When Nobody's Watching [Dane Stalling & dearestdarling]

[dearestdarling]

September 2nd, 1967

Joyce has been hanging around with the degenerates that live on the outskirts of town, 'Free Love' types that she claims to be visionaries and philosophers. I know them to be drug addicts and communists, not that Joyce could even tell you what communism is. She was a real dummy even before she started toking.

Her latest boyfriend showed up last Saturday night at our door, minutes after Mom and Father left for the church fundraiser. Johnny's tall and has longer hair than mine, which Joyce teased me about by telling me how fun it is to pull during. If only Father knew of the characters Joyce sneaks in and out of the house, I think he would blow a gasket.

Joyce was still locked in the bathroom, probably putting on a fresh coat of paint. I was reading, as usual, in the window seat. She hollered at me through the door, told me to let Johnny in. "Hey sugar," he said, and he didn't seem disappointed that I was the one who had answered the door, and not Joyce. He had feathers in his hair. "Just got this brand new stuff from a friend in Springfield. It's great. Easy to hide and trips are out of this world." He opened his wallet and pulled out the tiniest little slip of paper.

I stared at it. It looked so happy. It even smiled at me. Lysergic acid diethylamide. He called it California Sunshine. He told me to close my eyes and stick out my tongue, and for a moment.... Of course I said no though. He gave it to me anyway, grinning like a madman, and told me to taste it when life in Dullsville became too much to bear. He leaned in close, pressed the blotter into my hand, and suddenly I understood what Joyce sees in him. Those molten chocolate eyes. I worried that he could read my mind (I know that sounds stupid). I couldn't speak. He reached towards me and took my glasses away from my face, and if the moment wasn't a blur before, it definitely was then.

"You know, you're actually kind of pretty," he said, and I was pressed against the front door, tongue-tied. He was so close... I could taste his breath. I wanted him to kiss me He brushed my lip with his thumb and I swear that my heart stopped beating... but then Joyce came bounding out of the bathroom and he was suddenly across the room from me, jumping away like I had burned him. I heard my glasses clatter to the floor. "We're gonna be late-- what were you talking to that drag for?" Late for what, I wonder. I never found out-- he winked at me over his shoulder and they were gone. I watched from the window as they drove away in his cherry-red Cadillac, into the night. That moment... It was gone. Back to Darcy. The only boyfriend I'll ever have, if you listen to Joyce.

I should've told our parents about the drugs. Thrown it away. Flushed it. If our father ever found out... Instead, I'll keep it pressed into the pages of this book. I can't afford to trip. I'm... afraid to trip. Unlike Joyce, who earns her living wage in the back seats of cars, I have a job. A menial one, sure, but Mr. Hopkins depends on me. More than he realizes. You'd think as a seasoned journalist, he'd know the difference between there, their, and they're by now.

The next morning, she barely had time to sneak home and change her underwear before it was time to go to church. She smelled like bonfire smoke and sex. How she could stand and sing the hymns without being struck by lightning, I'll never know. Maybe God really does have a sense of humor.

Geez. Even in my own diary, she's the starlet, and I'm supporting cast at best.

I have to go for now, and I'm leaving you behind. I feel badly but you hold contraband now, and if Mom ever found you, I think she'd cry for a month and send Joyce away to one of those homes for wayward women. At least you'll be at home amongst other books. Who knows, maybe you'll even make a few friends. But I'll come to visit often.... Until then.

G

 

[Dane Stalling]

September 3, 1967, clear, 55°

I was there Saturday night, watching. They danced around the bonfire to bongo drums and one of the longhairs had a guitar. Free love is right, as long as they’re high. One of the girls cried behind one of their old happy painted cars until another girl found her and got her to swallow another pill. I don’t know which one of Johnny’s girls was your sister. He might not know either.

They don’t know freedom though. If the establishment crumbled tomorrow, they’d be crying for their daddy’s money soon enough.

That red Caddy needs a polish and the left rear shock absorber squeaks when it rocks. Chocolate eyes should keep that automobile clean, oiled up, greased, and polished or he’s going to have to cry back to his daddy for an engine job. I can harbor no respect for someone who sucks at the teat of the establishment while he pretends to be fighting it.

There’s no real rebellion there. Those Joyces and Johnnies are playing dress-up revolution just as much as all the squares are playing dress-up perfection. If they actually read their Trotsky, they’d probably end up looking more like your church than a bunch of spring rite pagans.

One thing I imagine your Johnny has right is you probably are actually kind of pretty. It may be the only good taste he has.

You, though, you’re interesting. You might be interesting. You can write about the human herd instinct you call “church” where they condemn the human sexual instinct. Every time you begin to write words about sex you cross them out. I wonder where those amputated paths go in your probably kind of pretty head? At least you begin to write them down. Most women deny their animal altogether. Maybe the longhairs have that at least a little bit right.

I’m disappointed in Hopkins. I thought he was among the least dim stars at the Hinckley Bee. How much of his stuff do you ghost? I’m sure you know better than anyone that the media is just a shell propping up the corruption we call society.

Austen stirred the pot. Ahead of her time, agitating for social reform. Perhaps you only read her for the romantic passages. Perhaps not, but if you’re propping up Hopkins and he’s propping up the media, maybe you have feet on the ground. Do you?

R

 

[dearestdarling]

Who do you think you

How did you

Please don't tell

September 6th, 1967

I'm hiding this in a different place, but then I guess if you're reading this, you've already found it. How long did it take you? You don't What you said when

What were you doing at the bonfire if you didn't join in? How long did you watch Johnny's Cadillac rock? Does 'R' stand for 'revolutionary'? I could respect Joyce if that was ever her intent, but she's only in it for the free drugs. If you already knew that what they're selling was bunk, why were you there? I see the California Sunshine is still where I left it.

Pretty? No, that's Joyce. Johnny was high when he told me that, his eyes were like two cherries swimming in buttermilk. Beautiful but not really there. He would kiss anything that stood still long enough... I shouldn't have even let him go that far. I just wondered what it might be like to be... that girl, for a moment. The one that steals a kiss from a (wanna-be) hippie. I could close my eyes and pretend I'm in a cottage in Devonshire, meeting with a clandestine lover. I guess I didn't want to be there either.

When she's felt generous, Joyce has tried to make me over a few times. It never stuck. You can't really see mascara behind glasses anyway. Joyce convinced me to go a day without wearing them and I walked right into a doorframe. Thankfully you can't really see a shiner behind glasses either.

Hopkins hasn't written a real article since I started at the paper, three years ago. They keep promising me that someday I might be able to write under my own byline, hinting that once old Mrs. Lackner passes away, I'll take over the etiquette column. Swell. I'll still be crediting my articles to another name, it'll just be Miss Manners instead.

I can't really ask for more-- Father wouldn't agree to let me take journalism classes at the junior college, and without twice the credentials of any Joe off the street that bothers to apply, I have to be satisfied with these scraps. It's a good job, anyway. I can hide here at the library and pretend I'm working on something. They've stopped inviting me to coffee and the holiday parties... I guess after three years of 'no's', even the most persistent of pencil jockeys will give up.

Pretty is pretty useless. Don't rely on the word of druggies, they make poor judges of beauty. For all you know, I'm wearing a grain sack and my head hasn't seen a hairbrush in days. It wouldn't matter. It's not what I'm here for.

G

 

[Dane Stalling]

September 7th, 1967, clear, 62°

Don’t act so outraged. You leave your secrets in a public place because you hope to be found. You want to be seen. I can almost smell your longing.

Why do you think I don’t join in at the bonfire? They wouldn’t like my type much, and I never did join in very well. More Macchiavelli than Leary. "Why do you always have to be such a downer, man?” I guess I don’t see the peace and love they’re fawning about all the time. And then they tell me to take my capricorn somewhere else. As though an entire twelfth of the population of the earth, of which I am not, in fact a part, has to shut up so they can pass the clap around more happily. But it’s cold now, and they are all huddled in the cars their parents bought them when they proved they were average by graduating from high school.

It’s just the 18th letter of the alphabet. R. I’m no revolutionary. I am a student of inevitable decay. I watch and I learn. Society won’t need a revolution to cause its collapse. And you can have your California Sunshine. There’s no truth to be had by getting loaded. Nothing that’s not already in your head, anyway.

Truth needs a looking out, not a looking in, except to understand the natural order, the places that bodies belong in the world. The drug you need, pretty G is the one you won’t say. The one you cross out every time you write it.

Why do you care how long I watched the red Caddy bounce? Do you want to judge me for my watching? Or is it more than that? You wish you could have been there to see for yourself? Maybe you won’t admit it, but if nobody were watching, would you peek out from behind the trees? Climb one and watch from above? It’s a convertible, you know. Or maybe that’s not what you wish for. Maybe you want to be the one lying in the back seat, hands over your head as his hands find your breasts, his lips find your mouth. Do you long to wrap your legs around his waist? Pull him into you? Do you want the drums around the bonfire to accompany the squeaking you make in the back of that red Caddy or the Volkswagen van, the green and cream Chevy?

Is there more? Do you want to be watched? Not just ravished but seen being ravished? How much will you admit to yourself? How much will you write down and cross out? And how much will you hold back altogether? It will poison you in time. Your silence is deafening, pretty G.

You’ll admit to the fantasy of a kiss thousands of miles away and a hundred years gone, but nothing so close as a mile away, or a block. You are only allowed to desire impossible things.

That’s the Miss Manners fantasy. I hope it carries you further than it carried my mother. She’d drink vodka if it wasn’t for the communists. She contents herself with gin and the pool boy.

Your hair is brushed beautifully, and you were more than “kind of” pretty in your little white sweater and blue dress when you slipped this next to Pulitzer’s biography. You may need glasses, but you don’t need makeup.

R

 

[dearestdarling]

Spetember 8th, 1967

It's a blessing to be average. I envy average people. I want to go to sleep and wake up normal, to want the things I'm supposed to want. Who wants to be a malcontent? Besides y But I don't know what I'm supposed to want. Do I taste Sunshine and tumble headfirst down the rabbit hole, find a tribe and lose myself in it? Or do I square up, start attending those Christmas parties, smile coyly and bat my eyes demurely the way that Cosmopolitan magazine suggests and hope that some dull copy editor will ask me to go steady? Neither camp agrees with me. I can't fake either role convincingly.

For your information, I don't want any part of it. It sounds so... vulgar, the way you describe it. Two animals rutting, just the way they said it was in school. Immoral, unless you're married of course. Eggs and sperm. So impersonal, clinical. What does that have to do with my sister emerging from the back of Johnny's Cadillac, with her hair mussed and her lipstick smeared down her chin, that look in her eyes...? I can't imagine they're back there letting their sperm and egg get to know each other, shaking hands, like the film claimed.

Even so, some Puritan burst into tears as our teacher droned on about zygotes and dividing cells, and she had to sit a spell in the nurse's office, breathing into a paper bag. The lesson was over. I felt so... angry. I thought I was on the cusp of figuring it out, the secret that everyone else seems to know, the missing passages of every romance I've ever read. I learned nothing. I passed her in the hallway later, and the nurse sitting beside her on the bench was praising her for her 'sensitive, gentle spirit'. I'm ashamed, but... I wanted to slap her for what she stole from me. There's your poison.

Do you get off on it Do you get off on watching? Are you some kind of pervert? I should tell my sister to whack the tree branches with a stick and see what falls out. You might be lofty and above it all, cozy in your tree, but I know you're lonely. Otherwise, why bother with the 007 act? If you despise them so much, why watch them? What do you see that's so intriguing?

Give me a good reason, and I'll let you keep your perch.

G

P.S. You really think that I'm

No one has ever

Thank you.

 

[Dane Stalling]

September 9th, 1967, clear, 58°

You can see the contradiction in asking what you are supposed to want, right? The very idea that your desires should conform to some overarching outside structure is what the establishment depends on to control you. The idea that there is a normal to aspire to is a fiction. Just because the mass of humanity is in a race toward mediocrity and invisibility doesn’t mean that you have to join the rat race.

Sure, invisibility is easier sometimes. Hell, it’s where I live. My boss probably wouldn’t be able to pick me out in a lineup. I don’t think he’s seen my face in two weeks. He’s a creature of the sun though, leathery skin and good health and martinis by the pool when it’s not too cold. A strapping bore.

So these are your choices? All-consuming boredom titillated by Cosmopolitan’s oracle or vapid babble with the flower children punctuated by a stoned screw in the nettles? At least you’d feel something in the nettles.

Where’s this biology lesson coming from? Can’t you see where I’m at? I’m not trying to get you clued in to the birds and the bees. Imagine the fusion of mind and body. Animal rutting merged, controlled by human intellect. That look in your own eyes, not dulled by dope, not strangled by guilt. We are thinking animals. Don’t you feel the overwhelming possibility and terror of it when you touch yourself? When you imagine Darcy’s gentlemanly restraint overcome by desire for not just your lips, but your body? Where did you imagine that hundred year old kiss would lead? Surely not to a stately waltz. You know you want him to destroy a bed with you.

What do I know, anyway. I’m just a pervert. I watch. At least I watch. I learn. I don’t pretend sex doesn’t exist. I don’t pretend it’s not a fascinating and intoxicating liquor. How astounded your Puritan must be when the human race continues to reproduce when the reproduction depends on something as sterile as shaking hands. And I’m the pervert?

What’s more perverted than twisting the beautiful animal into a bland oatmeal of dividing cells and fucking handshakes?

And yes, I’m lonely.

I’ve always been a misfit. I know you mean it to smart, and it does. I’ve found no likeminded woman, and few men. So yes, I watch the foolish rutting of the hippies for the small truths that are there, and I read the inane newspaper for scraps of truth that are there. I admit that I read Hopkins's articles with a different eye now that I know there’s an interesting mind behind them, even if fettered by arbitrary expectations. You’ll write under your own name one day, and it won’t be for the manners fluff.

R

P.S. I really think you’re pretty. Don’t cross it out next time.

 

[dearestdarling]

September 10th, 1967

Darcy wouldn't look my way. I'm no Lizzie Bennett, despite what you say about me being pr

Pretty.

If anything I'm the Jane Eyre type, painfully plain, but there are more important things than appearances. Look at Joyce and where that got her. She was Junior Miss Hinckley for three years running. Those bouquets have long since rotted, the gowns went out of style and the tiaras collect dust on the mantel in the den, next to my spelling bee medals. You'll never guess which of the two my parents prize more, though. Anyway, she could care less about that life now. She prefers her midnight romps, her acid and her pot. But I can spell "stichomythia".

Somehow I think she might've won that one.

Maybe I want to be controlled, did you ever consider that? I don't want to be invisible, just seamless. I want everyone to see what I want them to see, that I'm a good woman with strong morals and no inclinations towards... those kinds of thoughts. The ones I cross out, yes, and the ones that make me blush when they intrude on me, gripping me.

You don't understand. You're a man, Hugh Hefner publicly celebrates those thoughts that plague me, the ones that good girls aren't supposed to have. I'm defective. I want to braid daisies in my hair and fall into some Johnny's arms, but... But I know that it would feel just as empty as that Miss Manners fantasy. Johnny's gorgeous, sure, but he's an idiot.

But... Sometimes I do think about it. Dream about it. Last night it was so vivid it could've been real.

What about you? You think about it enough. It's all you want to write about. Have you ever actually kissed a girl? More? Or do you keep that animal caged too? Taunt me all you want, but when it comes right down to it, you're all talk. I asked you to give me a good reason for your lurking, something compelling, and you give me garble about nettles and small truths that you didn't care to elaborate on. Tell me the truth, or you'll lose your privilege to snoop.

G

 

[Dane Stalling]

September 11th, 1967, clear, 55°

Oh who cares whether Ophelia had prettier ears than you or if Juliet had cuter tits. Drowned and stabbed and gone. Never existed. Lizzie and Jane either. You though- you exist. I see you in the stacks, running your fingers over the spines of the books. You breathe, and you forget that Titania never drew a breath. The brain that imagined Elizabeth has been dead a hundred and fifty years. You shake her entire world when the pulse in your finger trembles her page. If you don't stop comparing yourself to paper girls, you'll end up just one of them. Dry, thin, and pressed.

Maybe Mr. Hefner's magazine is just what you need. He doesn't create sexuality. He just acknowledges it, and so do his bunnies. Why shouldn't they? Why shouldn't you? Who decides what a "good" woman is anyway? How is your morality "strong" if you're always fighting against your body? You have to admit, Miss June, that you're pretending it's winter during a heat wave. Maybe women and men aren't so different

You're a good woman, pretty G, and you want to be respectable. It doesn't take a hypocritical society to tell you what you should be able to say about yourself.

You already are being controlled, but the voice that controls you only says "no." If you really do want to be controlled, you should at least choose who controls you. What would you do if I gave you an order? Sleep in the nude tonight. See if your dreams stay vivid.

I won't pretend I'm not curious about your dream. You'll tell me about it one day, and soon, I'm sure. It's burning a hole in your sheets.

I have kissed a girl. Three girls. One was a cousin, the second was a cheerleader on a dare. It was her dare. I was just the chump her girlfriends thought she wouldn't kiss. The third one though, she smelled like cinnamon and cigarettes and she ran out of love for me sometime between Fall and Winter three years back. She didn't tell me until Spring that I was too inconvenient to keep stringing along. She dug David and I was a drag. "You're so heavy all the time, Baby," she said, "My karma needs some cleansing."

She didn't get cleansed, but she got David and I got Dear Johnned without the "Dear." Forgive me if I'm both gun shy and guns blazing. I get a little right hand second hand thrill when suspensions are creaking some nights and no wonder. If you want it spelled out, you'll have to ask without a threat next time.

I'm staying away from the hippies tonight. Keeping my hands in my coat pockets to see if clarity comes with control. I have low expectations, but there's no harm.

R

P.S. Ask Mrs. Stanford for the list of banned books. It will be worth it just to see the look on her face.

 

[dearestdarling]

September 13th, 1967

It should bother me that you... You watched me. I feel obligated to say that. It should bother me. How long have you b Just in the libr I want to ask why, but you still haven't given me a real reason for why you climb trees and spy on hippies without diverting the subject, so I guess I don't really expect an answer.

If you were still watching, I guess you know that I took my diary home last night. I don't know what I wouldn't done if my parents found it-- things are really tense right now between them and Joyce-- but I just had to. Just for the night. It was one of those urges that I usually try to squash, but... I didn't. I took it home, hid it under my sweater. I think I wanted y some company.

I wasn't going to go through with it. I thought about it, all through dinner in fact. I spilt the salt, my hands were trembling so badly, and Joyce called me a klutz.

I didn't stray from my usual routine. I washed my hair, brushed my teeth. Kissed my parents goodnight (nothing like cigarettes or cinnamon) and I went to bed, fully clothed in the nightgown that Joyce thinks to be frumpy and 'too Little House on the Prairie'. She's right, but that's why I like it. Then I read until she claimed that my lamp was keeping her awake, so I switched it off. I waited in the dark until she was asleep. Then I did what you told me to do.

It was strange. Before dinner I felt tired, but once I stripped off my gown I suddenly felt too... sensual, to sleep. I put my hands over the sheets, and then I heard something tap the window, so quietly that if I hadn't been more awake than I'd ever been in my entire life, I would've missed it.

Joyce went to the window, and even with my eyes closed, I could smell the incense in Johnny's hair before she even slid the glass up. Joyce shushed him, told him that I was sleeping and I thought that she would slip out into the night with him, but he came in, instead. I didn't have to dream that night.

I didn't mean to watch them, I'm not like you. I closed my eyes and tried to pretend that I was anywhere but there. But I felt so exposed, even under my sheet, and I shivered when I heard Johnny growl. I couldn't help it. I looked. His head was nestled between my sister's thighs, and he... He was kissing her there. Joyce moaned and I could feel my cheeks burning.

I know that it's wrong, but... I wanted to ask for a turn. I wanted that kiss that he almost gave me, but anywhere that I liked. I wanted him to know that I was there, naked, waiting, and pull my coverlet away from my body. I'm ashamed of this, but... I found my hands moving to where I wanted his mouth, and I touched myself, just as he might've touched me. And it felt

I shouldn't have watched, but I did. He came up for air and his chin was wet and dripping and I had to bite my lip to keep from gasping. Have you ever I had never watched a man do something like that. They thought they were being quiet, but I heard every breath. She almost looks like me in the dar

My mind went to horrible places that probably would've delighted you. I wanted Johnny in my bed last night, but instead all I had was y my diary, held to me tight.

I did what you said. I won't tell a soul. Tell me what you see when you're watching, I wan

I want to know.

G

P.S. I did, and she nearly fainted. I assured her it was for an article Hopkins was writing and that seemed to revive her a little. I'm leaving it here-- what do you want me to do with it?

 

[Dane Stalling]

September 14th, 1967, foggy, 68°


You enjoy being watched, whether you should or not. I enjoy watching you, so I do. I watch everyone, but you're interesting. You have a voice, opinions, desires. You struggle, you are alive.

You’re right, Pretty G, you’re not like me. You’re reticent, innocent, delightful. Your thoughts are on your page, I even see them on your face sometimes when you leave the library, arms tight around yourself as though you would fly apart if you let go.

Let go. What do you have to hold together anyway? What huge important thing will be lost if you just relax once in a while? Your dignity? Your modesty? Your virginity? What would break if you were the girl with the man tapping at her window? The girl with a beard tickling her thigh?

Would you open up if Johnny tapped and your sister wasn’t there? You should. Tell me you would, that you’d at least consider unlocking that window. That you would stand naked in the dark of your room by the window and consider it.

I’m surprised you actually did it. I thought you might compromise somehow. I thought you’d try to feel safe, but you didn’t. Bare and burning along with your sister. What a delicious sound your breathing must have made, your hair still damp against your pillow. What did you feel? How will I have been with you if you don’t tell me?

Have I ever watched a man kiss a woman like that? Was that the question you didn’t ask? Or have I ever done it myself? Tasted a woman like that and made her writhe?

I’ll answer you even though you didn’t ask, since you don’t seem satisfied with my answers about watching. I’ve watched, once, and not the flower children. It was Mr. and Mrs. Banning on their front porch at midnight. I wouldn’t have noticed them, but she squeaked. The porch light was out, but the living room light was on. She sat on the porch swing and he knelt in front of her, his head pushing up her dress. There was company inside, people laughing, playing charades, drinking. One of her hands was a fist in his hair and the other was over her mouth. I was just walking down the street. I think she saw me, so I kept going, straight, whistling low so she could hear me leaving. I came back silent though.

It made me thirsty for woman. Cinnamon and cigarettes thought it was dirty. She couldn’t understand what would make me want to do something like that, but all I wanted was to make her tremble.

Maybe you should write that article for Hopkins. Banned books in the Hinckley Public Library. Keeping our children safe from anything like an interesting idea. Safe from excitement. Safe from desire. She has every book on that list in her office, you know. All ready to check out, with their Dewey Decimal System stickers on the spines and the checkout cards in their little pockets in the back covers. Not a single name on any of them.

Ask her for Cleland’s book. Ask for Marx too, just to throw her off. All for the article. It’ll be fishy if you don’t. What kind of reporter would start a juicy search and call it off before getting to the meat of things? Who knows? Maybe Mr. Hefner would put it in his magazine. So many of us get it for the articles.

R

 

[dearestdarling]

September 15th, 1967

How could you even suggest something like that? You talk about dignity, modesty, and virginity as though they're inconsequential, and maybe they are to you. But what would you do if it had been drilled into you your entire life that this was the way you were supposed to be? Even if inside nothing fits and I feel like I'm wearing a mask every day to hide these unbearable yearnings. If I let go, it would all fall apart. I would lose everything I've worked to achieve at the paper, pitiful though my position is, if they thought I was just some loose tart. They have to think I'm professional, modest, not some sexual object.

I won't pretend that I understand what kind of relationship Johnny and Joyce have, but still... He's her man. It would be just awful of me to let him put the moves on me, even though okay yes-- I've thought about it-- even though those chocolate eyes are about as vacant as a cow's. Yes. I've imagined it. I wanted it. But wanting and doing are worlds away, besides that, he wouldn't come around if Joyce wasn't home.

They have a system, you see. I've noticed after nearly a month of watching her sneak away with him. If she can come out to play, she clips her pink panties onto the clothesline in the side yard. If he sees them, he'll come in the night and steal her away. If not, it's a quiet night here, but either way if she's not home, she's with him. He would never come tapping for me.

It felt like I was trapped underneath my blanket, and I wanted more than anything for Johnny to notice me there, in the dark, burning and yearning, to yank the damned thing from my body, to see me and know what I wanted and to just do it. I wanted him to grab my ankle and pull me to him before I could come to my senses and tell him no

It felt like I was daring him to find me with my hand between my legs, it felt dangerous and risky and wrong but fun and somehow thrilling. My heart was racing and I felt like I was running a fever. I ached for him to catch some small movement I made, to notice me there in the darkness... I don't know what he would've done if he had found me. What Joyce would've done. Maybe laugh or maybe give her blessing in the name of Free Love. I'll never do it again, so I'll never know.

I'm starting to think that you want Mrs. Stanford to meet an early grave. I asked for those books, and I had to bite my cheek to keep a straight face. She sees me how I want to be seen: square, respectable, trustworthy. I had to assure her again that it was just research for an article, one that would advise parents to more carefully monitor the literature that entered their homes, and that the books would be delivered straight to Hopkins, that I wouldn't dare to crack a spine. I felt so guilty as she smiled and patted my head, as she did when I attended storytime as a little girl. I hadn't even left the library before I broke my promise. I switched the dust jacket with Les Miserables.

I had never even heard of Fanny before, but that probably wouldn't surprise you. I didn't even know that there were books like this, least of all any in our humble public library. Though the content was likely the dirtiest that I've ever laid eyes on, the book itself was untouched and pristine, except for one thing. I found a bookmark, a recipe card for millionaire pie. That same pie that Mrs. Stanford brings to the cake walk every year to my church's fall fest. It was snuggled right next to a particularly lewd passage about the madam and one of her many lovers.

Maybe they aren't kept locked in the office because Mrs. Stanford wants to protect us all. Maybe she didn't want to share.

(Pretty) G

 

[Dane Stalling]

September 16th, 1967, clear, 57°

I was in the same school system as you, watched the same dirty movie about sperms and eggs shaking hands. I saw those little pink circles form on old Miss Fredrick's cheeks as she explained how coitus should be avoided at all costs because it leads to the clap and babies. It's drilled into all of us. Maybe Leary's got his finger on something when he says to question authority. How much could Miss Fredrick actually know about what she taught?

Look around. Everyone's got their double life. Me, Hopkins, Mrs. Stanford, even you in your very timid way. And who says anyone would ever have to know about it? You've seen me a dozen times and never even wondered who I was, let alone whether I was subversive or depraved. It could be argued that I am both, or neither. The hippies, at least, make a halfhearted attempt to shed their masks. There's another mask underneath, but nobody's perfect.

Suggestions are just that. Experiments. I can suggest anything I like and you're free to accept or reject them, but how can you judge them? I can feel your desire to break free. You have to confess you at least have a wish to have the desire to break free.

Here's a suggestion: hang your sister's panties out when she's not home. Or your panties. I imagine yours are all pure white except for that one pair that your mother doesn't know about. What color is it, I wonder? Not pink, I guess. Something dark and sensual. Sinful red. Or black. Hang that on the line when your sister is out and see if it doesn't make you listen to every creak of your house. You'll hear a thousand phantom taps on your window. You'll imagine him there, smelling of smoke, and when he kisses you, he'll taste of what? Cloves and stolen apples?

Don't say what you'll never do. I want you to take that back. Write that you take it back in your next letter. It hurts when you say things like that.

What you described was beautiful, arousing, I joined you there in your bed, in my own way, feeling your need and mine, feeling my own ache and letting my hand drift and grasp. Your need is intoxicating, Pretty G.

Does that disgust or fascinate you? Just because they call it self-abuse doesn't mean that it is. Just thirty years ago doctors were prescribing radiation treatments for skin beautification and a hundred years ago some doctors were saying that tomatoes were poisonous. When your fingers find a sweet spot, your health is in no danger.

I hope nobody is looking for Victor Hugo's book. Mrs. Stanford might have to do some creative explaining.

You should make that millionaire pie for the boys at the office. I might even be able to spirit away a slice. Some of them know my face. Things that have stories are better to eat than things that don't.

You have stories in you, rattling your cages, don't you?

R

 

[dearestdarling]

September 18th, 1967

I read Fanny, but I don't think I will again. No intelligence, no elegance. Once the shock wore off, it was just words... That's what's missing with Johnny too, but maybe some part of me li that maybe I did feel delicious watching each soft, subtle movement of his head as he him with Joyce, but you know what they talked about after? If chicks hatch from eggs, but chickens lay eggs, where did the first egg come from? They went on for almost an hour before Johnny left, higher than kites, back and forth, and it was painful to be their accidental audience. All the joy that I felt, the excitement... Spoiled. The next morning Mom made omelettes and Joyce couldn't stop laughing.

It should disgust me. How do you tou . does it But the way you describe it makes me think twice. My mother said that it'll make you go blind, but you seem to see just fine.

They're fire engine red. I bought them with my first paycheck at the paper, but... I've never worn them. I felt ridiculous buying them-- who would ever see them? And no one has, they're scrunched into the back of my sock drawer, so soft they feel like a dream. They're ridiculous, sometimes I blush when I accidentally touch them in the drawer, but what can I do with them now? They won't fit in a book unnoticed. And maybe somed

If someone sees them what am I goin

Maybe... Maybe I'll do it.

If this is your double life, what's your other one? What does it feel like when I look at you and you know exactly who I am but I have no idea? I figure you have some reason to hide, and I won't lie and say that I haven't considered maybe a dozen possibilities, but I haven't even tried to look for you. Don't tempt me. A pervert lurking in the public library is a promising story for a puny paper like ours, and everyone likes sensationalism. I won't look, but... Tell me. Tell me what it feels like for me to glance at you. I share so much with you.

G

P.S. Did you like the pie? Tell me what I added. I'm not sure I believe in your omnipotent presence.

 

[Dane Stalling]

September 19th, 1967, clear, 66°

Dottie Davis was my Johnny. Beautiful, blank. She marches at the front of the Daughters of the American Revolution float every 4th of July. She’d tumble for anyone, at least back when we were in high school, but I was too cowed by Miss Fredrick’s lectures to do anything about it. She was as unattainable to me as Hefner’s Miss September, and more tempting. Like Roethke said, she moved in circles and those circles moved.

You want to know, but you don’t want to ask. There’s something appealing about your eager reluctance. Something sexy. I wish I had heard your voice not quite asking.

To understand what it’s like, you need to dispense with the anatomical diagrams from health class. I guess you won’t have touched a cock before. There’s nothing analytical about it. It’s simple and hard when it stands straight, and it has a soft sheath that slides and slips. I wrap a whole hand around mine when I start, just feeling it pulse. It’s very expressive. A thought can make it jump, the right pictures or words can make it stiffen. Your words have hardened it. Just the idea that you are reading this has me firm. I stroke it in all kinds of ways, squeezing hard or feather light, tickling, pressing. It feels delicious, as you have said, sweet sometimes, smooth sometimes. It has a spicy feel sometimes like pepper in the nose, and the rising climax is like a sneeze, it becomes inevitable, unstoppable, overwhelming. Have you felt that before, at least? Maybe it does make me blind for a second or two, my eyes squeezed shut and my legs shaking. You should see it one day to quench your curiosity, but would you ever ask?

Red. I would have guessed black, something more easily explained away. You must want to get caught with them. In them. Put them on tomorrow morning when you dress. Then you’ll have to make a decision. They’re a garment as much for taking off as for wearing. When will you take them off? Right away? Or will you let them tease you all day long? There’s wind in the forecast. Decide carefully.

South Vermont and West 11th. The receptionist at the paper was very helpful to this lost delivery boy. A telephone is a powerful thing. The clothesline was empty and it seemed lonely, and that's why I pinned my handkerchief to it. For company.

I feel alone when you pass me over, not noticing. I shouldn't- it's not your fault. It's mine. You cross out your words and I cross out my face. I don't like to be seen, so I make it an asset. I see, and that's enough.

You can write your article about the pervert in the library. I wonder who you would write it about though? Me? Mrs. Stanford? Yourself? Any of us or a dozen other weekly library goers would fit the bill. I think it would be a terrific story no matter who you wrote it about.

R

P.S. Cloves, but just barely. I couldn't get a slice, but I got a fingerful. Nobody notices the person that washes the pie plate.

 

[dearestdarling]

September 21st, 1967

My words

I've sneezed. But I don't understand? How do you know when to sto I haven't felt what you said, the legs shaking, some overwhelming moment... If anything I feel frustrated, coiled up like a spring, all tension and nothing like what you described at all. I read it three ti I should be working when I come to the library-- you know that? Not... Not that.

You surprised me. I thought you relished the fact that you could stand right over my shoulder, just on the other side of a bookcase, and I wouldn't suspect a thing. I'll be honest with you, Recluse, the whole thing makes me jumpy. To think that maybe you're watching me right now is... I'll admit I thought I caught a man glancing just a little too long at me and I shuddered but it was a goo and I looked directly at him, deliberately, before he finally went back to flipping through Life. Was that you? I thought so at first but maybe not...

I won't ask you about it further. Not now. It seems like something you would abandon if you could, and I'm curious but not cruel.

Red, yes. I had never had my own money before, besides chump change I was allowed for small things. My heart was racing at the register, and I never went back to that department store again in case they recognized me. You're laughing but what if I went back with my mother and the fitting attendant asked me how I liked them? If only I had your forgettable face.

The red satin looks completely scandalous and I felt like I was burning from the secret of them. One of the copyeditors used to make a game of flipping my skirt when I passed him by, and all day I rehearsed excuses for them if I needed them, but thankfully he kept his hands to himself. The wind, however, didn't pay me the same courtesy and I doubted I would make it through the day undiscovered but somehow I did. I washed them indiscriminately and now all of my once-white panties are blushing with it. Do pick your hanky up whenever it suits you, I hope you don't mind that it's a bit more pink than when you left it.

I'll do it, but only because I know nothing will co they need to dry. Johnny isn't coming for me.

G

 

[Dane Stalling]

September 22nd, 1967, clear, 59°

Yes, your words, but more than that. Your thoughts, your questions, the way you stop in mid-step in the stacks when a book catches your eye, the toe of your right foot just touching the ground.

Coiled like a spring is right. There's a moment when all that tension spills out at once. You'll love it when it happens. It will scare you how much you'll love it. The French don't call it the little death for nothing. The first time it happened to me I thought I might die, and I didn't care.

You say "recluse" like it's a disease. I have acquaintances, people who know my name. It's better, I think, than pretending to have friends, surface smiles with currents of jealousy. I'm no good at small talk or the vicious politeness of society politics.

It wasn't me. I'm not in the library every single hour of the day, and I wasn't watching you write earlier. While Life's a fine magazine, you'd have more luck watching who reads Popular Mechanics. I do see you look around sometimes, you stop suddenly, crook a finger into your book and look over your shoulder and I know you're looking for me. I like being searched for.

I wondered how you bought those panties. I imagined you made up an imaginary wedding shower for an imaginary girlfriend but you didn't. You went in and bought them for yourself. Why is that such a fascinating detail? What store was it? Townsend & Wall? Heer's?

You've tainted all that white, and mine too. I'll admit I never thought a pink hanky would be my favorite one. But if it carries a little of that red- the red that made your face pink when you bought it, that made you think about what was under your skirt all day, how would I not treasure it, at least a little? I'll steal it back from your line later and try not to disturb you and Johnny.

I'm joking, but though you say he won't come for you, you aren't certain. Maybe he's not the only boy Joyce sneaks out for? You think you know, but it's hard to tell the whisper of a Caddy from the mumble of a Chevy in the wee hours. Maybe Joyce likes a quieter suspension.

I feel a sneeze coming on. I'm going to need that hanky.

R

 

[dearestdarling]

September 24th, 1967

I've done a terrible, wonderful thing.

I nearly didn't write you back... But then I thought of how lonely you might be if I No, that's not right. I'm writing back because I can barely believe what happened and if some record of it exists, maybe I can accept that it wasn't all in my head, but something real and true that happened to me.

Joyce is infatuated with Jim Morrison after seeing him on television the other night-- so much so that she ran out and bought their album. Father threatened to send her packing to our aunt's goat farm if he heard it play in our house, but as usual she laughed and did as she pleased. Some part of me really admires her before I remember she doesn't know our vice president's name. She plays it constantly and though I side with Father typically, I've found myself humming along sometimes.

Well, for once Father followed through on his threats and despite Mom's tears and Joyce's begging, he made her pack her bags. She left that same night, with Mom driving her and planning to stay the night and drive home the following day. It was just Father and we ate dinner in silence, and I didn't mean to but as I washed and dried the dishes that tune came back to haunt me, the one that Father almost smashed the television set over. 'Light my fire' is easy enough to request if you don't know how dangerous fires can be. Thirty years ago Aunt Nessie's farm nearly went up in smoke on a dry day in June before the fire chief made it out there. I started humming it and I didn't notice until I saw Father staring at me like I'd grown another head. "Good girls don't listen to the Devil's music," he said, as if he has any idea who or what I really am. Maybe I could claim to be good before that night, but now I've been thoroughly initiated into this cult of pleasure, and it isn't Joyce or Jim or Johnny to blame.

But you weren't hoping to read about The Doors or the dishes, were you? No, I guess not.

That night I accidentally found the album where Joyce had hidden it, in Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake sleeve. Did she hide it there, knowing I would find it? It felt... Surreal, like she was encouraging me to lure Johnny out. Not a stitch to cover me, like I said I would never do again. That bothered you, didn't it? You'll be happy to know I gave it one last try, only to prove that I was right. I'd lay the most perfect trap for Johnny but he wouldn't come because I'm not Joyce and never will be. The fact that I even tried was wro

I let the record play so low that I thought I might be imagining the sound. If Father heard it, I can't even think of what he might've done. Then I looked out the window, with my robe pulled around me tight, but no one was there. Of course there wouldn't be, but...

I could barely breathe as I lay in bed. Why would he come, when Joyce was gone...? But then how would he know? Joyce couldn't have rung him. I flipped the album twice. I felt hot under the sheets and I kicked them off... I knew it wouldn't work. I knew it.... Until I heard a tap at the window.

There, that's a cliffhanger worthy of As The World Turns. If you want the rest, I want you to agree to something. Not now, maybe not even soon... But someday, I want to have a conversation with you-- a real one, not this pen and paper tête-à-tête. If you can agree to that, I'll answer any question you ask... Anything.

G

 

[Dane Stalling]

September 25th, 1967, clear, 53°

You're a tease when you think you're holding all the cards, but I guess I can't blame you. I'll play along. I'll bluff about the Doors and dishes and pretend there wasn't just one thing you wanted to say.

I guess it's pretty obvious Joyce would like Morrison. She's a sucker for bad boys. I wonder if your dad ever actually listened to the Doors or if some elder at church was whispering about how the whole country is going to hell because of the evils of rock and roll. He probably doesn't know half of the hymns he sings in church are bar songs with the lyrics changed. Hell, I'd go to church if they sang those with the original lyrics.

Fire is such a mesmerizing thing, even when it's contained and tamed in a fireplace. There's something fascinating about it in the woods though, when it has the potential, however small, to burn the whole county. That cult of pleasure is just the human race. The cult is the thing that tries to make pleasure into sin. You've escaped a cult, not been initiated into one.

Playing that record low, like embers. No wonder something happened, real and true. I want to know. I'll admit you have me insanely curious. Maybe you are holding all the card I would do anything to have you tell what happened after the tapping. So you win. Just this tim Okay. Just don't make me I guess I'm in no position to negotiate. A real conversation. I'm afraid I'll disappoint

I don't have a question, I want to know all of it. How long did you stand there covered only in darkness? I want to know what you heard, tasted, smelled, saw, felt. You seem uncoiled and re-coiled again. Am I right? You seem different.

I'm not ashamed to say you have me a little flustered.

R

P.S. Thank you for pinking my handkerchief. I could only see it this morning though. All cats are grey in the dark, as they say.

 

[dearestdarling]

September 26th, 1967

Thank you. I know that must have been difficult for you to agree to. We can settle the details of the meeting later-- that you will at all surprised me. I know you enjoy your solitude... Or at least, you find solace in it.

To answer your question, your only question, I'm not sure how long I waited for Johnny. No clock was keeping the time and to me it felt like hours, but every minute seemed to drag. I really didn't think he would come, even if he didn't know that Joyce was away and I had given him their secret signal. And then I thought of what you said about the possibility that another of Joyce's boyfriends could show up at the window and if they did... Would I still let them in? A stranger? Who knows how many times Joyce has invited someone in while I was sleeping, and who knows how many men it could've been.

Still... I tossed and turned, nude in Joyce's bed, listening to that album play and wondering what my sister felt like when she was waiting for a visitor. Did she always feel this thrill, did her blood bubble beneath her skin? I felt hot, even in the cool of the room. I wanted to open the window. If that wasn't an open invitation to some nightly visitor, I don't know what would be.

But that felt like cheating somehow. I left it unlatched and nothing more. I closed my eyes and tried to laugh at myself for playing such a stupid, dangerous game... And then I heard a rap against the glass and I don't think I can adequately describe how it made me shudder-- it was the most complete and... somehow delicious feeling I think I've ever had up until that moment. It scared me and I couldn't move, and I held the sheet tightly to me. All I could see was a shadow at the window, but if I had my glasses on, he would know I was me and not Joyce. In the dark, in her bed, no glasses and posing salaciously as I was... As long as I didn't say a word, he might not ever know who I was

But I wasn't going to answer. I knew I had taken it all too far and really, I had never dreamed that he would really come. I decided to just let him knock and hope that he went away... I pulled the sheet up to my neck and waited and then... I heard the window lift. So quiet, as though he must've opened dozens of windows in stealth. I wanted to call out and tell him to leave, that I was just s pale imitation of my sister, a poor imposter... But all I could do was breathe.

He climbed through the window and I wish I could've seen his expression because... I thought that he thought I was Joyce, but then he knelt down by the bed and I could feel him looking at me closely. He touched my hair, so tenderly it felt like a dream, and then he cupped my chin in his hand. I saw nothing but a blur, but I couldn't help but smile. "Pretty," he said, and his voice sounded a little strange, as though not being able to see him had more fully awoken my other senses. I thought then that maybe he knew who I really was and I was about to apologize and ask him to leave, to never mention it again. But then he... He touched my lips, just as he had before. I was shaking, not just trembling but shivering hard. His fingertips were so light, and he traced my lips so softly that I could hardly bear it. "Very pretty," he said, and then leaned down and kissed me.

It was lik How do I describe it to you, that incredible feeling? Journalism doesn't really allow for such detail and nuance, and what I felt seems to escape words. Reporting the facts alone doesn't do it justice. His lips were warm and somehow... knowledgable of me, and I didn't care that his expertise was probably due to the dozens of girls he had seduced before. No, I had no illusions that he was mine alone but it didn't matter. I think I understood Free Love then, and sharing, and how it made so much more sense to just give in to whoever was willing and just enjoy that experience without attaching an eternity of matrimony to it. Darning his socks and cooking a wholesome dinner for him were the farthest things from my mind. He held me there and even though I had never kissed a man before, I knew just what to do; he was so patient with me, it made me wonder if he knew it was me and not Joyce and he just didn't care.

I was so caught up in it, that sweet way that his tongue flicked against my lips until he convinced me to part them, my eyes closed, that I didn't realize that his other hand had taken the sheet from me and was slowly drawing it down. No one had ever I broke away and tried to bring it back to my throat, but he was insistent-- gently so, but I knew he would win and to be perfectly honest... We both wanted him to. He brought it down to my waist and left it there, and I burned in that bed as I could feel him looking at me. He either didn't know or didn't care that I wasn't my sister. His face was a maddening blur but... a pleased one, I think. The way he looked at me... I felt like a work of art.

Then he slid his hands up my sides, holding my ribs and I felt his nose in my hair, smelling it. It was strange but... It made me shiver. "Cold?" he said, and I nodded, but I was anything but. He laughed under his breath and I thought he sounded nervous; why, when he had been with who knows how many girls? Was it that he broke into the room, that he knew it was me and somehow being with me, the awkward maybe-pretty sister made his breath catch? I don't know.

He brought his hands to my breasts. His hands had fire in them, and he smeared it all over my skin. The weight of the sheet was suddenly unbearable and I wanted to kick it off but then what would he think of me? He cupped them and bounced them slowly and I felt wanton and lascivious and I didn't care. He kissed my cheek and I turned my face towards it, but all he did was laugh and I could feel him shaking his head. We were engaged in some strange game I didn't know the rules to, but desperately wanted to learn. I held still like I thought he wanted, every nerve alighted, and he nuzzled my neck and kissed me there... Once, twice, I'm not sure how many times, and not some dry pecks but buttery, delightful, sensual kisses. I never knew that being kissed ther I totally unraveled, I think I said his name a few times until he quieted me with his mouth. I had completely forgotten where I was, or that my father was sleeping just down the hall.

I felt him shifting and then he was in the bed with me, the sheet separating us. His hands were so slow and deliberate, tracing circles across my sides and he dipped his head down, kissing between my breasts. I knew I should tell him then-- that it was all a trick and that the only respectable course of action would be for him to go-- but then he

I'm sorry, I can't

Are you watching me wri

I'm supposed to be working on an article-- one that I only teased to Hopkins and he seemed really interested. He said, if it turns out to be anything, that it could get me my own byline. Mrs. Stanford has been by twice asking if I needed any help and I quickly had to hide the diary under a heavy reference book and tell her that I'm fine. She wants to know where Fanny is; I forgot to return it. But she's about to come by again and the library is about to close. I noticed Popular Mechanics hasn't left its shelf all day.

I need to go for now, but per our agreement, I'll continue tomorrow. I won't welch. Too much depends on it. But by the time I finish, this book might be the most lewd one on the shelf.

G

 

[Dane Stalling]

September 27th, 1967, clear, 45°

You were in Joyce's bed? Of course. The record player is hers, isn't it? Your Johnny sounds straight for a hippie on a Friday night, and gentle.

You have me fascinated, Beautiful G. Your honesty is such a fresh, wonderful thing. I cannot deny that you've gotten me turned on. And not for the first time.

I envy your awakening to pleasure, and I feel I owe you more than just a conversation, your memory is a treasure. I will give you two things: a memory of my own, and something you choose. Anything.

I was in a girl's room once, silent and dark. She and I were comfortable and uncomfortable at the same nervous, all at once. I'm saying this badly. I was shaking that night and she was too. I am shaking now, remembering it. I could feel her finger tremble as she traced my ear. We were close, our faces close and breathing each other's breath. Hers was sweet, she'd been eating cold apple slices, but when I kissed her, she tasted like nothing, like everything I ever enjoyed. Like soft wet iron, the steaming heart of a bread roll.

I kissed her first, her lips, her throat, her shoulder, but she was the one that drew my hands over her body. I don't remember how she came to be naked, if I slipped her nightgown off, or if she did, or if she was like you, already bare and shiver burning under the sheets. I do remember how her breasts filled my hands. I gave them all my attention. I felt every wrinkling texture of her nipples. They swelled tight for me and I tasted each one. I left them shiny in the weak moonlight. I felt like I could light up the room with my desire for her, because of her desire, because there were no limits in her little room. I tickled her belly with the tips of my fingers, dragged them over her until my pinkie dropped into her navel. I left it there, a little intruder as I brushed her breasts with my lips. I may have spoken to them, whispers. We were not alone in the house.

Buttery, delightful, sensual. Yes, that's right. We traded butter, she and I. For my part I felt her lips on my neck, but the heat spread into my scalp, across my chest, made me harden, though I had been standing tall from the moment I was just breathing with her, our noses brushing.

Did he say a name, your lover? I'd have said her name if I could have trusted my voice to stay low, but I whispered all the heat and fire of that moment to her skin.

A photograph of your face as you wrote would have made the mysteries of the Mona Lisa seem plain and obvious. You seemed intent, quick, and another observer might have thought nothing of it- a journalist hot on her case. I knew what you wrote though, and it made me burn to see what it was, though I had to wait torturous hours.

We are not even, you and I, not yet, but when are two people ever even? There's an idea to explore on another day. If we're writing the most lewd book in the library though, I'll want to contribute my share.

R

 

[dearestdarling]

September 28th, 1967

For a moment I thought

That girl, the one that you

Was that

I'm sorry, of course it couldn't be.

He said a name, yes, but not mine. I can't decide whether I believe that he was really fooled by my switching trick, or he was game and wanted to play along. He called me Joyce, breathed it there between my breasts. It had a strange effect on me-- some small part wished that he had recognized me and said my name, but I know that it would've ruined everything. When I was Joyce, I was liberated. No sense of propriety tied me down-- I was free, not just free but practically obligated to behave like... like I did.

I cradled his head in my hands as he kissed and kissed, burning me. I can't believe that Joyce is content with only weekly visits, if it were me, I don't think that I could let him go He was laughing under his breath, and at first I thought he might be poking fun at me, but it was breathless and almost... nervous. His hands were trembling as he held my ribs. Why should he be nervous? He frequents the bedroom window much more often than the front door, and Father wasn't likely to catch him, but there was a giddiness to his laughter, as though this was the very first midnight visit.

Then he It was wrong, I should have le He kis He kissed my nipple, and I felt his tongue slide against me, too hot, too wet to bear. Even without my glasses, I could feel him looking up at me, searching me.... and I breathed his name, praying that he wouldn't recognize my voice and do what I should've done.

He liked when I said his name, I could tell. I could feel him grinning against my skin, and chills spilled down my back, ice water in July. I said it again, but it came out like a question. He drew away and I felt him fussing with his clothes, heard a zipper pull. I sat up in bed, missing his mouth, and he took my hand in his. We were both shaking. Jim Morrison's voice rumbled low and we breathed together, hands clasped. It sounds funny maybe but... that was the most intimate touch we shared that night. Palms pressed together, fingers laced. He's not mine, I'm not even sure that I would want him to be... but the moment was. It wasn't Joyce's, some kind of unorthodox hand-me-down, it was mine.

He took my hand and brought it to something so hot, I jerked my hand away. Foolishly I realized thanks to your descripti you called it a coc It was nothing like you said. There was nothing simple about it. It felt like a riddle in my hand, soft yet unyielding.

Without my glasses, I could only feel, fumbling my way around it, but Johnny didn't seem to mind so long as I kept my hand on him and didn't stray. He brought me into his lap and my heart was racing, too much skin, too much incredible contact. He brought my hand there again, and I remembered, vividly, what you had said, how you touch... I should thank you, or maybe Johnny should. But how could I introduce the two of you? You exist in different worlds.

He kissed my hairline, the shell of my ear, my throat. "It's good," I heard him say, his voice still strange and rough, "don't be shy. Please." But... would Johnny say that to Joyce? I'm just realizing that maybe... but he didn't say. Didn't suggest that I was anyone other than who I was pretending to be. I grasped him fully, and the way he filled my fist was so strangely satisfying. He guided me until I found my way, just as you said, growing more adventurous by the minute. I felt his breath on my shoulder, clueing me into what he liked-- the lightest touches just at the tip, teasing, before cupping my hand around it and easing up and down as the record reached its end. We never flipped it. It was incredible... I could feel his thighs twitching beneath me, tensing, eager for my clumsy attentions. Even for my inexperience, I felt powerful. I was his whole world that night-- me, bargain bin Jane Eyre, too plain for words. I couldn't see, but I felt every tender ridge, every straining inch. I never thought it would be so smooth, soft as my silk scarf. I played until he took hold of my hand, and at first I thought maybe I had done something wrong, but he quickened my leisurely pace until he started to

until he

He sneezed.

The rest is

My mother's footsteps in the hall cut short any other plans that Johnny might've had. He was out of my arms, zippered and slipping out of the window.

Onto the business of 'anything'. Are you sure? I have something in mind, but it might be a price steeper than you're willing to pay. There's a Halloween party in the high school gymnasium-- I wouldn't usu. Anything, R? I won't think less of you if you have second thoughts.

G

 

[Dane Stalling]

September 29th, 1967, clear, 38°

You're surrounded with riddles, Pretty G. How will you ever untangle them all? It sounds like you solved the riddle in your hand, though, with flying colors.
You've set me some riddles too, knots to worry, to untie maybe. You wrote like a woman satisfied and longing all at once at first, but you admit no satisfaction in your retelling. Ungentlemanly of Johnny to leave you unpeaked, even if your mother's footsteps had startled him.

It was cold last night to be slipping in and out of windows half-dressed. I hope your visitor didn't get frostbite anywhere essential. The grass in town had frost at dawn.

You don't have to be Joyce to enjoy what Joyce enjoys. Can't you see a way to be yourself, proper in your own eyes instead of what every empty head around you says is proper? You'll be aware, no doubt, that even Jane Eyre wrapped her legs around her man and got everything he had to give. Something to think about.

I wonder what you would have written had you been there when I spoke to my girl's skin. Would you have reported everything you saw? The way I smiled as I touched my tongue to the lips between her legs? The way I stroked myself, carried away with her squeals. I laughed then too. Not to make fun, but because we rode the same wave.

Would you have written the way her mouth opened when I entered her? That first moment I filled her, she gasped like I had touched cold fingers to her neck, but there was no cold that night. We were painters in heat then. We spread it like paint, splashed it between us, covered each other and relished it. But that's not something you've known yet, right?

I said I owed you, and when I said "anything" I meant it, although I have to admit that you're making me a little nervous. But I owe you.

R

P.S. Your mom came back in the middle of the night? She must trust Joyce more than you thought. Or perhaps you aren't as sure of the footsteps in your house as you pretend. You're honest, in your way, G. I like that.

 

[dearestdarling]

October 1st, 1967

I have half a mind to buy you your own diary, the way you

I had you pegged all wrong. I could probably think of a more flattering way to say this if I weren't having to look over my shoulder every so often for Mrs. Stanford or some nosy aide coming up to check on me, asking if I need anything but really craning their necks to try to get a peek at my 'article'... but I thought that you were just some kind of strange if polite creep observer that watches because for some reason, he can't take part. But you've... what's your interest in me and my sophomoric explorations if you've already uncaged the animal, as you so quaintly put it before. The hippies in the woods, that couple on their darkened porch... Hefner and Fanny. Me. If you know what it's like firsthand, then... why?

A deal's a deal though, and you caught me. I feel bad for trying to lie but it just felt so... deeply, utterly personal. This hasn't really been a diary for nearly a month, it's some kind of perverted confessional where I admit my many flaws and sins and you delight in them. I'll try but... some feelings don't have words, or maybe they do but it's some kind of foreign language that I'm trying to learn.

But I would've been more than happy if it really had ended there. I had learned so much-- things that you had said before that seemed like nonsense clicked in a very satisfying way. It would've made sense for him to leave then, I thought that most men were only interested in what they could take, and hadn't I given him what he wanted anyway? He eased me back on the pillow and stupidly I thought he meant that I should lay down and sleep, that he was leaving. My eyes were closed and I leaned up for a kiss until I felt his hands slide over my knees, pushing them apart.

I know I wanted it, practically begged him before if he could’ve read my mind when he visited Joyce and I saw him, head bent and adoring, mischief in his eyes. But when it was finally my turn, I pushed him away twice, tried to close my trembling legs and shake my head and I’m sure I whispered something like, ‘please, no’ but I think I might’ve swallowed the last word. I could only see the suggestion of his expression, but I felt him smile against my thigh. “Shh,” he said, and I think in that moment he must’ve known that I wasn’t my sister— she would never hesitate. But the thought of being inspected so intimately, even with the promise of finally understanding… Even now I feel conflicted about it.

But when would I have another chance to explore it? I let him then, heart racing as I felt him looking and wanting him to just get on with it, he was so close and his hair was tickling me but I tried so hard to lay still. He kissed each thigh and I shook on the bed, and it felt like he was thanking me for my cooperation. I felt the back of his hand fall down my thigh, nails skating down my skin and I found some quilt to squeeze at my sides. He hadn't done this with Joyce, observed her, tested her. He trailed his hand down, just as warm and admiring as I had ever dared to imagine. I held my breath as he spread me with his thumb, too bold and I went to push his hand away, but he caught my wrist and replaced it, as though he knew I would. He gathered both of them in his free hand and held them against my belly, not that I thought to rebel again.

I don't think I could accurately report what magic he worked if my career depended on it. Right away as he kissed and teased and flicked his too warm, too wet tongue I felt that familiar coiling, the tension, the ache that spurred this whole adventure in the first place. I was prepared for the same frustration as always, not at him but myself for being incapable of... sneezing. I couldn't stop shaking. I know that I begged but I can't remember what I said, except maybe "more" and "please". His breath burned me as he nodded, and how strange it was to recognize what his nose felt like... there. I saw colors that don't have names and I wanted it to stop immediately, I felt so out of control. He let my hands go and I found his hair and pushed him away, then back again quickly.

Fanny would've explained it better. I'm no tawdry novelist, sensationalism is a stain on the good name of journalism. But even before Johnny had kissed me goodbye and left I felt as though I'd caught some kind of crazy bug, and maybe... maybe I want more.

I thought of taking this home to write, but I think I like the idea of you watching me. I can't help but wonder how close we might've been sometimes, how thrilling that might've felt for you. It isn't my game, but I think I'm starting to understand.

G

 

[Dane Stalling]

October 2nd, 1967, clear, 64°

It is kind of you to think of buying me a diary, but I have one, Pretty G. One I filled faithfully, like you do. Like you did, if this has become something else. I must admit I think it is an improvement.

The answers to your questions are there in your own body. Why do I watch if I've uncaged the animal? You can feel the answer stirring in you at this moment. You itch and yearn. You long for that slippery sweetness. And when it is denied you because of loneliness or circumstance or righteousness, I'll bet you'll look for something. Anything to press into the need you feel because the animal is a question, not an answer. It is a question you will burn to ask for the rest of your life.

I watch for lack of touching. Your words are a kind of watching, a kind of touching, Beautiful. I need them. I need you naked like this, like you have been, spread in front of me.

I am fascinated with how you recognized his nose. You will see every man's nose as a possibility in the next days. Every time you enter the library you will wonder whose nose it was, which one slipped out of your window in the wee hours and felt the chill of your body's moisture. Which one might still be able to smell you when he breathes deep. Which man will not wash his face for another day just to keep you close to him? "Not that one," you'll say to yourself, "too soft, too round, too sharp." But there will be many that will make you wonder, and one that is the one. Will you know it?

You have been tasted too. The tongue that did that to you is asking for cigarettes, maybe, or telling his mother that he loves her on the telephone. Maybe he is licking an envelope that contains a letter to some other love. How does it feel knowing a taste of you is on that envelope? On that popsicle, that candy, that finger that turned a page in a novel or the Yellow Pages or the Bible?

Fuck journalism. It will never tell this story. Your story. It will be told in poems or novels or songs. Maybe yours. Maybe his.

Someone should write a song about your face as you wrote, alone in the library. I watched your knees as you wrote. Pressed tight together, but never still. I saw your face flush, but not when Mrs. Stanford came by. You were cool then, professional. After she left I saw the animal again as you described his tongue and how it spoke to you.

I have not forgotten what I owe, Beautiful G. But truly, I am determined to satisfy you if you have the courage to ask.

R

 

[dearestdarling]

October 4th, 1967

You're wrong. Any time I might've thought to ask that question, I stomped on it before it had a chance to bloom. Those kinds of thoughts were too much-- too sinful, too honest, too piercing to admit outright, even in these pages. Now... the world looks different and sometimes I find my thoughts drifting... even at work, even at church, the tip of my pen touched to my lips as I wonder what it would've been like to reciprocate Johnny fully. Joyce has more than insinuated that he likes it and she does it well; I can't suppose that I could imitate her when it comes to that, though I'm curious.

But you said... you don't suppose that nighttime caller wasn't Johnny? Who else would know that I was there, trembling and bare and too eager to explore? I felt his hair, I saw... well, I guess I didn't quite see, but he smelled familiar, patchouli and grass. Who else could possibly know, on our sleepy street, through our unsuspecting window? It's not as though I had a neon sign to advertise, no random passerby would see the clothesline and

Except

Why would he be in the libra

You didn't strike me as the diary type, forgive me if I'm a bit surprised. I can only imagine what kind of secrets you'd store in it, considering what you're comfortable sharing in one belonging to a perfect stranger. Of course, if you played fair, I wouldn't have to wonder. Is that where the song is, the one about me?

If my visitor thought to return for an encore, he found my bed empty last night. I half-expected to see you in a neighboring tree, some dark shadow crouched and coiled over the clearing, but I watched alone. Johnny's Cadillac was missing, but there were plenty of other cars, two and threes entering them and coming out giggly and spent. I hugged the limb between my legs, remembered Johnny and

What I wouldn't give for a page of your diary, dear R. I nearly want it more than to meet you, but I won't settle for it no matter how tempting it is.

G