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DIARY 851   2/17/70

TORTURED

How strange it all seems! There's every reason to be happy, and I am happy, yet there's a sense of hyper-aloneness when I'm alone that seems to stifle any bit of creativity inside me. Where I had once known that I had to have time to myself, I now feel drifting and aimless when I have time to myself.

It could be due to many things: weakness from the diet of one meal a day, exhaustion from multiple sexual encounters in a very few days, or too much marijuana and kif, staying up too late, getting too little sleep: these could all be combinations resulting in my feeling of fatigue and malaise. But I'm happy when I'm with Bob, when I'm with John C. (when he isn't giving his stiff-tongued kiss that rather puts me off), when I'm going to the movies. Am I still asking all the old questions: who am I, where am I, what do I want? Is it only the law of averaged means, whereby I have to repay the fantastic highs of the Zodiac, John, Richard Etts', with sloughs of depression when I leave these peaks behind? I get a letter back from Elaine, and she unqualifiedly likes everything I've sent her, but though I feel good about it, I begin to think there's something wrong with her: doesn't she get anything good submitted for her paper? She's really very small potatoes. So she likes me, what next? I sit transfixed in front of the TV, and watch old movie after old movie, and I tell myself I have to finish with them, but I have a dread of sitting down at the typewriter. Even now, when I'm 12 days behind on my diary, I'm loathe to start on that. When I have such fantastic times as the evening with Arnie, the time at the Zodiac, the impressions from the many movies I've seen, the party here and sex afterward, the afternoon at Richard's, the evening with John and the incredible conversation at Angelo's, the telephone talks with Azak about S/M, and the upcoming evening at WSDG with Norma and Bill. Yet, even now as I sit typing, my stomach is disturbed, my fingers are strained, and I can think of nothing to say that makes sense. I have to wash my hair and fix the place up---at least I can start on that, and I've gotten one page done, anyway!

 

DIARY 898 3/5/70

ZODIAC II

Slosh through the snow down 14th, with John and Evan making all sorts of funny comments about the weather, the Zodiac, and what will happen tonight, and we get to the chalk-marked door to find it open. Up the stairs with a few people in front of us, and I have to borrow $1 from John since I'm down to exactly $1. Get two tickets and we swing to the right and into the bar.

What a contrast from the Zodiac I!! The room is completely filled with people, the coatroom is so full of coats they aren't taking anymore, and the warmth and closeness of the room is amazing. There are long lines in front of each of the two workable john doors, where the only lights are, and the center of the room vanishes in a haze of bodies pushing against each other. I take my coat off and sort of follow John and Evan as they make their way across the crowd like explorers setting through a forest to determine its thickness and extent.

Moving becomes slower and slower, and when we reach the shadows from the john lights, we find that the bodies are more inclined to be facing inward, pushing inward, as if trying to force themselves into the center of the room. It's rather like a herd of small animals pushing forward to get to the limited number of teats on some enormous mother animal hidden in the center of the crowd.

I'm really too uptight on the first trip across the floor to enjoy it. I get the impression of backs of bodies that are not particularly nice, of much gratuitous shoving and pushing, and then I feel somewhat constrained to follow John and Evan through the crowd. My head spins about trying to get its orientation as we make our way slowly along the periphery of the crowd, and by the time we reach another comparative clearing near the other end of the bar, my clothing feels like it had been pulled sideways past all possibility of righting the warped threads. John smiled wide-eyed at me and asks "Well, is it as I described it?"

"I have to believe it now, don't I?" I laugh, and add "I really didn't think it would be THIS crowded." I felt like expressing concern about it being raided, but it had been open for a number of weeks already, this was my first time here, and it would probably last into the future, so the sheer probability of it being raided TONIGHT was small, and I tried to push the thought to the back of my mind.

For awhile I stood dazed at the edge of the crowd, looking at some of the lovely numbers who seemed disinclined to join into the melee in the center, and who didn't seem interested in me. So I gripped my coat closer to me and made my way into the crowd again. This time I managed to get to the wall side of the periphery, and between two circles of people huddling together like a soccer scrimmage, I oozed into the center of the room, expecting to be immediately enlightened, but found to my disappointment that there wasn't one huge central orgy taking up the center. It was relatively empty, being the fringes of small group sessions around the center. I pushed and shoved my way out to the clearing near the johns, and stood again, wondering what on earth I would do next.

In the light there were fantastic bodies silhouetted against the bodies behind them: clad in tight white T-shirts and blue jeans for the most part, they stood in unconcerned musculatures, heads firmly and self-confidently set on bull necks and spreading shoulders, chests thrust forward to emphasize magnificent pectorals, concave abdomens with ripply stomachs, narrow waists and huge crotches standing most forward over bulging thighs. Many of the muscle builders seemed to be on the short side, which added to the impression of compactness and broadness, and their long dark hair made them very attractive.

More toward the bar were the leather crews, and some of the apparel was magnificent with chains, studs, links, buckles, and embossings, with the smell of good leather and sweat and the sound of saddle-like creakings and rubbings as they moved against each other. Motorcycle caps were pushed back on crewcut heads, hands were shoved into pockets that were so tight against thighs that there was a ring of white compressed skin showing above the seam of the pocket. Frank hands reached out to feel chests, crotches, and asses, and some of the faces were so red from drink that it appeared anything could happen. There were some truly spectacular people among the crowd!

My coat was beginning to hamper me, so I made my way along the bar, finding it somewhat easier, but still being delayed by knots of people talking and feeling together. Circled around to the jukebox, and found an empty chair stuffed into a corner, so I just piled my coat onto it and immediately felt freer. I crossed the room once or twice again before Evan caught me and said they would check coats, I'd just have to wait for someone to take theirs out. So I retrieved my coat, thoughtfully put my wallet into my jacket pocket, and stumbled toward the coat-check room. Others were waiting there before me, and there were small words, and in the pauses those who were coming in would exchange glances with me, and in the warm atmosphere, the permissive attitudes, each glance seemed like a caress, each gaze a seduction, each lingering look an entire sexual episode. I almost got hard looking at two seemingly agreeable fellows who seemed ready to ask me to leave right there, but they were inferior physically to some of the beauties on the floor, so I was determined to not get involved with them.

With my coat finally checked, I felt enormously free, and threw myself into the center of the floor again. It had gotten more crowded, and in some cases when I tried to move from one place to another, it as literally impossible to place my foot on the floor without feeling the way between other legs and shoes for a spot that was vacant. Both hands free, I brushed and rubbed my way through the crowd, but there wasn't as much of that as I'd expected: some hands held beer, some coats, others seemed concerned more about protecting some part of their anatomy.

Hands reached out for me: most of them directed toward the ass, and I would let them rest until I felt I would be encouraging them, and then I would twist away or move off into the crowd. A few pairs were furiously kissing in the center of small groups, and hands would reach out to feel the bodies hopefully hard in the embrace. Other heads tossed in centers of groups with small holes in the middle, and I could look in and see a straining body terminated by a bobbling head that worked on a coming cock, while others stood around and watched.

Very handsome faces wove their way through the crowds, but as much as I tried to look them in the eye, they saw me coming, decided they didn't like me, and refused to return my glances. Everyone seemed to be searching for something better, like the child in the candy store again, waiting to see what's all possible to buy before parting, in this case, with the load of come brewing in their balls. Young fellows with sleek hair and smooth necks talked with each other, looking secretly at some of the leather crews. Huge-chested fellows with ugly faces tried to impress with sheer bulk.

One fellow I'd seen many times before, in rather ragged jeans and a violet T-shirt from which his arms exploded in huge biceps and even larger triceps, which made the arms look almost like those of some hugely fat woman. The breasts were so enormous they protruded a good inch from the level of the rib cage flesh, and he walked with a curved stance that accentuated the size of them even more, as if the upper part of his chest was weighted down by the abundance of flesh on his breasts. His black hair was discreetly short, black-rimmed glasses were incongruous on a small, finely lined, intelligent face. His hands didn't wander as he passed through the crowd, which seemed to part for him as for some leviathan from the deep, and no one seemed interested in him. I wanted to reach out and touch his solid flesh, but still didn't have the courage.

John had vanished for the most part, though every so often I would catch his fierce-staring face near the center of some knot and would steer clear of it. Evan seemed quickly to get involved with a Scandinavian-looking blond about his height, and their faces were plastered together in a series of intense kisses.

Every so often the purple lights on the ceiling, on which were drawings of zodiacal symbols, would flash on and the frenetic activity would stop somewhat until things cooled down, and then the lights would go off and the crush would start again. Then there was the fellow with the flashlight who seemed determined to stop anyone from coming, moving through the crowd, pinpointing faces caught up in the extremes of orgasm, shouting out "OK, no sex here, meet someone and take them home, but don't do it here. Break it up, OK, there, let's keep moving through the crowd." He was a convenient engine to follow if he was going in the direction you wanted to go, because he had no qualms about breaking into the centers of groups, flashing the light up and down a straining body, then break out and proceed to the next group, cutting a swath through the field of bodies.

On one of my crossings, near the john, I saw an immense chest straining under a white T-shirt, and a rather nice profile determinedly ignoring me, but by this time I felt that anything would go. I stepped toward him and reached down to his crotch, but his trousers were so tight that I only encountered stretched denim with bunches hidden in it, but I got no erotic feeling out of it. His face continued averted, and I bent over slightly and kissed his neck, running my hand up and over his chest, feeling his breasts, sinking my hand down into the space between his shirt and his trousers, trying to get some reaction, but the face remained impassive. Rather desperate, I reached up and turned the face, though the eyes remained staring off to the right, and kissed the lips two or three times, but though he didn't pull away, there was absolutely no response, and, embarrassed, I dropped my hands from his body and moved away. It was simple enough to get turned off, I decided, if the person wasn't interested.

The majority of the faces were somewhat older or somewhat more dissipated than I would prefer, though some were perched above beautiful bodies. Soon I began to recognize those who were looking to me for some sort of contact, those who were pointedly ignoring me, and those about whom I had not yet decided. There was a truly handsome blond boy who seemed new at the game, though his body was tightly enough exposed to show he had some knowledge of the place, but he kept talking to one or two friends, and they seemed to run interference for him when the group moved across the floor. At one point I passed close to him and let my hand drag across his crotch. I fiddled around for awhile, then chanced looking back at his face, but he was still talking with his friend, not bothering to even indicate he felt what I was doing. The crowd wasn't so dense at that point that I might be confused about which crotch I was in, though at some points I would feel about me and really have to study two pressing bodies to see which crotch I was actually aiming for.

One of the younger fellows and I found ourselves in the eye of the hurricane, and almost since there were no others about who were interesting, we began kissing. The kissing was pleasant enough, but his hands soon wandered to my crotch, where my softness contrasted with his hardness, and soon he went down, and we seemed to be getting nowhere, so I moved away.

Again and again I had to avoid Evan and John, though at one point I talked to Evan as he waited for the john, and he said the blond wasn't really his style, but he was a good kisser. He'd done two or three in the center of the floor already. It was about 2:30 or 3 by this time, and I'd stopped for an intermission beer because I was thirsty, and there seemed to be some more typical bar encounters taking place on the periphery. I stood near the jukebox and looked a couple of lovelies, but I just couldn't get them to return my glances, so I contented myself by looking at two muscle-bound giants grappling against the wall.

The wall was a rather good place, as some were sitting on the tables along the wall and others were sitting on the chairs doing them, and it was reasonably open, so others could group around and touch and look at what was going on.

By this time I was feeling it would be a waste, and went into the center again. This time what caught my eye was a bare hairy chest surrounded by blue denim, and the breasts were full and appealing, and I stepped toward them and slipped my hand up his side into his warm moist armpit, and was rewarded by a flex of sexy skin and a sort of a cuddle against me. I tried kissing again, and though he warmed to it rather slowly, after a couple of tries, with my hands now inside his jacket rubbing up and down his back, he began to respond more fully, caressing me, rubbing his body against mine, returning my kisses.

This was what I had come for! At about five or ten minute intervals the lights would flick on, and for the first few times we would part and stare around us, and at one point I caught a sight of enormous blue eyes, rather too closely set, a narrow face with a sexy little mustache, and thin lips and a cute cleft chin. The raggedness of the clothes led me to believe he was a hippy from some poor commune, but his body was sexy and I enjoyed being close to it.

During subsequent grapplings, I reached down to see his crotch, and found his zipper was open, he wore no underwear, and a length of hard cock met my grasping fingers. I worked it out through his zipper and worked with the moisture gathering about its tip, and he sank into my arms and began murmuring sounds of pleasure between kisses. "Oh, you're so great, oh, what a great body you have." Then he'd draw back and look me over and groan "Oh, I'd like to kiss you all over, why don't you come home with me?"

I didn't know what to expect, so I didn't answer, but his excitement contributed to mine, and soon he had my checked shirt out of my trousers and bunched up around my chest, and bent over to suck my nipples and rub my chest. Others began gathering about us, and I could feel other hands reaching out for our bodies, but we swerved back and forth and discouraged them, and after a bit they left us alone. But then when the lights went on we ceased to react, and continued kissing through the light phase, only pressing closer when the lights went back out. Since we were doing nothing overtly sexual, the fellow with the flashlight left us alone: we were effectively an immune two-person group there in the pushing bodies around us.

I almost hoped that John and Evan could see me with my partner, because I thought him terribly sexy in his blue denim jacket with nothing underneath, his head of curly black hair that I loved playing with, his boyish face. "Are you high?" he asked once, panting, and when I said no, he said he thought I must be. He had smoked a bit before he came, and I was really turning him on.

Finally after a spate of love-speech from each, he said, "I have a car, let's go to my place in Brooklyn Heights." This caused me to reconsider: if he has a car, he can't be that poor, and if he lives in Brooklyn Heights, he can't be that much of a hippy, and I had some hopes of having found a real diamond in the rough. After an additional few ejaculations about kissing and licking me all over, about wanting to turn on again with me, about wanting me to himself in a comfortable bed, and since he didn't make any overt gestures toward my ass, I finally gave in and said I'd have to say goodbye to my friends and get my coat.

John and Evan were nowhere to be seen, though Evan later said his head was probably at someone's crotch, since he didn't leave until 4:30, so I waved him on to the coat room, fearing he'd be put off by my overcoat and leave me standing on the stairway, deserted. But he waited, led me down the stairs, and just around the corner was a snow-covered VW that we brushed off before entering. We kissed warmly as we sat in the front seat, and then he started, backed around the corner, and started for Brooklyn Heights.

I was quite uptight about the snowy conditions, particularly since he'd been smoking, but he negotiated turns and stops with caution and ease, and though we barreled across the Brooklyn Bridge rather too fast, he made the turn as I complimented him, and we rubbed hands on knees and smiled at each other and both seemed delighted with the meeting.

It was 4AM and a black dance at the St. George was just leaving out, so we were stalled in traffic, and I paranoically worried about his turning off toward me, but we rubbed knees, sneaked kisses when we felt no one was looking, and blew kisses at each other when we felt they might be. Finally he managed to find a parking place, and we went into a sturdy building, up three breathless flights of stairs, and into an apartment that immediately impressed me with spaciousness, graciousness, and a quantity of huge-authentic looking American antique highboys, tables, chests, and desks.

We got rid of our coats and shoes in the hall-dining room, and then went into the living room, which looked through clean windows out onto the street. Then he detoured into the bedroom that I saw was large, with a capacious bed, and I was more than pleased about the place and who I had found.

"Do you want to smoke?" he asked, seemingly expecting yes for an answer, and he spread a quilt on the living room floor, we kissed some more, and then quickly disrobed as he got out a bubble pipe and a quantity of grass that he grew in his own window box, and we lit up.

The smoke through the water was almost completely sting-less, and for the first time smoking I had absolutely no worry about coughing. It also seemed like rather mild stuff, and we smoked a second pipeful without my getting terribly affected. Then we began rolling around on the floor, kissing, moistening palms and torturing erect cock heads, and I felt so much more comfortable with a hard-on: it was almost a vindication of my worries about remaining erect with Bob.

We got each other terribly excited, and at one point he threw a madras piece of material over us, and we cuddled under it, feeling bodies from head to toe, and my curiosity about being "shrimped" was finally satisfied as he went down on my toes, and I on his, and we delighted each other with the truly subtle and erotic contact between toe and tongue.

As a piece de resistance, he came up with a plastic pink bottle of what I took to be laundry soap, squirted out a generous handful for himself, and I felt the cold sensuality of extremely slippery baby lotion, which made my cock strain to its most rigid length, and I hurried to oil his cock up, and we rolled about on the quilt, gasping, kissing, groaning in ecstasy, rubbing each cock until it gleamed, strained, and began to be lubricated with its own liquids.

Finally we could take it no longer, stretched out side by side, watching each other's cocks intently, and we both jerked each other into a fantastically sensed orgasm, keeping the hands on the cocks during and after the spurts of come, while our bodies shivered and cringed and our mouths gasped and almost shouted in the agony of the pleasure of the orgasm.

We lay together on the floor, gasping, catching our breaths, kissing, holding each other, rubbing each other, and soon we were up again and panting in the throes of a second orgasm, this one almost more frantic than the first, since we were still so sensitive from the first, yet so turned on by each other that we wanted to share a second coming together. Spurt after spurt on chest and stomach, rolling off onto the quilt, clutching each other in a frenzy of sensuality, and then lay, panting, kissing, and deciding we really HAD to get to bed, or we'd completely wear each other's cock and body out.

There were no shades in the bedroom, and we got into bed at 6, lying together, feeling each other drift off to sleep, and I moved slightly apart from him, listening to his regular sleep-breathing, and it seemed that just the instant after I finally dropped off to sleep, I opened my eyes to morning light, and it was 8AM, only two hours later. We lay, touching, but soon we were stiff again, and we moved against each other much as we had last night, on the Zodiac floor, when we were so sweaty from our exertions that we could rub our chests together rudely back and forth and there would only be the sweat-lubricated sensation of flesh and hair sliding against flesh and hair.

The first orgasm of the morning was an enormous success, and I almost went up the walls, and I excited him, and he came, and that excited me again, and we started in on the second time, but we had both been so frazzled at this point that we had to resort to our own practiced hands to finish ourselves off, but we were so close, we appreciated each other so much, that it was even sexier that way.

When we stumbled out of bed it was about 10AM, and he had nothing for breakfast except Triscuits and honey, and it seemed like truly Olympian tidbits. When the Triscuits were gone, there was a bit of honey left in the bowl on the tray, and he dipped his finger, rolled up a dollop, crooked the finger around my cock, and lowered his head to lick up the mingled ooze and honey, and I gasped with pleasure and brought the bowl down to his cock, rolling it about like a walnut-stuffed date in sugar, and enjoyed the sensations of tiny bits of biscuit making his cock slightly crunchy, adding just a tingle of extra sensation, and again we were stiff and crying for release.

After the third orgasm of the morning, exhausted, we still slouched about naked, touching, and he talked about himself and the book that he was editing, and I talked about myself and the party this evening, and he suggested the perfect solution to my concern about something to eat (and also said he had the money to loan me, since I had none left, and it gave us both the assurance we'd have to meet at least once again): Turkish or Syrian meat pies, and olives, and I felt DELIGHTED with John A.

 

DIARY 909 3/5/70

PARTY FOR LAIRD

Just finish typing for Joe, and John and Joe are talking in the living room, when Laird enters, gives me a big kiss, and proceeds to entertain us with tales of his visit with his wacky family and his possibly addled uncle, but we think his comment about the family treasures a perceptively ironic one, and he tells about his relatives, about usages of various words in New Zealand. Then Bruce comes and John and Bruce take the center of the floor to talk about dancing in New York and out, people who are good dancers and those who aren't, about renting halls and critics and reviews and interesting choreography, and then Evan arrives and rather demands the center of attention with his stunning maxi-coat and the flesh-colored, underwear-less closely fitting jumpsuit underneath, and the talk turns to fashions and hair and cruising. Joe arrives early without Bob, and then Bob arrives and they start with their private jokes, and they talk with Joe again about Philadelphia.

Bob R. arrives and again is rather quiet, except at one point when he describes a bit about the homosexual show he's about to have, but mainly he sits and talks with Azak or me, or just listens to whatever is going on. Evan says that John C. should be calling, since his plans have been cancelled, and then Azak calls and says he would like to come over, too. Harvey and Jerry don't show up, so four cancel out, and by 8PM I'm getting hungry and put the meat pies into the oven, with water underneath as suggested by John, and John and Laird chat on the sofa, Joe and Don M. seem to disagree about everything with a high degree of hilarity, and when the meat pies go around and all can have two and some can even have three, since there are only 9 or us and 23 meat pies. The last of the olives go, the glasses are lasting, and when the ice threatens to give out (and there's no soda), I ask John to bring both, and that's ANOTHER thing I owe John for!

John arrives with the supplies (and I put the ice in the refrigerator and forget about it, so that the next morning there's a flood in the bottom that has begun to overflow to the floor, so I have to clean THAT up) and finally Azak arrives, and the party reaches its height with everyone drinking, I've not run out of anything, and then Joe and Bob leave, Laird catches the 10PM train back, John asks for information about Don, and when Don and Bruce leave, Bruce having stood out because of his tapestry trousers, I ask Don about John and he says grandly "Oh, yes, give him my number, would you? It would look funny if I did it here. Bruce, you know." And I later find out that John simply liked to masturbate and Don thought he was rather strange. Azak bows out early, which rather surprises me, since I thought he'd be staying for the orgy that seems to be building around Evan and John, at least, and finally John A. leaves. I indicate at the door that there's something in the air, but he flatters me enormously by saying "If I've just had a marvelous steak dinner, at a very nice restaurant, with just the most perfect service, I really don't feel in the mood for a hamburger." We kiss sweetly and he prepares to go out, and he says "You know you have a little piece of my heart?" I'm in terrible confusion and say he'll have to come back to give it back. He says he won't give it back, so I say I want some more. Then he asks if he has anything of mine, and I say he should be able to feel it, because a bit of my heart is in his, too. With that, and another kiss or so, he leaves.

Evan has gone into the bedroom to lie down, and Bob had lit up a joint sometime before, passing it around to Evan and himself and me and John and Azak, but John C. won't smoke. John goes into the bedroom to chat with Evan, and Bob and I remain in the living room, chatting about the evening. Joe and John had been very catty to Evan, particularly when Evan was describing his appearance in a small South Dakota town, and Joe sarcastically said "Oh, Evan, every man in the world's gay," expecting laughing support for his irony, but everyone BELIEVES it. John gets decidedly bitchy toward Evan, and he comes up with a pronounced stammer two or three times through the evening that is rather a shock.

When Bob and I join John and Evan in the bedroom, I've put on the Moody Blues and a couple of Hairs, since I really don't want to tend the record player, and John and Evan have begun to disrobe, and Evan's skin on his body is just as smooth and soft as the skin on his face, but he has a rather boxy shape and a small ass that doesn't really add to sensuality, so he's not much to look at with skinny legs. John is busy flexing, and Bob becomes a flurry of attraction because of his big cock.

Everyone tries to get me into the act, but I plead off and lie on the side of the bed, obeying John's stern command to "Beat that meat," and at one point I'm kissing Evan rather unproductively, and John starts what can only be described as fucking Evan in the mouth, and Bob starts into Evan's ass, and the three of them (the two of them, since Evan isn't moving very much) are pumping away, and I manage some sort of orgasm after Bob comes in Evan's ass, putting my limp cock into his hand as it comes its few spastic drops. Then John comes in an orgy of agonized manhood, rearing up like the devil in Disney's "Night on Bald Mountain," raising his flexed arms toward heaven in supplication of his loss of manhood, chest arched and puffed into almost a caricature of manhood, groaning through clenched jaw his emission of sperm.

John and Evan dance together a bit, and then finally they leave, and Bob and I are left with each other, and he actually manages to make me come again, and we sit around and talk about the party, and smoke a bit more, and then he leaves and I have a very messy apartment to content with, and I sit around in the shambles of the party and gather some things together to put out in the garbage tomorrow, but other things I just shove under the stove and into the refrigerator, and then I suddenly get very tired, partly because I only had 2 hours sleep last night, and I came so many times during the past 24 hours. But I'm quite happy the party turned out as nicely as it did.

 

DIARY 922 2/17/70

JOHN AT ANGELO'S

Later on, on February 28 at Jones Beach, John told me that my talking about other people made him angry, and if I'd been really receptive at Angelo's, I would have seen it earlier (though it may be said that if John had been honest with me earlier (and with his feelings earlier) he would have told me here). I was talking about Bob, and how we met, and how we clicked, and he appeared to be annoyed and frankly asked me if I had ever been in love before.

Taking off from that point, I launched into a monologue about how much I had feared it before, about Jerry from Boston and that terrible week when I was absolutely miserable at work, about twice, with Hank T. and Nye W., whom I said I loved when it was only a physical togetherness, and how I was afraid to love until quite a bit after that, when I had the acid.

From that time on I searched for love, but it didn't come easily, and then, not mentioning Bob by name, I described how a couple of weeks ago I told someone I loved him and I really meant it. John had the expression on his face that I suspect I get when I ask someone a question expecting one answer, and the answer is not what I expected. He seemed somewhat deflated after this, and the conversation didn't go any further, and his breath smelled of sour grapes. Maybe it was the wine.

I wasn't honest with him, however, though I thought I was being so. I was being frank and trying what it felt like to be in two very "heavy" relationships at the same time. But I didn't tell John that he was one of them, and I didn't bother to "feel" him enough to sense that he was really being left out of the conversation.

It reminds me (see, I'm not even listening to myself) about how people carry on one or more internal dialogues with themselves, and when they remember something they wanted to say, no matter WHAT the other person is saying, they say "Oh, yes, that reminds me..." and then they take off on something COMPLETELY unrelated to what their poor friend was saying, because it WAS something completely unrelated. I wasn't really tuned in to John, and he may not have been tuned in to me, but the talk at Angelo's was my monotonous monologue. On DIARY 867 I say "not really caring who hears," and I really wasn't caring if JOHN heard, I was more interested in hearing myself speak.

This is just another incidence of my anal orderliness: I had demarked the pages to be typed earlier, and I have to have at least two pages on the subject: I can't just say "Oh, I've come far past THAT conversation in the past couple of days, so let's skip that and get on into something more important." Though that statement relates a fact. So much is happening so fast, that it's all I can do to keep up with everything. And then the marathon is coming up this evening (March 6), and I'm quite nervous about that, but I have a lot of typing to do before that, I'm supposed to help Bob in the gallery, and I'm not doing what I should do even here, which I'd better get back to.

There were others at the next table, and John and I were talking quite loudly, but it really didn't make any difference who heard: I was talking to him (or to myself), and whether other people heard or not simply didn't make any difference. John was being hurt, I was hurting him, and I was more aware, theatrically, that other people might be listening to ME than I was aware of how John might be taking what I said.

My stomach didn't even hurt, which implies that I wasn't really FEELING what I said (not that my stomach SHOULD hurt when I say something with feeling, it shouldn't; but I know for a fact that at this point in my life it DOES hurt when I say something with feeling, and the fact that I wasn't tied up in knots implies it was only verbal diarrhea, not worth noting anyway).

Which leads me to wonder how much of all THIS is verbal diarrhea. But then, isn't it a fact?, writing SOMETHING is better than writing NOTHING.

 

DIARY 882 2/28/70

JOHN

After the second orgasm of the morning, we practically fell off the sofa and lay, exhausted, on the floor in the sun. We moved the coffee table and the dining table out of the way, raised the lower window until it matched the upper window in position, and stretched out on the carpet to enjoy the full heat of the sun.

John was on his back, and I in jest lay atop him, saying, "You said you wanted to lie in the sun, but here I am blocking it all out."

With a lingering kiss he smiled and said, "You can lie on top of me anytime you want," and I grinned, wriggled back and forth, then rolled to his right side, snuggling my ear into his shoulder. We lay and baked for a few minutes, and when I lazily raised my hand to feel his shoulder, it was hot to the touch, and raising my head I saw that it had already grown pink.

"Five minutes and you have a sunburn already," I said, and he replied that his skin got so brown in the summer that when you pinched it, it actually appeared to be blue. We rolled about a bit, teasing each other into erection, then lay back and enjoyed the sun on our excited bodies. This time I was lying on the bottom, and he lay crosswise, his head on my chest, face thrown up to catch the sun all along his neck.

There, completely exposed to my view, was his entire face and neck, and I could see the many colors there: the pink and white of his fair skin, pink from rubbing and kissing and exposure to the sun. The most arresting sight was the black-blue of his beard, sweeping like a huge disfiguring birthmark across his chin and down his neck. More of the skin appeared black than pink, but there were even areas of darkness that didn't have a hair growing from them. But mostly there were distinct hairs visible, less than half a millimeter long, some of which gleamed into white when they caught the sun at just the right angle. At the base of some of the hairs were pimples, and tiny yellow crusts that were the remains of old blemishes; some hairs stood in red scabs where newer pimples had just been squeezed; other yellow-white ovals of pus stood up from the skin independent of hair, and they were so smooth and full that it seemed that a touch must burst them.

But in all this detail there was beauty. I had a face exactly like this, every man's face was like this in close-up, so there's no question of beauty of fittingness. This was his face, just inches from my eyes, lit painstakingly by the winter sun streaming in the open window.

He rolled his head toward my face, burying my mouth and nose into his black ringlets, and my eyes, now only an inch or two from his hair, couldn't focus and, in the blur, each curly black hair on his head was transformed into a string of minute beads of many colors: blue, bright green, intense yellow-green, mixtures of blue and green, and as I gently rocked his head back and forth, the strings of beads flowed along his hair in the sunlight. There must have been tiny quantities of oil or tonic on his hair, and the sun's rays split the oil into rainbows of blue, green, and all the colors between. In the blur of near vision, each hair looked like tiny color-banded resistors for some intricate do-it-yourself electronic device. At the roots of his hair were white areas where the scalp showed between whorls of hair, but the mass was sheerest jet black, shining in the sun.

When he rolled his head away again, I was surprised to see that his mustache was brown, fading almost to blond in the intense sunlight, and I could easily distinguish the softer finer texture of the hair on his head against the coarser, more bristle-like hairs that curved along his upper lip.

This upper lip showed hardly any red, giving me the idea that if he didn't wear a mustache, his mouth would have an unpleasantly prim look with his thin lips. He'd said he had learned how to use his thin lips, and looking at his averted lower lip, showing wound-red flesh, I had the thought that it was averted only because he had practiced keeping it there to improve his already good-looking face.

Above the center of his mustache was his thin nose, and he'd said he had a cold, and it appeared that the inside membranes of the nose were irritated, because there were distinct red veins visible at the tip of the nose, continuing upward until visibility was lost in shadow and the finer hairs that grew in his nose.

His hair grew a tiny bit more sparsely in the cleft of his narrow chin, satisfying my curiosity about scratching himself with hairs growing from opposite directions in the deep cleft. I could see reddish scraped areas on his chin-points where my beard and kissing had scraped away some of the surface skin-flakes and made the chin raw.

He kept his glasses on, and they changed from mirrors reflecting the blazing sun to windows permitting views of his eyes. Ah, his eyes! Brilliant, flawless, clear, transparently blue, blue as Caribbean seawater, intensely blue, deeper than the washed-out blue of light blue eyes, lighter than azure, he would open his eyes into the sun and his pupils would shrink to pinhead size, and I could see the filaments of his iris drawing the pupil down to size in the light. Bits of red flecked the whites of his eyes, seeming to make the blue of the iris more intense. And the black dot in the center sunk to the core of his soul as he looked at me in the sun.

Again and again we changed positions as we listened to Messiaen's "Turangalila," and I held his hot head, kissed his cool lips, ran my fingers gently up and down his smooth body. Again he was on the bottom, and I lay on his chest, running my fingers through his chest hairs, and these tended to turn blue in the sun, possibly because my eyes were far enough away so that I could focus on them.

Then he was beside me, curled into a ball, arms together in front of his so that his elbows practically touched, and there were the V-curves of his biceps drawing down to a narrow cleft, and this angle compressed his pectorals, so that there were rolls of muscle on his chest that echoed the V-curve of his arms, and in the center his thick neck sank into his chest between the two tendons of his throat, re-echoing the V-shape of his upper torso. Fascinated, I ran my fingers from the point of his heated shoulders, into the hollow of his clavicle, and down along the line of his throat to the cleft between his pectorals, feeling the quantity of flesh there, getting my fingers caught in the hair of his chest, rubbing down to his stomach while he smiled with contentment.

John dozed during the peace of Takemitsu's "November Steps," and woke when his head on my pelvis, pressing it into the floor, made my buttocks sore, and my hands clasped behind my head fell into numbness from lack of movement and I had to adjust my position, looking quizzically at my fingers held up into the sun.

He above, I above, trading off positions, feeling the length of the body, the stretch of the thigh, nibbling on buttocks, playing with each other's fingers, and finally I bent down to kiss him long and hard, and my cock rose into a comparable state, bumping up against his side. His fingers were down at my crotch to receive my erection, rubbing it back and forth against his side, and I reached down to find that he was imitating my excitement. Then we swung around to face each other, half-seated, half-lying on the floor, and luxuriantly stroked each other's filling cocks.

With almost the same movement we put our hands to our mouths to lubricate them with saliva, and we both rolled our eyes at the ecstasy of the gentle touches, slipping and sliding, we gave each other. Eyes glued to rising cocks, our hands slid up and down, and the skin grew darker with the excitement, glistening in the sun from the other's saliva. We would rub gently until the cock grew dry, then gently replace the lubrication from the mouth, lips and tongue now tasting the secretions of the other. Hard squeezes would express a clear drop of liquid from the straining heads, and this would be mingled with the saliva to give a superior slipperiness.

John had my cock draped over his knee, which lay across my stomach, while I faced him from below, playing with his scrotum with my left hand, stroking long and gently with my right. We looked at each other in agony and smiled, came together to kiss, groaned, and went back to our mutual torture. Both began to breathe faster, both thrust into the other's hand, aghast with feeling, Again saliva would be supplied, but the cock's emission was almost enough to keep the hand sliding on the cock skin.

We shifted about to get more rewarding positions, eyeing each other's cocks with pleasure. Feelings mounted, mouths dropped open with anticipation, breathing became harsh and jerky, hands worked faster and faster until the twisting torso above the cock would induce the hand to stop, skin back the cock, let it wave in the air, helpless, engorged, maybe blow on it to evaporate some of the moisture, giving another sensation. Again and again we exchanged looks, almost too intense to bear in the ecstasy of mounting sensations, and we made short whispered comments of appreciation for the other's pleasure.

Finally the playing, the torturing, the teasing, became too much for me to stand, and I grabbed my cock out of his grasp and started pounding the shrieking flesh toward release. John, in turn, grasped his stiff cock and beat away on it, gazing at my flailing hand, and I watched his scrotum tighten against the base of his penis. Then we gasped into the final stages, looking each other up and down, eyes narrowing in anticipation, hands moving, practiced, now fast, now slow, and the breathing started the rasping crescendo toward orgasm.

Each movement now was abandoned. If the phone rang, if the door knocker sounded, if a fire started, it would be completely ignored. We breathed faster and faster, strained down on our cocks, eagerly soaking up the other's pleasure that heightened our own. The tingling began in the base to my cock, my stomach began to melt down into my groin, and I could feel the building of the inevitable tearing, ripping flow of semen through the tightly clenched cock, and I gasped with open mouth, hoping that John would shoot off at the same time, but his eyes were glued to my cock, his hand losing pace on his cock, but I could hold back no longer: the feeling reached the apex and I groaned loudly, holding my hand still on my throbbing cock. There was a count of one while we both held our breath, and then a clot of come shot from my cock and fell onto his chest. He breathed a comment of appreciation, then reached over to pull me over on top of him.

Senseless of anything except the joy-pain of coming, I rolled over on top of him, head falling between his legs, cock crushed between my pelvis and his chest, and I could feel throb after throb against his body, sending out decreasing amounts of semen, until there was only a shaking sensation, continuing, continuing, and he stroked my buttocks and legs and back, and I tried to catch my breath, eyes clearing and focusing for the first time since I went into orgasm.

Panting for air, we lay together for a few minutes, I still trembling from the pressures in my legs and cock, he crooning small sounds of affection to my cock just inches from his face. Then I could begin to relax, to let my muscles and limbs fall limp where they were, and each breath ceased to bring a spasm of sensation from my groin. All there was left to do was catch my breath, and I lay with my head between his legs, aware that my cool exhalations were falling on his scrotum, and I could feel the still-hard cock beneath my chest. He hadn't come, I realized, in the pleasure of watching my orgasm.

I moved back and forth tentatively on his cock, but it appeared to be losing size, and we lay tranquilly together for a bit longer before I rolled off and staggered into the bathroom for a washcloth and towel. He made some comment about being exhausted, and his eyes gleamed in a smile, but it was HIS infernal fooling that made ME come a third time, and he could be relatively safe with only two to his credit. We both seemed content.

 

DIARY 977 3/11/70

TSI-DUN---GROUP SEX WITH JOHN IN THE HEIGHTS

(Though it was only two weeks ago, it seems really like ages ago, and I can't remember all the details.) Since we'd smoked, the walk to the place was a hazy fog. I following the others, knowing vaguely that it was cold, but not caring terribly much. Cal and I talked, and John smiled his slightly cross-eyed beam at me most of the way. Three others joined us as we made our way inside, and the door opened and we were shown into a dining room with the table moved out and coat racks moved in, and there were three or four people undressing, putting their things onto the rack, self-consciously looking around as they undressed, regarding the newcomers with suspicion. John started undressing promptly, greeting people as he did, and Mike vanished completely. Cal and I felt a little uncomfortable, and he stuck rather close to me as we put our shoes and socks side by side under the buffet. I could appreciate John's admonition that I shouldn't wear any shorts under my white ducks---his white ducks---so I had less to hang up. Cal vanished about that point, and I put all my things on one hanger and wandered around the corner with everyone else. There was a long bare hallway, and John was talking to the hosts, something about planting their own grass, and the hosts seemed to have an enormous supply of seeds, grass, plants, and everything else, and it really seems like a season of plenty. Then John and I go downstairs, and there's a room about fifteen by fifteen with two large sofas covered with people, various pieces of furniture serving only as backrests for people sitting on the floor, low blue lights from a lowboy, and a door into the bathroom. I felt terribly unknown, and John didn't say anything to me but went to sit on a sofa, and I sat down under the blue lights.

On the chair to my right reclined the sexiest body in the joint, tanned and lean and delightfully hirsute in the right places, serving to emphasize his beautifully muscled torso and legs. Someone always seemed in the process of doing him while he rather unconcernedly drank from a can of beer or smoked a cigarette or even carried on a conversation with someone nearby. Since he seemed always in demand, and he didn't show any sort of affection until somewhat later in the evening, I got the impression that he was some sort of lovely hustler hired for the evening to give class to the place, and I crossed him off my list.

Others were easy to cross off, such as the thin, balding older man who seemed to be in the center of every group, either inserting someone's cock into his ass or his fingers into someone else's ass, and his thin face and determined nose turned me off at once. There were a few overweight specimens in the place, too, and I was rather chagrined to find that Mike was one of them, having a little-boy rotundity that was most unappealing, and a little-boy cock, too, a thumb jutting from under a shingle of hairy belly.

There was a heavyset fellow with a wedding ring on who seemed determined to have sex as many times in the evening as he could, and it seemed that wherever there was intense activity culminating in orgasm, he managed to contribute one of the orgasms. Though his body might have been nice a number of years ago, there was a bulbous uniformity of contour to his body that made it supremely uninteresting.

In the shadowy distance I could make out the Scandinavian-type hunky blond body of the type of fellow who so sexily does the deodorant ads in Esquire in a low-slung towel, but when he moved closer, he also had a dreadfully small cock, and the appeal of the body seemed to diminish: on closer look, his hair was lank and thinning, and there wasn't really too much appeal in the youthfully aging face with a sort of permanent smile.

There were a couple agile, active, squirmy little fellows galloping about, also, and at one point I observed one little one being sent into frenzies by the big Swede type, but it seemed to be all sound and no action, though he maintained an enormous erection that put his partner, who may have weighted almost twice what he did, to shame.

John sat alone on the sofa for quite awhile, but then the fellow next to him broke down his defenses, and the next thing I saw, John was screwing him on the sofa, and the fellow on top was trying all sorts of things to excite John, but he didn't seem to be able to come. Then the lights seemed to get dimmer and I could only see the people in my neighborhood.

Most of them were on the sofa to the left, and when they got actively entwined, they came down on the floor in their overflow, and I was rather summarily pushed aside. There were a few people passing by who expressed interest, but I steadfastly looked at someone else, anyone else who wasn't looking at me, and they lost interest.

Cal came over and offered me a beer, and we sat silently and sipped next to each other, and then he left, only to come back later and put his hand gently on my knee, put his other hand behind my neck, and pulled my face toward him for the gentlest of kisses that quickly became deeper when it was obvious that we were both enjoying it. I ran my hands up and down his body that I had glimpsed pleasantly when he came over to me, and the feel was even nicer than the sight: each large muscle was gently going to seed, but there was still a lot of definition, no stomach at all, and a lovely bulk and hairiness that was marvelously sexy to touch, and I enjoyed touching him. He went down on me for a bit, but I just didn't feel like coming up, so I didn't, and finally drew his head back up to kiss me.

We again started a session of kissing, and I reached for his stiff cock and was pleased to find that Mike's bragging about his size was rather justified: it was long and straight and smooth, and in fact the head was one of the smoothest I'd felt, as if it were made out of the taut stretched rubber of a tiny balloon blown up to capacity. I handled him gently as he was oozing fluid and groaning with pleasure, and when he really seemed ready to come I couldn't resist going down on him, and he cradled my head in his hands, thrust back and forth gently so that I could take as much as I could, and I held onto his balls as he stiffened to the final thrust, and he came in great bursts of come, grabbing my head each time he spasmed, and I stayed down on the cock that remained hard, and the come made the head even more slippery and chewable, and I continued to suck on him after he came, and he gasped and struggled in my grip, enjoying that exquisite agony after the orgasm.

Finally he seemed to be completely drained, and he looked deep into my eyes and moaned, not even trying to say anything, and we kissed again until he was utterly hard in my hands. I came up when he came, but in the after-play I went down again, and anything he could do with his hands or mouth didn't help the situation. We continued together for a bit, and then he went away.

He was immediately replaced by someone who could have been the brother of the big-built Swede, only this one had a straw-blond head of thinning hair and an enormous walrus mustache that I saw coming at me out of the gloom, and then there was the brushy, sexy, wet, come-filled mustache melding with his soft lips and inquisitive tongue, and I smelled the smells contained in his brush and they tickled my nose, and the whole thing was rather like kissing an enormously sexy, wondrously articulated mouth with a mink toothbrush in it. He rammed his cock into my mouth, and I gagged once and again, bringing up sour-tasting remnants of supper to my mouth, hoping I could suck it all off his cock before I left him withdraw, and we kissed again, and I hoped he couldn't taste the sourness, and he left, not really to be seen again.

By this time I was getting into the swing of it, and moved a bit to the side, and then there were people next to me, trying to get me excited, and I let them do what they wanted. One fellow went down on me and stayed down on me, trying to get me up, but the evening was so far gone I hoped he would assume I'd been had a dozen times before, and finally he gave up and left without even kissing me once.

A few other people gathered beside me, sort of keeping me company, and a few started playing with me, and the fellow in front of me seemed to like my body and head, and he had a nice cock and a nice face though probably not the type I'd cruise, and I leaned forward and kissed him. We again seemed to click, and moving other people out of the way, we went down on the floor to neck and caress. Other hands came and went, a few trying to insinuate themselves into my ass, but I rather firmly squirmed away or clamped my legs together, and they quickly got the hint and moved away. Someone went down on my partner, and we enjoyed ourselves together, and I was embarrassed about being limp until someone went down on me with starling avidity, and when anyone looked at me after that, I guess they assumed I had a hard-on that was being swallowed by someone obliging. We necked on and on, and he got more and more excited, but just at what seemed the climax, whoever was doing him moved away, and his erection waved rather pathetically in the air, so I went down on him. He was more difficult to come, but come he did, more easily since he was somewhat smaller, and I again enjoyed milking the last drop out of him, and then kissing him afterwards in gentle passion.

Then there was another fellow with whom I repeated the same sort of maneuver, and I really didn't know if it was the same guy or a different one, but the kissing seemed different, so I guess he was different. During this session I got the first idea of what it might be like to abandon oneself to the group: I was lying on my back, someone was working on my right side, someone was trying to do me, I was necking furiously with someone to my left, and suddenly there were three or four more hands from a couple of people gently poking and prodding and caressing me, and I felt that I no longer cared who it was who was feeling me, I was kissing someone I liked, that was enough: the others could do just as they pleased, as long as the fellow kept swinging on my joint to conceal the fact that I was still down. It only lasted a moment, but it was pleasant for that length of time. Then it was over and I sat up again, combing my hair back out of my face, looking around at the group.

Many had left, because I'd counted a maximum of 20 or 21 during the first part (it was hard to count because everyone was moving about so much, covering up others), and there were only about a dozen left. There were things wrong with the place: whenever anyone went into the bathroom there was a stab of light across the floor, and the change of light was sometimes not the most effective aphrodisiac. Then someone would try to encroach on the group, and they had to be pushed away, or someone from the next group would send a knee or a foot into a face or a shoulder, and three or four people would have to adjust their positions on the rug to accommodate one adventurous foot. Then, when many had had their rocks off the required number of times, they would stand around and talk with themselves, sometimes laughing loudly, and though it was obvious they were paying little attention to what was going on on the floor, it was sometimes very disquieting, and I could see chagrined faces peering up, cocks still caught in one corner of stretched mouth.

Cal had gone, as had the sexy body and the Swede, and suddenly John was nearby, and someone was going down on him, and John looked at me and smiled most incongruously, as if saying "How can anyone do anything more for me by going down on me when I'm looking at YOU?" We rubbed arms and legs while someone else was in the middle, and then gradually the middle person left, and we sort of agreed we would leave when we felt like it.

I sat and watched a bit more of the action: but it was the same, the fellow with the silver ring at the base of his short cock, the married marathoner, or the thin screwer, and finally I said I'd had enough, and we could go. John had come twice, and I felt perversely proud about not having come at all, though I certainly did get excited when I felt the big cock of Cal's squirming toward orgasm in my mouth. John said, nicely, "I find I CAN have sex while there's someone in the room I CARE for."

 

DIARY 1009 4/9/70

WHERE AM I NOW?

I guess right this moment I'm doing anything I can to fill up the last of the "double-oh" pages, to avoid getting back to the book (or back to the correspondence I have to do before getting back to the book). For so many reasons I'm glad I'm through with Bob: he wasn't around that much, he wasn't hard that much, sex wasn't that great with him, he came on too strongly with his "I love you," and I hardly had time to relate to him OUTSIDE the grass-smoking. As I told Azak this afternoon at Lutece, "I'm permanently high for the past two months, and only now as I coming down enough---this is only the SECOND fifth-consecutive day without it since January 23, which is nine weeks ago today---to begin to build up the pressure to get back to the book after that ill-fated February. And now he and Avi appear to be having QUITE A PROBLEM!

And I'm glad to be with John: on the immediate side he's very nice, has a warm place to stay during my current heat crisis, and seems to feel very good when with me, yet is open enough about discussing his problems with me, and my problems, that we haven't settled into the predictable, satisfied, "now's the time to let it start going downhill" sort of relationship that had already started with Bob, with whom I couldn't seem to be able to discuss ANYTHING. Both John and I appear to be willing to take chances, to investigate new areas of relationship, to be honest with each other, to bitch when we feel like it, disagree when we feel like it, admit to feeling good with each other when we feel like it, and admit to being bugged when it happens to be the case.

Wednesday I went out of my mind with Solitaire, but Bonnie's call solidified MY thoughts about simply STOPPING what you DON'T want to do and DOING what you DO want to do, and at this point, it's GETTING that correspondence drawer cleared out for the first time since January 22, February 14, and one lone letter to Doug over a month ago on February 22. Then I can get down to the book, which I can clearly see from here as having been really critically interrupted by the extent of my smoking relationship with Bob!!

 

DIARY 1012 4/9/70

CLUB JIM I

Mike and John are stoned when we walk up the stairs at 12:15, and I'm high from vodka, but even then the downstairs room looks funny with five or six people sitting around looking at us newcomers. We pay the entrance fee and buy a beer, then look around to see nothing doing, and I want to see upstairs, so we go up, and three follow us, all dreadful. They start undressing and I decide to go back down and wait for something better, and two others come down, and then the cutest two downstairs go up to see what's going on, and each of the three is lying face down on his own mattress. Joy! They talk to me a bit, the host, who isn't Jim (Jim is out of town for the weekend: he probably knew the Club was going to be a horrendous flop), tries to put us at our ease by talking to us, but it just makes us all uptight. The cutest two leave, two others who are worse come in, then one guy who's really interested in me, but I just won't be civil toward him, sit moodily drinking my beer, showing my crotch, but not wanting to go upstairs. Two older guys come in and I really despair for the evening, and then another salesman-type comes in, and I sink into a funk. Others gradually file upstairs, and I hear that it's going along, and finally Mike comes down to say it's dreadful, but everyone is fucking John, who's having some sort of good time, and I'm rather annoyed by that, but can't put in into words. Sit around looking at the stupid pissing dog on the hearth, the anomalous Negro sitting on the sofa talking to the host, and others sitting about trying to get me to go upstairs. Finally at 2 John comes down, but rather refuses to talk about anything that went on, simply saying nothing happened "much," but I can't throw up to him that Mike told me he was really screwing around with everyone: that's how John described it "just playing around" and I told him why I didn't go up, and we agreed it must have been a very off night, and that NO ONE from this crew could conceivably be asked back to the Friday night "By Invitation Only" that Evan had said was so young and good-looking. Except for the fatty who had the cute face, they WEREN'T.

 

DIARY 1013 4/9/70

WHERE AM I NOW?

Just typed three diary heading pages so as to separate this set of "Where am I now?" from the previous set. When I haven't done anything between them, does that mean something's wrong?

Something seems to be wrong: on Tuesday I sat watching "In the Heat of the Night," and got a great feeling of disgust for the Southerners who threatened to kill Sidney Poitier, just as they DID kill the heroes of "Easy Rider," and I thought of how unsatisfying a movie it would have been had they KILLED Poitier, but then that would have been far more typical of real life. Only in movies is the "hero" so strong, so right, so intelligent, and saved in the nick of time so many times. I look at these stupid, prejudiced, ugly men, and wish there were some justice: that they could be killed in a horrible way, befitting their horrible lives.

But is that just? Remember Krishnamurti, if I WERE them, I would be acting JUST AS THEY ARE ACTING. But I'm NOT them. That sweeps ahead to what I'm thinking this morning about how I write assuming everyone has the same feelings, the same dislikes, the same sense of superiority that I have. I guess they all think they're different from everyone (which, paradoxically, I think also), and in that they're the same. Yet these people in the movie are NOT the same as I am. Maybe that's the most terrible truth of it all, that I AM like them (I guess I am: they want to kill the nigger, I want to kill them---only they're more committed to what they want to do: they try to kill blackie, I only sit in a theater, stomach churning, and wish them dead. At least they won't be getting ulcers, damn them. And with my damning them, I feel I'm so pure and non-prejudiced, but here I am, hating them).

But they don't use REASON! But the only reason they don't use is MY reason, since they have their own reason they can't even think of mine, just as I can't conceive of their interest in killing Sidney Poitier, they couldn't imagine my wanting to kill them, and they'd look on me as low as dirt just as I look on them. But where am I NOW??

I could say I'm unhappy, but my mind would scurry around and ask: "But why are you unhappy, you have every reason to be happy?" And it seems the only way to handle this is in a dialogue:

"Why are you unhappy, when you have every reason to be happy?"

"When people telephone, and ask how I am, I say that I'm happy rather out of a feeling that I OUGHT to be happy: I'm not working, I'm doing what I want, I'm enjoying the entertainments of New York---"

"That's pretty good right there: I'll agree you're not working, but ARE you doing what you want to, ARE you enjoying the city?"

"If you asked me what I WANTED top do, I'd say I wanted to write. When I don't write as much as I think I should, I feel guilty about wasting time, and when I enjoy the city, there's always the undercurrent that I should be writing."

"Why don't you write?"

"Fear, most of all, I think. I'm afraid to finish that damn book, because then I'll have to start looking for a publisher, and they might refuse it: the worst thing they could say would be 'LSD is old stuff by now, why didn't you write this about three years ago?' That would really be a crushing blow, and I'm afraid to be crushed."

I guess I can't really think of anything to say to that. It sounds to be true, and when Cyndy said some things that sounded true, the only thing I could do is sit and be there, hoping to help, but how do you write dialogue when one of the people is just sitting there, hoping to help, particularly when there's only one person---which is whose voice I'm using now, as if this "third" me is REALLY me, sitting outside, observing the phony dialogue I've set up between two "other" me's.

But what I'm doing is explaining to someone outside myself: to a reader, to a friend whom the typewriter symbolizes, to God, somewhere outside myself AND the world. One can't carry on a dialogue with God, since He won't answer, and I'm not simplifying anything by lapsing into "one."

"Hey, you're not here to criticize yourself."

"Maybe that's just what I AM here for: I sit and criticize myself in my head, and do nothing but sit and mope. Just like having something boiling around in my mind, it helps me to sit down and type it out, and that's what I'm doing here. I criticize myself for not writing, but that's not "fruitful," so I sit down to write to get the feelings out."

"Do you call THIS writing?"

"That's Joe's argument. Yes, I say, this IS writing, as much as anything ELSE is writing: it's putting thoughts and dialogue and actions down on paper as honestly as possible, as understandably as possible. That's what writing is, and that's what I'm doing now."

"What good is this doing you?"

"Let's say it's clearing the slate so that I can go on to other writing."

"You say that, but you never DO go on to other writing. You catch up with your diary, you write "where am I," you catch up with correspondence, but then you're tired, you go back to reading books, washing windows or the bathroom walls, walking in the park (hey, pst, it's going to be in the low 70's today, the first WALKING day of spring, why don't you go out in the park? OK, I WILL, if I can type enough so that I feel good about leaving myself the time to go for a walk.), call some friends, go to some more movies, listen to more music."

"Yes, I know, but that can't last forever."

"Oh, you don't think it can't last forever?"

"No, I get closer and closer, and one day I'll finish the book (after I send in my income tax return, wash the dishes, masturbate---)"

"I thought John was taking care of the urge to masturbate?"

"He is, to an extent, but I'm not being complete honest with him even NOW. We get terribly excited, then I strain for an orgasm, but it's like the strain doesn't completely remove the excitement, and when he leaves, I'm still slightly tumescent, and if I look at pornography, I just can't resist coming again. So I'll have to be more honest with John, work out a better, more satisfying sexual relationship with him. He so enjoys coming, I so enjoy coming with him---"

"Do you, really?"

"Not as it is now, but there's a great stimulating basis being built, and if I ever get the courage to be honest---

"So nothing changes: you mean to write the book, but you don't. You mean to be honest with John, but you're not---

"Hey, I've had enough of this!"

"Are you sure you're just not running away from it?"

"That may be: I may be getting into areas I'm afraid of, that I don't want to get into, but maybe I've found something I dislike even MORE than the book, and that is BEING HONEST WITH MYSELF---"

"Maybe because you wouldn't like what you see---"

"I don't care what the reason is, but if I can manipulate---"

"Manipulation, that's all you ever think about."

"This really is getting into a chain of thought, isn't it?"

"You're avoiding again, we've got manipulation, being honest with yourself, running away, and the book all hanging."

"Then don't interrupt me!"

"You're the one who's carrying on the dialogue, you're doing the talking, the interrupting---"

And I sit, the third one, above them all, manipulating my fingers, watching the letters parade across the page, feeling detached, but I have to get involved: I have to destroy the third person, the mediator, and get wholly involved in the dialogue: the dialogue between who in me is unhappy and the who in me is trying to be happy, though the dialogue might not make THOSE two characters clear. Back to the dialogue.

"To handle manipulation: I know I manipulate, I'm trying to do it less by being more honest, by checking with John very often to find if he's doing what HE wants to do, and not merely doing what I want him to do. But again, I get the feeling he's ahead of me in involvement with me: he speaks so highly of me that I'm embarrassed, and being embarrassed, don't know what to say back to him."

"Why not the truth, that he embarrasses you? If you feel that, can't you tell him that?"

"Good. That's good. That's a good point."

Then I stop typing and go to the phone to call John, but sit there and decide that's silly, since I'm going to see him this evening, and then I call Joe, but there's no answer, and Neil E., and there's no answer, and Dr. Schiffman, and I have giardia lamblia, so I'm down to pick up a prescription, buy four more books, three by Hesse and "Love and Will" by Rollo May, and get back to this at 3:30, and I haven't the vaguest idea where I am, though the knowledge that I have some sort of infestation makes my acceptance of my stomach somewhat easier.

Right now I'm disgusted with myself and with typing everything. I tell myself that I have to type at least ten pages per day again, to give myself some feelings of having accomplished something. I just can't continue to waste so much time: ALL the time, and I have to get the first part of the book into some sort of order so I can send it out, with an outline of what's left, to publishers and get THAT started. If only I can keep on with writing, then truly I'll begin to enjoy MORE the things I'm doing, knowing, for instance, that I've caught up with my diary and can do justice to the day's activities, rather than fretting that I'll forget something of some slight importance. Again, the importance of words, of recording everything---but that's just to get me INTO writing, not to PREVENT me from writing. But I have to keep up the stimuli, or I'll sink into apathy and won't have the urge to write anything because I actually won't be THINKING anything, and that would be worst of all (?)!

 

DIARY 1063 4/23/70

GENGHIS

Elaine says that "he's really the heater," but he has so many manifestations "You haven't heard the well yet, but it you hear it, you'll know it," in water heaters, lights, radiators, pipes, chimneys, fish-tank heaters and stirrers, that there's always some noise that can be attributed to him.

She tells about the woman who slept here who was chased into the fireplace in her panic, but his latest pranks have been more "fun."

Azak professes fear of encountering Genghis, and says he won't get a wink of sleep.

John insists he felt someone sitting on the side of the bed as soon as the lights were out, and felt the pounding of a heart that WASN'T his, conducted through the mattress. He tried to find HIS pulse to compare, and couldn't find it, which shattered him. Then he fell asleep.

In the middle of the night, after sleeping soundly for a couple of hours, he woke in a panic, feeling that, as he variably described it, something was "passing over him" or "going through him," and he couldn't raise his head, couldn't move his arm, couldn't scream until he managed to get a strangled "awk" out that Azak said he heard, but was too terrified to ask about. John allowed as how he was hoping someone would hear him, but no one responded. So he just lay quietly, bringing himself back to life, and remarking "Everything was going on and off, even the fish tank. Now why should the hot water heater be turning on and off in the middle of the night when no one's using it?"

Elaine reported in the morning that her reaction consisted of hearing a voice saying quite distinctly, "Now, Zolnerzak, you know you didn't write that stuff," and she said she heard me say "Yes" in response. I referred to Backster's idea that "something" told him to attach the electrodes to the plant, and certainly that same type of "something" may have been the ultimate inspiration for my poetry.

Azak was then inspired to write his poem "Genghis Plum."