed.

Last night in bed beside him thought I might die in my sleep and thought too that it was all right if I did.

What will he think when he reads of Arlene? When Jeff learns of Jennifer?

God, what will he think?

Better that he knows and hates me than that he goes on knowing only part of me. Better that I am for once in my life naked in one man’s eyes, even if that man never sets those eyes upon me again.

Better.

Tears in my eyes that won’t come out, a lump in my throat too big to swallow. Oh, to come that close. To have that much and watch it walk out and hear the door close behind it. To have that much and not have it.

For he will never call.

And why should he? He’s reading the words of a crazy person, but he’s a good man, too good a man to laugh, too good a man to feel anything but sorrow. But an intelligent man. Intelligent enough to burn the idiot pages and put the idiot girl reluctantly but firmly out out out of his life for once and for all.

Better this way. A far far better thing that I do than I have ever done, the best of times and the worst of times, oh, Christ, I don’t think...

The phone is ringing...