Sensuous

26 April — Monday

Had dinner with Mr. Karlman tonight. As an American lieutenant said recently in quite another context, it was no big deal. He dropped me at the subway and I took a cab back here.

We didn’t talk about anything important. Had the feeling he wanted to talk about something more personal, but he never made any move in that direction.

I wonder what I would do if he made a pass at me. The funny thing is that I have gradually come to the point, almost without realizing it, where I could sleep with him without any real trouble.

At least I think I could.

It doesn’t mean that much to me. I don’t know that I could enjoy it, but I could go through with it and feel generally good about it, and good about doing something nice for him. As I do sort of like him as a person.

Reasons against sleeping with him:

(1) How he might take it. How he’d want to be closer with me, might think he’s in love with me, might worry that I would be in love with him, all of that. Or that he would dislike me for taking it casually, or that I in turn would be crushed (though I don’t think so) if he took it casually. If we could both just do it with no strong feelings on either side, just something nice to do for two people who sort of like each other, it would be fine. But how could that happen or how could one be sure it could happen?

(2) Jennifer could sleep with him but could Arlene? I am Arlene with him and Jennifer with others, and Arlene is still a virgin, still a prude, still all these things.

Sudden question: Is it Arlene or Jennifer who writes this diary? Arlene the obvious answer, but I am not entirely certain as I think about it. Could be that it varies, that sometimes Jennifer and sometimes Arlene sits at this typewriter. At the moment I am Arlene, I would say, but how can Arlene conceive of balling Mr. K.? For that matter, why would Jennifer be inclined to offer any objections?

Thing that occurred to me. Happened a couple of days ago in some context I no longer recall. Was musing on the nuisance of making it impossible for Jennifer’s friends to get quickly in touch with her. Even the people that I see have to write to me at the Post Office box, can’t call me on the phone, can’t come to my apartment. Am still unwilling to change this, but thought came to me suddenly that I could move to another apartment which I would take in the name of Jennifer Starr. And have telephone installed in the name of Jennifer Starr. And quit my job and get another job somewhere in the name of Jennifer Starr. And then all of Jennifer’s life could be lived quite openly.

Astonishing that the thought could even occur, as the whole thing is completely irrational. Makes not the slightest bit of sense when considered for a couple of seconds.

Because what would I be accomplishing? Just a name change, really.

What I have now is two separate lives, the life of Arlene and the life of Jennifer. I am not even sure that it is schizophrenic, although I often regard it as such. In one real sense, however, I am always Arlene. Jennifer is the psychic makeup I wear when I let my life touch the lives of other men and women.

If I changed Arlene Krause’s name to Jennifer Starr, I would be changing only a name. And if I were open to people, whatever name I chose to wear, it would be the same as if I gave out my phone number now, and had people to my apartment. If I were ever able to do that, I might as well do it as Arlene as go through the mechanics of a change of identity.

The only thing that fundamentally keeps me from sleeping with Mr. Karlman is that he knows me. My life touches his, and that is what will always stop me.

Why do I write sleeping with?

I have slept with no one since Gary and I separated. It is not that I am an habitual user of euphemisms in this compulsive exercise in meaningless automatic writing. It seems to me sometimes that no day goes by without the word fuck appearing in these pages.

Why the evident implication that I fuck these other people, these people who know me as Jennifer, but that I would be sleeping with Mr. Karlman? Obviously I would also fuck him, or be fucked by him, or both.

Make sense of this, child.

Guess: There is a special intimacy in the phrase sleep with, just as there is an intimacy in the literal realization thereof. I.e., I could not possibly sleep with any of the people I have been fucking. Could not close my eyes and drift off to unconsciousness in their various beds. Could not permit myself to do this.

But Mr. K., who knows me as Arlene, who knows one version of the Real Me (albeit not the other), unconsciously suggests a deeper level of intimacy to me.

All of this must mean something.

I think I have an idea what it means but I cannot fit words to my idea. This may be because I am unwilling to type it all out but it seems to go deeper than that. I think I am unwilling even to arrange the thought intelligibly in my head.

At this point, quitting my job and finding another would be either the best or worst thing I could possibly do. One or the other, certainly. But there is no way for me to be sure which, and I would rather put off doing the best thing than risk doing the worst thing. Postponement is easier to remedy than action.

I wonder what will happen.