Thirty - Jill Emerson [30]
On the other hand, if he called I would be glad of it, and I would go to him. Unquestionably.
April 6
How could I have thought that there was something so unmasculine (if there’s such a word, and if not, there is now) about a man having sex with another man? Maybe I would feel differently if Dave and Arnold acted like homosexuals.
Huh? What does it mean to act like a homosexual? Faggot is as faggot does, n’est-ce pas? Well, if they act effeminate, then. Campy. Like caricatures of women.
Dave and Arnold don’t.
Last night I sucked David while Arnold screwed him in the ass. And later I was tired, and off on a thought trip and very stoned, and I watched the two of them eat each other. Two good healthy studs with their cocks in each other’s mouths, gobbling greedily. And I got all involved in this great voyeurism trip, I really found myself getting all involved with watching, and they knew I was watching, and occasionally watched me watching them, and I played with myself, and I came that way.
You know what? Playing with oneself is very enjoyable. It really is. And it’s nicer still to do it right out in the open, not in one’s own room behind locked doors.
You can even turn masturbation into a togetherness thing. We talked about it and I said I would like to watch them do it sometime. Sometime in the future, because by then we were all sexed out for the night.
Arnold said that Philip Roth has opened the whole thing up. That jerking off is In this year. That everybody has always done it, but that they thought for years they were the only ones who did. Now everybody knows everybody does it. So they can start doing it with a clear conscience.
When you realize that we were still pretty high when he said this, you can imagine the depth it had. Logical wheels within wheels.
Out of sight, as we freaked-out hippy weirdos say. Hippie weirdos, that is. Hippy I’m not. I never entirely was, and I’ve lost twelve pounds in the past month.
Must be clean living.
April 10
It has been so long since I saw him that I answered the phone without even thinking that it might be him. He. Him. Who cares?
I’m rattled. It’s not a familiar sensation. I’ve been in such good shape lately and now I’m uptight again.
It was between two-thirty and three, and the phone rang, and I didn’t even think it might be Eric. I picked it up and said hello with bells in my voice.
“Jan? I want you this evening. Come at eight.”
“I—”
“Eight o’clock.”
“I wasn’t expecting you.”
“I have been out of town.”
“I see. Uh, I have a date, sort of.”
“I know.”
“How do you—”
“With the two queers.”
“They’re not exactly—”
“They are not expecting you tonight, Jan.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“I broke your date for you. To simplify things.”
“How could you do that.”
“I’ll expect you at eight.”
“Who are you?”
“Eight o’clock.”
End of conversation.
And I suppose if I don’t go two huge men dressed in black will come here and lead me to him in chains. And I suppose if I go right now and grab a plane for Timbuktu I’ll get off the plane and step into his arms.
I tried to reach David to break the date. No answer. Arnold would be working now, but I tried his phone to be sure. No answer.
He says he broke my date for me. How?
April 11
Of course I was there at eight.
Just now, sitting here in my own apartment a few hours after dawn, sitting here and trying to get the words flowing from the pen, it occurred to me how utterly changed I am once more after seeing him. I went back and read the entries describing the times with David and Arnold. I was, when I wrote those few pages, a girl I had never been before.
I am not that girl any longer.
I just now got up and went to look in the mirror. And a girl with my face looked back at me through frightened eyes. I had trouble forcing myself to look back.
Have I written yet that I understand the mirror superstition? Or have I had that thought while gazing into a mirror, not while scribbling in this book. Let us put it down