Sensuous

19 March — Friday

I guess it went away, whatever it was.

I think I know what it was.

I was starting to play games with myself. I was starting to think Bill was something other than what he is. I must have known all along I was in danger of doing this. I was making him a central figure and that is dangerous because he does not want to get involved with me and I honestly do not dare get involved with him or anybody else. I was selling myself something and it did not go down well and it made me sick.

I even got sort of drunk the night before last. And wanted to get drunk last night, after that telephone call, but I guess I knew better. Because that doesn’t solve anything.

I wrote half a dozen letters tonight. All of them signed Jennifer Starr, and all of them with my Post Office box as my return address. To Screw advertisers.

“A little nervous” indeed. I’m terrified, and not at all certain I’ll mail the letters. Or check my Post Office box for replies. Or call any of the people who reply, assuming anyone does. Or go through with any of it.

Two of the letters are to single men looking to swing with women or couples. Ads similar to Bill’s, but the singleminded sincerity of pleasing the woman isn’t there, or doesn’t come through as strongly. One’s a bisexual male. Another is a bored housewife, or so she describes herself, who wants to swing with another woman. And the last two are couples who want threesomes with single girls.

I can’t offhand imagine why any of them would be interested in having me around, but it’s possible.

Main thing — it’s something to do. It’s something to get my sex life (such as it is) headed in a direction that is independent of Bill.

I want very much to see him tomorrow, and I will see him tomorrow, but I can’t focus everything on him. I think that’s what he was trying to tell me over the phone. Just as he cannot attempt to get in touch with me, I can’t get in the habit of feeling I can call him whenever I’m in the mood. I’m sure that’s what he was telling me, but of course I was too depressed to hear it in his words.

But the thing is that unless I start striking out on my own (and I have the horrible feeling I’ll just be striking out in the baseball sense of the term) I’ll tend to call him every time I get depressed, or at least feel like calling him whenever I get depressed, and that would be the worst possible thing to do.

Bill and I can be of use to each other. That’s coldblooded, put that way, but it’s true. And it’s all there is. We can do each other some good, provide each other with some pleasure.

I never provided anybody with any real pleasure before. There’s joy in that. Not as much joy, I must though admit, as in receiving pleasure from somebody.

And no one ever gave me pleasure before.

But all we can be is of use to each other, is pleasure for one another. That is enough, but trying to make it more will ruin what it is.

The stupid fantasies I have.

Oh, put it down, girl, put it down. You have been thinking it and ought not hide it from your typewriter. It says nothing you have not said to yourself.

Fantasies of love and marriage. (Aches me to type the words. Hurts, hurts, hurts!) Fantasies of getting caught up in each other, of him being the teacher and I the pupil and he gradually works on my neuroses and delivers me at last to the Promised Land of fucking-and-loving-it.

Dreams.

These are dreams I must avoid. Or must dream them as I dream Jennifer’s rougher fantasies, her sadomasochistic trips which would turn me off in anything other than fantasy. (Or would they? Let us say for now merely that I much prefer to think so.) By using these fantasies as fantasies I can defuse them. If it lends agility to my under-the-cover finger fucks to think of Bill as a potential husband, to dream fucking him and marrying him, let me do so — but let me not forget that it is fantasy and only fantasy, evaporating with the morning mist.

I’m going to that concert, and if that dyke is there I’m going to let her buy me coffee. And tomorrow I’ll see Bill before I write anything and my diary entry will be about what happens with him.

And I’ll mail those letters on the way to the concert tonight.

And I’ll brush my teeth before I go to bed, and say my prayers, and wash behind my ears, and lick my fingers clean after I finish playing with myself.

If it weren’t that I decided not to cross anything out, I think I would cross out that last paragraph. But the hell with it.