Sensuous

20 April — Tuesday

Three more letters in the Post Office box this afternoon, making a total of fourteen. I really didn’t expect this much of a response. I tried to work the ad to make people answer it but I didn’t think that many would be interested. Fourteen of them.

One I’m pretty sure is a fake. It’s supposed to be from a couple that likes to do everything that is in any way sexual, but there’s a tone to the letter that makes me think it was written by a guy who gets a kick out of writing dirty letters. On the one hand it’s wildly obscene and excessively detailed, and on the other hand there’s a lot of nonsense about not sending a photo of the two of them out of fear of exposure. They risk a lot more from the contents of the letter, assuming it to be true, than they could possibly risk with a non-obscene photo. And “they” (I’m sure it’s really just a “he”) go to great lengths asking me to describe just what sort of act I would like them to put on for me, and what acts I have enjoyed watching in the past, and could I please send a naked and preferably obscene picture of myself? No, friend, I could not. Your letter’s a lot of fun, but don’t expect me to reply to it.

The rest are all possibilities. And thirteen out of fourteen is a damned good average, I would think. Interesting how many of the letters include at least a phrase or two weighing the possibility that I am actually a phony of some sort, and then going on to say that they will presume I’m on the up-and-up, at least in terms of the first letter.

I should have done this ages ago. Placed an ad, that is. This way I get replies from people who want what I want instead of having to write blindly to people who are less than enthusiastic about my scene.

Jennifer, new worlds are opening up for you!

Surprising that I got that much response. I never would have thought there were that many people hot for having someone watch them. I guess it isn’t a main kick for the people who answered me. They mention that they enjoy being watched, but it doesn’t seem to be their major preoccupation. More that they’re generally open to new things, and that the idea of having willowy me sitting around watching and playing with myself strikes them as more fun, say, than a hot poker up the ass.

My language has either loosened up or deteriorated markedly in the past two months. Depending on how you want to look at it.

I feel positively wealthy. I sit with my fourteen letters in my hands and ruffle through them, feeling like Scrooge McDuck romping in his money bin. What an abundance of riches! All but a couple of them have included photos and phone numbers. The photos are properly innocent things, head and shoulders shots, which I find reassuring; I would be a little put off at the thought of meeting someone sufficiently moronic to send actionable photos through the mails to an unknown recipient. I read the letters and look at the photographs and consider the phone numbers and realize that the possibilities are, if not endless, at least far less closely bounded than they were before. I could, at any moment, on any whim, call this one or that one or this one or that one—

Last night I read all the letters (there were only eleven of them then) and looked at all the photographs, and was immediately supplied with material for a hundred fantasies. Last night I delayed my own private coming far into the night, purposely postponing it so that I could let my mind (and Jennifer’s fantasy-flesh) roam at free rein through realms of mental lust.

And tonight?

Tonight there is every temptation to do the same. So much temptation. What frightens me, what truly bothers me, is how appallingly easy it would be for me to use these letters and pictures as fantasy food until they fall apart without ever following up on any of them.

Oh, it would be so easy to do. So very easy. Right now it is easy to tell myself that I am meeting with Bill tomorrow — my usual Wednesday appointment, my weekly visit to my sexual therapist. And, because I am meeting with Bill tomorrow, it would seem that there would be no need to have active sex tonight. Better by far to let well enough alone and crawl into bed with a headful of ideas and a handful of fingers.

The bother is that I keep telling myself I am progressing and things like this make me wonder how true it is. I am more active. I am doing more. But the same hangups seem to be present and seem to push me in the same old ways.

Perhaps they never go away. Perhaps, indeed, they are not supposed to go away. It is one’s hangups that define a person (I think I read that, or an equivalent thereof, somewhere or other) and removing them is like removing the skeleton from the body. Neuroses are the skeleton of the personality.

The trick, then, is to live as you want to in spite of your hangups. To have the urge to crawl into a solitary bed, but to recognize that urge for what it is and get up and out and do something about it.

Which, damn it to hell, is precisely what I intend to do right now. It’s too late to call some of them, but it’s not too late to call all of them, and if I make enough calls I should be able to find someone congenial who would like company tonight.

Goodnight, beloved Smith-Corona Electra 110. I have to make a couple of telephone calls.

Pleasant dreams.