[start of age 37]

I spent the day fiddling with my new computer, trying to reinstall all software so that I know exactly how it is configured. In doing so, I encountered all sorts of exasperating problems and finally gave up in disgust sometime in the early evening. It is really remarkable that I was able to earn almost $300,000 last year running a computer software company, and was once considered by other computer programmers and engineers as something of a whiz with computers, and yet now I can't manage to do something so simple as install the operating system in an organized and efficient manner.

While reading at the cafe, a man at a neighboring table made eye contact with me and then came and asked if he could sit at my table. He seemed homosexual, based on his voice. I don't know what provoked him to approach me. Perhaps the polyester pin-striped pants and fancy dress shoes I was wearing. (This was the first time I had worn these pants and shoes, incidentally, even though I bought them several months ago. The pants are uncomfortable and also too flashy for my tastes, like something a pimp would wear, while the shoes are uncomfortable and also noisy and slippery because the sole is leather rather than rubber.) Or maybe I was just in an approachable looking mood. We exchanged business cards. He works as independent deejay, hosting bar-mitzvahs and other "lifestyle change events", and supposedly earns $800 for three hours work. His goal in life is to save enough money to retire, and afterwards live in the forest on the big island of Hawaii, as he had done previously for a period of five years. I told him how I was bored with running my computer software business, and that I only enjoyed living in inner cities. Since I suspected he was interested in me sexually, I mentioned that I was planning to visit a girlfriend later in the day. This led to a discussion of my love life.

"I'm starting to realize that I'm a loner," I told him. "I can't live with anyone else. So that has some serious repercussions as far as relationships with women. Most of them want to live with me, which I can't abide, so I start acting in a come hither, go away manner. If the truth be told, I'm actually slightly crazy. But it doesn't bother me." And I told him various other details of my life. I don't know why I was in such a self-revealing mood. He seemed anxious to see me again and asked when he could call. Where is this heading, I wonder?

I managed to fix the computer problems from yesterday: the enhanced video driver wouldn't install until I first installed a service pack to the operating system.

I bought two pairs of elegant pin-striped pants ($167/pair for a total of $334), of the finest Italian wool, to replace the $15 polyester pin-stripe pants. Then I bought a black lambskin jacket ($385), as I had been meaning to do for some time. I had repeatedly postponed this purchase until I was sure of the style I wanted, and also because, for some reason, I was trying to keep to a limited budget last year. Why do I have these desires to live beneath my means? Am I worried that I will someday be poor, and so don't want to accustom myself now to a more sumptuous lifestyle than what I will be able to afford in the future? Or am I afraid being punished for daring to spend money on myself? Do I, for whatever reason, think I don't deserve to live well? Am I worried about attracting the envy of people poorer than myself? Then again, $719 is a lot to be spending in one day for clothes.

Sonya called. I apologized for my behavior at the party last month, though she didn't seem particularly upset about it. She is having some problems with her computer and asked if I could help, and I said yes.

I fixed the computer problem with little difficulty. Sonya seemed to be sniffing at me the whole time I was working. Whether she is attracted to my smell, or repelled by it, I don't know. Afterwards, we had drinks at a nearby bar, where she insisted on picking up the tab, despite my offer to do so. I asked about her love life. She has had three relationships since moving to the city seven years ago. The first was with a much older man, who was wise and loving and is still a close friend, but who was more like a father than a lover, who adopted her even (possibly for immigration reasons—I didn't ask for details), and with whom she doesn't feel she can grow spiritually the way she could with someone her own age. The second was a purely sexual relationship with a man she met through the personal ads. "It was very exciting, but it left me drained afterwards. I don't want a repeat of that," she said. The third was a spiritual relationship, with little sexual excitement, which has since turned into a friendship. Now she wants a relationship which combines wisdom, sex and friendship in a "single package." English is not her native language, so I'm not sure what to make of that last expression. It sounds like corporation-speak. I rambled on about the unhappiness of my youth and whatnot.

When we returned to her house, I leaned over to kiss her, but once again she turned so that I was only able to kiss her cheek. Does she expect me to be more aggressive? Or is she only interested in friendship? We made a date for Saturday, which I realized later that I would have to break, because Mark will be visiting then.

I called Helen and scheduled lunch with her tomorrow. Last night she told Paul she was tired of "putting out" every night. He refuses to sleep in bed with her unless she has sex with him, since otherwise he will toss and turn all night with frustration. While preparing to once again spend the night on the sofa, he had second thoughts:

"I don't think I should have to sleep on the sofa in my own apartment," he said.

"Did your former wife have sex every night?" asked Helen.

"I don't remember. Probably."

"And yet you told me I was much more interested in sex than her?"

"Maybe you should think about getting another man."

"Maybe I will."

"Maybe you should act on that statement."

"Maybe I will."

Today he called her at work and left a voice mail message stating, with no further explanation, that he wanted her to return his music disks that she had borrowed. She assumes this means he wants to break up. Tonight, they will be having a talk, to settle things. She says she can't bear the thought of being alone, and so will probably cave in and beg him for forgiveness. I advised her to learn to enjoy solitude.

In Boswell's Journal, Paoli tells Boswell (who is age forty-three) that he is "past the age of ambition," in explaining why he probably won't succeed at his new profession (as an English rather than Scottish lawyer). The idea is that it becomes increasingly difficult, as we grow old, to continue sacrificing for the future. We begin to sense the inevitability of death, and the only thing that matters anymore is the present. This is exactly how I feel, so evidently, I too am "past the age of ambition".

Lunch with Helen. She returned to Paul's apartment last night, where she found him in the bedroom watching television. She said hello, to which he grunted or otherwise responded in a less than friendly manner. Based on his past behavior, she knew that he would soon rouse himself and want to have a "talk" with her about their situation. She dreads these talks, and so, to avoid one last night, she decided to appease him in advance. This she did by lying down beside him on the bed, putting her head on his lap in a submissive gesture (her interpretation), and asking for his forgiveness. He replied that she was forgiven, then patted her on the head and stroked her hair. They then engaged in some foreplay, followed by anal sex, which she didn't much enjoy. Despite her protests that she wanted to stop, he insisted on continuing for longer than usual, perhaps as a way of punishing her rebellion. Afterwards, she made dinner. Today, she is feeling disgusted with herself for behaving abjectly.

"This business of the head on the lap and begging forgiveness and then him fucking you in the ass. It all sounds like something from those bondage and discipline books you used to say you liked," I said.

"It isn't nearly as enjoyable in real life as when I read about it," she replied.

I then advised her to be careful of Paul, since, given that doesn't have a job currently and isn't seriously looking for one and is rapidly depleting his savings, he might well try to convince her to give him all her money to "invest" (she had mentioned to him that she had $5000 of savings to invest, and he suggested spending it all) and that given how little willpower she seems to show towards him, she might well agree and then be left penniless. Or that he might want her to support him. She replied that, curiously enough, he had recently suggested that he enjoyed the idea of being supported by a woman, but also that he didn't think her good wife material.

"He says he doesn't trust me enough to be a wife, that I have a violent temper, because of how I got upset when he abandoned me last week in the suburbs."

Helen then related how she had mentioned to Paul, in passing, that she occasionally called me with computer related questions, and that he seemed perturbed by this revelation. "He said that, in the professional world, we don't do that sort of thing. Always this professional world, which he doesn't even belong to anymore since he's unemployed. In the professional world, we don't call our friends who are lawyers and accountants and doctors and constantly ask them questions. I can sort of see his point. But then I said that you and I have a special sort of friendship, and that riled him even more, so that he said I should maybe return to you."

She finds that she never has any free time anymore. Paul's whole life revolves around her, now that he is not working, so that when she returns home from work, he is always in the apartment waiting. This last weekend she wanted to get away for a while, but couldn't find a tactful way to do so. He knows that she doesn't have any girlfriends, so she can't use a visit to one of these as an excuse to escape. She might be able to get away by pretending to attend a series of documentary films, being shown later this month at the German institute. Since he had sneered ("Who wants to see documentaries, especially German documentaries?") when she had earlier proposed that they see these films together, she doubts he will want to accompany her.

I talked to Sonya and rescheduled our meeting for Friday. I should be careful of her. What if all she wants me for is money? Perhaps that is why she continues to date me, but doesn't want to kiss me. Physically I repel her, but she can't resist the lure of my money.

I'm feeling dissatisfied with all my clothes, except for the black leather jacket which I bought last week. The polyester pinstripe pants are tight at the waist and too short in length. They were probably too small to begin with, and the fit has worsened due to my expanding in the waist a bit recently. (Of course, I'll be discarding these polyester pants as soon as the wool pants are back from having the hem sewed up by the tailor.) Meanwhile, the three identical black shirts which I bought two months ago have shrunk, because I put them in the washer and dryer, despite the warning on the label to dry clean only. These also I originally bought somewhat too small. Why am I buying everything too small? Do I have a small opinion of myself? The net effect was that today I felt like some sort of gangly overgrown teenager: my wrists and ankles poking out, my shirt and pants stretched as if about to burst. And finally, the black shoes, which I thought such a great bargain at $65 a pair that I bought three pairs of the identical style last year, have turned out to be poorly made. The heel and sole are both formed from some sort of cheap rubber that leaves black marks everywhere, including all over the dance studio floor a few weeks back, which was embarrassing, and then the lining came loose, and finally the sole came unglued. I tried gluing the sole back on several times, using various types of glue, but nothing seems to hold for more than a few days. The first pair of these shoes lasted about six months, and I am just now starting to wear the second pair. Helen thinks these shoes look cheap and unfashionable, like something an old man would wear. Why is everything I buy either cheap-looking or the wrong-size or defective? Why can't I dress properly?

Lisa called and left a message on my machine. She wants to meet and "hang out". What for? On the one hand, she bores me silly, but on the other, she is one of my few acquaintances and does give me some perspective on how other people live. Probably I won't call her back, but maybe I will. Who knows?

I seem to be very inefficient these days. The time just passes without my seeming to get anything done. While skimming through the latest issue of a technical journal, I realized that I'm completely out of touch with the current trends in computer programming, and also that I've completely lost interest in that profession.

On the way to the cafe, I crossed paths with the young blonde from the apartment downstairs, and suggested we have dinner sometime. She asked for my business card and said she would call, which probably means nothing will happen. We first saw one another about two years ago, and she seemed very interested in me then. But this is the first time I've taken any initiative, which she probably takes as a sign that I'm not really interested in her. She has an exceedingly attractive body—large breasts, wide hips, fleshy thighs and arms, clear green eyes—and is clearly intelligent as well, with a job as a research analyst for a bank. A thoroughly desirable mate, in other words, assuming I were a normal, sociable man in search of a mate, instead of being a half-crazy loner.

I visited Sonya, and installed the memory I had bought for her computer, tested it, then gave her some advice. To wit, I recommended she learn the fundamental concepts of computers and networking, since this knowledge is always of use, regardless of her career, as opposed to immediately studying graphics and other applications of computers, even though these might seem more immediately useful in the fashion industry, where she currently plans to work. I also suggested that she would be better off spending her money on high-quality computer hardware and software and then teaching herself by reading books, instead of paying for college courses.

Lunch at a restaurant, where she picked up the tab again (about $20, including tip), despite my offer to pay. Does she want to avoid the appearance of being after my money? Or does she want our relationship to be a friendship between equals, as opposed to a love affair where the man is supposed to pay for meals? Once again I leaned over to kiss her, and she turned so that I could only kiss her cheek. That was the only physical contact we made.

I told her that I had killed all my plants last week because I was tired of having to water and otherwise care for them, but that I felt guilty doing so, and that the larger plant, in particular, seemed to suffer as I cut it up to fit in the trash bag, and that its sap reminded me of blood. I wasn't pretending to be sentimental: I really did feel bad, and still do. She said I should have given the plants away, that someone would have wanted them. I then told of how I had slaughtered my pet mice as a child, because they were multiplying out of control and I couldn't give them away and the snake, for whom they were intended as food, could only eat one a week. What a horrible monster I am! What if I have children someday and they too become a burden to maintain? Would I kill them like I did the plants and the mice? I can just imagine her thinking this of me.

While browsing in the used book store, I copied out a list of recommended perfumes from a book on how to seduce women. The scent which Karen had recommended, but which Helen and I both thought cheap smelling, was not on this list. Which is encouraging, since it means the list might be of some value.

Mark arrived in the afternoon. Dinner at a restaurant, where he picked up the tab. Then drinks at the transvestite/transsexual bar, which I had promised to show him. Dessert at the cafe, where he had cake with two huge scoops of ice cream. Afterwards, we took a taxi home, as he was too exhausted to walk, due to not having slept much the night before. He fell asleep almost immediately upon arriving at my apartment.

He is grossly overweight these days, with a huge gut spilling out over his belt, and jiggling as he walks. This past month alone, he gained thirteen pounds, which he blames largely on a change from Prozac to another anti-depressant medication (he has since reverted to Prozac). He talked about having a child with a lesbian.

"You'd be surprised. There's lots of these women who want to get pregnant, but don't want to pay the $500 to the sperm bank. And thing is, you can get it done so that legally you don't have to pay any child support, and don't have to visit the mother or child except maybe a few times a year. No obligations at all," he said.

"Sounds like a male fantasy," I replied. "You actually know a lesbian who wants to get pregnant under these conditions?"

"Not yet, but I know there are plenty of them out there. I'm not going to be hasty about this, you see."

His former lover Tony has returned to his parents, where he has managed to stay off booze for ten days, which means he is past the physical withdrawal stage. We discussed the possibility of Tony getting a false identity, to avoid having to go to jail for his various offenses. All these offenses are minor, but because of the sheer number, the district attorney will almost certainly require some jail time. Meanwhile, Tom, his security guard friend and former roommate (and former lover as well, I think), has fallen in with a bad crowd of drug dealers and drug users, and is spending furiously to keep up with their lifestyle, and approaching personal bankruptcy. "He gets very animated during these long weekends when all they do is snort coke and go from nightclub to nightclub, but afterwards he looks like a truck ran over him. It's really awful," said Mark, shaking his head.

Then we discussed the possibility of Mark buying the one-bedroom apartment next to the studio that he currently owns and resides in, and then renting out one of these two apartments. I told him that the price sounds good ($45,000) but that he should talk first to some other landlords about possible tenant problems, especially since he might have difficulty finding high-quality tenants, due to the lack of a parking space for the unit.

Mark is currently sharing his studio with a semi-retarded man named Raymond, who had previously lived with an artist friend. This artist recently died, and left many half-finished canvases to Mark, two of which he had brought along and gave to me. They aren't bad. I intend to hang both on my wall, after removing the unfinished parts. The artist also left $10,000 in cash to Raymond, who earns $150/week doing unskilled labor. Mark helped Raymond open a savings account to hold the inherited money, and also assisted with various other tasks which Raymond seems incapable of doing on his own, such as obtaining a government-issued identification card. Raymond now pays Mark $300/month for the privilege of sleeping on his sofa. I remarked that I would never have a roommate if I could avoid it. Mark agreed that sometimes he felt a need to have the apartment to himself, at which times he simply tells Raymond to get lost for a few hours, and Raymond does so, without showing any resentment.

The next morning it was raining, and the rain continued all day and into the night. I trifled around on my computer some, then Mark and I walked to the nightclub district for lunch, followed by a brief visit to the peep show, where I had an exciting three minute session with a young woman with a beautiful cunt with a longish slit and a modest amount of blonde pubic hair. Her lips and inner thighs were glistening with wetness. I still can't feel comfortable masturbating in these cubicles though. Then we browsed in the used bookstore, where Mark bought several diet books. I was beginning to tire of his constant chatter, and so drifted away and read by myself, while he talked with the proprietor of the store and with a panhandler who was squatting outside.

"That's a nice shoulder bag. Where did you get that?" he asked me as we left.

"Oh, I don't know," I replied, somewhat exasperated by this pointless question.

"What do you have in there?"

"I don't know. I always bring it. I suppose I didn't need it today. I have a book inside."

"That's interesting. Bags can be very useful. I might get me a bag. Hmmm. I gave that street guy back there a quarter. He seemed like a nice enough fellow. I don't always give. I only give when I really like someone. He was someone I liked though. Yes, indeed. Can't be giving out my money to everyone. What caught my attention was that way he had a cup on a fishing pole. I thought that very unique. Don't you think that's clever?"

"I've seen that before. The big thing now is the pet cats."

"Oh yeah, where they have a cat on a leash. Yes, I'm sure that brings in the dollars. Oh, looky there, they got all types of activity going on down here. Isn't that something? I wonder, are your feet getting wet?"

"Yes."

"Mine are too. I think the rain is soaking into my shoes. You don't have waterproof shoes then?"

"No."

"Me either. I knew you used to have some waterproof shoes. But I guess those wore out. That's one thing about life, shoes do wear out. Always having to buy new shoes. I see they've got plenty of shoes for sale here. Probably pretty cheap, too. Might buy me a pair. Some of them made-in-Mexico shoes. Oh, lord! I hope we don't have to climb that hill."

"No, but the one we do climb is just as steep."

"Oh my! You've got to excuse me, but I'm so out of shape. This extra weight is just an awful burden to carry around all day. I've got to go on a diet."

And on and on it goes, a constant stream of mindless questions and chatter. When we returned to the apartment, I suggested we take naps to prepare for going out later in the evening. Mark puttered around for a while but finally retreated to the room with his mattress and I was able to relax, enjoy some solitude, listen to music instead of him, and formulate some theories about proper etiquette for guests and hosts. The host's primary obligation is to provide a place to sleep, and the guest should try to sightsee alone as much as possible, so as not to tax the host's patience. Eventually, I convinced Mark to take a tour of some gay nightclubs by himself. I walked him to the bus stop and waited with him there in the drizzle until the bus arrived.

When I woke near dawn, I noticed Mark hadn't returned, and so I started worrying that he might have been jumped by hoodlums. It wasn't until mid-morningn that he finally got back, after having spent the night with a man he met in a bar. In fact, he had met two men. The first was young and very attractive, and is apparently just experimenting with homosexuality. This young man said he was staying with a girlfriend and hence couldn't bring Mark back to his place nor give out his phone number. Mark didn't think it right to bring him to my apartment, though I told him I wouldn't have minded. (Which is probably true. Two's company and three's a crowd. I don't really like either, but at least with a crowd I can disappear into myself and listen and watch from the sidelines instead of having to participate in the conversation.) So the two of them just hung out and visited various bars. In one of these bars, Mark met another man. But this second man was only interested in Mark ("I don't want no threesomes"), so Mark, somewhat guiltily, took leave of the first man, and went off with the second man to this latter's "piss-in-the-sink" single-room-occupancy hotel room. But the man wasn't prepared. He wanted to be fucked in the ass, but had neither condoms nor lubricant. Mark wisely declined the proposal, due to the risks of disease from unprotected sex. "How stupid can a person get? To go off and invite someone to their hotel room and expect to be fucked and then not have the basic necessities available. A real disappointment." He let man suck him off and reciprocated with a hand job. Afterwards, Mark wanted to use the bathroom down the hall, but was afraid to leave the room lest the man steal his wallet. They slept together fitfully, each of them somewhat wary of the other, trying to keep one eye half-open, so to speak. The other man wanted Mark to hold him and so kept moving closer, while Mark wanted more space for sleeping and so kept pushing the other man away. "I don't think I got much sleep when all's said and done." We talked for a while, as I processed orders, then Mark fell asleep for five hours, during which time I stayed in the other room, reading.

In the afternoon, the first man Mark had met last night called, then hung up after leaving a message giving his home phone number. As it turns out, he lives in the suburbs of Mark's hometown. Mark kicked the table in fury at not having been able to grab the phone in time to talk. "That's the thing about this sex. I had bad sex last night and now I want good sex. Even good sex makes you want more sex. Once you get started you just want more. Oh, man, he was great looking! That would be something if I could have him tonight, then off to my side trip tomorrow, then see him again on Friday, or maybe someone else. Fuck! That really pisses me off to miss him like that. Now I have to wait until I get back to home and then see if we can connect there. Oh, damn! I wish I'd have gotten that phone call."

We ate a snack at a cafe, then he went out for dinner with a married couple with whom he is good friends, while I went to my dance lessons. I promised to hurry to pick up the phone, in case the young guy called again.

Mark returned towards midnight. We drank some beers together and talked, with the conversation eventually coming round to the subject of hemorrhoids:

"Oh, people with hemorrhoids don't want anal sex. It causes all sorts of problems," said Mark.

"Based on my understanding, anal sex may irritate existing hemorrhoids, but it doesn't cause them. If anything, anal sex tends to loosen the anus, which would tend to prevent hemorrhoids, since excessive tightness is how hemorrhoids get started. I read up on the subject, since I used to have hemorrhoids myself," I noted.

"Maybe I'll have to give you a loosening treatment before this week's over," Mark laughed. This proposition shocked me, and I hastened to change the subject.

A customer called, complaining that he had sent me numerous emails regarding a bug, but that I had never responded so now he was calling. I extemporized some muddled excuse and promised to get back to him soon. Upon looking into the situation, I immediately realized there was a significant bug in my program. But I was too lazy to attend to it then.

Mark started getting on my nerves again, so that finally I was somewhat rude and told him: "Why don't go out and do some sightseeing? It'll be good for you to get out." He left to do laundry and eat lunch, which relieved me somewhat, but then when he returned, he started to clean things. This infuriated me, partly because it implies that I'm a poor host, in that I expect my guests to acts like janitors, partly because it implies reciprocation, and I don't feel like cleaning his kitchen and bathroom when I'm his guest, and partly because such humility seems to sap me of spiritual energy. Also, I was simply tired of his constant presence. I became nasty.

"Just leave the fucking apartment alone, okay? I'll do the cleaning," I said.

"I just wanted to help. Here I bought you some laundry detergent," he replied.

"This has bleach in it. I never use bleach."

"This is mild bleach."

"Doesn't matter, it makes colors fade. I'll just end up throwing it out."

"I'm sorry. And I bought you a sponge. I saw you didn't have a sponge."

"I can buy my own sponge. Why don't you go do some sightseeing, instead of spending so much time hanging around the apartment?"

"I did do some sightseeing. I'm not hanging around that much."

He had been contemplating perhaps skipping his side trip, and staying instead with me for the rest of the week. But after our little spat, he seemed to change his mind back in favor of the side trip.

"Well, my flight is planned. Sorry about spending so much time in the apartment. I'll be going out tonight," he said apologetically.

"I don't mind how long you stay. But I do need some time to myself. Anyway, I'll be out for several hours. So make yourself at home. I do enjoy your visit. I'll be back later." This was as friendly a reply as I was capable of.

I spent four hours in the afternoon reading in the cafe, where at last I could enjoy some solitude. For some reason, I became agitated while waiting for the bus to my evening ballroom dance lesson, and imagined various nasty things to say to Mark: "Why don't you get out some instead of just sitting here all day? You remind me of Helen, depending on me to do everything. Needy. Stealing my vital energy. Like a slug that just steals my spiritual energy. I just can't stand people hanging around me all the time. Get fucking lost!"

The apartment was empty when I returned, with a note from Mark on my desk, indicating that he had gone out to the gay bars and would be in later in the evening. "I am ready for my trip tomorrow. Hopefully, I'll be up by nine and out of your hair by ten," the note concluded. The dancing seemed to have relaxed me, so I felt bad about having been abrupt with Mark. He came in about midnight and gave me a postcard he had bought. We had a pleasant conversation, while drinking beer.

"I went into a few places and met some people right away, but I didn't want to have another experience like the one the other night. It has to be good or I don't want it. That one the other night was some sort of Eskimo," he said.

"Eskimo?" I asked.

"Something like that. I don't know. I have to admit, I was sort of aroused because he had small buns. But then he pulled out his cock. Uncircumcised and real dark, like some kind of foreigner. I wasn't going to suck that, and since we didn't have lubricant or condoms, I wasn't going to fuck him in the ass like he wanted. So I said to him, I sure hoped he liked to suck cock, because that was all that I could see us doing. I sure wasn't going to suck that thing of his. Though it was sort of large."

Mark left towards noon to go souvenir shopping. The rain resumed after he had gone out, and poured down for the rest of the day. I felt bad about having forced him to leave and suffer the inclement weather. But he seemed cheerful when he came back. We spent a few hours talking, then he left for his flight.

I decided to skip the mail run because I didn't want to go out in the pouring rain. And then I didn't do any work, not even on the bug that I found yesterday, despite having promised the customer to get back to him by this afternoon. Instead, I lay about in bed and masturbated three times. Huge amounts of semen, squirting all the way to my neck. The first fantasy was licking the dance instructor, then pressing my face into her cunt while she comes, then fucking her hard. The second fantasy was her straddling me on all fours, so that I can lick and smell her cunt, and play with her dangling breasts and fuck upwards into her mouth at the same time. After she comes in my face, I fuck her dog-style until I come. The third fantasy was a repeat of the first.

Dinner with Helen at a restaurant. She is suffering from "stress on both the work and home fronts, and plans to retreat to base camp" tonight, meaning that she plans to spend tonight at her own apartment. After her act of submission last week, she and Paul had been getting along fairly well, spending their evenings playing board games and having regular anal sex. Then one workday, she came home feeling exhausted. Paul offered to make dinner, but Helen insisted that she would make it herself. Then later, she felt tired and so lay down, and didn't make dinner after all. When Paul noticed that dinner wasn't prepared, he because upset. "Once again, you haven't kept your word. You said you would make dinner but you didn't. I just wonder if you can be trusted at all." She became tearful and went to bed, whereupon he fixed dinner. They ate in sullen silence, but she conciliated him afterwards by submitting to sex.

Last night she was surfing the internet, using Paul's portable computer, when she happened across the Unabomber's manifesto. [The Unabomber was a terrorist who sent mail bombs to people in positions of power, as a way of undermining technological civilization.]

"Suppose that lack of funds for education had led the chemist to become an insurance broker instead of a chemist," she read aloud from the manifesto. "That sounds like me. Giving up graduate school to work for a corporation." But the resemblance is even stronger to Paul's situation, since he was studying to be a research scientist and gave it up to be an engineer. For whatever reason, her comment infuriated him.

"You are really disturbed!" he exclaimed. "No one else that I have ever known would read something by a mass-murderer and speak of it with admiration."

"I just thought this one sentence was interesting."

"I could understand if you were quoting someone great. But, instead, you admire these ravings of a madman. Ever since I've known you, you've had this affinity for mass-murderers."

"It's just a quote."

"So? You might as well read something by Hitler and admire it. Who ever heard of reading Hitler and admiring him? Do you think that's normal? No normal person behaves like you do. You're odd!"

"I think you're odd."

"You think I'm odd? If you think I'm odd, and I think you're odd, then what are we doing together? Maybe we should break up?"

"Maybe we should!"

"You've never been a normal woman. You have strange habits and can't be trusted."

"This is like Hitler and Nazism right here! I'm always feeling censored!"

"If you think this is Nazism then why are you living here?!"

"Asshole!"

"I will not permit that sort of language."

"I'm sorry."

Paul went to the other room, while Helen lay down and cried. Then he noticed that she had not stored his computer away properly, which led to another dispute. "What did you do with the computer?! You have to turn it off when you reboot it!" he shouted, then left her to sob alone some more. Later, she let him fuck her in the ass, hoping that would soothe the tension, but it didn't, and so she wasn't able to fall asleep until two in the morning, and then she slept poorly and was late to work, thereby missing an important meeting.

"I just can't go back there anymore! He always acts like he is the normal one whereas I'm this twisted nightmare of weirdness. Blah!!! But I think he's the crazy one. The warning signs were there from the beginning. The first night we were together, he said I was odd then, all because I got up late to eat some yogurt in the kitchen. I was hungry, but he said it was very odd to be eating yogurt in the middle of the night," she said to me.

After dinner we returned to her apartment. I noticed a half-drunk beer in the refrigerator and asked who's it was, since she would never buy beer for herself. She refused to say, but I correctly guessed that it was her married friend from work, who has been using the apartment for trysts with her lover. We lay on the bed and hugged and kissed for a while, then I showed her an erection that had risen in my pants.

"I masturbated three times today, and yet I'm still aroused," I said.

"Yours really is big compared to his," she commented.

"Here, put your hand around it."

"Much wider than his. Yours is bigger. You're the bigger boy. Very big boy."

"You better not tell him that, or he'll really blow his stack."

"One time he did ask if he was big enough for me, and I said he was just the right size, because any larger would hurt. I wasn't trying to be mean. But he got upset and said, So, you think I'm a good fit for your asshole? He is rather small. That's why anal sex with him is okay. Yours would hurt too much. Did we ever try it that way?" she asked.

"Once. You started whining and moaning and so we had to quit. Size isn't the problem. You just seem to resist giving way during sex. You're afraid of being swept away."

"He said I was good in bed."

"You don't give way completely."

Later, she complained that Paul thinks her cunt too hairy, and wants her to shave it or else let him shave it. She is resistant to do so, because she suspects the hair will scratch when it grows back. He also wants her to do something about the hairs on her upper lip.

"He isn't satisfied with my body," she laments. "Defects everywhere: tired skin, wrinkles, puffy eyes. I'll a be hag pretty soon. That's why he can act like he does. He knows I'll have a much harder time finding someone else than him. I can't offer a man normal sex, just the other kind."

She also complains about her three new assistants at work, one of whom, in particular, seems completely incompetent. Helen initially thought these assistants would reduce her work load, but it seems the opposite is happening, since she has to correct their numerous spelling, grammar and other mistakes.

It was raining all day. I processed the backlog of orders, but still haven't fixed the bug from two days ago. Also, I still haven't answered some emails from earlier this week. But already over $12,000 in orders for the year. Given that my expenses should be at most $25,000, I am certain to run another profit this year. Which I should have anticipated. I always seem to prepare for and expect the worst in life, so that everything comes to me as a happy surprise. Maybe there is some wisdom in this. Though it seems peculiar to have such low expectations.

A phone call from the homosexual deejay I met at the beginning of this month. I gave monosyllabic answers to his questions and otherwise acted unenthusiastic. Eventually, he got the message that I wasn't interested in talking. "Well, keep in touch," he concluded. What does he want from me? I thought I made it clear that I'm heterosexual. Or does he know something about me that I don't?

A brief conversation with a woman who answered my ad two weeks ago. She had run her own ad and been flooded with responses. "I'm an introvert and not used to talking to so many people. I've only met about three people, but I've talked to at least ten, and now I'm just exhausted," she said. I mentioned that I had talked to hundreds of women over the years, after they had answered my ads. She seemed to cool at this revelation, as if it implied that I'm either unattractive, or overly choosy, or unable to form lasting relationships. And perhaps it does imply one or more of these things. "Well, to be honest, I've already talked to several people tonight, so I'd just as soon see where those go and not meet anyone else," she said. I thanked her for her time. Why does she say "people" instead of "men" or "guys"?

It was raining all day again. I've still made no attempt to fix the bug in my program. I masturbated once, then lay about in a languorous state afterwards, listening to music and now and then jumping up to answer the phone.

In the early evening, Mark called from the airport to say he would be arriving in an hour and probably wouldn't be going out tonight. Since I anticipated that his presence would irritate me, I decided to get drunk, and thus be in a more tolerant mood by the time he arrived. We ate a takeout dinner, washed down by beer, and with conversation about various topics. Early the next morning, Mark took a taxi to the airport. I told him he was welcome to visit again anytime, though in fact I dread a repeat visit. Not only do I not have the temperament to live with someone else, I can't even stand visitors anymore, it seems.

While cleaning up the apartment, I noticed that one of the pillows Mark had used was moist, and so sniffed at it. Apparently, he propped the pillow between his legs while sleeping and then sweated all over it, so now it smells of his groin region. I was disgusted at the idea that I or my future guests are going to have to sleep on a pillow smelling like this. Then the thought occurred to me that this is what prostitutes have to do all the time: smell the groin of a man who they don't find at all sexually attractive. I left the pillows in the window to air out some.

I went to the department store to buy cologne, and was accosted by an officious saleswoman the minute I approached the displays. "Can I help you?" she offered. But as soon as she began to open her mouth, I hurriedly walked off, muttering "just looking" in an emotionless voice, without even glancing at her. She sensed my hostility and backed away. I looked the displays over, but didn't find the one perfume I remembered from my list, and finally left without buying or testing anything. I felt utterly disheartened afterwards, ashamed of myself for wanting to buy perfume in the first place, remembering how foolish I had felt the few times in the past when I walked around stinking of perfume, and annoyed that I hadn't even bothered to try any of the sample perfumes. Then I passed some handsome looking men who gave off no scent, and I realized that misgivings about perfumes on men are warranted. There is something peculiar about a man who wears perfume. Later, while sitting in the cafe, I changed my mind again, and determined to march back into the department store tomorrow and buy something.

Some lunatic shouting in my ear as I walked down the street: "It takes a faggot to really screw things up! They can't get enough dick, so they want to ruin things for everyone else!" I burst out laughing and continued laughing to myself for some time afterwards. My own motto might be: "It takes a lunatic to really cheer things up."

While reading in the cafe, a beautiful, well-dressed and well-groomed young woman sat down at the adjacent table and began speaking aloud to the air. Based on appearance, she might have been the wife of a wealthy businessman. Her behavior was more like than of a street-person, however.

I managed to buy two bottles of perfume at the perfume discount shop. I felt much more comfortable there than in the department store. Something about "discount" makes the store seem like one that would be patronized by real men, as opposed to faggots and gigolos. One of the perfumes is cheap-smelling. It reminds me of the perfume Karen used to wear. The other seemed okay.

Lunch with Helen at a restaurant near her place of work. After her recent fight with Paul, she spent the rest of the week at her own apartment. On Saturday, she began to feel lonely, and wandered aimlessly around the commercial district for a while, then gave me a call, only to discover I wasn't home, and so she stepped into a church, where some sort of ceremony was in progress. She had hoped that she might find solace there, amidst the atmosphere of religion and elaborate ceremonies, but instead it seemed only to deepen her loneliness and depression. On Sunday, she caved in and phoned Paul. An emotional conversation, with both of them saying "I miss you". He acknowledged that his behavior was somewhat at fault, especially his becoming so agitated about the Unabomber, but he didn't completely apologize.

They decided to celebrate their reconciliation by eating out. Helen offered to treat and suggested that Paul pick the restaurant. But then he picked a very expensive restaurant, and Helen balked at spending so much money. So Paul suggested a Dutch treat instead. The tab was over $100, of which Helen only paid $30. She commented that this was the most expensive restaurant they had ever eaten at. Paul replied, to her embarrassment, that in fact the bill for their first date had been considerably more, when she had picked out a very expensive restaurant for him to take her to.

They had sex both before and after dinner. Especially the second time, Helen wasn't particularly aroused while Paul was licking her. But she didn't want to disappoint him, and so resorted to various fantasies to bring herself to orgasm, finally settling on one in which she was locked naked in a cage at the edge of a boxing ring, while two boxers slugged it out, with her being the prize. I asked if this was a submission fantasy, and she replied no, that what was most arousing was the idea of being the focus of attention, both of the boxers and of the audience. In response to another of my inquiries, she explained that her fantasies never involve men (or women) who she knows personally. On the contrary, the characters are always completely anonymous.

Paul had spent Saturday at the funeral of an impoverished former coworker. Besides him, the only other attendees were eight women, most of them overweight, like the deceased. Six of these women left immediately after the funeral concluded, while the two who remained were lesbians. These two and Paul smoked a joint together. This is very uncharacteristic behavior on his part, according to Helen. He has suggested again that Helen move in with him and share the rent on his apartment, which would cut his effective rent expense in half, but wouldn't save her anything.

I told her that whatever other faults she might have, she certainly wasn't lacking in loyalty. "Abject is more like it," she replied glumly. "His previous fiancée was the same way. Married for ten years to a man who beat her, before she finally left and got hitched with Paul. But I'm happy with him." They did have one minor argument even after the reconciliation. Paul doesn't like how Helen sometimes says "yeah" instead of "yes" and often ends sentences with the phrase "or something". "I don't want to be dragged down into the gutter by you," was how he put it. Helen countered that Paul's own speech wasn't always perfect, and so he consented to let her correct him in the future. I asked her what she really wanted from life and she replied: "I'm thirty-six and I still don't know. I had all these illusions about being a writer and university professor and now I think I just want to be a hausfrau with children."

I asked her to smell the perfume on me, but she couldn't. She also didn't want me hugging or kissing her because coworkers might see, especially a coworker who might be having dinner with her and Paul soon. This former coworker keeps calling Paul, asking about his job search, and secretly gloating about his lack of success, Helen speculates. "Everything is wonderful between us. We're like this," she said, making a crossed finger gesture, "and I don't want to spoil it."

I danced briefly danced with the dance instructor, but there was no sexual energy between us tonight. I was wearing the cologne I bought yesterday. She sniffed at it and didn't seem impressed. My legs seemed very weak while doing some moves. This despite all my leg calisthenics. Was I just standing wrong, or am I really weak?

I spent the morning enhancing one of my programs, from which I make little money. Meanwhile, the bug in my most profitable program goes unfixed. I didn't bother processing email either.

Sonya called and left a message suggesting I call her sometime. I had been thinking of her, and trying to justify never seeing her again. "She is attractive, but not the woman for me," I tell myself. And yet several days ago I masturbated to fantasies of licking and fucking her. Why do I deliberately avoid women who seem attracted to me?

I've become disgusted with the perfume I put on yesterday, but unfortunately it seems to have permeated my skin. I showered three times and scrubbed and scraped until my flesh was raw, but still the stink remains. What a stupid idea this was to wear perfume! My misgivings were right. I put the perfume on my underarms, thinking that it would serve as a substitute for deodorant, which I don't like wearing. I now realize that I should have put it on my wrist or neck. I want my normal underarm odor back!

Helen stopped by the cafe while I was there, and we had a long talk. She and Paul were taking a stroll this afternoon. She wanted to visit her apartment and then have lunch, whereas he wanted to return to his apartment. So they split up. "Finally got a breather," was how she described it, meaning this is the first time in weeks that she has had weekend time to herself. Normally, he insists that she spend every non-working hour with him. She mentioned to him that she wished she had some girlfriends. He replied, "You don't need girlfriends. We have each other. Don't you enjoy spending time with me?"

Last night, they discussed the latest political scandal, the first time in months that they've had a conversation that was not about their "relationship". She remarked: "I like it when we discuss something besides ourselves." Whereupon, he replied that this remark suggested that she wasn't happy with their relationship, since she didn't want to talk about it. She denied this was the case, but he argued that it was, and so once again, the conversation had returned to the subject of their relationship.

"It's all he wants to talk about. He says that when he was growing up, everyone in his family was always talking about politics and philosophy, and never about themselves. And yet all these women's magazines says that most men don't want to talk about the relationship. So I suppose in a way I should consider myself lucky. Though, I must say, it does get tiresome after a while. I told him we were like characters in a bad movie, but that got him all worked up, so now I just do the dishes and let him talk."

He still hasn't received any job offers. Supposedly, he still has $16,000 in his bank account, but this won't last long, given that his rent alone is $1400 and his total monthly expenses are at least $2500 per month. He recently revealed that he no longer plans to pay off his credit cards in full, but instead will let the charges accumulate. He also continues to want Helen to move in with him, and pay half of the rent on his apartment. I warned her not to do this until she is certain that she wants to marry him, since it will be extremely difficult to find another apartment in the current housing market, if they should break up. He asked if she would follow him to another state, if he had to move for job reasons. She replied that she wasn't sure, which he interpreted as a sign that she wasn't committed to their relationship.

He is annoyed by her constantly needing to go to the bathroom, due to her bladder infections. "I feel like a dog", he complained, "waiting out here on the street while its owner goes inside." She, on the other hand, is annoyed by his not waiting, but rather walking on ahead so that she has to run to catch up. On the whole, she enjoys being around him in the evenings ("he makes nice dinners"), but feels suffocated by his never allowing her to spend time alone. One day, she was looking at him and noticed that his face seemed like that of an old man. He tells her constantly, "I love you."

Several days ago she let him have normal sex with her. That is, to fuck her in the cunt instead of the ass. Her reasoning was that she was planning to visit the urologist about her persistent bladder infections, and so wanted to provoke such an infection in order to give the doctor something to observe. Paul ejaculated inside her without a condom. Since this was the about the time of her monthly ovulation, there is a significant possibility that she might have gotten pregnant. The next morning, Paul expressed some doubts about marriage.

"The last time he came in me so that I might have gotten pregnant and then said he didn't want to get married, I got all upset. But now it doesn't seem to faze me. I seem to expect this sort of thing from him. Sometimes I just wish the relationship would end, so I could move on with my life."

"Helen, I want you to understand something very clearly," I was provoked to say. "If you have Paul's child and he leaves you or doesn't support you, and you come to me for help, then as things stand, me being rich and single and you being my closest friend, you might be able to get some money out of me. But you must remember, I might not be single forever. Regardless of what I say I plan to do with my life, it is possible I might someday be living with another woman, and even have children of my own. And if that is the case, this other woman will not let me give money to you. In other words, you can't depend on me to support another man's child."

"I can assure you, I have absolutely no intention of asking you for money."

"You say that and believe it consciously. But unconsciously, you may be relying on me."

"You have nothing to worry about. I know what the situation of a single mother is like in this country. If I get pregnant and Paul doesn't want to marry me, I'll get an abortion."

However, I don't think she appreciates the emotional stress of having an abortion at her age (thirty-six), given that she doesn't have yet any children but often says she would like at least one. My own opinion is that she would likely procrastinate until it was too late for an abortion, and then have the baby, vaguely thinking about giving it up for adoption afterwards, and then not want to give it up, and so end up as an impoverished single mother. Though perhaps she would be happier with a child to love instead of a man.

The urologist quizzed her about her sex life. She explained that she had given up on vaginal sex because it provoked bladder infections.

"What do you do then?" asked the doctor.

"We do anal sex," she replied.

"And do you like that?"

"Not really."

"Then what are you doing it for?"

"It's all right, I guess. At least I don't get bladder infections that way."

"Do you ever get an orgasm?"

"Sort of, from him licking me."

The doctor theorizes that her problems stem from lack of a complete orgasm, so that tension builds in her vaginal region and is never released. He asked if she had ever had childhood sexual trauma. She answered no. He then suggested some exercises to perform, to help provoke a full orgasm. He also suggested she return to regular vaginal intercourse. Paul is also of the opinion that her problems are at least partly psychosomatic. And I also agree with this diagnosis. "Everyone wants to be my shrink," says Helen. But she agrees that she never seems has a complete orgasm. She brought up again the idea of trying lesbian sex: "I want to be the sexual aggressor for a change. Maybe that will cure me." I suggested a meeting with Lisa's lesbian friend. "Small tits, but pretty face, long legs, slender body, and a very sweet personality, at least from what I've seen," is how I described her. Helen's response to this proposal was non-committal.

The beautiful and well-groomed woman who had sat next to me earlier this week entered while Helen and I were eating. "She is stunning looking," Helen agreed. "But she's also crazy," I said. Helen didn't understand, so I explained how she had been talking to the air when I last saw her. "She makes me think of what might happen to you. I can envision you walking down the street after breaking up with Paul, and then getting excited when you overhear someone call out the name Paul, and screaming at them like a lunatic." A short while later a man sat down next to the woman. He was a complete contrast to her. Dirty, expressionless, unattractive, dark complexioned, either hispanic or chinese, unkempt hair, overweight, middle-aged, stupid-looking, poorly-dressed. They sat together for about twenty minutes then walked out together. My imagination went into overdrive. "She reeks of danger. Maybe she takes men to her apartment then kills them or else makes false accusations of rape. Or maybe she wants them to kill her," I suggested.

Finally after several hours, Helen insisted on leaving: "Paul is going to be all upset when I get back. He'll be wanting to know where I've been and why I stayed away so long."

I'm still able to smell the perfume on my underarms. Never, ever, will I wear perfume again. In fact, I'm beginning to think this whole idea of trying to dress more elegantly was a mistake. All I'm succeeding in doing is making myself look insecure. On the other hand, my natural tendency is to choose clothes on the basis of functionality rather than appearance, with the result that I end up looking like a bum, and I'm not sure that's what I want either.

A crazy street person kneeling on the sidewalk and staring into space, loudly and slowly repeating, "What are you looking at, mother fucker?", precisely articulating each word like a robot. "Preacher" is the name I gave him.

Tango dancing in the evening with a woman who answered my ad. Currently she works as a technical writer, and was previously an overseas journalist. She had a very pleasant personality, but there was no spark of sexual attraction between us. Also, she lives in the distant suburbs, which makes it inconvenient for us to meet.

I finally got in touch with Sonya, after playing phone tag with her for about a week now. She explained that she had been house-sitting in the suburbs. We tentatively scheduled a date for this weekend.

I did moderately well at ballroom dance lessons. My shirt stank of stale perspiration, since this is the second day in row that I've been wearing it. I didn't realize that, because of the fabric (an acetate/rayon blend), the shirt starts to smell from perspiration much more readily than cotton, and so must be washed frequently. So this is the second week that I've smelled bad at dance lessons. Last week from cologne, this week from stale perspiration. Not much sexual energy with the dance instructor or any of the other women, possibly because of my smell.

While looking through some computer trade magazines, I realized that my own product is on the verge of becoming obsolete unless I do something to enhance it. But at present I'm disgusted by the idea of working on computers. I haven't even started using the new computer I bought last month, though it would speed up my work significantly. All it would take is a few hours to make the transition from my old computer to the new. But whenever I manage to have a block of free time, I want to spend it doing something else besides making this transition. "I can make the transition tomorrow," I tell myself, and then I'm off to my living room to listen to music, or I leave the apartment altogether. I feel embarrassed at the idea of people wondering why my company just disappeared, and to avoid this embarrassment, I feel that I should maintain the appearance of a successful and growing software business. But why? The money continues to pour in, regardless of my lack of effort and enthusiasm. Over $30,000 in sales so far this month.

I noticed that all traces of perfume are gone at last and my natural body odor has returned. If women don't like it, they can just avoid me. Never again will I do anything to cover up or mask how I naturally smell, other than bathing regularly with soap and water.

Another customer called complaining of the bug I discovered earlier this month, and which I don't know how to fix. I lied and said I hadn't received any previous reports of this bug, and then asked for various pieces of information, which it will take him some time to accumulate. I'm stalling for time, in other words. As soon as he hung up, I lay back down on the sofa and resumed reading and listening to music. Two years ago, I would have hustled to fix the problem. What a change there has been since then in my attitude towards my business!

During salsa dancing lessons, I noticed that some of the women seemed offended by my body odor, and others attracted by it, which was just what I expected would happen. Once again, there was a shortage of women. I seemed to do very well when I did have an opportunity to dance, however. I finally know enough patterns and how to connect them so as to make the dance exciting. I'm still messing up and losing the beat on some moves, though. I noticed that having plenty of floor space to work with is a big help, since it allows zooming across the floor almost in a ballroom dancing manner.

Lunch with Helen at a restaurant near her place of work. She and Paul are back to having only anal and oral sex, since she is afraid of getting pregnant or causing a bladder infection from vaginal sex. If, for whatever reason, they don't have sex, Paul sleeps on the sofa, since he can't tolerate being in the same bed with her without having relieved himself sexually. They are getting along reasonably well, though seem to quarrel daily and have major fights once a week. The events leading up to the last major tiff were as follows. Helen put a frozen pizza in the oven, with one piece of aluminum foil under it, then went to lie down in the bedroom. A few minutes later, she heard Paul opening the oven door, then the sound of aluminum foil crinkling. An exaggerated crinkling noise, as if Paul wanted her to hear. She felt a knot starting to form in her stomach, anticipating that he would soon be criticizing something she had done. Several minutes later, she went to check on the pizza.

"Oh, look, there's two pieces of foil under the pizza. I wonder how that second piece got there?" she asked innocently. Paul explained, in a cutting tone of voice, that the piece she had used was too small to catch the pizza drippings and so he had replaced it with two larger pieces. Then came time to fix a salad.

"Why not put all those scallions you bought into the salad?" Paul was here sarcastically referring to an incident that had happened the day before, and for which Helen had already been scolded. She had gone to the store to buy shallots, which were called for by some recipe, and instead had bought scallions. Also, she had bought two bunches when the recipe only called for two pieces. (Note: my dictionary says scallions and shallots are the same thing, so I'm not sure exactly what it is she did wrong.) Helen took the scallions from the refrigerator and began to cut them. Almost immediately, Paul grabbed her hand:

"You're not cutting them right! Here, let me do it." One thing led to another, and before long he was shouting: "You don't seem to be able to do anything right!"

"All we ever do is fight!" Helen shouted back.

"Yes, we fight all the time! Maybe, since we fight so much, you should just pack up and move out!" Whereupon Helen started sobbing. Sometime later, they reconciled. Paul is always especially aroused after these fights. This time he wanted to fuck her standing up in the kitchen. But she managed to get him to do it in the bedroom instead.

One source of constant minor quarrels and tension is that she wants to go to bed earlier than him, since she has to get up early in the morning for work and he doesn't. Usually, he stays up listening to television. She has asked him many times to turn the volume down while she is trying to sleep, and to mute the audio completely when commercials are playing, since these tend to be especially loud. But he seems never to remember this request. Deliberate forgetfulness, in her opinion. So she has to ask him again each night, which she finds exasperating, especially when he makes comments like: "Are you sure you don't want to listen to the commercials? Perhaps you can pick up subliminal messages from them in your sleep." He also continues not to want her to spend any time by herself. She mentioned to him that she might spend some time this weekend going to job interviews, or working out at the gym. He complained: "I notice those are all things you want to do that don't involve me. There seems to be a pattern."

I invited her to go dancing with me sometime, but she rejected this proposal immediately: "Out of the question! He never wants me to go out by myself." I then suggested that she likes being the focus of a man's life, which is why she stays with him. She is thinking of taking a day off from work without telling him, and pretend to leave in the morning as if going to work, but in fact to spend the day alone, possibly looking for a new job. She received an excellent performance evaluation recently at her current job, and so seems to be doing well there, though she hates this job intensely. I told her large companies are often generous with verbal praise, but not always so generous with money, and so she shouldn't expect a big raise despite her excellent evaluation.

Paul's job hunt meanwhile is going badly. He has been to several interviews, but received no job offers, and seems to be falling into despondency. Helen suggested that he try temp work, perhaps something involving computers, but Paul dismisses such work as being beneath him. He then lectures to her in a pompous tone of voice, explaining how the business world works, and how he has everything figured out, and concludes by saying that if he can't find a job here, he will simply put his belongings into storage and go work for his brother, who has his own business in Asia. However, he has previously stated that this brother is planning to shut this business down soon. Helen says nothing, but thinks: "There is a real disconnect between reality versus what goes on in this man's mind." He has had problems at all of his previous jobs. Helen suspects that there were several instances where he was fired from jobs after saying something like: "You don't think I'm doing my job right? Fine, maybe you should just fire me." The same sort of childish threat he makes whenever he has a fight with her.

Helen finally asked if I thought she could find another man, no older than forty, with a good job, who would marry her even though they couldn't have normal sex together. I told her I thought it would be difficult. But that, regardless, given Paul's current financial and job situation, under no circumstance should she consider marrying him.

An hour with Sonya at a cafe. She is planning to enroll in the local university and study marketing, though she doesn't really know what she wants to do. She is tired of selling dresses and wants to somehow use and develop her mind. The woman she works with is thinking of opening a retail store to sell wedding dresses, a fancy boutique of some sort. I cautioned about investing in such a business proposition: "Retail has a very high rate of failure." She says she lacks patience to slowly develop a business, or stick with a single career all her life, and wants to move on and grow. She has considered hiring someone to sew up dresses she designs, but this would take time and money which she doesn't have. Also, she would have to arrange with shops to buy these dresses. She plans to travel to Europe soon. She offered me a cigarette, which I declined since I don't smoke.

"You don't smoke? You should, you know. Smoking is good for you. Didn't you know that?" she said.

"That's what Bernelli used to say," I replied, laughing. Then I explained something of my relationship with Bernelli, which led to a discussion of street-people and lunatics in general. Sonya briefly discussed some strange people she had met while traveling in Hawaii. One of these was a man who lived in a house in the jungle, which reminded me of the story of the deejay I met at the beginning of this month. When her bus came, she said "Ciao", then leaned forward and turned her cheek so I could kiss it. She is physically attractive, but I no longer bother getting aroused by her, since we don't seem to be going anywhere sexually. I never touch her the way I do Helen. I never put my arm around her when we are walking side by side, I never rub her back, or swat her behind, or brush her hair.

I masturbated once in the morning and then again after the nap. The second time was an explosive orgasm, imagining myself in the place of a young woman who I had watched tango dancing with a middle-aged, balding but muscular and otherwise attractive man, not unlike myself in appearance. I imagined that he had a heavy male smell in his underarms, also not unlike myself. I'm probably at least partly homosexual, in the sense that I'd like to have sex with men. I just don't want to do it unless I have a woman's body, which would mean getting a sex change, which I'm not about to do.

Helen called and asked me to be on the lookout for apartments for rent, and also suggested that I might "subsidize" her so she would be able to afford a nicer apartment than what she is currently occupying. I replied that such a subsidy "wouldn't be right", given that she is currently living with another man. She complains that her current apartment is a dump, that the windows are falling apart, that she never liked it, that it doesn't have a view, and that she needs a nicer apartment to come home to if she is to ever resign herself to spinsterhood. So apparently she and Paul are not getting along well these days, though I didn't get the details because our conversation was interrupted by a business call.

While in the cafe, a young woman came in and sat at a nearby table. Not bad looking, but evidently somewhat demented. I had seen her before at this same cafe, and both then and now, she stank horribly of cheap perfume, so that I knew it was she the minute she walked in the door, even though my back was turned. For a moment I thought I might get sick from the overpowering smells she gave off. She was carrying a large shopping bag, from which she proceeded to pull an assortment of perfumes and other cosmetics, along with various tabloid newspapers and beauty magazines. All of this junk she spread out on her table. Every so often she would take up one of the bottles of perfume, carefully read the label, then douse herself liberally with the contents. One of the waiters finally asked her to leave: "I'm sorry Ma'am, but you'll have to go now. This is a cafe and you can't spray yourself with all these perfumes in here. People are complaining of the smell." She acted as though nothing had happened, until about ten minutes later the waiter came by and again asked her to leave. At this point, she began to slowly replace her junk in the shopping bag, which took another ten minutes, then she disappeared into the restroom, where she lingered for maybe twenty minutes. I kept watching the restroom door, suspecting that she might be trashing it in revenge for being asked to leave: smearing lipstick all over the walls, pouring perfume all over the floor, stopping up the toilets. When she did finally emerge, it seemed as if her appearance was slightly altered. So perhaps she spent all that time in the restroom putting on still more makeup. I couldn't help comparing myself to her, what with my own recent experience with wearing too much perfume.

There seemed to be strong sexual energy between me and several of the women at my ballroom dance lessons, all of them attractive brunettes. In particular, there was a tall, voluptuous woman in her late thirties named Elizabeth, with long light brown hair tied up in a bun of some sort, who pulled me close while doing the tango, so that I got an erection. I masturbated back at my apartment to fantasies of shoving my face into her fat cunt and then fucking her hard.

A pleasant telephone conversation with Mark, who called and left a message several days ago. His alcoholic former roommate and lover Tony has turned himself in to the police. He thought he would get off easy, but it now appears he may have to serve several years for his various offenses (hit-and-run, driving while intoxicated, skipping bail). I apologized for being so curt with Mark during his visit. "I just can't stand being around anyone for more than a few hours at a time anymore," I gave as my excuse. He replied that he understood, and would have gone out more if it hadn't been for his bad knee and the constant rain.

I called one of my father's old friends, who says my father called him a few weeks ago, and complained of being "lonesome". I asked this friend to try to avoid saying anything that would antagonize my sister (who presumably listens to my father's phone calls), since he is one of the few people other than my sister to whom my father regularly speaks. Though it occurred to me later, that perhaps I should let him antagonize my sister so that she refuses to let my father speak to him, as her refusing to let my father speak to any of his old friends or relatives could be used as evidence against her in court.

Lunch with Helen, who had her period recently and so is not pregnant. This past Friday she and Paul experimented again with vaginal sex. The next morning she suffered from a mild bladder infection, but this soon disappeared. She and Paul seemed to be getting along well and on Saturday night she even performed a strip tease for him. But then a quarrel occurred on Sunday, occasioned by Paul playing loud rock music on his stereo. Helen complained about this, whereupon Paul accused her of being overly sensitive: "No one else I have ever lived with has complained about how loud I play my music. You are the first. It seems as if you are one of those people who simply cannot tolerate living with another person."

On Monday, Helen arrived home from work and found the stereo again blaring. This time, however, she didn't bother to complain, but rather went directly into the bedroom without saying anything and closed the door. Shortly thereafter, Paul entered the bedroom himself.

"You don't like living with other people then?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" replied Helen.

"You come into the apartment and don't say hello and then you go into the bedroom and close the door. You don't seem pleased to have me around. Every other woman I have lived with has been glad to see me in the apartment when she got home."

"The stereo was blaring and I didn't want to listen to it. That's why I went into the bedroom."

"You could have asked me to turn it down."

"The last time I asked you to turn it down, you accused me of not wanting to live with you because I didn't want to listen to your music. Now when I don't ask you to turn the music down, you also accuse me of not wanting to live with you. No matter what I do, I'm offending you. It's like you set a trap for me."

"A trap? What kind of thing is that to say? Why would you want to live with someone who sets traps for you?" Helen waved her hands about in silent exasperation. Paul resumed, "I can see this isn't working, our living together."

More squabbling, and then suddenly Helen stuck out her tongue. "Why did you do that?" demanded Paul. In truth, Helen herself wasn't sure of her intentions. Probably she was simply expressing frustration. But she didn't dare say so, because she knew this explanation would have prompted a new flood of accusations. Instead, she explained that sticking out the tongue was a South American sexual gesture, which she had learned while traveling. Paul beamed happily at this explanation, sidled up beside her, and began to undo her shirt. Sex, however, was the last thing Helen wanted at this moment, and so she rebuffed his advances, which caused Paul to become angry again: "What is the matter with you? A minute ago you wanted sex and now you don't. You seem to behave very strangely. None of the other woman I lived with behaved this way."

Helen called to say she might not come dancing tonight, as we had previously arranged, and also to relate the latest quarrel with Paul. Yesterday morning, she had been in a rush to get to work, and so accidentally left a dirty glass in the sink, which she only realized much later. Paul does not like this sort of untidiness and so, in order to appease him, she acted particularly cheerful when she returned in the evening. But Paul nevertheless seemed in a sour mood as they sat down at the dinner table for the meal he had prepared.

"How was your day?" he asked.

"It was wonderful!" Helen answered brightly.

"But, you seemed to have to leave quickly. You must have been in a rush?"

"Yes I rushed, but I still missed the bus."

"But then you mustn't have been in very much of a rush?"

"I was in a rush. But I still didn't catch the bus, even though I rushed. Or something."

"You know, Helen, I've spoken to you before about the way you indiscriminately use this phrase or something..."

"I'm sorry."

"It makes you sound uneducated and mentally lazy."

"I'm sorry. I've been trying to avoid it. I guess I just slipped up there."

"Also, I noticed that one of the plates you washed last night still had some grease on it."

"I'm sorry. I suppose you also noticed the glass in the sink this morning."

"Yes, I did."

"I really don't get much positive feedback here."

"Well, I'm sorry to say it, but I really don't feel that there is much positive to say."

"This dinner is nice."

"It's okay," he replied, in a disdainful tone of voice.

While sitting in the cafe, reading and looking out the window at the rain falling down, I did some thinking about my behavior with women. I seem to torture myself with a feeling of deprivation because I don't have a woman to have sex with, but at the same time I deliberately avoid taking steps to find such a woman. Again and again, women seem to invite me to approach them, and I either pretend not to notice their signals, or else run away. Of course, these invitations may not be invitations to have sex but rather invitations to enter into a relationship of the sort I dread—holding hands, giggling, listening to prattling, occasional restrained sex, marriage, living together in a house in suburbia, children, squabbling, a nasty divorce, alimony and child support. But I am always free to walk away if this is what the woman is offering. Surely, out of all these women, at least some are offering something resembling what I want. Namely, regular, passionate sex, adult conversation, separate living arrangements. If no women want what I want, then one option is to engage in a series of short-term affairs, and as soon as the woman demands something I don't want to give, ditch her. Another option is to accept that, all things considered, dancing with women and then masturbating afterwards is plenty adequate for my purposes, and preferable to an unpleasant relationship.

During dance lessons for the tango (from which I learned very little, incidentally), my practice partner became hysterical: "You're not doing it right! You have to stop in the middle! There you go again! Stop! Like this! No, not like that! Wait until I go! You see, you did it again, you stepped first and that's why you stepped on me!" The instructor finally rescued me from this harridan. Later I saw her squatting like a peasant in the middle of the dance floor while everyone else danced around her, almost as if she were doing penance.

The tango dancing nightclub had been used in the afternoon for a series of lectures for singles, with titles like "How to be irresistible to the opposite sex!". Due to delays, the final lecture was still in progress when the tango party began. The following is a fragment of this lecture, given by an boisterous, overweight woman, dressed in a white pantsuit trimmed with sequins:

"Now, you guys, suppose your girlfriend comes home with a brand-new dress and haircut and asks how she looks. What do you say? You look nice? Hey, guys! Get with the act! Polysyllabalabalabic—bluh, did I say that right? No, okay, I may be a professional writer and lecturer but even I have trouble with some words. Try again: po-ly-syl-lab-ic. That what I want to hear from you. Also known as big words, guys! Hear me? Big words! Tell her she looks mag-ni-fi-cient, gor-geous, lus-cious-ly love-ly—that's what she wants to hear, okay? Nice just won't cut it. What's that? Well, it looks like I'm running out of time. As we said before, books for sale in the back. These books are for men, too. Hear that, guys? How many of you women would like to meet a guy who reads books about relationships? Hear that, guys? These women want men who read books about relationships! And now, one last thing everybody. Tonight: dancing. You're all invited to stay and do some tango dancing. Whoopee! The TANGO! Va-va-va-voom! One thing for you women: I want you to promise, are you listening? I want you to promise me that you'll say yes to the first guy who asks you to dance....even if he has a booger hanging out of his nose! AAAARRH! [whoops, screams and peals of laughter from the audience] I woke some of you up I can see! Now really, I hope you guys aren't going to be like that. Are you now? AAAAH! But I mean it. If you women tell a guy no, and the other guys see it, none of them will ever want to ask you to dance again, because they'll be so afraid you'll reject them too. Everyone, good night, I hope you enjoyed it, I sure did!"

The audience, an even mix of men and women, mostly in their thirties, seemed impressed by this lecturer, nodding their heads as she spoke, and then afterwards lining up to buy her book. Most of them left once the tango dancing began in earnest. The lecturer herself lingered an hour or so in the back of the club, signing copies of her book and hobnobbing, then suddenly came rushing out onto the dance floor, dragging along an overweight male companion. The two of them danced for a few minutes in a sort of freestyle manner, laughing, leaping about, not following the beat of music, crossing the line of dance and otherwise disrupting the other dancers. Finally they left, running off the dance floor as fast as they had run on.

I exchanged smiles and hellos with the woman who freaked out at yesterday's lesson, who then positioned herself so as to encourage me to invite her to dance. Though I hold her no grudge, the idea of a repeat of yesterday's performance made me shudder. And indeed, I saw her later dancing with some other men and apparently giving them instructions as she had done with me, though without getting so hysterical.

Helen called in the morning and asked how my search for a new apartment for her was going. It was news to me that I was supposed to be conducting such a search. Then she said in a hushed voice that she had to hang up, as she was at Paul's apartment and he was just coming out of the bathroom. Why isn't she at work? And why is she calling me from his apartment?

The second pair of the shoes which I originally though such a great deal that I bought three pairs at $65 a pair last spring, are now starting to fall apart, after only a month of use. The sole is coming unglued from the upper. I tried gluing it back this evening with a new type of glue, since the glue I used on the first pair didn't work very well. I note this incident to remind myself of what happens when I go on a rampage and buy umpteen copies of something on sale. Instead of saving money, I waste money.

Elizabeth, the voluptuous woman from last week's dance lesson, deliberately approached me during the first practice session in order to be my partner. We pulled close and pressed stomachs together so as to feel the one another's warmth. After the lesson was over, I walked over to where she had taken a seat to put her street shoes back on. "If you'll give me your phone number, I'll call you," I said, handing her my business card. She gave me her business card in return. We couldn't talk long, because I had another class. When I got home, I masturbated to images of fucking her. A tremendous orgasm, which left me panting and shuddering and my whole body twitching for several minutes afterwards.

Lunch with Helen at a cafe. She and Paul quarreled this weekend over the issue of dirty dishes and who was responsible for cleaning them up.

"When two people live together, there shouldn't be this sort of division as to who does the dishes. You do yours, I do mine, this isn't right. We should be sharing," Paul complained.

"Exactly. We should try to make the other person happy. And why is it my fault that I didn't clean the coffee dishes? I should be complaining that you made the mess in the first place," Helen countered.

"This isn't working. I can see it. We just aren't getting along together as a couple."

"Do you want to break up?"

"Do you want to break up? I'll help you pack, if so."

"I'm not leaving tonight. It's too late. I'll leave tomorrow night if you want to break up. You can help me pack then, since you want me out of here so bad."

"I didn't say I wanted you out."

"You always act like you want me out."

"When I want you out, believe me, I'll make it very clear that I want you out."

And so on. Helen felt very stressed afterwards. No sex that night, and they slept with their backs turned to one another.

Helen's sister has asked her to babysit this coming weekend, but Helen refused, because of Valentine's day. Paul might be upset if she spent such a symbolically important day babysitting, instead of doing something romantic. Also, he has been complaining that Helen spends too much time with her family, though, in fact, she spend very little time with them. On average, she visits her parents once a year and calls them on the phone call once a month, and visits her sister less than once a month. "He really has you wrapped around his finger," opined her sister.

I'm feeling utterly bored by my business and computers in general. There are now one hundred and twenty-five emails in my backlog, including many orders that I seem to be ignoring, for some reason. Helen mentioned to me yesterday that she might be asking for significant amounts of assistance in the future with computer issues at her job. For some reason, this prospect interests me, though no money is involved, while my own profitable business bores me. Perhaps my boredom is due to lack of contact with other people. Who knows? I fooled around all morning, then finally managed to process the backlog of telephone, fax and hardcopy orders. My office is an absolute mess, with papers scattered everywhere, just waiting to be lost or accidentally fall into the wastebasket. And yet the business manages to flounder along somehow.

Dinner and drinks at the cafe with Elizabeth. She was born in the south, and moved west after college. She lives in a one-bedroom apartment, with a cat for a pet. Formerly, she lived in the suburbs, but now she prefers the city. She likes to take drives to the country—isolated spots with no other people or cars around—and also to bake cakes and other desserts. "Pastry making demands more precision than most other types of cooking. You have to follow the recipes exactly. I guess that's why I like it. It appeals to my orderly, perfectionist, detail-oriented mind." Her reading is mostly historical type books: memoirs, biographies. She took up ballroom dancing just recently.

I managed to present myself as fairly normal during the course of our evening together, then walked her to her car afterwards, and arranged for us to get together again next week. Then she leaned forward and we kissed lightly on the lips. I didn't hug her strongly, however. As usual in my relationships with women, I seem to have little conscious understanding of what I'm doing or even what I'm trying to accomplish. My behavior, even the words coming out of my mouth, seems to be more instinctual than consciously planned. I'm often surprised at what I say and do, as if it were someone else speaking and acting.

Another lazy day—piddling around all morning and afternoon, not even listening to music or reading, just traipsing back and forth from room to room, rearranging items on my desk, talking aloud to myself, doing calisthenics, daydreaming, masturbating. The most worrisome aspect of this trifling is that I don't seem to be bored by it. On the contrary, I am perfectly content wasting time.

When I returned from the cafe, there was a phone message on my answering machine from the homosexual deejay. I thought I made it clear during our last conversation that I am heterosexual. Though, as I noted before, perhaps he knows something about me that I don't.

One of the waitresses at the cafe had a freshly shaved head, which I thought looked hideous, especially as compared with the long black braid she had before. At first I avoided looking at her, then finally I said hello, acting as if nothing was amiss, though she seemed to sense that I found her new look unattractive. I noticed later, when she went off duty and was sitting and eating dinner alone, that she had a motorcycle helmet resting on the floor beside her chair. So maybe she's a lesbian motorbike dyke. I had previously suspected something of the sort. But why shave her head? Perhaps she has ambivalent feelings towards men, and cannot help feeling aroused when they approach her, but then feels guilty about these feelings of arousal because she identifies herself as a lesbian. To spare herself these guilt feelings, she shaves her head, thus becoming thoroughly unattractive to men, who therefore no longer show her any sexual attentions. Another possibility is that she is depressed and self-destructive. Or maybe she has to undergo brain surgery.

Tango lessons and dancing in the evening. A bad performance. I felt as though I was constantly missing the beat. Most of the women said "thank you, that was very nice", then wandered off so we didn't have a chance to dance another song together. What does that mean? Was I doing well or not? The woman dance instructor, with whom I danced two songs, maintained that I was on the beat and doing very well, though it certainly didn't seem that way to me. A crowded dance floor, with a surplus of women, for once. I danced twice with an absolutely beautiful women in her late thirties, with dense and very fine brown hair, a slender, delicate upper body, and thick calves. The second time she beckoned me over with a nod of her head, having noticed how I was staring at her hungrily. But for whatever reason, I didn't try to make conversation after this second dance, but rather invited her companion out onto the floor. The companion was a much older and, to me, less attractive woman, though also the woman I most enjoyed dancing with, both this week and last. She has an excellent sense of rhythm, keeps her head out of my field of vision, and lets just enough weight rest on me that I can feel her presence without being burdened down. Two salsa songs were thrown in during the evening for variety. I tried dancing the first of these, but lost the beat and otherwise completely screwed up. The woman pushed me away in disgust and we finished the song dancing freestyle. I felt too demoralized after this failure to even attempt dancing the second salsa song.

A competitor's product recently received excellent press coverage in one of the trade magazines. I was flattered to see that this competitor seems to have imitated many of my own ideas and business practices. That this competitor will inevitably begin to take some of my business away doesn't seem to bother me in the least.

I took delivery of some exercise equipment which I ordered last week: another weight vest and a calf stretcher. My plan was to wear two of these weight vests simultaneously. But the second vest kept slipping and digging into my shoulder as I exercised. Despite feeling pain, I stupidly persisted, and so now there is an ugly red gash on my left shoulder where the skin was rubbed away, which will take at least a week to heal. Also, the calf stretcher doesn't provide a better stretch than I was getting by simply leaning against the wall. All told, a waste of about $162 on this equipment. I shouldn't feel guilty, however. Few things have given me as much pleasure in life as physical exercise, so it makes sense to occasionally experiment with new ideas and equipment, and to accept that some of these experiments will fail. Also, given my rent of $1250 a month, $162 is insignificant.

A customer sent some email wondering if I had gone out of business, since there seemed to be no recent updates to my web site—how embarrassing!

I called Elizabeth and arranged for a dinner date tomorrow. I told her I'd wait up to thirty minutes after the appointed meeting time, and if she didn't show by then, I'd give up. "The thirty minute rule" I called it. Why tell her this? I've never told any other woman something like this before a date, that I can recall. And then at the last dance lesson, I showed her a list of instructions I've been writing up in a spreadsheet for the ballroom dance steps. It's like I'm trying to make her think I'm some hyper-organized computer freak.

Helen called, asking if I had just called her, since she had received a call but no sound came out, and she suspects her phone might be broken. Am I the only person who ever calls her? Or did she just want to talk to me and so used the broken phone as an excuse? I asked how things were between her and Paul, and she was evasive. So apparently they have reconciled.

An amazingly lazy day. I just lay on the sofa daydreaming and listening to music, without even bothering to read anything. I'm currently ignoring all sorts of email and faxes, including several thousand dollars of orders.

Dinner with Elizabeth at a restaurant, where we discussed various topics. Her siblings are all married and living with children in the middle-class suburbs. The men of her family are all football fanatics. "They don't understand my lifestyle at all. For example, they are amazed that I'm not a football fan myself. They would never understand why I want to learn ballroom dancing. They can't understand why I ever wanted to leave the south." Though she didn't come out and say so explicitly, I get the impression that she doesn't want to have children. She likes to travel and take classes—ballroom dancing, foreign languages, cooking, fashion. She enjoys many activities alone, but would like a companion. Most of her friends are now married and have children, and she finds she has little to say to them anymore.

After dinner, we briefly stopped in at the salsa dancing nightclub, but didn't stay long because it was almost empty. As we left, I asked, "Would you like to go to my apartment?" She put on a shocked looking expression, as if my proposition were offensive. Her words, however, were fairly calm: "I don't know. It might be hard to find parking." So what we did instead was return to the restaurant at which we had eaten earlier, where we sat and talked for an hour in the bar, after which she drove me home. I leaned over to kiss her goodnight. When our lips met, she put her tongue into my mouth. I put my hand behind her head, pulled our faces together, and we tongue kissed for several minutes. "You're very passionate," she said. We resumed kissing, in the course of which I fondled her, though it was difficult to feel her body since she was bundled up in an overcoat. When I tried to rub her crotch (having finally managed to work my way inside the overcoat), she gently pushed my hand away. We kissed a total of about ten minutes, then we arranged to get together again tomorrow.

I cleaned the apartment in anticipation of a possible visit from Elizabeth. In particular, Iscrubbed away two years of soap and hard water deposits in the bathtub.

My mind is inflamed with thoughts like the following: "Women don't want sex. I have never met a woman who truly enjoyed sex the way a man does. Women with supposedly strong sexual appetites are actually trying to fill some emotional hole left over from childhood. Sex for these women is an attempt to get a man to be their surrogate father, to love them the way their real father never did. Which is a doomed attempt, of course, since no adult, man or woman, will ever feel towards them the way a parent normally feels towards a child. The only way a man can get a woman to willingly have sex is by somehow tricking her with psychological mind games. Other than money, men have nothing to offer women." It occurred to me that I might be the one who dreads real sex, and not women.

As it is, my sex drive seems to have shut down, perhaps due to not masturbating, perhaps because I'm saving my sexual energy for Elizabeth. For example, while tango dancing last night, I felt no sense of arousal when pressing against a pretty young woman with whom I would normally have gotten very aroused. When another man began talking to her, I immediately withdrew, as if happy to escape from a woman who might want sex from me. And then this morning, I woke up with no erection, my cock and ball both shriveled up and without sensation, and feeling absolutely no desire for sex. For a while I was worried that I might be impotent with Elizabeth. And then the worry turned to hope that I would be impotent, since that would provide an excuse for ending whatever relationship we currently have.

Upon returning home from the library, I looked anxiously at my answering machine, checking for messages. What was I looking for? I suddenly realized that I wanted Elizabeth to cancel our date, that I wanted to end our relationship, that I wanted to return to masturbation, that I was angry that my masturbatory sex life had been interrupted by this woman.

But she didn't cancel. Instead, she arrived exactly on schedule. We had previously agreed that each of us would come up with a plan for how to spend the evening, and then we would choose one of these plans. My plan was for her to park her car in my neighborhood, and then for us to walk to some nearby restaurant and possibly a nightclub afterwards. One aspect of my plan that I didn't explicitly reveal, was that by parking nearby, we could easily return to my apartment and have sex and then sleep together. Her plan was to go to a restaurant in a different neighborhood, too far away for us to walk. Given that my plan was so vague, and that she had taken the trouble to pick me up in her car, and that she had let me plan the first two dates, I thought it only fair to accept her plan. As regards the sex afterwards, I figured we could just go to her apartment instead of mine.

A long pleasant conversation at the restaurant, about various light topics—real estate, travel, fashion through the ages, some aspects of our families, and so on. Afterwards, we drove to a club, ordered drinks and continued the conversation. All seemed to be going well, until the music started. Because we were sitting side by side—the only seating available—to look at the band, we had to turn away from one another. This awkwardness, together with the loudness of the music, made it difficult to carry on a conversation. So for about forty-five minutes, we sat silently watching the band play. Elizabeth seemed fidgety. I suspected this was because she wanted me to put my arm around her, and was frustrated that I didn't.

In any case, when the band finally took a break, she said coldly, "I think we're having communication problems." I asked what she meant by that statement and she explained that she "wanted a man who talked to her instead of forcing her to make the conversation, that she was shy by nature and wanted a man who would draw her out, instead of sitting quietly as I was doing." We proceeded to have a sort of question and answer session. I would first ask a probing question, to which she would give an answer, then I would pick apart the reasoning in this answer.

"Why were you attracted to me?" I asked.

"I'm not sure. I guess because you were shy and didn't seem to like me," she replied.

"You wanted me because I was shy? I thought you said you wanted a man who would draw you out in conversation, since you yourself are shy. Though you don't seem particularly shy to me, I might add. Quiet, perhaps, but not shy. But in any case, for what you said you wanted, it seems as if the last thing you would want would be a shy man. And why would you be attracted to a man who doesn't like you?"

When the band resumed, the noise level once again became such as to make it difficult to conduct a conversation, and so we left the club, repaired to her car, and sat and talked there. I asked her why she had left her previous boyfriend.

"Because he wasn't good enough for me. That sounds pretty cold but it's true. He had money problems. He didn't make much money and he didn't seem to be willing to put forth any effort to change that situation. So I could see that I might end up supporting him someday. And he dressed sloppily. I know that sounds superficial, but I take pains to dress nicely, and I found it embarrassing to be seen with him the way he was dressed. In general, I wasn't proud to be seen with him. He didn't stimulate me intellectually. He seemed to want me to accept him the way he was. He was also needy and dependent. I just thought I could do much better. Though he did have some good points. He put a great deal of energy into trying to make our relationship work. He wanted it to work, and I respected him for that. But he wouldn't put the same energy into improving himself."

This issue of dress is one of my current pet topics, and I couldn't resist sharing my opinions on the subject: "Dressing well is a social obligation. Sloppy dressing is bad manners. It's like spitting on the sidewalk or littering or using loud vulgar language in a restaurant. It ruins the environment for everyone else."

Then she asked why I left my previous girlfriends, and so I discussed both Karen and Helen. Somehow we got onto the subject of her childhood, and she mentioned that her father had died of heart attack at age forty-two, due to heavy drinking and smoking, leaving her mother with give children to raise. Her father had been an unsuccessful salesman, so perhaps the family fell into poverty after his death. He also supposedly was in the habit of making statements like, "I may die young, but I've certainly enjoyed myself", in order to justify his drinking, smoking, overeating, gambling and other self-destructive vices.

Finally, we launched into a long discussion of what we each wanted from a relationship. She said she wanted someone who shares common interests, a partner to felt proud of, respect, and sex. "I'm looking for a sex partner," I told her. Eventually, the conversation died and she drove me home.

"Do you want to come up to my apartment?" I asked, without much enthusiasm.

"I don't think so," she said, in a sneering tone I thought, as if to say: "you must be joking, how could you possibly expect me to go up to your apartment and have sex after tonight?"

Then she unbuckled her seatbelt. I found this a curious gesture. Did she expect me to kiss her passionately the way I had the night before? I was annoyed by her, and without the desire to hug or kiss, but thought it would seem petty and childish to simply slip out of the car without even attempting either. So I waved my hand as if in perplexity.

"Well, do you want me to kiss you?" I asked. She leaned over as if to kiss, but then turned her head at the last minute, so that we embraced instead of kissing. I put little energy into my share of the embrace, but rather just limply patted her back.

"I appreciate your honesty," she said.

"Sure. Well, see you around."

When I got to my apartment, I felt as if a burden had been lifted from my shoulders, as if all the responsibility for making this relationship work was now in her hands. I wasn't particularly annoyed at her refusal to have sex, though I did feel some disgust towards her. I continued to feel sexually dead, but was determined to have an orgasm before going to sleep. I tried one fantasy after another, without success: my cock remained limp. Finally, I imagined having Elizabeth suck my cock and balls while masturbating me with her hands, and then coming in her mouth. My cock quickly hardened from this fantasy and I came with a powerful orgasm.

Sonya called, asking for assistance installing some software on her computer. I suggested it would be easier to help if I visited, and she agreed. The software is for a class in computer marketing, which she is taking at the local university. She is feeling overwhelmed by the course work. My opinion is that she is woefully unprepared for this class. Most of the other students are probably already working for local companies in the computer industry, and thus have much more experience than she with the industry, the technical terminology, and computers in general. In any case, we resolved the computer issue, then went for lunch at a nearby cafe. She asked me what I had been up to since our last conversation, and eventually I got to talking about my love life. I said I thought my budding relationship with Elizabeth was about to be nipped in the bud unless Elizabeth took some drastic move, such as offering to have sex with me.

"I can't be friends with her because there is too much sexual tension between us. She is denying her own sexual desire. If she wants to be my friend, she has to have less desire for me. And if she wants to be my lover, she has to act on her desire. As it is, we're in a sort of state of limbo. I don't plan to call her, so it's up to her to call me," I said.

"Do you think that if two people have sex, then eventually that will develop into more than sex?" Sonya asked.

"Well, of course, sex is a very intimate act. If two people have sex over a period of years, they can't help but develop a close relationship, just as two people who work together or are roommates over a long period of time will also eventually develop some sort of relationship. But this relationship might not be friendship. It might be utter disgust with and contempt for the other person. You might have a situation where you work with someone and eventually come to hate that person, but you can't leave because you need the job. Well, similarly, you might continue to have sex with someone you don't really like, just because you want sex. Friendship and sexual desire are two different things."

This was a heavily charged conversation, of course, since much of what I said in regards to Elizabeth applies to Sonya as well. She can only be my friend if we have little sexual desire for one another, according to my theory. But if, on the other hand, there is sexual desire between us (as is obviously the case), then I should be insisting she act on that desire. Why do I insist that Elizabeth act on her desire, but not Sonya? I seem to accept that Sonya can be ambivalent about sex, but not Elizabeth.

I then mentioned Mark's visit last month, and how he and I had gone on a tour of gay bars when he visited two years ago. Sonya was very eager to hear the details of what goes on in these bars. "Tell me, tell me, I want to know about other people's lives," she pleaded, opening her eyes wide and reaching her hand across the table, like a child begging for a sweet. So I described how I had seen the men having sex in the bathrooms and whatnot. Then she discussed some interesting people she had met recently. Businessmen who looked like Mafiosi, hippies, lesbians who wanted to have sex with her.

"Why me? I'm not lesbian. What do they expect of me?" she asked.

"You're an attractive young woman who looks like she has an open mind, and won't act disgusted by their propositions. They don't want you to do anything to them. They want to do things to you. Both men and lesbians—everyone wants to do things to you," I said. Sonya seemed to squirm in her seat with excitement at this statement.

We returned to her house after eating, and I resumed working on the computer, sitting in front of it while she stood at my side watching. Every so often I would turn to say something to her, but instead of looking up at her face, my eyes remained level and stared at her crotch, which was positioned not far from my face. She seemed to sense and be excited by my desire to pull her pants down and smell and lick her cunt. Meanwhile she was sniffing constantly and audibly—trying to pick up my scent, I would imagine. Probably she felt self-conscious about the sounds she was making, because she volunteered that she was checking for cigarette smoke smell in the room, though this explanation makes little sense. If she smokes, then of course, there will probably be some smoke smell, but I have repeatedly said I don't mind smoke smell. And if she doesn't like smoke smell herself, then why does she smoke? Also, there was no smoke smell in the room, that I could detect, at least.

We embraced several times before parting, but still no kiss on the lips. Again, she turned her head so that I kissed her instead on the cheek. Nevertheless, I invited her tango dancing next week. She agreed, though I expect her to cancel later.

On the way home, I ran into the pretty young woman with whom I had danced tango the other night and told her about another tango nightclub that I would be attending tonight. She seemed pleased to see me, and so I gave her directions on how to walk to the club. We danced there several songs together, but I seemed to be missing the beat, though she insisted she was enjoying herself. Afterwards, we sat down and talked briefly, then I suggested she dance with some of the other men, and drifted away. Another of these attractive and intelligent young woman who seems interested in me, but who I deliberately drive away or don't pursue. I noticed two women with freshly shaved heads, similar to that of the waitress at the cafe last week. Maybe this is the latest fashion trend, and not a sign of some psychological disorder, as I had speculated. I doubt many men will find it attractive, however.

There is a huge backlog of email, faxes and hardcopy correspondence, but I was too lazy to attend to any of this. I decided to cancel my advertising contract, thus eliminating my largest single business expense. My net worth is approaching $1.5 million, which is all the money I'll ever need in life. So it makes no sense to continue working when I don't want to.

I spent the day lying on the sofa listening to music, and contemplating what I would say to Elizabeth at the dance lesson tonight. In particular, trying to decide between being rude, or being contemptuously polite. At the post office, I found a long letter from her, which I read and meditated upon while sitting at the cafe. Lots of mumbo-jumbo about wanting respect and "romance" and "security" rather than just sex.

"And how are you doing tonight?" I asked Elizabeth at the dance studio.

"Fine. Did you get my letter?" she replied.

"Yes, and I plan to write you one. I would talk to you this evening, but I have another class after this one. But I'll call you in a few days, after I've written you my letter."

We danced briefly, with the same powerful sexual chemistry as before. The dance instructor, who I have been avoiding ever since I first invited Elizabeth out, seemed to notice us talking together and dancing in a close embrace.

I wrote the following letter when I got home. Elizabeth's letter had been handwritten, but mine was printed. So, I copied out the first few sentences of my letter long-hand, to give her a sample of what my handwriting looks like, in case she wants to analyze it.

When you first came on strong to me, I did not approach you afterwards because I was eager to be "satisfied sexually". On the contrary, the easy, the stress-free, the natural thing for me to do is run away from women, and then satisfy myself by masturbating. I wasn't lying when I told you I was very happy living alone. I am by no means fully enthusiastic about disrupting this pleasant lifestyle I have now with a passionate love affair, and all the stress that entails.

My feelings towards you were and still are ambivalent, just as they've been towards all women with whom I've felt sexual attraction. Deep down, I probably want you to reject me at least as much as I want you to accept me. There are two conflicting aspects to my personality: a solitary ascetic intellectual, and a man with a strong sex drive. The solitary ascetic intellectual is my true destiny and will eventually win out, but only when I'm much older and my sex drive is weaker. In the meantime, I am sort of forced to accommodate this beast within me that wants to smell and lick and fuck women's bodies.

As for the various things you say you want from me and which you lumped under the label romantic and silly—flowers, poetry, sweet talk, love letters—these are indeed, in my opinion, silly substitutes for the real thing, which is sex. The most you can expect from me in the way of romance is for me to escort you to restaurants, nightclubs, parties and the like. And then afterwards I expect us to be having sex. So you think carefully. Do you want to suck my cock and have me lick you cunt and then have me stick my cock in your cunt. Because if not, then I really don't see the point of us seeing one another any more.

As for your talk of wanting security, my view is that when the sexual energy goes away, it goes away and the relationship is over. Maybe we'll stay friends afterwards, maybe not. I'm certainly not planning to chain myself to a woman who I don't enjoy having sex with.

I masturbated before going to sleep at about three in the morning. My new plan is to masturbate at night instead of in the morning, in preparation for sex with Elizabeth, even though my sexual desire is more intense in the morning and not masturbating in the morning means I am distracted by sex thoughts all day long.

Helen called with some computer questions. I mentioned Elizabeth and our exchange of letters. "Oh, my God! You wrote her a letter? Well, you blew it, I'm sure. Whatever you said, knowing you, I'm sure you've driven her off. Bring a copy of the letter, though. I want to look at it." We agreed to have lunch together tomorrow.

Lunch with Helen. I approached her on the sidewalk as if to kiss, but she slipped away.

"No physical contact. Paul may be having lunch in the area today, and I don't want him to see us together," she explained.

"If you're worried about offending him, then you two must be getting along well," I suggested.

"Yes, you could say that."

However, they did have a minor argument recently, regarding Paul's freshly squeezed orange juice. Several weeks ago, they had quarreled about who was responsible for cleaning his dirty coffee-making apparatus. Helen objected that he often made a mess with the coffee during other than ordinary meal times. "It's your luxury to make coffee whenever you want, so you should clean it up, since it's not part of the regular dishwashing," she told him. Though Paul agreed to clean up in the future, secretly he retaliated, by no longer making freshly squeezed orange juice for both her and himself, but rather only for himself. Helen noticed this and asked him why he no longer made her orange juice, and he explained, somewhat apologetically: "I felt very bad denying you. I want to make you freshly squeezed orange juice." Helen replied that she would like him to do so, though now she worries that he will feel obligated to make her orange juice, and he will eventually resent this obligation.

The issue of the oranges has already resurfaced at least once since, during an argument they were having over money. Paul had requested that Helen save less for retirement—at most 10%, instead of the 15% she currently saves. Helen objected to this request. Then, while discussing spending, the subject of the oranges came up.

"I feel like I'm subsidizing you with all those oranges you use for squeezing orange juice. I'm the one who buys them all the time," she complained.

"What do you want, an itemized accounting of every penny we spend at the grocery store, and then we figure out how much each of us has to pay based on what we consume? And what about your apples? I don't complain about how much those cost, do I?" Paul countered.

Meanwhile, Paul still hasn't found a job. I warned Helen that nagging him to find one would accomplish nothing. "Better just to enjoy the next few months. But prepare a parachute. This love plane is about to crash. He's heading for bankruptcy, as I predicted long ago. The difference between him and me is that I would have no problems with working at a menial job, if I couldn't get any other and I needed money. But he won't do that. Instead, he'll try to sponge off you."

For Valentine's day, he bought her an expensive crystal paperweight from a chi-chi department store. Then they spent the whole day in bed, having vaginal sex without a condom (normally they just have anal sex). "He launched a sneak attack," said Helen, showing no remorse. So now she might be pregnant. They've even been talking about names for a baby.

I showed Helen the letter to Elizabeth.

"Oh, well, that's it. You obviously wanted to drive her off and you've done it. She'll never speak to you again," she said, shaking her head.

"Why?" I asked.

"You know why. It's crude what you said there."

"Oh? And why shouldn't I let her know what I'm thinking. Anyway, I'm not worried. She loves me. And if she doesn't, then I don't care if I offended her."

"How do you know she loves you?"

"I just know."

"You love her, too."

"Maybe. Anyway, if she ditches me now, then I'm just back where I'm started. I'm not worried. I feel very confident and pleased with myself.

"I'm feeling tired. I have to go back to work."

Sitting on my desk is a huge stack of unprocessed faxes and hardcopy mail, including thousands of dollars in orders. But instead of doing anything about this, I lay on the sofa all day, without even bothering to answer the phone.

Tango lesson in the evening, where I seem to be making good progress. I noticed that the music played during lessons is easier to dance to than what is played at the nightclub. In particular, the beat during lessons is stronger, slower, and more regular. Why do I have all this enthusiasm for learning dancing and spanish, but none for my business?

The homosexual deejay called yet again, wanting to come by and visit, or else take me out somewhere. I told him I was going to bed early because I had been out dancing all week. He asked who I went dancing with. I replied that I went alone and asked strange women to dance. I try to make it clear that I'm heterosexual, but evidently he is convinced that I'm really homosexual, but just don't realize it, and he wants to be the one to "turn me out". I showed no enthusiasm in answering his questions, so eventually he got the message that I wasn't interested, and we said goodbye. "Perhaps some other time," he suggested. "Maybe," I replied. It is conceivable—just barely conceivable—that he is straight and interested in me for other than sexual reasons. In any case, I don't feel like bringing up the subject of homosexuality, because that would lead to a much deeper conversation and relationship than I want to have with this individual, who's becoming increasingly tiresome.

I called Elizabeth in the morning to discuss my letter, which she called "shocking", but which didn't seem to have upset her particularly, from what I could sense.

"I'm sorry I got somewhat upset last week," she said.

"Nothing to apologize for. A little anger is good in love. Anger is energy," I replied.

"Well, as I said, I thought you were acting indifferently towards me."

"What I thought was that you wanted me to put my arm around you when the music started. That's what normal lovers would do. Rest against one another and listen to the music. But I didn't want to put my arm around you because it just didn't feel right, given that we hadn't had sex yet, and so we ended up sitting apart with our arms crossed like we'd just had a quarrel. I was hardly indifferent to you, nor am I indifferent now."

"Your letter certainly made that clear. But what I said about security, I meant that."

"What security are you talking about? Right now I feel that I want to be with you forever. But realistically, this feeling might not last. All men in love feel like they want to be with the woman forever. It a sort of self-delusion that men fall into easily. I know that a day will come, when I'm old, when I'll want to be completely alone, living in a cheap efficiency in the inner-city, looking out my window at the drunks and prostitutes and panhandlers and derelicts and misfits of society wandering in the streets."

"Is that what you want now?"

"No, not now. But a day will come when I'm through with love affairs. So if you want a man who'll be with you forty years from now, I don't know what to say."

"I'm not worried about forty years from now. I may not even be alive then. I just want to know that I can speak up in a relationship and not have it end on me."

"I wouldn't worry about that. You've already spoken up with me and so what?"

"And what about what you said about running from women?"

"Yes, that's true. Than again, I don't seem to be running from you."

We had to interrupt the conversation after about fifteen minutes, as she had to leave to meet a friend. I promised to call her later this week.

In the afternoon, Helen stopped by.

"Have you talked to Elizabeth since you wrote her that letter?" she asked.

"Yes, we talked this morning. We had a pleasant chat."

"She isn't upset?" Helen asked, in a tone of disappointment.

"No, because she loves me and I love her and she knows it."

"Well, well."

I petted Helen's crotch while she discussed her latest quarrel with Paul. She had asked him to drive her to her apartment because she felt too sick to walk. He refused, saying: "You're always either sick or tired."

"I consider this grounds for breaking up," Helen declared to me.

"This doesn't seem too serious an offense. If I was in his place, I might also have refused to drive you," I replied.

"Of course, because you're worse than he ever could be. That is one consolation I have. Whenever I think of what it was like living with you, it makes me realize my life now isn't really so bad. Why do I always get these selfish boyfriends? A primary criterion for my next boyfriend is going to be whether he will drive me home when I feel sick. My father didn't act this way with my mother. When she nearly fell off that cliff, did he just walk off? Oh, well, sorry dear. It was your idea to walk along the cliff and so you're just going to have to suffer the consequences. No, he stayed by her side and hung on and helped drag her to safety. And what if I get pregnant? Would he take me to the hospital when it's time to deliver? Or does he expect me to call a cab?"

"How about sex these days between you two lovebirds? Still strictly anal?" I asked.

"Not much of anything. I've been holding him off by telling him it's my period."

"Now, sweetie, you can only use that excuse once a month, unless the man is very stupid."

"I told him it was a delayed period. Takes longer than normal."

"And he swallowed that?"

"It's true. I feel like it's my period, but it really isn't. Not yet at least. Anyone, he's leaving me alone for now."

"You sound like me. Waking up each morning and thinking, what lame excuse will I use today to explain to customers why I haven't answered their email. Are you planning to marry this man?"

"He doesn't want to marry me until I'm provably fertile, which means I have to get pregnant first."

"You don't want to have sex with him. He doesn't want to marry unless you are solid breeding stock. This is really a hell of a relationship you two have. I certainly hope you have the sense not to get pregnant until he does marry you, assuming that's what you want."

"Anyway, I have to get back. He's probably anxious that I've taken so long as it is."

"You've only been here ten minutes!"

"He doesn't like me to be away for any length of time. And don't try to kiss me, either. He might smell you on me."

I called Sonya about the tango dancing this evening. As I had expected would happen, she had changed her mind and was no longer interested. She also seemed to be in an unfriendly mood. Not surprising, since I'm treating her like a friend instead of a potential lover, which is something of an insult, given that she is an attractive young woman, and that there is obvious sexual chemistry between us, and that neither of us currently has a lover.

I skipped going to the cafe today due to a huge backlog of work. Not that I was particularly efficient or diligent in processing this backlog. Quite the contrary, in fact. I lay in bed until noon, masturbating and daydreaming, then frittered away another couple of hours on calisthenics, bathing and a late and leisurely breakfast. In the evening, I did okay at ballroom dance lessons, despite feeling irritable and impatient with my partners. My whole body feels tense, as if I need a good massage. I couldn't resist buying a pint of chocolate ice cream at the corner store on the way home, then ate the whole thing and felt disgusted with myself afterwards. To bed around midnight, after masturbating to images of some woman spreading her legs wide so as to let me penetrate as deeply as possible.

For a change, I tried to answer phone calls today as they arrived, instead of letting the machine answer and then being faced with a backlog. I let such a backlog develop last week, and dread having it happen again. Between phone calls, I lay in bed, daydreaming and fondling myself. I couldn't resist an orgasm. Though I'm trying to train myself to only come at night, in preparation for sex with Elizabeth. In the afternoon, I rushed to process the most pressing of the backlog of fax and email orders and inquiries before my daily post office run. There remains a huge backlog of hardcopy mail. About forty envelopes piled up on my desk, containing checks, orders, and bills.

Lisa invited me to join her at the symphony later this week. She has free tickets and none of her other friends wants to go. I accepted, though not with great enthusiasm. The evening promises just enough novelty—my first time at the symphony, dinner at a new restaurant—to counterbalance Lisa's boring companionship. I'm starting to wonder about my the resolution I made at the start of this year to "broaden my circle of acquaintances". These friends seem like more trouble than they're worth, what with this tiresome business of reciprocal invitations.

I called Elizabeth in the afternoon. She is going to the hospital in a few days to be tested for some sort of digestive problems, and so might be feeling out of sorts this weekend. I suggested we get together tomorrow.

"What do you want to do?" she asked.

"You know what I want to do," I replied.

"Now, listen, I don't want us dating on that premise. I don't agree with everything in that letter of yours, you understand."

"Oh, listen, it's all by mutual agreement. No is forced to do anything."

"What about tango dancing?"

And so we agreed to go tango dancing tomorrow. After she had hung up, I felt angry, as if she were deliberately denying me sex in order to torment me. I masturbated twice, in order to get rid of my desire for sex and thus punish her in return.

At the tango dancing in the evening, Elizabeth and I did poorly together at first, for various reasons. This was her first time dancing tango, she doesn't have a natural talent for dancing, I'm something of a beginner myself, and there was still some tension between us after our exchange of letters. She suggested I try dancing with some of the other women, and I did so. Upon finishing this dance, I came back to find Elizabeth gone, and wondered if she had left in a fit of pique at something I had done. In fact, she had simply gone to the restroom. During our last dance together, I clasped her in a very tight hold, which she seemed to enjoy. We stayed at the club until midnight, then she drove me home. We had a pleasant conversation on the way.

When we arrived at my apartment building, we both unbuckled our seatbelts. I leaned over to kiss her, whereupon she grasped my head from behind with her hand to pull me closer and pressed her tongue into my mouth. So evidently, all animosity, if there ever was any, is forgotten. We necked heavily after this for about twenty minutes. I fingered her cunt and kissed her breasts, she stroked my cock, which was solidly hard, and felt my chest and stomach. During a break, she asked me what I was thinking.

"You're everything I want in a woman. I'll bring you flowers, too, if that's what you really want," I said.

"Yes, yes, I do want flowers! And poetry," she said.

"Okay, I'll bring you a poem. Though I'm not a great fan of poetry, unless as part of a song set to music."

We both wanted to continue kissing, but she had to get home, in order to be up early tomorrow for her visit to the hospital. I promised to call her this weekend.

My finger was saturated with her cunt smell afterwards. I held it to my nose while masturbating and came with an explosive orgasm—semen shooting all the way to my ear.

Lunch with Helen. Her period is now over a week late, which she alleges has never happened to her before. So she thinks she's pregnant. Paul was happy to hear this, patted her stomach and talked baby talk, but then threatened to leave when she said might want to keep her own maiden name if they got married: "We're at opposite ends of the spectrum. This isn't going to work." He also accused her of not really loving him: "All you wanted was someone to settle down with, and I happened along." This is partly true, though it is also true that she selected and approached him as the man she wanted to have an affair with. She seemed very anxious about being abandoned now that she is pregnant.

"You're the only one who really understands me. And we get along fine now. Why couldn't things have worked out between us?" she asked.

"You know why: your sexual problems, for one thing. And we get along because we only see one another infrequently. I warned you about getting pregnant," I said.

"Look at you, you're gloating."

"I'm not gloating. And I'm not upset with you. I'm concerned that you don't appreciate the situation you're in. Whether Paul loves you, whether you love him, whether he wants the child—all this is irrelevant. What is important right now is money. How will you pay for a child if Paul abandons you? Raising a child is hard work. Babies need twenty-four hour a day supervision, to speak nothing of diaper changing, and special foods, and irregular sleep habits. Some babies cry all night long, and there's nothing you can do to stop it. After six years, the child goes to school, and you're home free. But those first few years are difficult. If you raise the child yourself, you won't have an income. And if you use daycare, then you'll have to pay for it, and daycare is expensive."

"I was hoping you might be able to help me out."

"Helen, I warned you before, don't count on that. What if I'm living with Elizabeth? How do I explain that I'm supporting another woman and her child? And it isn't even my child!"

"You said you weren't really interested in children yourself. So what difference if it isn't yours? You can still help me raise it. You can be its uncle."

"What about your parents? Have you thought about going to live with them?"

"I'll have shamed them. A scarlet woman. Pregnant out of wedlock. And I was planning to bring Paul to visit them next month. Now I don't know whether to buy the ticket. That's a month off and we might have broken up by then. Maybe I could get an abortion. That would definitely end it between me and Paul."

"I can offer no opinion on that subject. If you want an abortion, fine. You'll be depressed afterwards, of that I'm sure. You obviously wanted to get pregnant..."

"It wasn't me! He launched a Valentine's day sneak attack. That's only time we've had normal sex in months. All the times before and after we've been doing it the other way. And that one time, he did it without a condom. He ruined me and now he's going to abandon me."

"Look at it this way, you've done slightly better than you would have done with a sperm bank. You didn't have to pay to be inseminated, you got to personally select the man you wanted to get you pregnant, and not just pick someone out of a catalog. And if he abandons you, then you have pictures and memories so the child will know something about what it's father was like, which you wouldn't have with the sperm bank. You obviously considered him good breeding stock, or you wouldn't have let him impregnate you. I mean, this isn't the first time he's had unprotected sex with you."

"At least I know I'm fertile."

We walked down the street to a secluded park, where we continued our conversation. On the way, she reached for and clutched my hand, as if wanting to be my girlfriend again.

Afterwards, I reflected on the possibility of giving her $15,000 a year for six years, in case Paul abandons her. That sum, plus $10,000 a year from her savings and parents, should be sufficient for her to raise the child to point where it would be ready for school and she could return to working. Though I didn't tell her so, I seemed to be happy to hear that she was pregnant, since that is what she has long wanted. Had it been my own child, I might have been panicky at the thought of responsibility. Since it is another man's child, I have no real moral or legal obligation to help. I thus maintain my independence, which is probably more important to me than propagating my genes into the next generation. Or am I just rationalizing? Would I have preferred it to be my own child? Why do I care so much about her happiness, but at the same time don't want to live with her or get her pregnant myself? My behavior with her resembles the way most men act with their sisters. I can certainly afford to give her $90,000, without feeling much pain.

A painfully boring evening at the symphony with Lisa. We had absolutely nothing to say to one another.

I called Elizabeth in the morning and we agreed that I would go to her house in the afternoon. We didn't discuss what we would do tonight, other than that it would be a quiet evening. In particular, there was no mention of sex, though clearly that is what we are both planning. I bought a bunch of flowers on the way to her apartment, and also brought a poem I copied from a book, in accordance with her desire for "flowers and poetry".

Her apartment reminds me of Karen's, with respect to furnishing and general appearance: tidy, pastel color scheme, back issues of "women's" magazines lying about, watercolor reproductions on the walls, collections of earrings and lipsticks, a cat, a variety of plants on the back porch, a smallish collection of coffee-table type books.

We walked to a nearby restaurant for dinner, where the conversation touched on various topics, but mostly on sex and love. Her mother's second marriage was to a man (her step-father) who her mother didn't really love, but who she thought would be a "good provider." The result, in Elizabeth's opinion, was misery for both of them: "He could do nothing to please her, because she didn't love him." Then we discussed various books and their sexual undertones, such as Dracula and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

Elizabeth was preparing tea in the kitchen when I leaned forward to kiss her. She responded passionately. "I guess we can forget the tea," she said. I agreed, and so we went to the living room where she lay down on the sofa and we kissed some more. At first she was reluctant to let me take off her bra. "I thought we were going to have a peaceful evening," she said. "Of course," I replied, lifting the bra over her breast. I kissed her nipples for several minutes, then again tried to undo the bra from behind. This time she offered no resistance, but rather leaned forward to assist me, so I proceed to take the rest of her clothes off, and mine as well. We lay on the carpet, our naked bodies touching and kissing again, then I shifted my body down and licked her cunt. She didn't seem particularly enthusiastic, and after a while pulled me up.

"Did I hurt you?" I asked.

"No," she said.

"Don't you like it? I can do it softer or harder, whatever you want."

"I just don't feel comfortable."

"Why? I like doing it."

"I know, but I feel self-conscious."

"You shouldn't. I like the way it smells and tastes."

This last statement was true, other than that she wasn't as aroused as I would have preferred. Nothing I could do made her legs quiver, which is how I am accustomed to women responding when I perform cunnilingus correctly.

"Do you want to suck me?" I asked.

"I don't want to do that," she replied, sharply.

"It turns me on."

"I know, but I just don't feel ready. It's just too intimate."

"I want to be intimate with you."

"All good things in due course. But not tonight. After my medical test, I just don't want anything else shoved down my throat."

So we resumed kissing on the mouth, and also rubbing our pelvis's together, which is how I ordinarily get my cock hard. But nothing happened.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"I don't know. It doesn't seem to be working," I said.

"Don't you want me?"

"Sure. You saw how I had an erection in the kitchen and then again on the sofa. You felt them with your hand, and you felt the one the other day in the car. I don't know what the problem is."

We resumed kissing, and finally just lay together silently on the floor, hugging tightly, my limp cock pressed against her thighs, listening to her cat roaming about the apartment and the cars and buses passing outside. It was about midnight when we finally stood up, walked to her bedroom and got into bed together, where we tried, unsuccessfully, to go to sleep. Finally, she turned towards me.

"I can't sleep," she said.

"I don't know what went wrong," I replied.

"I'm puzzled. After your letter, this is the last thing I would have expected."

"Like I said earlier, you saw that I don't have a physical problem. You felt my erection in the kitchen and also in the car the other day. Also, though you haven't seen it for yourself, I can assure you that I have erections by myself with no difficulty. And also with other women. So I don't think there is a physical problem."

"Then what is it?"

"Well, if not a physical problem, then obviously a psychological problem. Of course, it might be a temporary physical problem. The later at night it gets, then the harder it is for me to get an erection. So maybe we should just wait until tomorrow and try again then."

"I can't remember ever having this happen before."

"It happens seldom with me. Perhaps one in fifty episodes of sex. Mostly due to physical exhaustion—too late at night, I'm sick, that sort of thing."

"Don't you want to please me?"

"Sure, I want to please you. At least consciously. Perhaps unconsciously I don't. Who knows? I'm a very confused person and always have been. Look at me and my business."

And here we went off on a long discussion of that tiresome topic. Afterwards, we lay in silence until eventually I fell asleep. Because I snored, she left the bedroom and tried sleeping on the sofa, without much success, however.

We both woke early, with neither of us having slept very well. I apologized for snoring. She kissed me and then we both slipped into her bed, where she tried stroking my cock. Then suddenly, I felt the desire to fuck her hard, and so rolled on top of her and began kissing her on the mouth, then reached down and felt my cock, which had stiffened. It wasn't a rock solid erection, but was good enough to put on a condom and get inside her. I fucked her for about ten minutes, in the riding high position, meaning the top of my cock rubs against her clitoris and I move my cock up and down, instead of in and out. I waited until she seemed to have come, then let myself relax and have an orgasm of my own. We lay in silence for a long while afterwards, kissing and hugging.

"I'm glad you figured out so soon how to give me an orgasm," she said at last.

"Oh, so you came?" I asked.

"Couldn't you tell?"

"I thought you did."

We had breakfast at a nearby cafe. Elizabeth mentioned that she sometimes hates her job but is gradually becoming resigned to it, now that she realizes that she has no great ambitions or talents and doesn't want to have to start at the bottom again, which would be necessary if she changed careers. She is studying for a degree in art, but doubts that a career in that field will be an improvement, all things considered, over accounting, which she says comes naturally to her, much as she detests it. "I really took this art degree more for personal enjoyment, than because I'm serious about switching careers."

We returned to her apartment, where we began kissing in the living room. I could feel an erection in my pants, so lifted her up and guided her to the bedroom, where we undressed and climbed into bed. Again, the erection wasn't rock solid, however it was hard enough to put on a condom and get inside her, after which it became very hard. She became limp underneath me this time, moaning and thrashing her head about while I fucked her. I could tell she was feeling intense pleasure and so deliberately held back my own orgasm as long as possible. Finally she lay still, whereupon I put some lubricant on my cock, since she seemed dry, then resumed fucking, at a fast pace. I was worried I might not be able to come, so resorted to the fantasy of her sucking my cock. She seemed to sense this was what I was thinking about because she pressed her mouth against mine and sucked on my tongue, much as if she were sucking on my cock. I became extremely aroused, at this idea that what I was doing with my tongue I might be doing with my cock and finally exploded with a powerful orgasm: my whole body twitching uncontrollably, accompanied by all sorts of grunting and bellowing and gurgling and other noises.

"I like to feel you come in me," she said after I had quieted down.

"That was great. I'm certainly satisfied," I said.

"I can't describe what I felt. It was pure ecstasy. The first time, earlier this morning, was like a clitoral orgasm. But this was a vaginal orgasm. There is a difference."

"So, you're satisfied then?"

"Oh, I haven't been so satisfied in ages!"

"I'm glad to hear that. It makes up for last night."

"I think we're very compatible sexually."

A sales rep for a trade magazine called. "Don't you agree that an ad would bring in enough new sales to justify the expense?" he asked. I was tempted to reply with the truth: "Yes, but you see, that's the problem: I don't want more sales, I want to go out of business." But this makes me appear crazy. So instead, I used my usual delaying tactics of asking him to fax me some more information, and promising to look it over. Which means he'll call back next week and I'll have to deal with him again. Despite my poor attitude, over $1300 in orders today, and over $10,000 last week. "Once you no longer want something, that's when you get it. This I've found to be always true," writes Andy Warhol.

Lunch with Helen. She used a pregnancy self-test kit this weekend to confirm her condition. "Well, it's happened, I'm pregnant," she informed Paul, as he sat slumped in a chair, watching a movie on television. "Oh, that's nice," he replied, in an indifferent tone of voice, not even bothering to look up. Later, when the movie was over, he showed more interest, telling her that he was very happy, but that he wanted her to get tested to make sure that the fetus was healthy, and also so as to determine its sex. So now she is worried that he won't marry her if it isn't a boy. She asked him whether he was planning to abandon her. "Isn't that what men are for?" he replied. She began crying, whereupon he told her he was just joking. Then later he said: "You know, we have so many problems now, I just don't see how we will be able to make it as a couple with a child. I don't think this will work." Again, she began sobbing.

So far, the only people she has told about her pregnancy are me, Paul and her sister. This sister already has one child and is planning to have another soon. She gave no advice other than that women tend to become very emotional during pregnancy, and to warn Paul to expect that. I issued three pieces of advice, as follows.

First, to give up the idea of abortion, unless the fetus is determined through testing to be defective. Either keep the child or give it up for adoption. I advised against abortion because Helen has often expressed the desire to have children, and if she doesn't have this child, she may never have another chance, given her age. I think she will be very sorry if she aborts a healthy fetus. Though I don't expect her to ever admit it, I think she secretly likes the idea of giving up the child for adoption, since it means she can escape the labor of raising it.

Second, for her to keep her own apartment until she is married. Furthermore, she should refuse to marry unless Paul finds a job. She countered that he didn't really want to get married, and so she didn't have the bargaining power to impose these sorts of stipulations. I responded that, if this were true, then she probably shouldn't get married.

"He will simply live off of you, the way he did with his former wife. Three years, wasn't it, that he was unemployed and supported by her? He probably won't even help much with the baby. I can't see him changing diapers, for example. Furthermore, once you are married, with a young child, he will have tremendous leverage over you. He will be able to demand absolute obedience," I said.

"That's your fantasy," said Helen.

"It's the truth. Anytime you refuse to do what he wants, he'll threaten to abandon you and the child. In particular, you'll never be able to refuse him sex, regardless of your bladder infections."

"Strange you should mention that. In fact, right after I told him I was pregnant and he had finished watching his movie, he jumped on me. Very aroused. And then, one of his first questions was whether he would be able to have sex with me during pregnancy."

Third, for her to first put all her savings, along with any inheritances or other separate property she might receive after marriage, into a spendthrift trust with myself as trustee. This is to prevent her from giving all her money to Paul in a moment in weakness. I anticipate that once he discovers she has money (about $40,000), he will threaten to abandon her unless she "proves her love" by giving this money to him to "invest". The duty of the the trustee would be to safeguard her money for twenty years or so, by which time Paul should have long since disappeared, and only give it to her sooner if she seemed truly in need of it. Helen scoffed at these ideas.

"Oh, you love this idea of having control of me, and making me beg you for my own money. This is the most absurd thing I've ever heard, and I've heard plenty of crazy things from you. Though, of course, if the trustee were to provide matching gifts, that might be different," she said.

"I'm looking out for your interests, Helen. I know you very well. You don't the strength to resist a man you're in love with. I'd make a good trustee because I'll do it for free, whereas a bank or lawyer you'd have to pay, and also they can't be as sensitive to your true needs as me. And I'm wealthy enough that you can sue me in case I steal the money. You can't choose someone poor to be the trustee," I replied.

"Thanks, but I can manage my own affairs."

Another sales call, this time for space in a catalog. I hemmed and hawed and finally suggested the sales rep call back in a week or so: "I need to discuss this matter with my partner." There is no partner, of course. Though it would certainly be nice to have a secretary, who could pretend that I'm not available whenever these salespeople call. The worst aspect of the situation is that I can't be abrupt, the way I am when someone tries to sell me something I don't need, because what the sales rep said was the truth. That is, a deal between us would almost certainly be mutually profitable. Since she isn't knowingly wasting my time, I haven't the heart to be rude. Also, I might someday change my mind and want to do business with her. Another reason for not telling her to "get lost".

I bought an extra razor and shaving gel to leave at Elizabeth's apartment. I wonder how she'll react to such signs of my "moving in". I called in the evening and we discussed our plans for this week. We will probably spend an afternoon together later this week.

Lunch with Helen. She had been debating for some time whether to bring Paul to visit her parents next month. Her concern was that their relationship might not last that long and she doesn't want the embarrassment of promising to bring him along and then showing up alone. Things between them seemed to be going well this weekend, so she finally went ahead and bought the two plane tickets. There have already been two disputes over these tickets, as follows.

Helen's original plan was to fly on dates when airfares were lowest. Her parents, however, asked her to come a day earlier, promising to make up any difference in air fares that would result from this change. Paul complained that, by accepting her parent's money (the extra air fare was $200), she was making them indebted to her parents, which made him feel uncomfortable. Helen eventually managed to appease Paul on this issue, but then later a more serious dispute arose.

It seems that a former coworker of Paul's is planning to take early retirement, and plans a party to celebrate this happy event. This party will take place in the midwest. When Paul asked Helen if she would like to accompany him to this party, she was non-committal, but also apparently gave some sort of non-verbal manifestation of her true opinion. To wit, that it was foolish of Paul to spend money this way, flying across the country to attend a party for someone who simply wanted to trumpet his good fortune in being able to retire early, especially when Paul doesn't have a job or good prospects for getting a job soon, and is rapidly depleting his savings, and might even already be living off credit-card debt. Perhaps she sniggered, perhaps she made a face, perhaps she used a contemptuous tone of voice. Regardless, Paul became furious.

"Since you refuse to go with me to my friend, I'm not going with you to your parents. This friend is like my family," he said.

"In that case, you can repay me for the cost of the ticket I bought for you today," said Helen, who was trembling with emotion.

"I already said I would. Of course, you should try to get reimbursement from the airline first."

"I want you to pay me now and I'll give you the ticket and you can hassle with getting reimbursement yourself." Helen tried to stare Paul down as she said this.

"Very well. I'll pay you now." He walked to his dresser and began writing a check. "You understand, of course, that this means you pack your bags and get out of here tomorrow."

"I'll be glad to pack my bags and leave this place."

After Paul gave her the check, Helen repaired to the bathroom and lay there on the floor in "fetal position", sobbing hysterically, and mumbling to herself: "I'm going home! I'm going home!" When she finally regained her composure, she gave me a call, intending to take a taxi to visit me for "comforting". However, I was out. The next day, she and Paul reconciled. She returned his check and agreed to visit his friend provided he agreed to visit her parents. "I completely caved in."

I warned her that she had absolutely no strength of will to resist any of Paul's demands, and urged her again to consider putting her money into a trust. She objected that Paul would find out about this trust, and would be especially upset if I were the trustee. "Then make your brother the trustee," I replied. She said she would consider the proposal. Her sister is of the opinion that married people should pool their assets. I derided this notion as being totally inappropriate when one's spouse is an unemployed and irresponsible spendthrift like Paul. I also urged her to give up the idea of abortion and instead bear the child and give it up for adoption, in case Paul refuses to marry her.

"Adoption is the stupidest idea of all. If we don't marry, I get an abortion," Helen said.

"I hardly see that his marrying you is something to look forward to or celebrate. He'll live off you until you're bankrupt and then abandon you," I warned.

"Do you really think he'll abandon me after we're married?"

"Of course, eventually. But not until you're penniless. That should take about two years. It'll be an experience, that's for sure. Maybe that's what you want, some life experience. Some tawdry story to tell people. And perhaps I should encourage you. It'll be an interesting story to hear."

"If we get married, though, I just want a simple ceremony."

"Has he proposed yet?"

"No."

"Helen, believe me, I have experience with people like Paul. My sister is married to this sort of jerk."

"He's not the same as toilet-face."

"He's more intelligent, better educated, and better-looking than my sister's husband. Otherwise, the situation is the same. The woman is madly in love with a good-for-nothing man who only stays with her because he can live off her money."

I worked myself up later, bothered particularly by the fact that, of her approximately $70,000 in savings, about $20,000 is money I gave her after we broke up, partly a going-away gift, partly compensation for her having to find a new apartment. It infuriates me to think that Paul will end up with this hard-earned money of mine, and that he will squander it on frivolities.

Elizabeth arrived about two in the afternoon. We kissed passionately in the hallway, then I showed her around the apartment, then we kissed some more, then lay down on the bed and undressed. I was again impotent. I don't why, since the previous impotence episode seemed to taught her the intended lesson. Namely, that sex is not something she can take for granted, and that I can play the denial game as well as she can. Perhaps in my subconscious I was still angry, and thought she needed further punishment. In any case, I finally managed to get somewhat hard by rubbing against her. I put on a condom and continued rubbing, trying to get hard enough to fuck, and then invoked the fantasy of her sucking me, which caused me to ejaculate, without ever having gotten fully hard or entered her.

"Sorry," I said.

"What happened?" she asked.

"A complete loss of control. I prematurely ejaculated. First time I've done that in years. It's like I'm regressing. I used to have perfect control—almost never any problems—and now I'm either impotent or prematurely ejaculating, like some sort of rank amateur. This is truly pathetic."

"You can't always be in control," she sighed, as if very disappointed. "You know what I think the problem is?"

"What?"

"That you're afraid that I'm right for you. It is much easier for us to call this quits and go back to living alone. We are such a good match in so many respects that I think you're afraid of where this is all heading."

"Maybe."

"What if the sex never works? We don't have to have sex. What would happen then?"

"I don't know."

"I though you said sex was everything."

"What I said and what I really think are two different things. Or rather, my thoughts are never clear. I have too many inner contradictions to think clearly. But don't worry. I don't plan on breaking up yet. I'd rather wait for you to walk away."

We dressed and went to eat. A long conversation about relatives, then I discussed Karen and Helen. Elizabeth objected to my discussing ex-girlfriends, so I encouraged her to talk about ex-boyfriends, which she did for a while. She was involved with an Englishman for three years, while he lived in America. Eventually the relationship broke down, and he returned to England to work in a family business there.

"He came from a wealthy family, and I liked the idea of all things I could get from living with him. But I didn't feel free. He was so repressed. And he just didn't understand me and my background. For example, no one in my family ever asked anyone politely to do something. It was never, 'Would you please close the refrigerator door? Thank you.' No, it was always someone yelling, 'Shut that damn refrigerator door!' My grandfather used to yell at me like that. I was terrified of him. Whereas, no one in his family ever raised their voice. So he couldn't understand me and how I feel about so many things. You can, because you came from a similar background as me. A family where everyone fights all the time."

We walked back to my apartment in the light rain. She was acting somewhat silly on the way, perhaps trying to make herself more sexually attractive by acting like a girl. We kissed as she lay on the sofa, then I carried her to bed, where we undressed. I masturbated myself to the point of erection, slipped on a condom, then fucked for about fifteen minutes, during which time she was almost continuously moaning. I became harder towards the end, and came explosively. We remained lying in each others arms for almost an hour afterwards, listening to music. Elizabeth was unable to spend the night because she had to take her contacts out, but didn't have the proper materials: neither holder nor saline solution. We agreed to get together again this weekend.

I woke up with my balls aching from last night's fucking—a pleasant ache—and masturbated, though without much urgency. Masturbation is a completely different type of pleasure from that of fucking. Neither better nor worse, but just different. I called Elizabeth later, but she is sick with a fever as well as a bad bladder infection, so we won't be able to spend the day together as we had planned. One of the causes of Helen and myself breaking up was her recurrent bladder infections, which led to her finally refusing to let me fuck her cunt. I masturbated to orgasm again after hanging up, imagining myself as Elizabeth, lying on her back and being fucked. A tremendous orgasm. Afterwards, I rolled over and took a nap, helping to make up for only six hours sleep last night.

Two men in the cafe. The younger of these—squeaky-voiced, ponytailed and wearing hot pants—does most of the talking. Several times, he stands up and screams and then runs out into the street, only to return a short while later, seemingly much calmer, and resumes his rant:

"Happy? I'm being hunted at gun and knifepoint and I'm supposed to be happy? I want to be happy, and I know how to be happy, but I can't be happy when I get kicked out into the street and all my possessions taken away from me by these jerks who sit in their splendid tower and look down on me like some sort of maggot! No one can be happy under these conditions. They took my white pants away. They were a gift. Oh, to hell with you and them! I'm a man, do you hear?! I'm a man and if other people don't like it they can go to hell!"

Conversation with Elizabeth about various topics. Somehow we got onto the subject of penis size. "Once again, we're on the subject of sex. That's all you ever think about," she complained. We won't be getting together until at least this weekend due to her illness, which she now thinks is the flu.

Helen called. She questioned Paul this weekend about his continuing unemployment, and said something about not wanting to be poor and live in a crime-ridden neighborhood and send their child to bad public schools. Paul replied that she should reconsider abortion, which made her disgusted.

"I'm starting to notice all sorts of things about him. He even has a nasty looking face, once you get a good close look at it," she said.

"You're talking like someone who is planning a divorce, and yet you aren't even married yet. Helen, I don't think you should marry this man. Have the kid and give it up for adoption and tell him to get lost," I replied.

"What is it with the adoption business? Why are you so intent on having the kid adopted?"

"I hate to see you kill it. It might be just like you. Think of adoption as sending a little boat out into the ocean, and then having it come back twenty years later."

"I'm not giving the child up for adoption. It's hopeless talking to you. At least with my sister I can conduct a sensible conversation."

"Another thing. About that money of yours. You haven't mentioned that to Paul, have you? The reason I'm concerned is that, if you will recall, much of that money was once mine. I gave it to you as a going-away present—because I loved you—and I just can't bear to think of Paul spending it on those $1000 suits and $500 Scrabble games and whatnot."

"Is that all you can think about? I'm already starting to have morning sickness and all you're worried about is money. My money, I might add."

I'm feeling annoyed with Elizabeth again. She doesn't like that I constantly think about sex? Maybe we won't have sex then. In retrospect, I should have been much more plain-spoken when she threw her temper tantrum in the jazz club last month, and told her that I expected us to have sex that very night—which is what both of us wanted—and that if she planned otherwise then I would like some sort of explanation as to her intentions, because I didn't feel like being made a fool of.

Lunch with Helen. Last night she complained about Paul's "channel surfing" with the television.

"Maybe we're incompatible then. Maybe an abortion would be the best thing," he said.

"So just because I ask you to turn the television down you want me to get an abortion?" she said.

"No, there are other things as well. You have different tastes from me. And you seem erratic. Today the sound is too loud. At other times it was too low."

"When did I complain about the sound being too low?"

"On our trip to the mountains last summer, you were fiddling with the volume on the car radio, turning it up and down in a fidgety way."

"That was a year ago."

"It just goes to show that we've been having incompatibilities every since we started going out together."

Later they reconciled and had sex: first in her vagina, then in her ass. Helen felt nauseated during the sex, and afterwards pointed out to Paul that pregnancy would probably mean the temporary end of their sex life. He made cooing sounds and said to her in a baby-talk voice, "No more visits? You won't let me visit you?" "Visit" is his code word for fucking.

"I should tell him, no visits allowed, hotel closed for renovations, new wing being added. Anyway, this business of having a baby is disgusting, like something growing inside me," she said as we were eating.

"Things grow inside your rectum all the time," I remarked.

"That's what my friend at work says. A baby is like a giant turd. Which explains why it hurts so much coming out. Paul used to say, we're going to make little turds, because of the sort of sex we practice. Our baby is going to be a little turd."

The next night he was polite when she came home and fixed an elaborate dinner of scallops, mushrooms and eggplant over noodles. But Helen was feeling nauseous again, and so only ate the noodles. Paul was upset by her lack of appetite.

"Why didn't you eat the rest of the food?" he asked.

"I'm just not feeling well. Morning sickness," she replied.

"This is the evening, not the morning."

"Whatever. Pregnancy makes me nauseous. It's like my body only wants certain foods."

"You shouldn't let your body tell you what to eat. What's wrong with the scallops?"

"I don't know. I only want bland foods."

"Oh? The eggplant is bland, and you didn't eat it."

"I just don't want anything else to eat, okay? It's my body and I'll put in it what I want to put in it, especially when I'm pregnant."

"You know, Helen, I find your character repulsive. I really don't like the way you react to things. Or, for that matter, the way you dress or how you eat with your mouth open. You're like a teenager."

"Well, I don't like someone constantly telling me what to eat and how to act!"

"Oh, I can see it now. A Journey to Hell. That's what marriage to you would be like. You're the biggest mistake I ever made. I can't believe I've been living with you for almost a year now."

"I'll be happy to move out. In fact, I am moving out."

"Good. And you realize that this is the end?"

"Most certainly."

She cried for a while afterwards, but without breaking into sobs. Perhaps being pregnant is giving her more emotional strength than she used to have. She will be spending the night at her own apartment and then collecting her belongings from his apartment this weekend.

Her current plan is to have the child and be a single mother, though she isn't sure how to afford this.

"And if I'm going to be a single mother, why couldn't I have gotten someone with smarter genes to get me pregnant? Like you," she said. I felt a sudden pang at this remark. Would I have liked to be the father of her child? I don't know.

"Well, you know I made an offer last year," I replied.

"Yes, I remember. Maybe I should have taken it."

"You thought it was too stingy. It was more than you'll likely get from Paul."

She isn't sure how or when she will explain to her parents that she is to be a single mother, and that she might therefore need some financial support and/or child-rearing assistance from them.

Helen called, and we spent the day together. Breakfast at a cafe, followed by browsing in the bookstore, then tea and cake at the cafe, where she started crying when I joked, with no malice intended, about what her parents might say if she told them she was pregnant, planned to be a single mother, and wanted to move back in and live with them for six years or so. She is very sensitive to suggestions that she might be a failure in their eyes. Dinner at her apartment, after which we lay in bed. I started kissing and fondling her, and showed her my erection, but she objected that she was in no mood for sex. She seems strongly inclined towards an abortion, and insists she is determined not to return to Paul: "Of course, I may never meet anyone else. After all, I have a repulsive personality, as he puts it. Repulsive and like a teenager."

Elizabeth came by in the morning with her car. Breakfast at a waterfront cafe, then we drove to a nearby beach, where we sat in the car for about twenty minutes, fondling.

"We're putting on quite a show," she said.

"They can't see anything except our heads. Does doing it in public excite you?" I asked.

"A little."

At one point she loosened my pants, looked inside and played a bit with my erection, saying: "You really are excited." Afterwards, we sat on the sand, eating sandwiches and talking. It was late afternoon by this time on an overcast day, but I nevertheless got a slight sunburn on my face and the front of my scalp, where the hairline has receded. Elizabeth was wearing a hat for sun protection. We had planned initially to spend the evening at my apartment, but couldn't find parking, and so returned to her apartment instead. We started kissing in the kitchen, half undressed there, then proceeded to the bedroom where we fucked for about ten minutes. I got excited when she started moving her hips and come sooner than I had wanted, and before she had come. Afterwards, we lay for an hour or so, then I got another erection, with which I brought her to orgasm. I didn't come myself this time, however. Then more lying about, playing with the cat, snacking on bread and jam, then sex on the floor of her living room, with her on top for a change. Slow, delicious fucking, though neither of us came. She seemed disappointed that I didn't come, though I had already told her that I had no desire to come more than once. We fucked without condoms this last time.

"I think we should put on a condom," I said to her as we were fucking.

"I won't get pregnant," she replied.

"Are you on the pill?"

"No."

If no pill and no condom, then how can she be sure she won't get pregnant? Because it's not the right time of month? Or is she sterile? I didn't pursue the issue, though I wondered about it.

About six hours sleep for me, less for Elizabeth. She slept poorly, she said. I asked her if this was because I snored, she replied no. I had a stiff erection upon awakening, but she had to go to work, so no time for more sex. We hugged and talked pleasantly in the kitchen while preparing and eating a light breakfast, then she drove me home on the way to her office.

I received the following email from Helen: "Did you have a nice time with Elizabeth this weekend? I spent an enjoyable morning reading radical feminist authors. I have decided against being a single mother. Yesterday evening it dawned on me, the full horror of such a fate. I have two weeks to decide. The little clone in a bottle idea [I had compared giving a child up for adoption to putting a message in a bottle and casting it into the sea] still seems as crazy as ever. I told my sister your suggestion and she guffawed. I am going back to Paul tonight to talk things over."

"You couldn't last even one day alone!" I exclaimed, while talking to her on the phone later.

"I'm going to be very humble and do everything Paul tells me and no longer object or raise my voice. I have a bad tendency to lose my temper which is why men keep throwing me out," she replied.

"You are childish, but you don't have a temper. You're going to give him all your money, I just know it!"

"He doesn't know I have any."

"He will soon. You'll give it to him as a sign of love and in order to appease him, and then he'll spend it and leave you penniless, and with a child as well. And that was my money once!"

I had planned to work off the email backlog today, but instead accomplished nothing in that regard. Nevertheless, almost $1000 in orders (primarily fax and telephone). A representative for a catalog reseller called, making the same offer his company has made previously. If I planned to stay in business, I would eagerly accept, since the deal promises to be lucrative for us both. But all I want is to escape this business altogether, so the offer threw me into a state of complete discomposure. I hemmed and hawed and told him to call back next week. Then a phone message from a reseller demanding to know what has happened to three orders he sent over a month ago but which I've not processed because this reseller still hasn't paid some invoices that are overdue by more than ninety days. The fault is mostly mine, since I should have notified him of these unpaid invoices and my refusal to accept more orders until these previous orders were paid for. Why do I just bury my head in the sand like this? And there is email from several customers complaining of problems with my program. Another customer complains that he sent a check but never received the merchandise. In fact, he sent an envelope without the check. Why didn't I notify him that the check was missing, instead of ignoring him? This happened several months ago. And on and on it goes. Angry customers sending email and faxes and leaving messages on my answering machine, all of which I just ignore, preferring instead to spend my time lying on the sofa, listening to music and masturbating, or wondering how to decorate the wall in my office.

While walking down the street licking an ice cream cone, I reflected on how irresponsibly I'm behaving with my business, and how Paul and Helen are also behaving irresponsibly, and how irresponsible Bernelli had been. I felt ecstatic at this sense of shared irresponsibility, while simultaneously so ashamed of myself that I wanted to blow my brains out with a pistol. I fantasized about hopping on a bus and traveling somewhere far away, where I wouldn't have to face the backlog of email or the telephone or anything remotely connected with my business. Before going to bed, I turned the ringer and volume on the phone off, so I won't be disturbed by calls tomorrow morning.

Phone conversation with Helen. She and Paul are living together amicably again, though she refused to give details, other than that she plans to demand that he get a job before she will consent to marriage. Not that he has yet asked her to marry him. "He desperately wants a child and is afraid of being left alone when he gets old. I think he was surprised when I said I was prepared to be a single mother or else get an abortion." I pointed out that she might be liable for some of his debts if they married. This seemed to concern her, and she agreed that putting her money into a trust fund might be a good idea.

As soon as our conversation was over (this was about noon), I rushed down to the bookstore to research trusts, and discovered that courts would probably reject, as nothing but a mechanism to defraud future creditors, this notion of a spendthrift trust where the trust creator is also the trust beneficiary.

Still later, I received the following email from Helen: "I'm cracking up. This situation has made me even more unable to concentrate than before. I'm totally comatose. All I can manage is importing images from the Internet and putting them in a slide show I'm creating. I'm in the wrong line of work." It struck me as interesting that so many of the people I'm intimately involved with—Helen, Paul, Elizabeth—are feeling the same dissatisfaction with their jobs that I'm feeling with my business.

Once again, I accomplished nothing in the way of business. Angry customers are trying to contact me by both email and the telephone and I respond to neither and don't give a damn either. I left work early for the cafe, where I took some comfort in knowing there are other selfish, lazy, irresponsible people like myself. For example, a woman sitting next to me rudely left a one penny tip. I don't know why, since the service seemed perfectly acceptable from what I could see.

Elizabeth came by in the late afternoon. We hugged and undressed, then I carried her to the bed where I was once again impotent. I have no idea why. Originally, this impotence was deliberate, as a way of punishing her, but now it seems to have taken on a life of its own. She finally got me aroused by straddling me on all fours while I lay on my back, letting me lick and smell her cunt while she massaged my cock with her hand. Then we fucked. I had to pull out at the last moment because I wasn't wearing a condom, and came with a tremendous orgasm. I asked her about whether condoms were necessary for birth control. She was reticent at first, then said she didn't think she was capable of getting pregnant, that her periods were irregular and that she had engaged in sex with a previous boyfriend for several months without a condom and never got pregnant. "He might have been sterile, not you," I pointed out. She agreed, then asked if I planned to be monogamous. I replied yes and then asked about her. She replied that she also planned to be monogamous.

We lay hugging for a long while, listening to music, then tried sex again. More erection problems. I had to masturbate before finally managing to achieve an erection, then fucked her for a while, until the erection faded. Since she was still horny, I tried licking her, which seemed to make her come, though, if so, with only a mild orgasm.

We had planned to eat dinner and then go salsa dancing, but it was late by the time we finished with sex, neither of us was any longer in the mood for going out. Instead, we fell asleep in one another's arms, then woke up about midnight and made another attempt at sex, with another bout of impotence on my part. This time she got me hard by stroking my cock lightly with her fingernails. I entered her and we fucked for about ten minutes. She seemed on the verge of orgasm when I suddenly lost control and came inside her, without a condom. She didn't seem upset, either about missing her orgasm or about me not wearing the condom.

She had to return to her apartment, since she didn't have a holder or saline solution for her contact lenses (as it was, her eyes were bloodshot from the brief nap she had taken with them in), and also because she had to work tomorrow. I promised to call her this weekend.

I turned the ringer and volume on the phone off last night and left it off all day, and otherwise did absolutely nothing in the way of business. Three is now a backlog of fourteen phone messages, plus a huge backlog of email and faxes. I'm starting to realize that it isn't necessary for me to go out of business entirely. Much of my misery is probably due to my pretending to be something I'm not—a typical businessman, hungry for profits and growth and fame. I should be more accepting of my eccentricities and require my customers to accept them also, and if they can't, then refuse their business. Or something of the sort. It is difficult for me to properly formulate my thoughts on this subject.

Elizabeth came by in the late afternoon, complaining that she had been driving around for half an hour looking for parking. As I had suggested, she brought by various bathroom items to leave permanently at my apartment, primarily related to her contact lenses, so that she will be prepared in case she ever wants to spend the night. She dropped these items off, then I took the wheel of her car and drove around for another half an hour until we finally found a space. She was very impressed by my parallel parking skills—there was only about a hand's breadth of maneuvering room. We decided to pay a visit to a girlfriend of hers, who lives just around the corner from my apartment, and there met various of her other friends. Then it was off to another party in the area, hosted by a man who works in a bank by day and paints as a hobby, and who seems gay. His apartment walls were covered by paintings of nudes—both men and women. Then a taxi ride to the all-night restaurant, where we had a late dinner. We had planned on salsa dancing, but she felt tired and somewhat nauseous from drinking wine at the two parties, so we returned to my apartment, again by taxi.

We kissed and hugged on the sofa, then she pulled my pants half off and sucked my cock until it was hard. But this erection disappeared when we got into bed, and refused to return. I tried licking her, but she insisted she wanted to be fucked and that my licking bored her. I noticed that her cunt became very wet as I licked it, so I don't know it she is really as bored by cunnilingus as she pretends. I tried masturbating myself to get an erection but she stopped me: "Don't do that, please." Then she stood up, disappeared into the bathroom and remained there for about twenty minutes, showering. Lots of tension in the atmosphere when she returned to bed.

"I'm very unhappy. If it's this bad now, I don't think it will ever improve," she said.

"Well, I don't know what to say. I don't have a physical problem. I must say, though, I am starting to dread this sex. I keep thinking, Elizabeth is coming by tonight and I'll have to fuck her," I said.

"What am I supposed to do? Do you just want to be friends with me, is that it?"

"I don't know. I don't really want any other woman. I mean that. I have absolutely no desire for sex with anyone else at this moment."

"Then what is the problem?"

"I don't know. If we continue to have problems, then you can get another guy to have sex with and we'll just hug and kiss like we're doing now."

"That's a really sick idea. How long would that last? You'd end up despising me and I'd feel disgusted with myself. I love you, you're probably the first man I've ever felt this way about and so why isn't it working? It's just not fair!"

Eventually, I managed to get hard and came in her with an explosive orgasm. I don't know if she came or not. I wasn't wearing a condom.

I woke up the next morning feeling mildly aroused, and poked at Elizabeth's rump until my cock was hard, then rolled her over and started fucking her. I brought her to orgasm, then had an explosive orgasm of my own. We lay about hugging one another and listening to music for an hour or so, then fucked some more, with orgasms for both of us again.

"There is nothing wrong between us sexually. Nothing. Please don't ever try to have sex when you don't really want to. Sex is something too fragile to abuse like that. We're doing fine," she said, after this second bout of sex.

Breakfast at a cafe, then shopping in various stores. Afterwards, I reminded her of a request she had made to use my computers to evaluate some software, which won't run on the computers she currently has at her job. We spent an hour or so struggling with demos—some simply refused to install, other kept crashing—and finally gave up in disgust. Then we returned to the living room and lay back down on the rug, kissing and listening to more music. Both of us became aroused, especially her, so we undressed and fucked again, with intense simultaneous orgasms. Then more hugging and kissing and listening to music.

We didn't use condoms any of the three times we fucked today. Neither of us seems particularly worried about pregnancy, however. Her theory is that she is unlikely to get pregnant due to her irregular periods and what she calls "hormonal problems". Also, she has been having painful bladder infections recently. Several times I suggested we refrain from sex in order to avoid aggravating her bladder problems, but she insisted that she wanted sex.

A leisurely dinner at a sidewalk restaurant, talking about various topics, mostly her current and previous jobs. She left for her apartment at about midnight. I stayed up for a while afterwards, listening to music and reading.

Lunch with Helen. There was another tiff between her and Paul this weekend. Paul complained again about Helen use of the expression "or something" to conclude sentences. She told him she was tired of his being critical and negative. He replied: "I say these negative things because I feel negative about you." They went to bed feeling tense, but then the next morning he asked: "Why don't we go shopping for an engagement ring?" Helen's first reaction to this marriage proposal was surprise, then suddenly she realized that she doesn't particularly relish the prospect being Paul's wife. But she nevertheless agreed to go, for what turned out to be a grueling all day ordeal.

Paul insisted they buy the ring at a ritzy department store where he had some sort of discount coupon. The morning they spent trying on moderately priced rings, then they had lunch, then they spent the afternoon trying on expensive rings. Helen was feeling exhausted and nauseous by this time, and wanted to postpone the purchase, but Paul insisted they buy something then and there, so that the ring would be ready next month when they went to visit her parents. Finally, she relented and let the homosexual sales clerk make the choice.

"That what I'll always remember, assuming I go through with this marriage. That a homosexual sales clerk picked out my ring. And not even a ring I like. A boring, traditional design, that I'll have to wear for the rest of my life. A symbol of what life will be like with Paul. Boring, traditional, stifling."

The ring cost $800, paid for with Paul's credit card, and is currently being adjusted to fit her finger. Helen was too tired at the time to assert herself, but realizes now that she had much preferred another ring, costing only $300. Paul had rejected this choice, because it wasn't expensive enough, she now suspects.

"He wanted to buy me something expensive, which is nice in a way, that he likes to spend money on me, and also not so nice, since now he can use the amount it cost to make me feel guilty." The ring cannot be returned for a refund. Itt can only be exchanged for a more expensive ring.

Paul was content not to have sex this weekend. Helen theorizes that this is because they are now engaged. "I think that, all along, he wanted sex more for reassurance that I loved him, than out of true horniness." Paul now calls Helen "Mrs. xxx", using his surname. The wedding itself is postponed until next summer, over a year from now, and after the baby is scheduled to be born. Postponing the wedding is Paul's idea, based on the reasoning that a wedding needs to be planned well in advance and they don't have time to plan it for this summer. He still doesn't have a job, but Helen no longer pesters him about finding one. The last time she did so, he became hostile: "If you force me into doing computer programming work, I'll end up hating my life and then abandoning you in a couple of years. Is that what you want?" I asked her about his computer background. Apparently, he hasn't done significant work with computers in over twenty years, nor was he ever a full-time programmer. I pointed out that it is by no means certain that he will be able to get a computer related job, other than at the low-paying entry level. He is placing all his job hopes on going into business with a former coworker, who is retiring soon and might be starting his own business. He has also told his former coworkers about his planned marriage with Helen and her pregnancy. "I think he is trying to get their sympathy—unemployed and with his future wife pregnant—hoping they'll give him a job out of pity. Or maybe he thinks my family is rich and will support us. He uses the term upper-class to describe my parents. What a hoot that is."

She feels as if she is hurtling towards marriage and children without really wanting either: "The situation just seems out of control. I don't what is happening or where I'm going. He wants the child, not me. And I'm not sure that I want to spend my life with this man. Also, I really hate the idea that, because of having a child, I'll be stuck at this job for another year, in order to get maternity benefits." She is thinking again of abortion, and also thinking of seeing a professional counselor for advice about her situation.

While walking home from the cafe, I was greeted by a fleshy, big-haired blonde in her late twenties, who lives just around the corner and with whom I had danced tango several times. She said she had waved to me on several occasions during the past few weeks while bicycling, but that I never acknowledged her. I don't recall these incidents, however. While I find her sexually attractive, she also strikes me as having a bubbly and energetic personality which is completely incompatible with my own, so I don't why she was so eager to talk with me. Perhaps there is some truth in the folk wisdom that my having had recent sex is somehow evident to other women, and this makes me much more sexually attractive than when I was celibate.

I managed to clear up a good part of my various backlogs, by simply discarding everything more than a month old, reasoning that for items that old, the customer has by now either forgotten about the issue or else long since given up in disgust. Also, I refused to accept several orders, because the reseller who placed them hadn't been paying their bills promptly. There is now almost $5000 in overdue accounts receivable. Last time I reviewed the accounts receivable folder was over six months ago. Probably half of that $5000 will never be paid, but the remainder is within my reach by simply making a few phone calls. The advertising sales rep from last week called again. I told him, "Due to some unrelated matters—some other changes we are undergoing in the business—we don't want to make any changes in our marketing plans at present. We don't want to make too many changes in our business at once." I made these "other changes" sound very mysterious. For once, he seemed satisfied that I'm not a likely buyer. He said he would call back in a few months. I'm finally having the backbone to tell customers that we don't normally accept purchase orders—only prepayment. I'm beginning to feel energetic once again, now that I am determined to reject any orders that I feel will be more trouble than they are worth.

I danced primarily with Elizabeth at ballroom dance lessons, with both of us doing poorly. She drove me home afterwards. We sat in her car for about an hour outside my apartment building, kissing and talking about various business related topics. She will be out of town visiting friends this weekend, so we probably won't see or speak to one another again until next week.

I masturbated four times today (thrice in the morning, once before going to bed) to the fantasy of being fellated by a harem—Elizabeth plus various anonymous young women—all of these females anxious to get my cock in their mouth, closing their eyes and making low, moan-like noises of contentment when it was finally their turn to suck me, then me sniffing the acrid smell of Elizabeth's crotch, then poking at and plunging into her slippery cunt, and so on.

My lawyer called to discuss a motion by my sister's lawyer to dismiss my suit requesting that my sister restore all money and land that was improperly transferred from my father to her. This suit has been dormant ever since the conservatorship for my father was established. I told my lawyer to accept the dismissal, but without prejudice, in case we want to resurrect the issue at some point in the future. For example, in the highly unlikely case that there is a stock market crash and my father loses most of his remaining assets. I felt annoyed at having to revisit these issues.

I called Helen at work, but she was busy and hence unable to meet for lunch. Tomorrow she plans to go to a baby shower for a coworker, and she seemed to enjoy discussing baby issues in general. Yesterday she talked to a counselor about her situation, but says it didn't seem to help any. "That business about talking to someone else as a way to clarify your thinking doesn't work. I think I just left the shrink more confused than me. She was probably saying, Glad I'm not in that head. Also, she seems to think I should get an abortion. She said that, contrary to what conservative politicians say, the primary feeling of women after they've had an abortion is not guilt or sorrow, but relief." So, tomorrow she plans to return for a second counseling session. Her current plan is to continue working while Paul stays home and cares for the child. "He always said he wanted to be a househusband. And I think it is becoming obvious to everyone that he will never find another job. But that's okay." He has definitely ruled out a long-term relationship with her unless she produces children. She has considered aborting her current child and then getting pregnant again in the future, once the relationship between her and Paul has "settled down".

Elizabeth sent me a postcard, which I received today, with a cartoon character face and the words: "I thought about you naked today, then I put on my clothes and thought about you some more."

I called Mark and we talked for about an hour. Once again, he promised to return a book he had borrowed from me when he visited earlier this year. Then he described his visit to see his former lover Tony in prison. Tony recently got in a fight with another inmate and was only caught when the prison officials read a letter he had written to a friend outside, in which he boasted of having won the fight. He received three days in solitary confinement as punishment. Tony hopes to be released next month, though Mark doubts this will happen. Meanwhile, Tom, Mark's former roommate and security guard friend, is going through his usual roller coaster existence. First he planned to move and so paid a moving company to put all his furniture into storage, then he learned that he wouldn't be able to move because his credit is so bad that no landlord will rent to him, and so he had to pay to have the furniture taken out of storage. He spends his weekends on cocaine binges with his current circle of friends, who Mark detests.

Elizabeth called in the evening, all upset because I didn't call her today.

"I figured we'd be seeing each other tomorrow," I explained.

"Yes, we'll be seeing each other tomorrow," she said.

"So, I guessed that would be when I talked to you."

"I just thought you would have been interested in speaking to me. You make it sound like a chore. It's been almost a week since we last spoke to one another."

"True, but you were out of town. And I believe you didn't come in until late yesterday. Otherwise I would have invited you to the tango dancing. I knew I would see you tomorrow, so I didn't think it was necessary to call today. Not that I don't enjoy talking to you. And I've been thinking of you. Just because I don't call doesn't mean I'm not thinking of you."

"Yes, you've already said that."

"It's true."

"It's just that I get very upset when I don't hear from someone for so long."

"I always call when I promise to call. But I didn't promise last week. Otherwise I would have called."

"True, you do call when you promise. I was just hoping you'd be more spontaneous."

"I'm capable of being spontaneous. But, I mean, a week is nothing for me. If you wait for spontaneity, you could end up waiting months for me to get moving."

"Well, by the time months are up this relationship might be long since finished. I'm very impatient. I don't expect to live forever and so I want to make the most of every minute."

"That's a great idea! Let's do that!"

"What?"

"Make the most of the rest of our lives, starting soon!"

Elizabeth laughed at this last remark of mine. So evidently I managed to get her back into a good mood. I felt absolutely no sexual desire in talking to her. Elizabeth mentioned that she had shown my letter from last month to a homosexual friend of hers, who said he had never heard a straight man express himself the way I did. Has he heard homosexuals express themselves like that? Does he think I'm homosexual? Am I homosexual? Elizabeth asked me if I wanted to attend a church service this coming Sunday where there is supposed to be a special organ music performance, followed by brunch with some of her friends. I replied that the brunch sounded interesting, but not the church service. However, if she insisted, I would be willing to accompany her to both.

Lunch with Helen. She is planning to get an abortion tomorrow. When Helen mentioned to Paul that she had been to see a counselor, he exploded: "That is a complete breach of trust. I really don't see how we can continue living together like this." This weekend, she visited her sister, who she hadn't seen in months, and returned home in an unusually cheerful mood, which Paul noticed.

"Well, you certainly seem in a good mood. I wonder why?" he asked.

"I think I know why, but it might upset you if I told you," she replied.

"I won't get upset. Tell me why you're looking so cheerful."

"Don't say I didn't warn you."

"Go ahead and tell me."

"I think it's because I went to visit my sister today. It makes me feel much more relaxed when I get to see different people. We should both try to get out on our own more often, instead of always spending all our time with one another." Upon hearing this, Paul's smile changed immediately to a frown.

"Well, I'm sorry, but the type of relationship I want is one where the two people enjoy spending as much time as possible with one another and don't have this sort of need for other people in the relationship. This is another breach of trust."

"What, because I went to pay a visit to my sister?"

"This was not a social visit and you know it. It was more like counseling. Your sister is not a mere friend."

"I enjoyed my visit and I don't like being told I can't visit my own sister."

"This situation is impossible. I don't see how we can continue like this."

Later, in the evening, Paul turned on the stereo, at high sound volume, as usual. Just as he was preparing to insert the headphones (and thus silence the sound from the speakers), Helen turned the volume down, which caused him to explode.

"Look, maybe if you don't like the way I play music then you should go back to your own apartment!" he shouted.

"Maybe I will," Helen replied.

"Good, get out here for once and for all!"

"I'll get out, but you can pay for the abortion! And all the other medical expenses!"

"Fine, I'll pay. I'll pay whatever it takes to get rid of you. You are the worst thing that ever happened to me!"

"They should put a sign on your back, 'Likes to get women pregnant.' What a macho trip that must be for you." Paul has gotten four former lovers pregnant. Three had abortions, the fourth had a miscarriage.

"Why don't you just get out!"

So Helen spent the night at her own apartment. The next day they made up and went out to eat at a cheap cafe, since Helen had a craving for a hamburger. Paul complained that the food at the restaurant was inedible. Afterwards, Helen suggested they take a walk around the city. Paul agreed with this proposal, but wanted to go to the shopping district, whereas Helen wanted to go to the nightclub district. And so they had another nasty fight over this differences of preferences.

My feelings toward Elizabeth are so confused. This weekend, I masturbated furiously to images of her, with rock-solid erections. But now that she is back in town, my erections are semi-solid. Even though I knew I'd be seeing her this evening, I masturbated twice. Maybe I was trying to punish her, by ensuring that I'd be sexually bored tonight, which she wouldn't fail to notice.

During ballroom dance lessons, I did fairly well with the better followers, but poorly with Elizabeth. She became frustrated and seemed on the verge of yelling at me, but then calmed down afterwards and gave me a ride home. We spent over an hour in the car outside my apartment building talking, then we began kissing and fondling one another. Elizabeth pulled up her skirt so I could finger her, while I unzipped my pants so she could feel my cock. I sniffed at my finger after removing it from her cunt.

"Here, I want to sniff it," she said.

"Why? You can always sniff yourself at home," I said.

"I sometimes do. But it smells different on your finger," she replied, giggling.

Altogether, her resentment from yesterday seemed to have disappeared or, if not, was well concealed.

Helen called. As I had anticipated, she didn't go through with the abortion. Despite all the talk of breaking up, she continued to stay at Paul's apartment after their last fight. The next morning, she asked him if he would do her the one last favor of driving her to get the abortion, and, as she no doubt wanted to have happen, he told her he wanted to reconsider breaking up, and one thing led to another and they became reconciled. This weekend they will be visiting her parents. "I feel like I've always been on the sidelines in life and nothing ever happens to me because I'm always holding back. So what if we're poor? It's time I took some chances. If I abort this one then I may never have any children. Anyway, if worst comes to worst I can ask my parents for help. We won't starve."

She then asked me how to install a game on her computer at work. This game is normally installed as part of the operating system. Corporations like hers, for obvious reasons, often prefer not to have this game installed. I advised her strongly not to install it, since having the game available will just give her an excuse to shirk work, as I know only too well from experience. But she insisted, and so I walked her through the installation procedure.

I worked five hours today (this constitutes a hard day's work by my current standards) processing the backlog of orders. It is very embarrassing to have week old faxes, labeled "urgent—need response by tomorrow at latest", to which I have yet to reply. I've received high compliments recently from customers who called to order by phone. "Yours is the one of most useful programs I've ever used," one user commented. Amazingly enough, I find these compliments annoying. It almost seems I'd prefer people to condemn the program, perhaps because then I wouldn't feel so guilty about letting the business go to ruin.

Yesterday, I suddenly became irate because some equipment I ordered two weeks ago has not yet arrived, though the advertisement promised "next-day" delivery. And then I thought, who am I to complain about slow service, given how I run my own company? What is truly remarkable is that, despite my negligence, I made over $5000 last week, and have made over $86,000 so far this year. At this rate, which surely can't continue (or can it?), I'll have another year of $300,000 in profits. This good fortune makes me feel annoyed and worried at the same time. If the pendulum is currently swinging so far and for so long in the direction of what I consider to be undeserved prosperity, how far and how long might it eventually swing in the opposite direction? Is there a law of compensation in this universe? Does present happiness imply future misery?

I arrived at Elizabeth's in the early evening. I took off my coat, drank a glass of water, then followed her into the living room, where we sat on the sofa and starting kissing. Almost immediately, I felt a rock solid erection in my pants. I massaged her crotch, then dry humped her, then led her into the bedroom, where we both hurriedly undressed, saying nothing, then climbed into bed. She lubricated herself, then tossed the bottle of lubricant away so that it landed on the floor. I had meanwhile donned a condom. I let myself come after about fifteen minutes of fucking, when it became apparent that she was having difficulty reaching orgasm and would only get sore if I persisted. She was still aroused, however, so I tried bringing her off with my finger, but still without success. So then I tried licking her, with my middle finger pressed against her g spot. This seemed to do the trick, since she came in about two minutes. She said later that this was the first time in her life that she had come from oral sex.

We had originally planned to go tango dancing, but she was feeling lazy from the sex, so we just lay in bed for several hours. Dinner at a restaurant, then we returned to her apartment and watched television there for several hours. A documentary history of rock music, followed by a talk show about nutrition. I got excited by this latter program and started discussing my own diet theories, until she put her index finger across her lips in the "be silent" gesture. Neither of us could get to sleep when we finally crawled into bed. Instead, we both tossed and turned and fidgeted.

"I sometimes think we are so close and other times so far apart," she said at last, breaking the tense silence.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe I'm being dramatic, but I feel like..."

"Go on."

"I feel like we're acting like an old married couple, watching television and then going to sleep. Instead of having sex."

"I was planning to have sex. You were the one who turned on the television."

"Well, you seemed to enjoy it, that Juicer and all." She was referring to the derogatory name I gave to one of the guests on the talk show, whose diet recommendations included large amounts of fruit and vegetable juices. The proper term would be "juicearian".

"I was trying to make the best of a bad situation. I thought, My God, she turned the television on. What was I supposed to do? I was waiting to go to bed and here we were watching the tube. And especially the other show, about the history of rock music."

"You could have said something!"

"Anyway I'm sort of tired."

"So?"

We began kissing again, followed by sex. My erection wasn't rock solid and hence I had some problems with the condom. "I hate those things," she said after I finally managed to get inside her. Her objection is partly that putting the condom on interrupts the sex act, with the possibility of my losing my erection, and partly that she doesn't like the feel of latex. So I took the condom off and resumed fucking without it. My plan was to pull out and come on her stomach, for some protection against pregnancy, but she held my buttocks and I ended up coming inside her. I don't think she had an orgasm, though she did seem to enjoy the sex. We feel asleep shortly afterwards. It was past three in the morning.

I was awoken early by the alarm clock and rushed out to move Elizabeth's car before street cleaning began, as I had promised to do last night. Upon returning to the apartment, I shaved and brushed my teeth, then climbed into bed and began fondling her breasts, then rolled her over. Once again, we fucked without a condom, and also with no orgasm for her. I tried licking her, but this time the trick of keeping my middle finger pressed against her g spot didn't work, though she tried hard, lifting her hips frantically so that her cunt pressed against my face and then pulling and pushing my head with her hands as I licked her. All this cunnilingus (about thirty minutes worth) got me aroused again, and so I pulled myself up and we fucked some more. This time she came, but I didn't. Afterwards, we returned to sleep, then woke up and had sex again a few hours later, with both of us reaching orgasm this third time.

I asked her about our not using contraception. She explained that she isn't ovulating, and hasn't had a period in several months, possibly because three years ago she had breast cancer. One of the possible side effects of the chemotherapy that was used to treat this cancer is premature menopause (she is only forty), which would explain the lack of ovulation. She thinks that part of her problem is a hormone imbalance, but she can't take hormone replacements because doing so might cause the cancer to return. She concluded by saying, "I'll probably live a short life. Also, I'm not trying to get pregnant. I don't really want a child and a child certainly wouldn't fit in with my lifestyle. But on the other hand, getting pregnant would be a pleasant surprise in the sense that it would mean my body isn't totally broken."

We didn't get out of bed until the mid-afternoon. After washing up and dressing, we had dinner at a restaurant, where she discussed her family. "My father was a chronic liar. He lied about everything. After he and mother had separated, he would sometimes promise to come by on the weekend and pick me up to visit him. And so there I would be on a Friday night, expecting him to come by at six, and before long it would be ten at night and he still hadn't showed up. It hurt me very much. So I'm glad that you call when you say you will. And he also lied to my mother about his affairs. Constant lying, and yet he always got caught. Why lie when the truth would eventually come out? It just made it that much more hurtful. Always pretending to be something he was not. My grandmother used to say, at least he was a good-looking man and very well-mannered. Imagine if that were the only positive thing someone could say about you. That you were good-looking and well-mannered." She also discussed her mother, who was adopted by a woman who is now on the verge of dying and who has apparently written a will which cuts her mother out in favor of her natural daughter, about which possibility her mother is constantly fretting.

After dinner, we drove to see a sappy movie which Elizabeth had seen previously but wanted to see again. Drinks and dessert afterwards at a restaurant in the commercial district, then she dropped me off at my apartment. Neither of us had discussed where I would spend the night, though I suspect she was probably getting tired of me. I know I was getting tired of her. I stayed up several hours before going to sleep, reading a book about impotence. I found it curious that no where does the author or any of the experts he interviews suggest that men might enjoy sometimes being impotent, as a way of revenging themselves on a woman.

Elizabeth came by in the late afternoon, in a somewhat testy mood. Dinner at a restaurant, where she seemed to be trying to start an argument. Afterwards, we walked to a nearby nightclub for what I had thought would be live salsa music. The first band was indeed salsa, but the lead act, which neither of us particularly liked, wasn't. Tickets were $30 each, which was something of a shocker to me as I had expected $15 each. We left the concert early, since we had to be up at early the next morning for the church service. Elizabeth was still sore from fucking the other night, so we initially planned to engage only in oral sex, but that bored us both, and so eventually we wound up fucking again, with her straddling me on all fours and deliberately trying to make me come. I managed to delay my orgasm for perhaps ten minutes by counting backwards by seven from eleven hundred, then finally lost control and exploded, bellowing at the top of my lungs and thrashing about, with my cock still buried in her cunt. I don't think she either came or wanted to come.

We rose early the next morning, as planned, then had an argument about the clothes I was wearing. I initially put on a dark shirt and white tie, but she objected that I looked like a Mafioso in this getup. To appease her, I changed to a conservative looking white shirt and striped tie. But then I felt ashamed of my appearance as we walked down the street. I felt like some sort of prep-school student.

The acclaimed organ music hardly seemed worth the tedium of having to sit through the church service, which was utterly lacking in spirituality, I thought. A leaden, homily-filled atmosphere, a worshipping of middle-class consumer values more than a worshipping of God and nature.

As soon as the service was over, I insisted on returning to my apartment, in order to change back to the dark shirt and white tie. From there we drove to the brunch with her friends, and afterwards returned to my apartment, in order to change clothes again. I had assumed that we would both be putting on casual clothes, in order to take a walk in the park, but then I noticed her donning some white lace stockings, which I couldn't resist touching. She told me later that she had put these stocking on deliberately, in order to get me aroused. Her ploy was successful. I pulled her down onto the futon and fucked her there very slowly, once again counting backwards by seven from eleven hundred to keep from coming too soon. I would have like to continue for hours in this manner, but she grew sore and so we switched to dog-style position, wherein I came with an explosive orgasm after a minute or so of fast and hard pounding against her buttocks. Then we lay in bed all afternoon, with "easy listening" type music on the stereo. At one point, she got aroused and tried to get me hard again, without success.

Dinner together in the evening at the cafe. She discussed a foppish male friend of one of her girlfriends, who calls himself "Toast" and who wears women's clothes and makeup, but who is also apparently heterosexual and indeed very successful with women. It was raining when we finished dinner, so she asked me to hail a cab (she paid the $3.50 fare and also gave a generous $1.50 tip). She collected her belongings from my apartment, while I ran through the rain to retrieve her car, which was parked several blocks away. I then asked her to drive me to the tango dancing nightclub. She became upset at the idea that I was going dancing without her. I tried to console her by saying: "You give me everything I want from a woman. I'm not going dancing in order to pick up babes." She sighed without commenting, and gave the ride I had requested.

I lay about in bed until noon, playing with myself. I had planned to refrain from orgasm, since I had come twice yesterday and wanted to be well-primed for when Elizabeth and I next get together. But then I got excited and one thing led to another and I couldn't hold back. The fantasy was a woman begging me to come in her mouth--"please let me feel your hot, pulsating cock spurting into my mouth", or something of the sort.

I realized I hadn't yet filed my personal incomes taxes, so there was a big rush to get that done in the late afternoon. For the past twenty years, ever since I first started filing tax returns as a teenager, I've always filed my taxes at least a month in advance. Now I wait until almost the last day. What is the significance of this procrastination, I wonder?

Per Elizabeth's request, I joined her at her private dance lesson, so that the instructor could determine what we were doing wrong. It was a very stressful hour. Towards the end, we were almost at each other's throats. My own experience with dancing at this point is such that I state with certainty that Elizabeth is among the clumsiest women I've ever danced with, and yet she refuses to accept any criticism, from me or anyone else. The instructor, who is being paid by her, detects this, and so avoids saying anything negative about her dancing. In particular, he doesn't dare tell her that her footwork on the reverse turn is wrong. She makes an excessively long inside step and an excessively short outside step, with the net effect of causing an underturn. I lead the dance instructor, and we turn properly. He leads me, and we turn properly. I lead Elizabeth, and we underturn. He leads Elizabeth, and they underturn. Given that all three of us are similar in height, the conclusion is obvious. Namely, Elizabeth is not doing the follower's footwork properly and this is the cause of the underturning. Of course, the instructor is careful to stop after just two turns with Elizabeth, so that the effect of the underturn, which is to break the line of dance and cause a collision with the wall, is not apparent, and thus she can maintain the pretence that she is turning properly. I hate to create a nasty scene, but it is patronizing for us to pretend that nothing is wrong. The longer she denies the problem, the more embarrassing it will be to finally admit that one exists.

As it is, we can't dance during class because the underturning makes it impossible to go more than two reverse turns in succession. But Elizabeth rejects my suggestion we just abandon the idea of successive reverse turns, and instead put change steps between the reverse turns, in order to give us a chance to compensate for her underturning. "I want to do it properly and to do it properly we have to do several reverse turns," she insists. And then when the floor is empty and so we don't have to worry about maintaining the line of dance, she gets dizzy from multiple reverse turns and wants to stop. I felt like telling her that she is incompetent at every type of dancing I've done with her so far, and that the reason is because she refuses to listen to other people's advice and that if she doesn't get her act together, I'm not going to dance with her any more. I managed to bite my tongue, however.

Lunch with my uncle (he picked up the tab), who came into the city with his wife to see an exhibition of orchids. Pleasant small talk about relatives and the weather. My uncle tried calling my father recently, but got my sister's answering machine. The greeting on that machine is like a bad parody of a country bumpkin. "Howdy partner! We're out in the fields now, feeding the critters. Hee-haw!" After which are various imitation animal sounds. "Mooo! Oink-oink! Baaaah! Quack, quack, quack!" The general impression one gets from this recording is that the person who made it (that would be my sister) is dotty in the head. My uncle never received a response to the message he left. Which is not surprising, since we both believe my sister is still angry at my uncle for helping me to get through to and speak to my father this past Christmas.

During dance lessons this evening, Elizabeth finally admitted that she is at least partly to blame for our failure to dance properly. This is what I had been waiting to hear, and so I tried to be more polite and encouraging, especially since she made some progress as compared with yesterday. Unfortunately, towards the end of class she relapsed into her former bad posture, and consequently we started underturning again. Also, she did poorly with the other leaders, and so was very frustrated afterwards. We talked and kissed in her car for a while outside my apartment, then talked some.

She is feeling bored and dissatisfied with her job. Today, she attended a women's issues conference, listening to various female politicos speak. She is menstruating this week, for the first time in months. It is still a somewhat abnormal period, she thinks, though her body is definitely behaving better than before. I was relieved to know that she isn't pregnant. I mentioned a book I had been reading recently about treating sex criminals. Elizabeth made a face upon hearing this.

"You told me you went out dancing originally in order to find a woman. And now you continue to go out dancing alone. And then all these books you read, all this sex and perversion. I don't want to censure your reading or thinking, but I just feel as if you were seeking something, something that I'm not giving you. And this concerns me," she said.

"I'm not looking for another woman, if that's what you mean. I told you before and I'll tell you again. You really do completely satisfy me as a woman. On the other hand, if the truth be told, the way people dance salsa in nightclubs is somewhat like having a big orgy, but without actually doing the deed. It's like being promiscuous, without really being promiscuous," I said.

"But why do you want to be promiscuous? We just met, what, two months ago? I don't have any desire to go out dancing with strange men."

"Well, I'm not looking for another woman. But I do like dancing with them."

"I just feel uneasy. That's all."

She has been having painful bladder infections since we started having sex. I suggested we try less vigorous fucking, or possibly use spoon position to reduce the pounding on her groin, and also to fuck for shorter periods of time, with more foreplay. We then discussed various other preventive measures and home remedies, all of which knowledge I picked up during my years with Helen, who was equally prone to these bladder infections. Elizabeth said that one of the ways she relieved her pain was by masturbating, which I found hardly surprising, since my opinion has long been that these "bladder infections" are often merely a symptom of unsatisfied sexual arousal. I asked her what fantasies she used, but she replied, "I'll never tell you. Never. And I don't want to hear yours. Especially if they involve other women."

I masturbated twice, to images of fucking Elizabeth, or being a woman being fucked by a man like myself. Between these two masturbation sessions, I fucked myself in the ass with a dildo, to experience again what being fucked in the ass feels like. I rhythmically thrust the dildo into my ass a hundred times, which caused a tingling sensation at the tip of my cock, as if I were about to come, though my cock was completely shriveled and soft while this was happening. The dildo was covered with shit afterwards. Elizabeth has been complaining of bladder infections, so we may have to resort to anal sex at some point. I mentioned anal sex with her several week ago, and told her it was a position I've never been too keen on, mainly because I don't like the idea of getting my cock covered with shit. She indicated that she found anal sex to be painful, especially with a cock as thick as mine. My cock is similar in thickness to the dildo, which I found to be very difficult and painful to insert. However, this pain disappeared completely after a few minutes, as the anal sphincter muscle gradually relaxed.

While at the cafe, I became aroused staring at a young blonde woman sitting in front of me, especially when she stood up and I noticed her jeans were faded everywhere except in the crotch, where there was a triangle of darker blue pinched close against her flesh. I fantasized about throwing her down and smelling and licking her cunt.

Phone conversation with Elizabeth in the evening. She is attending an off-site work conference today and tomorrow. Somehow, we got on the subject of the still unsolved murder of the child beauty queen, which has been a feature of the tabloid press for several years now (or at least it seems that long). Elizabeth mentioned that she had participated in beauty pageants herself as a teen-ager. "My mother forced me to. It was her fantasy, not mine. I did pretty well though. I was even in the top ten one year. The reason I didn't win was that I had no talents. I couldn't play a musical instrument or sing or even dance very well. One year I recited a poem I had written, and then the next year I did a little dance routine I made up."

I spent the afternoon masturbating, using various fantasies, including the following. I insert a large butt plug in a woman's ass, then she puts on a tight pair of blue jeans, then I spank her. She moans in ecstasy. Afterwards, with the butt plug still lodged in her now smarting ass, we go out to eat dinner at restaurant. She squirms in her seat throughout the meal. While walking to and from the restaurant, I smack her frequently her on the ass, causing her to shudder as the impact of my hand is transmitted deep inside her body by means of the butt plug. We return home and I give her another spanking, then sit on a chair while she straddles me. I massage her clitoris with my rock-hard cock, while simultaneously manipulating the butt-plug. After she comes (explosively, of course), I remove the butt plug from her ass, and insert my cock there in its stead. Both of us scream at the top of our lungs as I thrust my way to a tremendous orgasm.

Elizabeth and I went tango dancing in the evening, followed by dinner at a restaurant. She discussed her former boyfriend, who she had been dating before she met me, and how he used to break objects in her apartment, seemingly by accident, though she suspects clumsiness was his way of expressing hostility. I then described my last visit to Karen, which upset Elizabeth, probably because my words and tone of voice revealed that I'm still fond of Karen. I told Elizabeth that I loved her as much as I've ever loved any woman, but couldn't resist adding my usual disclaimer: "Assuming, of course, that love is a meaningful word." Despite the disclaimer, my declaration of love seemed to soothe her. She brought up the subject of men who date "sex-industry" workers, so I naturally revealed that a former lover of mine had once worked as prostitute. I didn't mention that this lover had been Karen. Elizabeth became agitated.

"I really didn't need to hear this," she said.

"But you brought the subject up," I replied.

"I hope you used protection every time you had sex with her. And I mean every time."

After dinner, we returned to the nightclub for more tango dancing, where we managed to do passably well, despite the fact that Elizabeth wasn't leaning forward properly and hence was unable to take long backward steps, which caused me to keep stepping on her toes.

It was about midnight when we returned to her apartment, where we had sex on her couch. She asked me to go very slow, both so she could savor the sex and also to avoid making her sore. I complied with this request as best I could. Since I was feeling extremely aroused, I had to count backwards from eleven hundred by seven to keep from coming. I managed to hold on for over thirty minutes, before finally losing control and coming with an explosive orgasm. Elizabeth said later that she was in the process of coming herself when I came, and that she would have had a more intense orgasm had I lasted longer, but that she still enjoyed the sex very much. Some menstrual blood leaked out while we were fucking and stained the upholstery. I don't know why she wanted to fuck on the sofa, instead of in bed with a towel underneath.

Elizabeth and I started kissing one another upon awakening the next morning, then she became aroused and mounted me. I had wanted us to go slowly again, as we had done last night, but she insisted on bouncing about on me, in a furious and unsuccessful attempt to achieve orgasm, which I couldn't very well stop. At last she slowed, as if resigned to not being able to come. We rolled over so that I was now on top. After a few dozen rapid strokes, I came in her with an explosive orgasm. We lay in bed for an hour afterwards, then had a light breakfast in her kitchen. I left at noon to give her a chance to run some errands.

When I returned to her apartment in the evening, she greeted me by saying, "I've been waiting for you." At first, I thought she was reproaching me for being late, since I had promised to arrive about thirty minutes earlier, and so I mumbled an apology. Then I followed her into the living room, where I exclaimed in surprise at the sight of candles, an opened bottle of red wine, two wine glasses and a plate of chocolates: "I think you're trying to seduce me!" We drank the wine and discussed some astrological charts I had made for her, then began kissing. I reached under her dress, and discovered that she wasn't wearing any underwear, and exclaimed: "You really are trying to seduce me!" We fucked on the floor. I was less aroused than the night before, and managed to hold on long enough to bring her to a full orgasm. My own orgasm was just a partial one. She probably would have let me continue fucking her, but I was afraid of making her sore if I did so.

We ate a very late dinner at a noisy restaurant, then fell asleep almost immediately after returning to her apartment.

I dreamt that Elizabeth was complaining of how I sleep—as far as possible to my side of the bed, just on the edge and about to fall off, and facing away from her—and that she said: "Why do you try to get so far away from me and shrink from my touch like some sort of victim of incest who dreads human contact?" Then another dream, in which she has sex with my neighbor (someone I don't recognize from real life), who has a bigger cock than mine.

I awoke from these dreams about mid-morning, performed my morning ablutions, then returned to bed and began fondling her. She rolled onto her stomach, so I could fuck her cunt from behind. I became aroused and asked if she wanted me to delay coming. "Do whatever you want. I want you to be satisfied," she replied. I came soon after she said this, a thoroughly satisfying orgasm, my arms squeezing her shoulders tightly as my body shook in repeated spasms. Perhaps an hour later she became aroused, and so guided my finger down to her clitoris, wanting me to rub it. After I had done so for some time, ten minutes or so, she began pulling on my cock, which grew hard in response. She seemed to rise to a fever pitch of excitement as I fucked her—moaning, her body twisting and tossing, her hands clutching at the sheets—but nevertheless she was unable to reach orgasm. I felt my erection beginning to soften, and so withdrew and resumed fingering her. She came soon thereafter, with a sudden collapse of tension in the muscles of her thighs and stomach, and her chest flushing deep red just before she came, and then just as quickly returning to its ordinary paleness. We lay quietly in bed for several hours afterwards—talking, kissing and hugging—before rising at about noon. While eating breakfast, she showed me a picture of her parents, during their honeymoon. I said her mother resembled a "tigress", which amused her.

She has been experiencing burning sensations in her vaginal area ever since we began having sex together. According to both her gynecologist and her home medical books, she is suffering from either cystitis or bladder infections. This is the same ailment that bothers Helen. Nothing seems to relieve the pain. The doctor prescribes antibiotics, but she is reluctant to take these because they cause other problems. I have often suspected that cystitis in women is somehow the result of incompletely unsatisfied sexual desire. The woman gets horny, but can't admit it to herself, or can't masturbate properly, or doesn't have a complete orgasm, and the result is a painful tingling sensation in the vaginal area. Indeed, Elizabeth has admitted that masturbation gives the best pain relief. So when she complained today of pain, I suggested that I perform oral sex on her.

She agreed to give my idea a chance, and so we crawled back into bed, where I licked her softly for about twenty minutes, until she became aroused and started massaging my erect cock with her feet. We then switched to position sixty-nine, so she could suck my cock while I licked and fingered her cunt. She became very aroused by this position, putting her hands on my buttocks and pulling me closer, which I resisted, as I didn't want to risk gagging her and thereby turning her off from future oral sex. So she only got my cock about halfway into her mouth. I would have liked to linger in this position, slowly fingering and licking her cunt while she sucked on my cock, but she abruptly pushed me away and onto my back, then squatted over me, with her back towards my face. Unfortunately I wasn't hard enough to achieve penetration. So instead, we resumed kissing and hugging. I inquired about her cystitis. As I had anticipated, the sex had made it disappear, at least temporarily.

"Do you get turned when I suck you?" she asked.

"Sure, I like it. But it seems to do more for the woman than me. I'd just as soon fuck," I replied.

"I get turned on by it. It makes me want to swallow your cock whole and bury my face in your pubic hair."

"From early on, I suspected you wanted to take my cock in your mouth."

"How could you possibly know that?"

"The way you looked at my crotch when I was getting out of your car after the second date. That was the first time we tongue kissed. You leaned over with your mouth slightly open and stared at my crotch, partly as if to see if I was hard (I was semi-hard, by the way) and also because you wanted—at least subconsciously—to suck me."

"There is no way you could have known I was thinking anything of the sort. Though it might have been true."

We didn't leave her apartment until about late afternoon, at which time we drove to a park and took a walk there. Then we had dinner at a restaurant and then she drove me home. I had promised to lend her my portable computer, which I don't use anymore, so we came upstairs to fetch it, along with the indoor water fountain I had previously offered to give her. When I tested it, the computer was broken, however. She noticed the unprocessed faxes on my desk, relating to my software business. That led to a discussion of my accounts receivable problem. I showed her a large folder of unpaid invoices, overdue by more than sixty days. She shook her head in disapproval and gave me various pieces of advice. Accounting is her area of expertise, and so I had to acknowledge that her advice was correct and that I was running a very sloppy and disorganized operation. After this she poked around some on the Internet and came across an article about the recent death of a movie star, who had cancer several years ago, and apparently was not completely cured of it. This seemed to depress her, since she also had cancer several years ago.

I called Helen at work and had a brief conversation with her. Last week she and Paul visited her parents. "My dad was practically turning cartwheels when I told them I was engaged. And that was before they even saw him. They didn't care what he looked like, they just want to get me married off to somebody. And, of course, Paul charmed the pants off them, as I knew he would. For months now he's been doing nothing but reading the newspaper, and so was able to dazzle them with his knowledge of current affairs. Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to joining the ranks of the welfare mothers, the new female poor." She is in agony with a bladder infection, and so wasn't able to have lunch with me today.

A customer found a serious defect in one of my programs. Two years ago I would have dropped everything in an effort to fix this defect as soon as possible. But now, I just take the report, and then go lie down on the sofa and listen to music and masturbate and daydream.

Elizabeth was incompetent as ever at ballroom dance lessons this evening. The problem is that she is leaning forwards instead of backwards. This won't work in the Viennese Waltz, since by leaning forwards, her forward steps tend to be small and her backward steps large, which is exactly the opposite of what is required. This is the opposite of her problem with tango dancing, where she leans backwards when she should be leaning forwards. In tango, the woman's backward steps should be large and her forward steps small. Also, Elizabeth's posture is poor. Her shoulders are pulled up and back and her whole upper body is tense and yet simultaneously weak, so that her frame collapses as soon as I apply pressure. She asked me to dance with her after the lesson was over, and we did our usual poor job. When I pointed out why I thought we were having difficulties, she reacted with hostility and stormed out of the ballroom, with her teeth clenched and a grim expression on her face. I followed her out.

"We'll get better. It's just a matter of practice. And I know why we are having problems. I think that if you leaned back more, we would be able to dance much better together," I said.

"It's always me. I have to do all the work!" she replied, furiously.

"What do you mean?"

"I have to work on my dancing. You're perfect. I have to ask you if you want a ride home."

"I asked you for a ride home."

"You didn't ask me for a ride home. You said, are you planning to give me a ride home?"

"Whatever it is that I said, I blurted it out because I saw the bus coming and I wanted to know what your plans were so that I could catch the bus if you weren't going to give me a ride."

"And how do you know your dancing is correct? I danced fine with the instructor."

"He says you danced fine. He's afraid to tell you the truth."

"Oh, so that's it! He's wrong and you're right! You know everything!"

"I danced with several women and I saw a consistent pattern. When the woman leans back and maintains a solid frame, I can dance well with her. If the woman leans forward, we have problems. You were one of the women who leaned forward. By the way, how did you do with the other men?"

"Not very well."

"There you go. Another thing, it really is a bad idea for us to always dance with one another. We learn a lot more by having a large number of partners."

"Why do you always want to dance with someone else? Why can't we dance together?"

"The reason I want us to dance with other partners is precisely so we don't have these nasty arguments like we're having now. I danced with other women and some of them did it correctly and I'm telling you, you did it wrong and it's because you're leaning forward. I'm doing you a favor by pinpointing the problem. If you want to stumble about trying to figure out the problem on your own, fine."

"Well, it looks like we're not going to be doing much dancing together. We just seem to go at each other's throats."

"There's no place we can use these skills, so I don't see that it really matters."

"I wanted to learn this dance!"

"Well, fine, but there's nowhere to use it except at the ballroom. Anyway, would you like to try salsa or tango again?"

"Your dances."

"Not my dances. The dances they do at nightclubs."

"Your dances."

"Whatever. Would you like to try again?"

"I suppose so. When?"

We thus managed to calm the tension. As usual, she parked in the driveway of my apartment building and turned off the ignition so we could kiss at leisure. After a while, she got aroused and climbed into my seat, which I released back into the fully reclined position. We lay there kissing for a while, then I put my hand up her dress and inside her underpants and stroked her buttocks and the crevice between them and finally reached down and fingered her cunt from behind. She became aroused and shifted position so I could finger her from the front. "I feel like fucking you," I said jokingly, during a break in our kissing. Then she patted my cock, which was hard, so I undid and pushed down my pants, while continuing to finger her. "Let's do it here," she suggested, then she pushed the crotch of her underwear to the side, so that my cock could press against her cunt. It took several hard thrusts before my cock hit the right spot and slipped inside. She gasped as I penetrated, then relaxed.

"Do you want me to last?" I said.

"What do you mean?" she said.

"I'm about to come. Do you want me to hold back?"

"I don't know. Are you going to make a lot of noise?"

"I hope not. Wouldn't that be something?"

Then she glued her mouth to mine, which excited me further. I decided not to lose the opportunity, and so began pumping faster, so that the car started rocking, then came with a more restrained than usual orgasm. We joked about what we had done afterwards, whether it was legal or not, what the penalties were for sex in public, whether anyone had seen, whether she would lose her job if convicted of having sex in public. Then she said that she didn't want to go home by herself, so I agreed to spend the night with her.

On the way home, Elizabeth remarked that her mother is involved in a situation very similar to the one I had with my father and sister. Namely, Elizabeth's grandmother is senile, and has a net worth of about $600,000, besides being a pension beneficiary. The natural daughter of this grandmother (Elizabeth's aunt) is supposedly stealing her money. Elizabeth's mother, an adopted daughter of this grandmother, wants to intervene. I discussed what I know about conservatorship lawsuits. Elizabeth suspects that the grandmother has already written a will which leaves most of her money to the aunt, and not to Elizabeth's mother, so the only thing a conservatorship lawsuit would accomplish would be to spite the aunt, by postponing the day when she finally gets all the grandmother's money.

We talked for a while in bed, then started kissing, which led to another round of fucking. I tried to ride as high as possible, so that our only contact in the pelvic region was where the tip of my cock rubbed against her clitoris. Elizabeth was moaning almost from the start, though never seemed to reach an orgasmic peak. We had to stop when she became sore. I felt satisfied from my earlier orgasm, and so didn't bother trying to come again.

Lunch with Helen, who gave me some more details of her visit to her parents with Paul. Her parents are planning to sell their house and move into an apartment, which worries her, since she was thinking of returning to live with them after having her baby. During their trip, she and Paul managed to get along well, other than one incident when she started crying at the idea of having to return to her hated job. She proposed instead that she live with her parents until Paul finds a job, and that she would then join him. Paul was incensed at this proposal, left the house in the morning in a huff, and didn't return until late in the evening. At dinner, Helen's parents asked her where Paul had gone. Helen replied that she didn't know, and that he might never be returning. As it turns out, his late return was due to his being lost.

Shortly after returning from the trip, they had a more serious dispute. Helen came home exhausted from work and wanted Paul to hug her, but he kept pushing her away. Finally, she put her arms around him from behind. He struggled to get free, whereupon she bit him on the arm.

"You bit me!" he exclaimed, glaring at her.

"I didn't mean anything," she said.

"That was an act of violence, which I find intolerable."

"Violence?"

"Yes, violence. You bit me."

"It was a love bite."

"It was an act of violence. What's more, this isn't the first time you've shown these violent tendencies. In fact, I see a pattern of escalating violence in our relationship. The rest of your family—especially your parents—didn't seem violent, only you."

"This is absurd."

"What is absurd is the idea of us getting married. It was obvious that we were just putting on a charade to impress your parents that we're in love, when in fact we are completely incompatible and now you're resorting to violence. You can forget this idea of a wedding next month."

"You can pay for the abortion then!"

"I'll pay half."

But Helen doesn't like the idea of abortion, even if Paul does break up with her. She called her mother that night and told her the wedding was off and not to be surprised if she showed up on their doorstep in a few months, without Paul, but carrying a new born baby. Her mother offered to come visit her, but Helen declined this offer. She suspects that one of the reasons Paul is somewhat touchy these days is that he is feeling pressured to marry her. Her parents had suggested a civil ceremony soon, so the baby won't be born a bastard, then perhaps a religious ceremony later. Helen and Paul agreed with this idea, though it now appears Paul was not really keen about it.

I didn't bother returning to my apartment after lunch. Instead, I walked down the street laughing aloud and thinking, "Oh what an irresponsible fellow am I!" There is a huge backlog of work waiting for me. The bug in my program, orders to be fulfilled, phone calls, email, hardcopy mail, faxes. All of this I just decided to ignore. Instead of doing work, I spent the afternoon shopping at the discount clothing store, and then browsed for several hours in the public library.

I lay in bed all morning masturbating, to images of rubbing my cock and balls against a woman's face, but held off from orgasm, since I planned to see Elizabeth this afternoon. I ignored a series of phone calls in the morning, then finally crawled out of bed near noon and began answering the phone. The first call I answered was from Elizabeth, who was upset that I hadn't called earlier.

"I planned to call. I've been tied up with a huge backlog," I said.

"You said you would call this morning. And it's almost noon now," she said.

"Well, technically, it's still morning. I said I would call and I was going to. Anyway, now that we're on the phone, when do you want to meet this evening?"

"I'm too upset to discuss it. Maybe we can talk later."

"Later? Why not now?"

"I don't know. When you said you would call and then didn't I thought to myself, well, either he got up late, or he's busy working on his program, or he stayed out late last night, or he's sleeping with another woman, or he's gotten hurt or killed or he doesn't want to see me anymore or he's just putting me off and making me wait."

"Sleeping with another woman. It's really something how you come up with these ideas."

"It's just that I don't know. I waited until eleven and then I couldn't wait any longer and so I called. Maybe I overreacted."

"From now on, we'll agree that the morning ends at ten. I was thinking it ends at noon."

"Well, why do you have to wait until the last minute? It's like you want to make me wait. I have errands to run. And I know it's probably tedious for you to have me act like this."

"It doesn't bother me. But I will call before ten from now on when I say I'll call in the morning."

On and on we went in the above vein. I finally managed to calm her down. After she hung up, I played with my cock and had an orgasm by "accident".

About mid-afternoon, I fled the apartment and the backlog of work therein, and walked to an art gallery, where I was to meet Elizabeth. There seemed to be some tension between us, possibly because of the fight earlier in the day, possibly because I was no longer sexually charged due to my orgasm, possibly because I was in a bad mood for some unrelated reason such as the backlog of work. Elizabeth pointed out the gallery owner, who she alleged had once tried to seduce an artist friend of hers while they discussed exhibiting this friend's paintings. I told her that I didn't much care for the black and white prints that were the primary focus of the exhibition, but that I did find appealing a bronze statue of a woman squeezing her amply sized breast. "Looks like she's really serving it up," was Elizabeth's amusing comment.

Dinner at a nearby restaurant, where there was still tension between us. Somehow we got onto the subject of people living together.

"I can't imagine how people can live together," I said. "The idea of it just makes me shudder. Oh, it's appealing at first. I mean I sometimes miss you after we've had a great time together. But then the reality sets in. You're with this other person day in and day out, every day, for the rest of your life."

"But you've lived with women before, didn't you tell me that?" she said.

"Yes, and we lasted together about six months before I couldn't stand having her around anymore."

"And so you don't ever plan to live with another woman again?"

"Let me put it this way. You can live with me for six months and then that's the last you ever see of me because I'll be so sick of you, or we can live separately and continue indefinitely. I don't hate the idea of living with someone else, but I have the common sense to know it won't work. I've been alone too long to ever be able to enjoy living with someone else. Now if I were forced to live with another person for economic reasons, that I could tolerate. There would be a reason for it. But the first luxury I would buy, once I could afford it, would be a place of my own. Living alone is the only way to live as far as I'm concerned."

I continued in the same vein for some time, rehashing the same general idea in different ways. Finally I stopped speaking and then there was a tense silence between us, which continued for the rest of the meal, and also while we were walking back to her car. Our plan had been to go dancing, but I noticed as we drove that she wasn't going in the direction of the nightclub, but rather towards my apartment building. I said nothing until she pulled into the driveway there.

"You don't want to go dancing?" I said.

"I really don't think I do," she replied.

"Is there a reason?"

"Yes."

"And what is the reason?"

"I think you know what the reason is."

"What? The fact that I don't want to marry you?"

"Among other things."

"Elizabeth, I thought I made it clear to you early on that I wasn't interested in having children..."

"I didn't say I wanted children!"

"And neither do I. I don't really hate children. I just don't want to put forth the time or effort or money to raise them. There are other things in life I'd rather do. People shouldn't have children unless they want them. Anyway, since I don't want them, I make a point of not dating women who might want children. There are plenty of women who don't want children, but who do want a boyfriend like me, especially older women, women who've already had children or who are certain they don't want them."

"Why do you keep bringing up the subject of children? I said I wasn't interested in children."

"Because without children I don't see the point of getting married. It's just an unnecessary legal and financial entanglement of the sort I've always tried to avoid."

"Okay, so I don't want marriage then."

"Then what do you want?"

"I want to stop feeling like such a freak! I want to be like everyone else! All my friends are married and living with a husband and having babies and here I am this freak living alone with a boyfriend who just wants to have sex with me and then doesn't want to live with me."

"Having babies? I thought you said you didn't want children?"

"I don't."

"Then why are you comparing yourself to women who do want children."

"I don't know."

"If you don't want children, and you don't want marriage, then what do you want?"

"I want us to live together."

"And why? What is wrong with the situation we have now? Do you want to see me more often? We can arrange that."

"Arrange that. An arrangement. That's what this relationship is. I'm just some woman with whom you have an arrangement. Someone to have sex with..."

"What's wrong with that? You make it sound disgusting, like something you should be ashamed of. I'm your lover and you're my lover. What's the big deal?"

"You just don't want to take the slightest steps towards having a permanent relationship."

"Are you worried that I'm planning to break up with you?"

"Well, I have these weird feelings. You want to go out dancing without me. You don't want to live with me—ever. I'm not talking about right now. But you're saying—and you certainly made it clear in the restaurant—that you don't ever want to live with me. That makes me wonder just how committed you are to this relationship."

"My feeling is that I'm enjoying myself and would like to continue seeing you. You're the one who seems unsatisfied. Perhaps you're bored with me and all this talk of being upset because I don't want to live with you is just your way of starting a fight because what you really want is to break up and stop seeing me altogether. Are you bored with me?"

"No."

"Do you enjoy the time you spend with me?"

"Yes."

"Do you enjoy sex with me?"

"Yes."

"Then why worry about the future? Why not enjoy the present?"

"I don't know."

I leaned over and we started kissing and fondling one another.

"Let's skip the dancing, go back to your apartment. I want to kiss your breast and cunt as well as your mouth," I said.

"We can do that here," she suggested.

"Here? At nine o'clock? It was one thing to do it at midnight, but not nine o'clock."

So we returned to her apartment, undressed and got into bed. My cock was completely soft—not even the slightest hint of an erection. I also had no desire to kiss or fondle her anymore. So we lay silently in bed, restless, unable to sleep, not even touching one another. There was tremendous tension in the air.

"I can't sleep," she said finally, clambering over me to get out of bed. A clatter of dishes in the kitchen, then she briefly appeared in the bedroom doorway: "You're really acting like an asshole!" After saying this she went to sit in the living room, but a few minutes later returned to the bedroom and said: "This all started because of the dancing!"

"Dancing? You want to know what I think about dancing?" I said.

"What do you think about dancing?"

"I'll tell you what I think. You don't know how to dance, that's what."

"You're the one who doesn't know how to dance! I had hoped we would be able dance together and now that dream is ruined. Just like my idea of us living together. You're just a selfish asshole!"

"Listen, goddamn it! I've had it up to here with you telling me I don't know how to dance when you're the one who is incompetent! You hear me, you are an utterly and completely incompetent dancer!"

"Then why did I do well with the dance instructor? Why did he say I was doing well?"

"Because he's paid to say that! What do you expect him to say? Any fool can see that you can't take criticism. Even when you pay someone $60 an hour precisely so they can give you the sort of criticism you need. No, you don't want to improve, you just want to be told you're a great dancer. You can't dance and I'm sick of dancing with you!"

On and on it went. Finally, I turned and walked back to the bedroom. It was impossible to sleep in the tense atmosphere, however, so after about ten minutes I returned to the living room. She was sitting on the sofa there in lotus position, as if meditating.

"I'm sorry for yelling at you," I said.

"You hurt me, all the things you said. It was very insulting," she said.

"Well, calling me a selfish asshole and whatnot wasn't too polite on your part."

"I'm sorry."

"And I'm sorry, too."

"It's just that we seem to be moving in opposite directions. I wanted us to be able to dance together so we would have something in common, something to do together besides have sex. Now it seems like the dancing just tears us apart."

"I wanted us to be able to dance together as well. And I'm not deliberately trying to hurt your feelings by commenting on your dancing. I simply recognized what it was that you were doing wrong and so I told you. I could see that you were frustrated. I would have been ashamed of myself if I hadn't told you what you were doing wrong."

"Oh, so I'm doing something wrong?"

"Yes, you're leaning forwards instead of backwards, and that won't work with the Viennese Waltz. But let's change the subject. I don't want another fight."

"I just see you as always seeing yourself as an independent person instead as a member of a couple. Not wanting to live with me, wanting to dance with other women. And then the selfishness. You just don't seem to care about me. When I told you I had cancer, and I asked you if it bothered you, all you could say was no, it didn't bother you, why should it? After all, it wasn't contagious. Thinking about yourself, in other words. It isn't contagious, so you won't get it, so you don't care."

"What am I supposed to say?"

"That you care."

"The problem Elizabeth, is that I don't want to destroy my good qualities—my honesty, my lack of hypocrisy—by feeding you these sorts of false-sounding, sentimental statements that you seem to want."

"That's what I mean, you find it false to say you care. You care primarily about yourself."

"So does every other human on this planet."

"Some people care."

"When a man pretends to care about a woman, what he means is that he's afraid that if she dies he'll have to find someone else to have sex with and that might be a hassle. I care about you in that sense."

"That's what I mean. I'm sorry about calling you an asshole, but you are cold-hearted and selfish."

"Well, I can't help it. That's the way I am. Blame it on my genes or my upbringing. Regardless, it's impossible to change a personality at my age."

"And I can't change my personality."

So we returned to bed, tongue-kissed and then had sex. Elizabeth came quickly. I was aroused but realized I wouldn't be able to come without some hard pounding, which I didn't want to do for fear of making her sore. But then after I had pulled out and gone soft, I realized that she might be upset that I hadn't come, as if it implied that she weren't sexually desirable enough to make me come. As it was, she kept wanting me to hug her, which I resisted because I can't sleep that way. We fell asleep about three in the morning.

There was still tension in the atmosphere when we woke. Both of us were tired from lack of sleep. I was still concerned that she might be upset that I hadn't come last night, so when I felt the stirrings of an erection this morning, I decided to prove to her how sexually desirable I still found her. While she was standing at the sink, I approached her from behind and fondled her breasts, then spun her around, kissed her hard, and marched her to the bedroom. There we fucked for about five minutes before I came. A hurried type of sex, which neither of us particularly enjoyed, so that I regretted having initiated it. She dropped me off at my apartment on the way to work.

I had another "accident" before meeting Elizabeth. I played with my cock, with no intention of reaching orgasm, but then got excited and had an orgasm, after which my desire to see Elizabeth vanished. I also overslept, so that it was noon before I finally rolled out of bed. I then stopped by the library to procure some new reading material and spent several hours browsing before finding something of interest to read. By then it was already time to take the bus to Elizabeth's apartment. So I was unable to enjoy my usual visit to the cafe, which normally is the highlight of my day. I felt harried by the way time was slipping past without my seeming to accomplish anything. "A wasted day" was the phrase that sprang to mind. Also, I had skipped calisthenics both today and yesterday, which further aggravated my tenseness. Altogether, I was in a foul mood when I reached Elizabeth's apartment, which she probably detected.

We walked to a nearby restaurant and had a quiet meal there, accompanied by a pitcher of sangria, then went to see a cult movie at a video studio. The feature film was preceded by several gritty documentaries about heroin addicts, which I enjoyed but at which Elizabeth cringed: "What would my grandmother think if she knew I was watching this?" Afterwards, we somehow got onto the subject of personal ads and Elizabeth's mood seemed to darken, perhaps because she again began worrying that I am planning to ditch her and get another girlfriend. We arrived back at her apartment about midnight, where we both fell asleep almost immediately. I don't know why I was feeling so tired, since I had gotten plenty of sleep the night before. Perhaps I was sluggish from too much sleep. Or perhaps I just wanted to avoid having sex with her.

Sex in the morning, lasting only five minutes and with a bored, mechanical feel to it, though we both managed to get orgasms. I used a condom since it was Elizabeth's fertile time. We busied ourselves separately in the apartment afterwards, saying little. I could sense that Elizabeth was in a dark mood. While waiting for her to finish dressing, I rearranged the rocks of the fountain I gave her last week, then skimmed a book of hers about various aspects of harem life. As always, I was fascinated by the discussion of eunuchs.

We ate a light breakfast at a nearby coffee shop, then I drove her car to the country, where we were to participate in a tour of historic mansions. We were silent all the way, until I suddenly started laughing aloud.

"What are you laughing at?" she asked.

"Oh, nothing," I replied.

"It can't be nothing, or else you wouldn't be laughing."

"I was just thinking about something I read in the library yesterday. The diary of the German playwright Berthold Brecht. He came to America during World War II, as a refugee. The Nazis would have killed him for being a communist had he stayed in Germany. He worked in Hollywood for a while and just hated it. Especially the superficial, anti-intellectual mentality that prevails in the movie industry there. Anyway, in an attempt to earn extra money, he submitted an article to the Reader's Digest magazine. The article was promptly rejected. Of course, he probably knew it would be rejected, but then that's another story. So he writes—and this is what I found so funny—that the article was checked by three different people: one to make sure the color was brown, one to smell it, and one to feel for lumps. That way, they could be sure it was genuine, one hundred percent shit before they published it. For some reason I thought of this as I was driving and started laughing."

Elizabeth sat quietly for a few seconds after I finished speaking, and then violently threw a stack of maps onto the dashboard. I ignored this gesture, and so we drove on in silence, until she finally spoke.

"Aren't you even going to ask why I'm upset?" she asked.

"Well, are you?" I said.

"What do you think?"

"The way you threw those maps at the dashboard naturally inclines me to think you are upset, though I can't imagine why. So tell me, are you upset, and, if so, why?"

"Yes, I'm upset, because all you do is exist in your own head, you don't share your thoughts, you don't even need a girlfriend. Oops, I forgot. You need one for sex. You don't want to tell me what you're thinking because you don't think women are capable of understanding anything. We're just dummies who are good for nothing but fucking. And you're just soooo smart."

"What provoked all this? Because I mentioned Berthold Brecht? I wasn't trying to be intellectually pretentious, you know. I was reading his journals because I saw the book on the shelf at the library and pulled it down by chance and skimmed through it for want of anything better to read."

"And you're so cynical and negative about everything."

"All I did was mention that Berthold Brecht didn't like Hollywood or the Reader's Digest."

"What made you think of this anyway? Why do you always think of things that have nothing to do with me?"

"I don't know. Yes, I do know. We were driving past ranches. Okay? So, another thing Berthold Brecht wrote was that a common dream among these Hollywood writers was to retire to a ranch and get the hell out of the Hollywood racket. That these hack writers at least had the brains to recognize that what they were doing in Hollywood was a waste of whatever limited talent even the least talented of them had, and so they all wanted to escape. To a ranch. So I saw the ranches and that made me think of this comment of Brecht's and then by association of ideas I recalled the comment about the Reader's Digest and that made me laugh. I couldn't help it. I thought it was funny."

"It's cynical."

"Well, I thought it funny. I'm sorry I laughed."

"You don't have to be sorry. Though it would be nice if you asked why I was upset, assuming you ever notice that I'm upset."

"I thought you might be upset, but I didn't know for sure."

"How could you possibly not be sure?"

"Well, it mightn't have been me that got you upset. It might have been something you were thinking. Something to do with your work. I don't know."

"You could ask, and show some concern."

"Concern? Every time I see that you're not smiling I'm supposed to start biting my fingers like a nincompoop and worrying you with pitiful sounding questions? Are you okay, Elizabeth? Is everything all right? You're not smiling, Elizabeth. Tell me what's wrong, Elizabeth. Please, tell me what's wrong! If I acted like that, how long before you wouldn't be able to stand my presence? And then you complain that I don't share my thoughts. What am I supposed to do? Chatter about everything that goes on in my head? How long before you tell me to shut up? And then when you tell me to shut up, I suppose you'd want me to chatter some more. Why are you so upset, Elizabeth? Did I say something wrong? Please, Elizabeth, don't be mad at me! I can't believe this is how you'd like me to act."

"Well, you could at least say something. And, by the way, did you know I was upset this morning?"

"I wasn't sure."

"I don't believe you."

"I thought it strange that you shut the door to your bedroom and kept it shut for ten minutes or whatever. But how do I know what that means? You might have been trying to get something from behind the door and then left it shut while you finished dressing."

"You sound like you're trying to make up excuses for not doing what you should have done."

"When I'm upset, I don't want someone asking me if I'm okay. I want to be left alone."

"That's you. Other people are different."

"So you were upset. Why?"

"There was something about the sex we had this morning. I didn't feel good afterwards."

"Well, to be honest, it wasn't our best effort. But then it wasn't bad sex either, so I didn't see the point of making a fuss about it."

A while later she leaned over and started kissing my neck playfully. We drove the rest of the way holding hands, reconciled it would seem.

We visited a total of five mansions, at each of which there was spread of food (roast lamb, wild rice salad, green salad, vegetarian ravioli, asparagus, tacos, spicy beans, marinated artichokes) upon which we gorged ourselves. We managed not to overdo the drinking, however. Less than two glasses of wine each. Neither of us was properly dressed for the warm weather. We lingered at one especially delightful mansion, where we sat under an arbor in a flower garden, looking out over the valley and hills in the distance, eating strawberries covered in raspberry flavored chocolate, drinking wine and listening to spanish guitar music in the background,

Later, we parked the car and walked down a dirt road towards what we thought would be a mansion just around a nearby curve. But the map we were using for directions gave a misleading sense of distance, and so we had to walk almost forty minutes, through sun-baked fields with not a spot of shade other than where the road crossed a creek, whose banks were lined by tall trees.

"Wouldn't it be nice and cool to sit down there by the water?" I remarked, looking down from the bridge.

"We could do more than sit," replied Elizabeth.

"Oh? And what is that supposed to mean? Besides, we'd get dirty."

"We're going to shower anyway. That's what showers are for."

I'm not sure if she was joking about sex on the banks of the creek. Aside from not wanting to spend the rest of the afternoon covered with dirt, I was looking forward to taking my time performing cunnilingus on her tonight, and thus wanted to conserve my sexual energy. In any case, Elizabeth didn't repeat the proposition.

We finally reached our destination. Yet another sumptuous feast. Unfortunately, we were too stuffed from our visits to the previous mansions to properly enjoy it. By this time we finished viewing this mansion, it was late afternoon. Neither of us wanted to return to the city yet, and so we continued walking down the road until we reached a tiny stream, about a meter across, where we sat under some trees and talked about our days in college. Elizabeth mentioned that she had been in a sorority for one year, until her father died and she had to switch colleges for lack of money. On the way back, we passed an enclosed farmyard, inside of which were a half dozen chickens and two goats. We petted the latter and then fed them some grass which we pulled up in clumps from the sides of the road. The inside of the yard was bereft of all vegetation and the goats seemed bored at having nothing to chew on.

While driving back to the city, we massaged each other's crotch. Elizabeth squeezed my erect cock through my pants, I rubbed her cunt through her skirt. When we passed some run down looking motels, she joked, "Maybe we should just check in there. See whether they charge by the hour."

Back at her apartment, I skimmed through a book about Taoist sex teachings, while Elizabeth was bathing. Among other things, the book discusses the health value of regular and satisfying sex. "These ideas are very similar to my own," I commented. We started kissing and then I went down to kiss and lick her cunt until it was wet. Elizabeth then insisted that she wanted to be on top. We fucked long and slow in that position, but she nevertheless couldn't come. So we rolled over so that I was on top, and in this position she fairly quickly reached orgasm. I then put on a condom, as she had mounted me initially without my wearing one, despite my objections. The contrast for me of fucking without and then with the condom was tremendous—a complete dulling of sensation. Elizabeth later commented that the condom made sex much less satisfying for her as well, though this might have been because we weren't using enough lubricant. I tried to bring her to a second orgasm, noting that the Taoist sex manual suggested ten orgasms for the woman (the "ten-fold pleasuring" or whatever), but Elizabeth wasn't interested. She said that she found it hard to come more than once anymore, and was otherwise much less sensitive now than when she had been younger. So I concentrated on my orgasm, and came explosively—bellowing and thrashing about—after several minutes of hard, deep penetration. She had her legs pulled up so that, with each thrust, my cock buried itself to the hilt in her cunt and her body shook.

Elizabeth was very sleepy in the morning, so I licked at her cunt briefly to help get her blood flowing and wake her up—or so I told her. Actually, I was still possessed by a tremendous hunger to lick and kiss and smell her cunt.

There was a frighteningly large number of faxes and phone messages piled up when I arrived home from Elizabeth's house. I simply ignored them all, so the backlog continues to grow. Customers are becoming irate and starting to send desperate sounding email messages. The bigger the backlog gets, the greater my desire to run away.

I masturbated three times (instead of working) to fantasies of performing position sixty-nine with some oral-sex obsessed teenage girl, begging me with gaping mouth and saucer-sized eyes to please let her suck my balls and please let her bury her face in my crotch. I fell asleep after this orgy of masturbation and took a long nap.

I felt the urge to masturbate yet again before going to sleep, but managed to restrain myself. I'm worried about the possibility that overindulgence might somehow wear out the sex mechanism prematurely. According to one school of eastern thought, a man is only capable of a finite number of orgasms in a lifetime.

Lunch with Helen. She and Paul have been getting along well this past week, watching movies at home each evening, especially a series of comedies which Paul finds enormously amusing. They had a minor dispute over house-cleaning recently. In particular, over Paul's reluctance to clean the bathroom. In the end, they drew up two lists of chores, with each of them assigned one list. After two weeks, they are to swap lists. Paul performed several of his chores in exemplary fashion, which at first delighted Helen, until she realized that he was planning to use his scrupulousness against her during arguments. Sure enough, after she pointed out that he had neglected some of the other chores on his list, he retorted: "It isn't just the number of chores you perform, it is how well they are performed."

I called Elizabeth at work and left a message, but she never called back. My intuition tells me she is pissed off about something. Either I called too late in the day, or she wanted me to call yesterday (though I had only promised to call today), or she is still stewing from something I said or did the last few times we've been together.

I've been extremely lazy this entire month with respect to my business. Often I just lie in bed all day, without bothering to get up when the phone rings, but instead let the answering machine take the call. And then when I do answer the phone, sometimes there is an awkward conversation in which the caller complains of how they left messages several times but never got any response. The fax machine basket is overflowing with orders which I don't bother to process. When a fax order falls onto the floor, it often remains there gathering dust for days before I bother to stoop down and pick it up and put it back on my desk. Meanwhile, I seem to be full of enthusiasm and energy for calisthenics, and dancing, and learning spanish, and reading, and buying and listening to music, and sex and masturbation, and other unprofitable activities.

I really think I am experiencing some sort of nervous breakdown with respect to my business. I don't hesitate to spend twenty minutes walking in order to avoid paying $1 bus fare, but yet I can't bear to spend twenty minutes earning $1000 by processing the backlog of orders. I deny myself simple, inexpensive pleasures—ice cream cones, fancy foods, books and music disks that I want—on the pretence that I'm overrunning my budget. But by simply putting in a few days work (consisting of a few hours typing and a few hours on the telephone), I could earn enough extra money to pay for these luxuries for years to come. What is my problem?

Elizabeth called from the mountains. She took a trip by herself up there this weekend to relax. "I just needed to get away from the city. I felt like I was losing control of myself," she said, explaining her trip.

I had planned to completely refrain from masturbating, but couldn't resist several dry orgasms. The last of these, right before going to bed, was particularly intense and left my cock stinging, as if I wanted to urinate but couldn't. I sat on the toilet in pain for about twenty minutes. The pain finally went away when I massaged my cock back into a erection and played with it some more, though not to the point of orgasm. The stinging sensation I felt resembled what Helen and Elizabeth say they feel when they have their "bladder infections". Which just makes me more confident in my theory that, frequently, what women call a "bladder infection" is really just a failure to achieve a complete orgasm.

Lunch with Helen. She and Paul took a trip this weekend to the countryside to look for sites for their wedding and honeymoon vacation. On the way, they passed a golf course, where she suggested they play a round. Paul pretended not to hear her. Helen repeated the suggestion two more times before Paul finally acknowledged her.

"I heard you the first time. And the idea is absurd. Neither of us knows how to play. You can't just go out on a golf course and start hitting the ball around, and not know what you're doing and hold up everyone else. You have to take lessons first," he said.

"You're just worried about looking like you don't know what you're doing," Helen replied. Paul pulled the car to the side of the road, and began sputtering with rage.

"Loser! You're incompetent and don't know how to behave and never have known how to behave! I can't believe I'm in the same car with you, much less planning to get married to you!" he shouted.

"You're really acting hysterical," said Helen.

"Loser! All you do is sit on your ass all day! I'm sick of you complaining about everything!"

"Me sit on my ass? I beg your pardon. I go to work each day."

"And you just sit on your ass at work. Or so you told me."

"What is your problem? No normal man would have gotten so upset about what I just said about playing golf. It's understood that men and women think differently. Men don't like to look like they don't know what they are doing. Just like you didn't want to ask for directions when we got lost back there. So we wandered around until I finally went into a bar to ask."

"Loser! Loser! Loser!"

After calming down, Paul decided to drive on to a nearby resort town, saying that it was only ten more minutes. But in fact, the drive took over an hour. Helen was feeling sick by the time they got there, from a combination of a cold she had caught from her niece, from her bladder infection, from the stress of the argument with Paul, and from worry over her job (where she has accomplished nothing in the past five months, to point where she is worried about being fired for incompetence) and her pregnancy and the upcoming marriage and how they will support an entire family on her modest income and so on.

The next day, Helen woke up feeling sick, and decided to stay in bed all day. Paul was in and out of the apartment—going jogging and bicycling, playing tennis, getting a haircut, studying spanish. (What a strange coincidence! Both Paul and myself, fleeing real work by immersing ourselves in spanish lessons.) By evening, she was famished, since she had eaten nothing all day. Since there was little food in the apartment, she planned to go grocery shopping and asked Paul if he wanted her to get anything while she was there. He replied that he would like some oranges (for his famous fresh squeezed orange juice). But then Helen felt faint and decided that she didn't want to go to the store after all, and so asked him to go. Paul pretended not to hear her request.

"Have you noticed how sick I've been?" Helen asked.

"I did notice that you were in bed all day," Paul replied.

"And do you know why I'm sick?"

"No." Paul made a face, as if genuinely mystified.

"Has it occurred to you that a possible cause might be that exhausting trip you forced us to take?"

"You said it was because you caught cold from your niece."

"That was only part of the problem."

"Well, I'm sure the trip didn't cause it."

Helen lost her temper at this point, and pushed some papers off the counter. Whereupon Paul made a hideous face and began shouting: "Asshole! Asshole! You stay here. I'm getting out!" Then he called some friends in the suburbs and very dramatically told them, "Things are getting violent here. If you don't mind I'd like to spend the night with you." And so Paul left and Helen spent the night alone in his apartment. The next day she made an appointment to get an abortion. But Paul returned that evening and they reconciled and so today she decided to skip the appointment.

She is still uncertain about both the pregnancy and marriage. Next week she and Paul are scheduled to visit some friends of his in the midwest, and the week after that is the marriage, which was moved up from its originally scheduled date, in order to coincide with her parents' previously planned visit to attend her sister's graduation ceremony. We joked about metaphors for her situation. Standing in front of an oncoming train, so dazzled by the headlights that she is unable to move, or lying back in a little boat, strumming her fiddle, while being swept down a stream towards a waterfall, whose roar can just be heard in the distance. I noticed she wasn't wearing her engagement ring.

"It feels heavy," she explained.

"How curious! Heavy like an anchor, perhaps, dragging you down to the bottom of the ocean?" I suggested.

"You've got Paul wrong. He isn't the devious, scheming person you sometimes make him out to be. I don't think he has a scheming bone in his body. He's very sweet. And he wants a child very badly. I sometimes feel sorry for him."

"So, you're going to have a child and support a stay-at-home husband, just because you feel sorry for him? No wonder that ring feels heavy."

Paul is as far from getting a job as ever. He proposed they visit his brother at a vacation house this brother owns on an island in the Mediterranean. The flight alone would cost at least $1000 for each of them. Helen objected that they couldn't afford it, and Paul became upset. He was also outraged at her proposal for having separate checking accounts. "If you want to do that, then why bother to get married? And another thing, if you try to have separate checking accounts now, when you are the one with a job, I'll remember it and do the same thing when I get a job and am earning more than you." Paul also pointed out that half of Helen's retirement plan savings would be his if they got divorced. So now Helen is worried that she will lose all her savings if they get married. "What kind of marriage is this, where you are dreading it before it even happens?" I asked.

Helen's sister and mother are both advising her to get an abortion now, and then get pregnant again later, after she and Paul marry and he has found a steady job. She asked her sister if she would be interested in adopting her child in case she and Paul don't get married. Her sister replied: "Don't even think of it. If that's what you are planning, then get an abortion now."

She gave her landlord notice that she would be vacating her apartment next month. But now, seeing that the marriage might not happen, she is thinking of retracting this notice. I warned her to send the retraction by certified mail, since her landlord may very well want her out before the lease is up, in order to get higher rent from another tenant.

A tremendous night of salsa dancing. I am finally competent enough to put on an impressive performance when myself and my partner are the only couple on the floor. I danced particularly well with a petite, dark-complexioned young woman, in her early twenties, I would imagine, from somewhere in Latin America. Both of us yearning to get close to the other, lingering in the side-by-side hold, staring in each other's eyes, bringing our faces close together to breathe the other's scent, as if making love to one another while dancing. She approached me on the way out to say goodbye and seemed to offer her cheek, which gesture I shyly pretended not to notice. I fantasized about her on the way home: kissing her satiny smooth brown skin, running my face through her silky hair, dipping my tongue into her cunt, pressing her firm, medium-sized breasts, fucking her slowly so she comes several times and her body softens and becomes like a bowl of jelly underneath me.

Helen called. She wants me to accompany her to get an abortion next week. As always, her plans are tentative. A somewhat heated discussion. She was annoyed by my probing questions, which I asked in an attempt to determine what it is that she really wants in life.

Elizabeth arrived in the late afternoon. We started kissing, got undressed, and fucked for about twenty minutes. She had difficulty coming, and I had difficulty holding off from coming. I finally brought her to orgasm by lifting myself up on hands and toes and rapidly flexing my back, so that the head of my cock rubbed directly against her clitoris, with the only other contact between our bodies being my tongue inside her mouth. I decided not come myself, so that I would be horny enough to fuck her again later this evening. We lay in bed afterwards, listening to music, until I suddenly felt aroused and put my cock back in her cunt. We played around for a few minutes without either of us trying to come, then she became sore and wanted to stop.

Dinner at a restaurant, followed by salsa lessons and dancing, where Elizabeth did poorly, on account of problems with both her posture and her inability to feel the music's rhythm. To avoid a fight, I didn't point out these failings, especially since she seemed conscious of them. I was happy to see that there were at least several pairs of good dancers in the club, so that she could get some idea of what good salsa dancing looks like.

Upon returning to my apartment, we had sex again. I started by licking her, but she soon became bored and asked me to stop. Strange that she simply can't get interested in cunnilingus. I was soft by this time, for some reason, though I had been hard a few minutes earlier. So we fooled around kissing and hugging until I managed to get hard again, then she mounted me from above. she becomes very aroused when I reach behind in this position and squeeze the insides of her buttocks and thighs, thus massage from the outside with my hands while my cock massages from the inside. I wasn't wearing a condom, because I planned to hold off on coming until she had come, and then put the condom on and bring myself to orgasm by fucking missionary position. But she started pumping away at me, as if she were the man and me the woman, which excited me so that I couldn't hold off from coming any longer. A mediocre orgasm. My best orgasms with her seem to occur when I am on top and am having some difficulty coming, so that I have to struggle. I told her my concerns about the lack of a condom, but she doesn't seem worried. She mentioned that her bladder infections have completely disappeared.

My uncle called while Elizabeth was still here, and she was able to listen to him leaving a message on my answering machine, since I was down at the corner store when he called, buying orange juice and bananas for breakfast. So now she need no longer have any doubts about the truth of all the wild tales I've been telling her about my sister and the rest of my family. It seems that another relative spotted a notice in the newspaper stating that anyone who had claims against my father's estate should contact such and such a lawyer. This is the sort of notice normally published after a person dies. My uncle also learned that my sister had recently called my great-aunt several times to inquire about the family tomb and what rights my father has to a place in it and so forth. My uncle and all the rest of my father's relatives and friends are now worried that my father might have died. I called my lawyer, who said he had been talking to my father's lawyer just yesterday, so he doesn't think my father has died. But he said he would check. The notice is probably something published by my father's conservator. I also inquired about the hearing regarding the undue influence case against my sister and my lawyer replied that my sister's lawyer had cancelled that hearing and it hadn't been rescheduled. My uncle indicated that he recently called my sister but got her answering machine, as usual. After talking to my uncle, I also called her, and got the answering machine as well. I left a message requesting to speak to my father.

As always, I felt disgusted at being reminded of this tawdry situation with my family. The idea that I'm not allowed to speak to my own father and that there would be any question of my sister not notifying me and other relatives of his death! I am feeling more confident than ever that, if my father were to die soon, I would have an excellent chance of successfully challenging any recently written will of his, based on how my sister has behaved these past few years.

I continue to be very negligent about my business. As of today, there are over two hundred emails in the queue, mostly technical support questions, but also probably a few orders buried in there as well. I also discovered some new bugs in my programs, minor bugs, but bugs nonetheless. These are in addition to the serious bug of which I was notified almost two weeks ago and about which I still haven't done anything. The problem isn't that I lack time to get things done, but rather that I lack the willingness to work. Instead of attending to my business, I spend the day lying on the sofa with an eye pillow blocking out the light, masturbating or listening to music, or I leave work early to go sit in the cafe and study spanish. I have plenty of enthusiasm for spanish, but none for my business.

Today I was particularly lazy, and did almost nothing in the way of work, besides processing a few phone orders. In the afternoon, I took a long nap. And to think that some people manage to hold down a full-time day job (not this absurd two hours a day that I call working), and then spend another couple of hours commuting to and from this job, while simultaneously managing a wife and several kids and a house in the suburbs and an automobile and so on. Why am I so lazy?

I arrived at Elizabeth's apartment in the late afternoon. We started kissing as soon as I walked in the door, then undressed and climbed into bed. Foreplay was me sucking her breasts and fingering her, and her sucking my cock. It seems that her sucking my cock is more arousing for her than me licking her cunt, so this is probably what we'll do in the future, since I want at least some oral sex. I wasn't wearing a condom, and so withdrew just before orgasm and ejaculated on her stomach. We lay in bed afterwards, then she became aroused again. We tried fucking, but I had trouble keeping my erection solid and hence she found it difficult to come. I finally brought her off with my fingers while sucking her breasts. Then we lay in bed some more, then had dinner at a nearby restaurant, then drove to a birthday party for one of her former coworkers, which was being held at a waterfront nightclub. We agreed that the party resembled that of a college fraternity. Clean-cut middle-class whites, almost everyone under age twenty-five, lots of beer drinking, a loud rock band. We stayed at the party less than an hour, then fell asleep almost immediately after returning to her apartment.

Another bout of sex in the morning. We kissed, I fingered her cunt while sucking her breasts, she sucked my cock. I had trouble keeping a solid erection and so brought her off with my finger. I finished myself off by fucking with deep, rapid thrusts, and withdrew at the last minute and ejaculated on her stomach.

We lay together quietly for several hours, then ate breakfast. Afterwards, Elizabeth lay on her stomach on the living room floor and I gave her a back massage. After a while, she became aroused again, so I ran back to the bedroom to get the lubricant, then lifted up her bathrobe and entered her from behind. I found it exciting to watch my cock moving in and out of her cunt and her anus contracting and expanding and her whole body, but especially the buttocks, trembling and shaking. She asked me to pull her cunt lips apart with my fingers while I fucked, and then moaned with pleasure when I did so, but despite her high state of arousal, she found it difficult to come in this position. So we tried missionary position instead, but that didn't work because I got bored and so my erection died. We rested for a while, then she sucked me while I fingered her cunt, then we rested some more, then I resumed fingering her, this time with more lubricant, while simultaneously sucking her breasts. She came at last, with a deep sigh and a final shudder of her legs. I finished myself off by masturbating my cock back into a state of erection, then fucking her with it, withdrawing just before coming.

It was late afternoon by the time we left her apartment. We took a walk in the park, then had dinner and dessert at a restaurant. While there, we discussed our plans for next week. I told her I would be busy on Friday night. She asked why. I didn't want to tell the real reason, which is to possibly accompany Helen to get an abortion, so I had to make up some contrived sounding excuse about visiting a friend in the suburbs. "You've never introduced me to any of your friends," she complained. I then explained that this "friend" was really a cousin who I had grown up with but with whom I had quarreled recently, and so the evening might not be pleasant. A lame story, with some basis in fact, since I do have several distant relatives in the suburbs.

Other than this issue of me not introducing her to my friends (of course, besides Helen, I don't have any friends in the area), there was little tension between us this weekend. And we seemed to part on good terms. She gave me a wide-brimmed Panama hat as a present, since I had been talking about getting one. We both laughed when I put it on. It makes me look like a Central American plantation owner. I have promised to take her on a trip for her birthday, but have as yet made no plans. I suppose I had somehow expected her to plan it and then to just give me the bill to pay. So we discussed some possible places we could visit: the mountains, the desert, Mexico, Hawaii.

The email backlog continues to grow. "Where in the world is my order!!!!" reads the subject line on one of these messages. I've stopped advertising, I give lousy service, I don't bother to respond to email inquiries, and I haven't updated my program in years. So when is this damned business going to end?

I wrote the above paragraph in the morning, feeling exasperated at having been disturbed while masturbating by a series of phone calls, not that I bothered to get out of bed to answer them. The calls were after eight am and I had gone to bed at midnight, so it wasn't as if I was being awakened from sleep. Then, in the afternoon, I had a sudden a burst of energy, and managed to work off some of the fax backlog. I was shocked to realize that I had over $4000 in fax orders piled up, some of which have been sitting on my desk unprocessed for almost two weeks. This is just the fax backlog. Who knows how many orders and other important correspondence there is in the email backlog? I also processed $1000 in phone call orders, once I roused myself and started answering the phone. So the business is doing very well, despite my appalling negligence and seeming desire to kill it. Why would I want to kill something that is so profitable? What am I afraid of? How can I be so stupid about money?

A phone conversation with Helen. She and Paul will be visiting the counselor again today. On their previous visit, Paul did most of the talking. The counselor listened, asked Paul some probing questions and then told Helen in private, "There's a 95% chance you'll be raising this child alone." Over the weekend, however, Helen and Paul reconciled and had sex and even agreed to hold their wedding reception in two weeks, as originally planned, but not the wedding itself. Paul was adamant about this since he has already put down a $100 non-refundable deposit on a site for the reception and also invited a cousin to attend. Helen isn't sure whether he still expects her parents to pay for the reception, given that there won't be a wedding.

Yesterday they had a falling out over the issue of no food in the house when Helen gets home from work. Helen complains that Paul has the whole day to buy groceries, but doesn't do anything. Instead, he talks to her about how wonderful life will be for them in the future. "All talk, no action." Her mother is staying an extra week, beyond what she had originally planned to stay, in case Helen wants someone to accompany her to get the abortion. Then Helen asked me if I would be willing to give her $100,000 to help raise the child alone, so she wouldn't have to get an abortion, and I replied that I probably wouldn't, given that she was living with another man.

Another phone conversation in the afternoon, after Helen had returned from the counseling session. The counselor, a woman, was shocked that Paul would insist on travelling to the midwest this weekend for his friend's retirement party, given that his relationship with Helen seemed on the verge of collapsing (though only two weeks ago they were set on marriage), and that Helen was on the verge of getting an abortion, and that, in any event, he couldn't very well afford the trip, seeing that he doesn't have a job or other source of income. Paul waved the counselor's objections away, saying that he had planned the trip long ago, and that, if anyone deserved to be blamed, it was Helen, because he had been forced to shorten his trip (originally scheduled to be a week, but now only three days) on account of her having no more vacation days at work, and by the time she notified him that she wouldn't be accompanying him, his tickets had been bought and he couldn't change them without paying a hefty surcharge. Helen started bawling several times during both this session and the previous.

After they left the counselor, Paul informed her that he would be leaving his car at the airport, so he wouldn't have to take a shuttle bus there and back. Helen had expected to have Paul's car available to drive her mother around, and was furious at this change of plans. When Paul dropped her off, she screamed "Jackass!" and then kicked the car door shut. She says she is absolutely determined to get the abortion now, and that she will be staying in her own apartment the rest of this week.

In the evening, while I was sitting in the cafe studying spanish, Helen dropped in and had dinner at my table. It turns out that she had called Paul after speaking to me, and apologized to him for kicking the car door. "I want us to break up, but not on an unpleasant note like that," she explained to me. She plans to return to his apartment tomorrow, so her mother can stay at her apartment. I warned her that by returning to his apartment, she might become reconciled with Paul again, and have more second thoughts about the abortion, but she replied that her mind was made up. When I asked her to be patient at the slow food service, she jokingly replied that she was ravenous because of the baby growing inside her. Then she paused and stopped smiling and seemed on the verge of bursting out in tears, probably due to the thought that she would be aborting that baby in a few days. Thus she apparently still wants the child. I inquired if she felt she was being forced to have an abortion, but she insisted that the decision was hers alone and the advice from the "peanut gallery" (meaning me and her relatives) was a minor factor.

We walked to her apartment afterwards, and discussed redecorating it. She did a poor job decorating initially, so that it is no wonder that she gets depressed when she returns to it after work, to the point of wanting to marry Paul just in order to live in his more nicely furnished apartment. We drank tea, listened to music and talked.

Helen mentioned that Paul will be having a party next week, the weekend they had originally been scheduled to be married, using the guests he was to have invited to their wedding. At several points in the conversation she seemed inclined to become reconciled with him: "He is starting to send out resumes, and even got a job offer, I think. Or maybe it was just an interview. So he might get a job. Maybe I should learn to completely obey him. Never object to anything he says. Maybe I'm too rebellious."

An angry reseller called about ten times early this morning, leaving messages on the answering machine until I finally picked up the phone. He wanted to know the status of an order that was originally submitted by fax three weeks ago. The order was faxed again on a few days later, and both of these copies have been sitting on my desk all this while. The value of the order was $445—a purchase order, but from a large company, so the risk of not getting paid is fairly small. It is hard to explain why this particular order annoyed me such that I decided not to fulfill it. I promised to send it out in today's mail, and did so.

Helen called three times, in a seemingly cheerful mood each time. I warned her not to return to Paul's tonight since he will no doubt try to dissuade her from having the abortion, but she insisted it would be simpler to sleep in his apartment, since her mother will be staying in her apartment. She asked me again if I would be willing to give her $100,000 so she could raise a child alone. So I asked her whether she would get an abortion and then get pregnant again from a sperm bank. She was adamantly opposed to this idea. I then said, "So then, what you really want isn't a baby, but Paul. I'm not giving $100,000 so you can support him. Ask your parents for $100,000. Also, I don't particularly like being in the position of deciding whether your baby will live or not, based on whether I'm willing to fork over $100,000." She hemmed and hawed and then concluded that she really did want to get the abortion. Meanwhile, her mother has made a proposal that both Helen and I agreed was very bizarre. Namely, that the three of them—Helen, her mother, and Paul—go out for dinner the night before Helen is to get her abortion.

I feel depressed at the thought that I lied to Elizabeth about a "dinner date with a cousin", in order to be available to "comfort" Helen after her abortion, which she probably didn't go through with anyway. What a nuisance Helen can be! Why do I involve myself with her? As the day wore on, I became paranoid that Elizabeth might be spying on my apartment building or the cafes I frequent, and so I decided to stay indoors until after dark, at which time I could pretend, assuming she were spying outside, that I had arrived back early from my trip to the suburbs. What a nuisance these lies are! I'm starting to tire of both Helen and Elizabeth. I want to take a long trip somewhere, far away from this apartment and these women and this city and salsa dancing and my software business. A month long sojourn in a monastery seems very appealing, for example.

Elizabeth came by in the afternoon. We parked the car, watched a movie, ate dinner at a restaurant, then window shopped in the nightclub district, before finally returning to my apartment. She had a splitting headache and upper back pain, so I gave her a massage of sorts, which led to sex. I had to restrain myself so as to ensure her orgasm, though my balls were aching with desire to be emptied. By the time she came, the effort of holding myself back had made my cock numb. So I let my erection die, rested, then got hard again, and this time came without delay or difficulty. We didn't use a condom, since Elizabeth is near her period. My balls were still aching afterwards, as if they needed another orgasm to fully relieve the pressure.

Another bout of sex in the morning, almost identical to last night's. Slow fucking in missionary position, Elizabeth came first, I had to lose my erection and then try again in order to come myself. We lay in bed most of the morning, listening to music, with another bout of sex around noon. This time she had problems coming. I spent almost an hour fingering her and experimenting with different positions and speeds and pressures until we finally resigned ourselves to the conclusion that she wasn't going to come. I then let my cock relax and came in her without difficulty.

Afterwards, we drove to her apartment, to which she was anxious to return, since her cat needed food and water. Lunch at a nearby cafe (our first meal of the day), then another long bout of sex afterwards, with Elizabeth again having problems coming. Several breaks to rest before she gave up trying to have an orgasm. We tried missionary position, then dog-style with me spreading her buttocks and penetrating deep inside her, then her on top bouncing up and down as if trying to fuck me instead of me trying to fuck her. I fantasized that she was a man fucking me and I was a woman who was aching for a cock in her cunt. During a rest, she poked her finger into my mouth, which I took as the signal that she wanted oral sex. Normally, it is the woman who takes my finger into her mouth and pretends to fellate it, as a signal that she wants to suck me. I went down on her for about five minutes, but to no avail. She just doesn't get turned on by cunnilingus. She sucked me some afterwards to restore my faded erection, then we resumed fucking, with me but not her, coming after a few minutes of thrusting.

Elizabeth showed some photographs from the brunch last month. I had to admit that I looked absurd—like a wannabe Mafioso—in the white tie and black shirt outfit that I had been so keen on wearing, whereas the white shirt and dark tie which she had wanted me to wear was much more flattering. One of the pictures was a group shot, of us and her friends. I became very aroused at the picture of one of these friends, who reminds me of a woman I once dated. There was an intense sexual energy between me and that woman, but we never had sex, mainly because I met and began having sex with Helen before I got anywhere with her.

Much of our conversation concerned a book I've been reading and the sociobiological ideas propounded therein. "Why do women like giving men blow jobs? What is the evolutionary advantage in that? Because men like it? But then why do men like it? The woman won't get pregnant that way, so what is the possible evolutionary advantage to the man? A power thing? But why do men feel that there is power in having a woman give them a blowjob, and anyway, why would this power be of evolutionary value?" And so on. She mentioned that one of her former boyfriends had been unfaithful. I told her I didn't think I was capable of jealousy. "If you cheated on me, for example, I don't think I would get angry. Rather, I would be curious for details of what you had done. Curiosity is what I would feel, more than jealousy. I might break up, but not from jealousy. Rather, I would be concerned about looking like a fool if I continued to date a women who was cheating on me. It would be bad for my image." Elizabeth scoffed: "Your image! All you think of is yourself." But her irritation was more feigned than real. Indeed, little real tension between us all weekend.

She wanted me to spend the night, so I did, despite the huge work backlog, which I had originally intended to work off this evening. (How long has it been, incidentally, since I managed to carry out one of these resolutions I make at the end of each week, to accomplish some work on the weekend?) She has a paper due soon for a college course she is taking, so while she was working on that, I walked to a nearby cafe. After returning, I lay on the sofa in one of her dual living rooms and read a book I had brought along, while she worked on her paper in the other room. I had originally shaken my head at the way she had partitioned what must have once been a single large living room into these two small living rooms, but now I had to admit that this arrangement had its advantages.

I received an anxious call from the customer who notified me of the bug in my software last month, wanting to know when a fix would be available. I commenced by lying that I had fixed the problem, then concocted some excuse as to why I hadn't reported back to her and finally promised to send the fixed version by tomorrow. What a pathetic, lazy, lying, worthless creature I've become! After she hung up, I took a look at the problem, and came up with a fix after about an hour's work, then fired this fix off via email in the late afternoon.

The new version of my program that I sent out yesterday doesn't fix the problem. And there are several other problem reports in the email backlog. The whole business seems to be collapsing.

I called Helen to arrange for lunch tomorrow. "Hello, curiosity seeker," she replied when I announced myself. She, her mother and Paul had dinner together as planned. During this dinner, Helen's mother invited Paul to a memorial ceremony they will be attending for one of Helen's young relatives, who recently died of a birth defect. Paul accepted this invitation. Helen then pointed out that, by driving her to the ceremony, he would be able to drive her to the hospital afterwards for the abortion. Paul let this remark pass without immediate comment, but told her later, when she returned with him to his apartment, that he had no intention of driving her to the hospital, and that he no longer wanted to attend the memorial ceremony, and that if Helen went ahead with the abortion, then he expected her to be cleared out of his apartment by the time he returned from his trip to the midwest that weekend. Harsh words were exchanged and she hasn't spoken to him since. She has been staying at her own apartment since this dispute, with her mother sleeping in the bed and Helen sleeping on the sofa bed. On Sunday, while Paul was in the midwest, Helen and her mother briefly stopped by Paul's apartment to pick up some of Helen's belongings.

Each of the attendees at the memorial ceremony was expected to express a wish for the dead child. Helen, unlike the other attendees, hadn't prepared a statement, and so had to extemporize, coming up with something like, "I wish I could have known you, because I love your mother and grandparents very much." Then she became choked up with emotion and couldn't continue. "I lost it completely." Her mother complimented her on her speech: "It was spontaneous and heartfelt." Afterwards, she and her mother drove to the hospital for the first part of the abortion procedure (dilation of the cervix). However, the doctor was unwilling to proceed with the operation because Helen had a mild respiratory infection, and he thought it risky to put her under anesthesia in that condition. So the abortion was postponed until tomorrow.

Her mother continues to gently suggest that abortion is the best option at present, but Helen is still not sure: "It might work out. If he would call and apologize, then we could start back where we were." She and her mother spent the weekend shopping for kitchen items and discussing ways of redecorating the apartment. I told Helen I wished her the best, to which she replied: "If you really cared about me, then whenever I said I wanted something, you would go right out and buy it without any further argument. And don't call me darling anymore unless you're willing to do that."

I lay in bed until mid-morning, letting the phone ring and ring and ring without answering it. There were eighteen messages on the answering machine by the time I finally got up. I didn't bother listening to any of them. I really don't know what is happening to me. All I can think of is the day when this business finally comes to an end and no one calls me anymore.

Lunch with Helen, sitting outside in a park near her place of work. She is still unsure of whether to go through with the abortion today and tomorrow.

"This might be a big mistake," she said.

"What does your mother think?" I asked.

"Her? She treats me like an invalid. She wants to sit in the hospital for four hours waiting for me. I have to be there two hours before the operation and then wait around two hours afterwards for observation and testing. I said to her, just pick me up when it's over. But no, it's like she wants to be a martyr. She wants to be the caretaker with me as the invalid. She's seventy years old. The other day she asked if she could do my laundry. I told her, no. I don't want her trudging up and down stairs and breaking her leg again. What happens? She calls me at work and says she just finished the laundry and would I like her to do anything else."

"But what about the abortion? Is she for it or against?"

"For it, I suppose. She tells me it's for the best. All this advice is useless. You're useless!"

"Sweetie!"

"Well, it's true. What am I doing having lunch with you and asking you for advice? I should be having lunch with Paul!"

"And if you did, you wouldn't go through with the abortion."

"Maybe not. Maybe I shouldn't."

"If you want the baby, then fine. But understand that you'll probably end up a single mother."

"How do you know? Are you some sort of clairvoyant, so you can predict the future?"

"Paul is sending very clear signals that he won't be around for many years. You two were already squabbling less than two months after you met. You've broken up again and again. And things will only get worse once you're married. You may not mind living a lower middle class lifestyle, but he won't tolerate it. There is no way you two will be able to live in the style to which he has become accustomed, as the saying goes, once you have that baby. To say nothing of all the crying and diapers and whatnot."

"You sound like that shrink. I hope you understand that there's a 95% chance you'll end up a single mother, she says. What does she know?"

"She's a disinterested third party who sees these situations all the time. She doesn't have an ax to grind."

"Oh? She was recommended by the gynecologist. Maybe the gynecologist told her, I'm too busy to deal with any more pregnancies, tell this woman to get an abortion."

"That's ridiculous. The shrink is right. You will end up a single mother if you have this baby."

"Paul was the one who first proposed marriage!"

"Let me explain something. Nature wants us to do two things. Survive and reproduce."

"Are you going to lecture me again?"

"Just listen! Nature doesn't care about our happiness. Pleasure, yes. Nature gives us pleasure to serve her ends. For example, we get pleasure from eating nutritious food because doing so helps us to survive. We get pleasure from having sex because doing so causes us to reproduce. But often, especially in modern civilized societies, today's pleasure brings tomorrow's pain. In modern society, happiness is often achieved by resisting Nature."

"Nature is just an abstraction. This is a waste of time."

"Nature is your body. Your body is saying, keep the baby. Right? If you're not feeling that, then you're out of touch with your body."

"Yes, I'm feeling that. Of course I'm feeling that."

"Okay, then suppose you do what your body wants you to do. And you end up a single mother. Nature got her way. You reproduced. Nature doesn't care if you have to go through ten years of feeling exhausted morning, noon and night. Your genes are passed into the next generation, which is what Nature wants."

"Nature, nature, nature. I don't care about Nature!"

"Nature doesn't care about your happiness, either. If you really and truly want children, so badly that you can't resist the urge, then you have no choice but to have them. Otherwise you'll suffer from feelings of regret and baby hunger or whatever. So the question is, do you really want children badly enough to suffer the consequences of being a single mother?"

"I don't know."

"Why are you having this child then?"

"Why does anyone have children? You makes it sound senseless to have children. So why does anyone bother?"

"Why indeed? You're the one about to have a child. You tell me why you're having it."

"I don't have friends and don't have anything else to do with my life."

"Breeding your own set of friends. An interesting concept."

"I guess it does sound absurd."

"Having the urge to have children is perfectly normal. So is having children because you have a surplus of time and energy and want to expend it raising a family. I just hope you're aware of the costs of being a single mother in today's society."

"Why do you insist that I'm going to be single? Things might work out with me and Paul."

"All the evidence says they won't. From what you've told me, Paul will stick around a couple of years after the baby is born, and then will disappear, whether or not you two are married. This sort of thing happens all the time."

"You have such a negative view of Paul."

"I know him only by what you've told me. The only other possibility I can think of is that he's somehow testing you."

"What do you mean?"

"Testing whether you are loyal enough to put up with him no matter how he mistreats you."

"I'm going to call him this afternoon, before I go for the operation, just to see how he is feeling."

"I warn you, he will promise you the moon in an effort to convince you not to have the abortion, but his behavior won't change an iota. Don't say I didn't warn you."

"Maybe you're right. Maybe not."

And thus we parted. Something about this idea of him testing her loyalty seemed to strike a chord in her. I thought on the way home of what I'll do if she does become a single mother, impoverished and begging me for financial assistance. My gut feeling is that I would probably tell her to get lost. Let her ask her parents or brother and sister or other relatives for help.

Elizabeth joined me at my usual cafe, where we sat for an hour talking, sipping tea and watching the passersby. Afterwards, we had dinner at a restaurant in the suburbs. A friend of hers joined our table briefly. An attractive woman in her middle forties, lively to the point of being off-putting (to me at least), very promiscuous before she remarried, according to Elizabeth.

On the drive home, I told Elizabeth about how I had a burning desire to shut down my business. Because I haven't revealed to her the true extent of my wealth, which is such that any additional money is superfluous unless I someday have dependents to support, it was difficult to fully explain myself.

"But you say you only work two hours a day, so why don't you just do whatever else it is you want to do in the time that remains?" she asked.

"Even though it's only two hours, those two hours seem to cast a pall over the rest of the day. They are like the axis around which everything else revolves. Just to take an example of this, look at our trip. All this worry over how much time I can take off and what I'm going to do for the three days I'm away and so forth. What other explanation is there for me hating my work so much? Work that is easy to do, takes only a small amount of time, and pays extremely well, I might add. Most people would love to be in my position. I have to trust my instincts. It was my instincts that got me into this business and making a good profit. If these instincts are now telling me to get out, it's because I really and truly have something more important to do with my life. Though I don't know what that might be," I replied.

We had sex before going to bed, with both of us highly aroused and able to come easily. It was her period, so I didn't bother to use contraception.

We rose early, since Elizabeth had an appointment with her acupuncturist scheduled for the morning. Sex when she returned, with both of us coming with little difficulty. Lunch at a sandwich shop, after which I browsed in a bookstore while she attended to another doctor's appointment. Afterwards, we drove to a wilderness park, and walked there for an hour, then took a short nap while sitting in her car.

Dinner at a trendy and hence expensive restaurant. Elizabeth asked about my "pregnant girlfriend", whereupon I launched into a two hour discussion of Helen and her travails. Elizabeth seemed to detect that I'm still in love with Helen, and finally asked me to change the subject. I reached for the dinner check, but she snatched it up: "I'll take that." Perhaps she was worried that I'm thinking of returning to Helen and so wants to be as little a burden on me as possible. It doesn't bother me that I almost always pay for dinner and entertainment. I reason that I can better afford the expense, that a hooker or wife would be much more expensive, that she provides a car, and finally, that she has heavy expenses for clothing and makeup, which I indirectly enjoy, in the sense that her beauty reflects on me when we are seen together in public. Sex again before going to sleep. This time I came, but she didn't.

More sex in the morning. Again, I came but Elizabeth didn't. Then breakfast on pastries from a nearby coffee shop, followed by another bout of sex. Elizabeth was having trouble coming, and finally pulled at my buttocks and asked me to fuck her hard, which I did, thereby managing to bring her off, at the cost of some later soreness on her part. I didn't come myself this time, however. We hung about in bed or in her apartment until the middle of the afternoon, then drove to my apartment, where I spent several hours catching up on work while Elizabeth read magazines. Dinner at a restaurant, then we rented a video, which Elizabeth picked out. A slow moving, somewhat plotless french movie with subtitles. A good sort of movie for seducing someone, I thought. The dreamy atmosphere leads naturally to thoughts of sleep and bed and sex. Not that we had sex afterwards, however. We were both too sleepy.

After we finished breakfast, I began fondling Elizabeth, and then showed her various of my books. A catalog of dildos from the sex toys store, some gay pornography, which used to arouse Helen but which she found disgusting, "art" photos (black and white shots of naked women with large breasts). She responded by pulling down my underwear and sucking my by then erect cock. I suggested we get into bed, but she wanted to fuck in an exotic position: standing up, on a chair, or on the kitchen counter. After struggling with each of these cumbersome possibilities, I lost interest and my erection withered. So we got into bed after all, where she sucked my cock back into an erection. At her request, we fucked doggy-style to start. Very exciting for both of us, me slowly moving my cock all the way in, then all the way out, while using my fingers to spread her cunt lips as wide as possible. We finished up in missionary position when she grew tired of holding herself on hands and knees. She came first, I followed a minute later, both of us with powerful orgasms. I pulled out and ejaculated on her stomach, a half-assed attempt at birth control. We spent the rest of the day in my apartment. She did some drawing while I read desultorily. Then we walked to a nearby restaurant and had dinner there, followed by dessert at a pastry shop.

We returned to my apartment in the early evening. She lay down on the sofa in the living room, while I went to the bedroom (which I use as my office) as if to do work. She seemed to get the message that I wanted her to leave, because shortly thereafter I heard her collecting her bags. "You're planning to work tonight?" she asked. I assured her that this was the case. I suppose she suspected that I might want to go dancing by myself. In truth, I just wanted to be alone. I pretended to be excited as we exchanged a final goodbye kiss, rubbing her crotch and so forth, while in reality I was anxious as could be for her to leave. No sooner was she out the door than I masturbated to images of the same sex acts I had performed this weekend (blowjob, dog-style fucking, missionary position fucking), but with some other woman. A woman similar in age and appearance to Elizabeth, but yet different.

I had planned to catch up on work today, but instead spent most of the day lying on the sofa reading a collection of glib essays, which were most effective at convincing me of life's meaninglessness. Part of me welcomes this meaninglessness, because if my life is meaningless, than I am free to whatever I want with it. I have no duties, no responsibilities, no reason to feel guilt. Another part of me, with which I've never felt entirely comfortable and which weakens as I grow older, refuses to accept that life is meaningless. This is the part that insists that I should worry about the future of the world, that I should concern myself with my father's well-being, that I should marry and have children, that I should continue to run my business since it is profitable and I might someday need more money than what I currently have, that I should give some of my money to friends, such as Helen, who need it more than me, that I should write my will and put my papers in order and otherwise concern myself with people who will still be living after I die, and so on.

I masturbated again today, and then immediately regretted doing so. I feel as if my senses have become numbed, as if I've gone into a sort of hibernation to protect myself from Elizabeth's constant presence, and that I need a few days of complete rest to recover, especially since I'll be spending this coming weekend with her. Not that she's a particularly uncongenial companion. I have the same sense of spiritually drowning when I am forced to be around anyone for long periods of time ("long" meaning more than half a day). Mark, for example, was a much more hostile alien presence during his visit earlier this year.

I managed to clear off most of the fax and hardcopy mail backlog, as well as the more pressing emails, then became frantic when I discovered that a dialog box no longer works in one of the programs I use to run my business, which means I can't process orders. It seems a file was overwritten when I used the compiler last week for the first time in months. The problem is the compiler's fault. So now I feel morally justified in not fixing the bugs in my programs, since everyone else's software is equally bug-ridden. I managed to get things repaired by late afternoon.

Lunch with Helen. She went through with the abortion last week and is now regretting it:

"What a mistake! What was I thinking? I'm like this destructive force that goes around killing and destroying things. Luckily my terrible deed hasn't split me and Paul up. In fact, it's brought us closer together. I've learned a lot from this ordeal. And he's forgiven me. He took me back in, even after I did that terrible thing. And what was I worried about anyway? Plenty of people are poorer than us. We're not going to end up on the street. The problem is that I'm too willful. Willful and impertinent and disobedient. But all that's going to change. From now on, Paul's my man and I'm going to do what he says. I'm going to be his woman and listen to him and have his baby.

"I don't blame you for what I did, don't worry. In fact, I pay very little attention to your recommendations. It was my mother mostly. And the therapist. The three of you ganging up and telling me to have the abortion. Poor Paul, he wanted the baby so bad. He didn't have a chance. Him against the three of you. Especially my mother. I hate to say it, but I'll probably always bear her a grudge for what happened. I realize that to some extent she was trying to look out for my best interests. But she made me do the wrong thing. I had a dream of her last night. She took some kittens I was caring for—these represent my baby—and put them out in the cold, saying don't worry dearie, they'll be all right. And, of course, they weren't all right. They died! If it hadn't been for her, I would never have gone through with it. Afterwards, she took me home and scrubbed the floors and hobbled on her lame leg to the grocery store three times to get supplies and cleaned the kitchen and fixed my meals. A regular Florence Nightingale that woman is. Her chance to shine.

"My sister, meanwhile, blabbed the whole story to my brother. So now I look like this pathetic creature who can't even carry through with getting pregnant. Four months into it and I give up. And the worst part was over. The morning sickness was gone and I was starting to feel good. My father? He just repeats what my mother told him. I suppose it's for the best.

"And what makes that therapist such an expert? Of course, there is some consolation in having gone to her. Paul places such great stock in 'professionals'. So, since she recommended it, I suppose he can't blame it entirely on me. And it isn't all my fault, anyway. We're both to blame. He should have seen that I needed some security. All women are emotional during pregnancy. All this threatening to leave me and saying I was the worst thing that ever happened to him... But enough of that. I don't want you reminding me of what I told you about him, either. I told you terrible things about him, I don't know why. What an untruthful picture I painted of him. He is the kindest person in the world. Who else would have taken me back, and forgiven me too, after I did that terrible thing? You are to blame, in part, for causing strife between us, with all this talk of separate checking accounts and trust funds and how to protect myself in the event of his bankruptcy. He was right when he said that we were being more suspicious and acrimonious before marriage than he and his previous wife were while getting divorced.

"And what difference if he doesn't have a job? He'll get one. Or maybe he won't. I'll support us both in that case. I'd much rather have a man like him, someone who wants to spend time with me, who is there when I get home, than someone who is off working all the time, regardless of how much he makes. But again, I'm not blaming you. I should have just ignored you. All this mindless prattling that comes out of your mouth, all this paranoia. I should have been more conscious of how crazy and abnormal you are. I don't mean to be insulting, but it's true...

"Anyway, back to the drawing board. I'm going on the pill and don't plan to get pregnant again until he has a job. He still refuses to marry me until I'm pregnant and have a baby. After what I did, he has a right to be untrusting. He wants a family. What right do I have to demand that he get a job before I'll have his child? He has the same right to demand that I get pregnant before he marries me. So my parents are just going to have to accept that I'm going to be an unwed mother, at least at first. Who knows? I might not be able to get pregnant anymore. These abortions sometimes have complications. My next baby might miscarry.

"Yes, yes, I'm keeping my apartment for a few more months. Just in case we break up again. If we do, though, it's all over. I can't go through this sort of turmoil again, not like the last few months. I can't take this emotional roller coaster again. Also, I have no more days off at work. What a fool I was! Here I had an easy job, with good maternity benefits. And I would have had plenty of additional sick days if I'd gone through with the pregnancy. There's a special reserve pool of sick days for situations like that. I may never have this sort of cushy job again. My next job might really require me to work.

"Things were proceeding very fast, though, that's for sure. But forget the idea of going back to live alone. No, never. I spent one night alone in that hovel that I call my apartment. How absurd it was, all this talk of redecorating, buying a sofa and moving the desk to the kitchen or whatever. Empty. Sterile. A bunch of junk that anyone can buy at the department store. I don't want that sort of empty existence, nothing but things. I woke up in the middle of the night, alone in my apartment, feeling appalled at what I had done. And then I just lay there for several hours, letting the horror of my deed sink in, and then at dawn, I took a taxi to his apartment and begged him for forgiveness. I asked him to take me back, and he did. He's my man and I'm going to have his baby.

"Of course, I was sick from the abortion by then. Even now, I'm not supposed to walk much. And then that night, it was off to some celebration with my cousins in the suburbs. My parents, my sister and her husband, me and Paul—the whole gang. Yes, we were reconciled by that time, so he agreed to come. I don't know where things are going from here. I noticed he was reading the Marquis de Sade, by the way, when I got there to ask to be taken back in. He is normally such a gentle soul, but I had driven him to perversion by leaving him. A lonely bachelor consoling himself with pornography. No, I didn't catch the title, just the author.

"Did we have sex? Maybe, maybe not. You'll never find out. That reminds me. No more of these revelations of the intimate details of my personal life. From now on, we'll discuss you and Elizabeth. In fact, we're not going to eat at that cafe anymore, the one where I told you all these things. We're boycotting it due to the bad memories it brings back. It makes me shudder to think of all the things I told you about him. A man who would take me back after what I did. He must be good."

I worked off some last-minute fax and email orders, then Elizabeth picked me up at noon and we drove to the airport, where there was a slight delay in the flight. She became garrulous on the drive to the desert in the rental car (I did all the driving during the entire trip, per her request) and then upset when I didn't say much in response. Later, while lying in bed, the tension came to a head and we had minor spat, with her accusing me of ignoring her and me replying that I found her chattering to be annoying.

Lodging was at a charming bed and breakfast, which is located a few miles outside the town and surrounded by flat desert, with an excellent view of mountains rising in the distance. There are ten rooms total, but only ourselves and one other couple were guests on the two nights we stayed there. The lack of business was probably due to it being mid-week during the off season. The inn is apparently filled during the winter high season and on weekends (rates are also higher then than the very reasonable $50 a night we paid, which included a full breakfast). We dined twice at the on-site restaurant, which has both charming ambiance—candle-lit tables on a terrace under palm trees—and excellent food. We had been advised beforehand that the pool was undergoing renovation and wouldn't be available, so had initially only made reservations for one night. But since the inn was satisfactory in all other respects—we especially liked the solitude—we ended up staying two nights.

We rose earlier than we would have preferred, in order to get to the dining room before it stopped serving breakfast. Whatever resentment there might have been between Elizabeth and myself yesterday night had since disappeared. We spent a leisurely couple of hours on the terrace, sipping tea, then ventured off on a long walk into the surrounding desert. Nothing much to see there other than sand and rocks and scrub vegetation, but we nevertheless enjoyed the sense of complete solitude. We found a spot of partial shade under a scrawny tree growing in a wash, and began to kiss and fondle one another, and then tried to fuck standing up and facing, but I had difficulty getting my cock inside in that position. So then Elizabeth leaned over and rested her hands on her knees, and I entered from behind. I penetrated easily in this posture, but she found it tiring, so we stopped after only a few minutes. We made our way back to the motel and resumed the sex there. A very exciting and long lasting session, using various positions—dog-style, standing and facing one another, Elizabeth leaning over the side of the bed while I hung from the overhead canopy frame. I penetrated slowly and deeply in the rear-entry positions, causing her to gasp with each thrust, then left my cock buried in her cunt while I gyrated my pelvis bones against her buttocks. My cock was rock-hard and ultra-sensitive, so that I lost control and exploded inside her.

"Oh, no, I wasn't wearing a condom! You're going to get pregnant," I groaned. She ignored this prediction and pushed my hand down between her legs, and came after a few seconds of my rubbing her clitoris.

"What makes you think I'm going to get pregnant?" she asked afterwards.

"It's the middle of your cycle," I replied.

"I'm not going to get pregnant. I'm not ovulating. I can feel when I'm ovulating. And also, this is only the beginning of my cycle. Even if I were ovulating, it would be several more days."

"The sperm can last for several days. Also, ovulation can occur early."

"Anyway, you had condoms. Why didn't you use one, if you're so worried?"

"I don't know. We're acting like teenagers."

"You've said that before. Don't worry about it."

But I do worry. What will we do if she gets pregnant? Afterwards, we lay in bed for a while and discussed the economics of running this bed and breakfast. Both of us were of the opinion that the business was not particularly profitable (and might even be running a loss), and was more a lifestyle choice than a way to get rich, and that the owners might have a difficult time recouping their investment if they ever tired of the business and tried to sell it.

In the late afternoon, we drove around the nearby town, then stopped off at a cafe in a strip mall for a lousy snack. While eating, Elizabeth asked about "your friend who is thinking of getting an abortion". Helen, that is. I replied that she gone through with the abortion already. Elizabeth was surprised and asked how I knew. I explained that Helen and I had eaten lunch together earlier this week.

"So, these lunches are a weekly thing between you two?" Elizabeth asked.

"Every three weeks or so," I lied, in an apologetic tone.

"But you had lunch last week as well, you told me?"

"She called me this week. After the abortion."

"I see."

Further discussion on this subject, in the course of which I mentioned that I had given Helen money after we broke up.

"You gave her money! No wonder she wants to remain friends with you!" Elizabeth exclaimed.

"It was a going away present. Anyway, she had helped me out over the years, giving me encouragement with the business and whatnot. Also, I wanted clear title to the apartment. I paid her to move out, in a sense," I said.

"You paid her to move out! How much did you pay her?"

"About $10,000. Plus there was some dispute about the rent. I had given her $12,000 at the beginning of the year to pay for my share, which meant she would only have to pay about $250 a month, which was a subsidy in itself, but then she only paid for six months, and pocketed what remained when she moved out. So, I guess you could say she made off with $5000 or so extra that way. And then I gave her some more money for helping with the business after we broke up, plus some furniture and a new computer and so forth. All told, I guess I gave her $20,000."

"No ex-boyfriend of mine every gave me money."

Finally, we managed to get off this controversial subject. After leaving the cafe, we wandered about the strip mall, looking for souvenirs to buy, but all the stores were closed.

We returned to the inn and took another walk in the desert. The sky was still brightly lit but the sun had descended behind the mountains, so the walk was much more comfortable than that of the morning. We passed through a huge but almost empty campground run by the park agency. As with the inn, the campground probably does much more business in the winter and on weekends. Another delicious and leisurely dinner before going to bed about midnight. I read aloud a selection from a book I had brought along—a description of a homosexual orgy in a public toilet. Elizabeth laughed and said she was beyond being shocked by me anymore.

Another long-lasting and fully satisfying round of sex in the morning, with orgasms again for both of us. I managed to pull out and come on her stomach this time. We checked out of the inn at noon and drove towards the city. On the way, we took a brief detour down an unpaved road, which was supposed to lead to a spectacular overlook according our guidebook, before I decided that the road was too difficult to navigate without a four wheel drive vehicle. We returned to the main road and then stopped at a turnout amidst badlands, where we spent fifteen minutes in the blazing midday sun climbing a nearby hill, managing to get ourselves covered with sand and thistles in the process. There was nothing to see at the top of this hill beside other, similar hills in the distance. We spent another fifteen minutes descending. Both of these pointless excursions (the unpaved road and the hill) were my ideas, I have to confess.

Elizabeth had been eagerly anticipating seeing the salt sea, though I had warned her that it was a thoroughly unprepossessing body of water. We stopped off at the "salt sea beach", a wretched strip of sand bordering foul-smelling water, in which floated numerous dead fish. "I though this was going to be like a mountain lake. But it's even worse than you said it would be," she exclaimed. "It's like a cesspool," I agreed. We took a picture of the sea and another of a nearby abandoned motel, surrounded by dead palm trees and run-down trailer homes.

Then we checked into the resort hotel with four hundred rooms, all of them filled, and guests scurrying about in swimsuits, and overly friendly employees—quite a contrast from the feeling of solitude and isolation we had enjoyed yesterday. Twice as expensive as well. We then drove into town and window-shopped there without buying anything, then ate at a restaurant. Sex before going to sleep, with orgasms for both of us.

The next morning we drove to a charmingly unconventional bed and breakfast, where Elizabeth had once stayed, which consists of a number of colorfully painted cinderblock buildings, grouped around a small duck pond and shaded by palm trees. We agreed that the resort hotel seemed antiseptic and "corporate" by comparison, and so she tried to make reservations to spend a night at this bed and breakfast instead, but they were booked solid. So we contented ourselves with eating lunch in the restaurant. After lunch, we wandered around the grounds. I spotted a big diamondback rattlesnake slithering in the grass and called to Elizabeth to come see it. Instead, she turned away. I beckoned again and excitedly called out, "Helen...Elizabeth come here!" But she had heard me say "Helen" and was upset. I followed the snake into the bushes and confirmed that it was a rattler, then ran back to look for Elizabeth, who seemed to have disappeared. I finally found her wandering about the grounds.

"First you want to make me see the snake, even though I've told you I hate snakes, and then you call me by my wrong name. I heard that, you know, and I didn't like it," said Elizabeth, angrily.

"I'm so used to scolding Helen, you see. I spent years scolding her, but I never scold you. Anyway, I'm sorry," I said, trying to laugh the issue away.

Eventually, we reconciled, and spent the rest of the day driving through the desert park, where we climbed the huge boulders, and hiked the nature trails, and spotted various wildlife, including a sidewinder rattlesnake crossing the road, a female coyote which was apparently accustomed to begging from humans and so boldly approached us in the car (we regretted having no food to give her), numerous desert rats and lizards, occasional jackrabbits.

We returned to the hotel in the evening and took a dip there in the swimming pool. Neither of us cared for the highly chlorinated water, however. Dinner was at another resort hotel, with an immense lobby, hanging gardens, several waterfalls emptying into an indoor lake, a tunnel leading from this indoor lake to the larger outdoor lake, a small motorboat ferrying guests to and from one of the pricier restaurants via those lakes and the tunnel, and so on. I commented that this "vulgar excess" seemed appropriate to my current reading, a novel about the decadence of ancient Rome.

After returning to our room, Elizabeth turned on the television and started flipping through the channels, and happened across a hard-core porn movie which neither of us had requested. A mistake in the cable programming, evidently. We watched a few minutes of this, then had sex. She came, but I didn't.

I was horny from not coming the night before and so, after brushing my teeth and shaving, commenced kissing and sucking Elizabeth's breasts, then proceeded to drag my tongue down her stomach, planning to lazily lick her into wakefulness. But she stopped me while I was still in the vicinity of her belly-button, saying, "I wouldn't do that if I were you". So apparently her cunt was oozing yeast or otherwise in an unappetizing condition. This warning cooled what had earlier been a strong desire to eat her. We worked ourselves into a sweat fucking, but Elizabeth was nevertheless unable to come. So I rolled off and fingered her to orgasm. Afterwards, we rested in each other's arms, and my erection meanwhile withered. I had some difficulty getting another, even though earlier this morning, while half-awake but still dreaming, I had felt numerous solid and spontaneous erections. Finally, I managed to get back inside her, then stiffened and fucked with relish, plunging and stirring about, knowing that for once I didn't have to restrain myself. An explosive orgasm, with me pulling out at the last minute and coming on her stomach. The frenzy of my orgasm seemed to have excited her again, because she pushed my hand down to her cunt as soon as I rolled off. I fingered her to a second orgasm with little difficulty. It was almost noon when we finished, so we had somewhat of a rush to shower, dress and pack before the check-out deadline.

We wandered around the hotel grounds after storing our luggage in the car, then feasted at an all-you-can-eat brunch. We ate sitting on the terrace outdoors, partially shaded from the hot sun by an arbor, and cooled by fans and a spray of misted water that evaporated before reaching us, with a view of the golf course and lagoons and palm trees and mountains in the distance. Both of us ate and drank copiously.

Elizabeth had at first argued that this brunch, at $22 a head, was too expensive for lunch, but I contended that it was worth it, especially since this would be the last meal of our vacation. I have noticed that she is more and more frequently trying to economize on restaurant and entertainment expenses which she knows I'll end up paying anyway (per our tacit agreement that I normally pay for meals and entertainment). This concern with saving me money is most gratifying, I must say. To cite some more examples. She haggled with the rental car company to get a better rate, gave me a coupon for $15 at the office supplies store, which she had received in the mail but knew she wouldn't be using, pointed out which airlines gave the best rates, recommended against a package tour to Hawaii since we wouldn't be spending enough time there to justify such an expensive trip, and so on.

We started back to the airport in the mid-afternoon. About halfway there, Elizabeth began massaging my crotch, then unzipped my pants and pulled out my cock, and finally, unbuckled her seat belt, leaned over and took my cock in her mouth. Her body was pressing against my right leg, the leg I use for accelerating and braking, and so, to avoid an accident, I pulled over and stopped at a turnout. She said she wanted me to come while she sucked me, but I explained that I've never been able to come from blow jobs, unless it has been several days since my last orgasm, which wasn't the case now, of course. Also, though I didn't mention it, the sort of blow job she was giving me, while titillating, was not what I fantasize about. She seems to expect me sit still while she bobs her head up and down on my cock, struggling each time to swallow more of it, while I would prefer for her to lie still while I rub my cock and balls against her face. Anyway, instead of continuing the blow job, I suggested we fuck. This proved cumbersome to accomplish, first, because she was wearing a hard-to-remove leotard, and second, because she wanted me to remain in the driver's seat while she mounted me, which was awkward due to the steering wheel being in the way. Finally, after a struggle during which I several times lost interest in these acrobatics and consequently lost my erection as well, we managed to get my cock inside her. We fucked in this way for a few minutes, then I had a sort of dry semi-orgasm. She didn't ask whether I had come nor did I volunteer that I hadn't, since I was anxious to terminate all this struggling.

While I emerged from our interlude sweaty but otherwise unscathed, Elizabeth had suffered a big bruise on one of her legs, due to it being pressed against the gearshift lever. She was also starting to feel an ache inside her lower stomach, which intensified during the journey back to the city. By the time we arrived back at her apartment, the pain was excruciating. Her diagnosis was that it was due to a combination of a bruised urethra and general rawness of the vagina, caused by excessive rubbing with insufficient lubrication. She spent an hour soaking in hot water, then took various pills and painkillers, and at one point seemed on the verge of crying.

I fell asleep sometime after midnight. Presumably, she crawled into bed sometime shortly after. The alarm clock was set for early the next morning, since I wanted to get back to my apartment at a reasonable hour and catch up on business.

Lunch with Helen, who is still regretting the abortion:

"I've been having nightmares for days now. I keep thinking, What have I done? And even if I have another baby, there'll always be this black cloud hanging over me, a dark family secret about how I killed this baby. And I don't think I'm completely at fault. If it hadn't been for all of you advisors, I wouldn't have gone through with it. I feel like I've been kidnapped by one of those cults, like I've been dragged off and neutered. My mother is mostly to blame, but the rest of you are at fault as well. My father for just wanting everybody to be bright and cheerful and then trying to sweep problems under the rug. And to think that the two of them—he and my mother—are more concerned about their vacation house than they are with me!

"And you too, you're partly to blame. Right at the end there, you jumped on the bandwagon of people telling me to get the abortion. Not one of you, not a single person, urged me to try to work things out with Paul. The only thing I'll grant you was that you anticipated that this abortion might upset me emotionally. I'll admit you understand me better than myself. But your motives aren't pure. Imagine, worrying that I might spend less time with you if I had a baby! The whole lot of you are my enemies. Never again will I take advice from other people. And another thing, there's something to those anti-abortion groups. I don't agree with their tactics, of course, but I can see why they get people upset. It's because they stand for what's right. All these selfish liberals can think of is how a baby might affect their bank accounts. Money, money, money!

"Paul seems less upset by it than me. Unfortunately, he's also starting to cause me stress again. His latest stunt is to get up each morning at dawn to go swimming. This is to prepare himself for when he goes back to work and has to get up early each day. He has a job interview later this week, but he isn't working right now. So why can't he swim later in the day and let me get some sleep? For two days now, I haven't gotten a decent night's sleep. And here I am still recovering from this operation. Tonight I'm going to ask him to sleep on the sofa if he wants to get up so early. No, no, I'm not going to start a fight. He does call me volcano, though. Because he never knows when I'm going to erupt, he says. Of course, I think that description fits him better than me. We're going to see the therapist tomorrow. I wonder what she'll think, the way Paul was threatening to break up with me if I went through with the abortion. And the thing is, if he hadn't made those threats, I might not have gotten the abortion after all and I wouldn't be here now, feeling so miserable.

"Good news on the work front, though. You remember how I've been saying that I haven't done a thing for five months? Well, yesterday, my supervisor called me over to talk. I thought to myself, this is it, they've finally noticed how little I've been doing and now he's going to reprimand me. So I started off apologizing and explaining that I hadn't being doing well because of illness and might even want to take some more time off and I'm sorry and so forth. No, no, no, he says, you're doing fine. You're so intelligent and responsible, I don't care what you do. You can just come in and sit at your desk all day and do nothing and I'd be happy. I'm thinking, is this conversation for real? In fact, what he called me over for was to get my opinion of another worker, the one they hired to take my place when I moved into systems. She doesn't seem up to speed, he says, and he wants to know if I think she can be trusted to do what I used to do. Thank God they didn't hire someone competent."

Phone conversation with Elizabeth. Her vagina is no longer sore, though yesterday the pain was so bad that she had to miss work. She thanked me for the trip to the desert and I, in turn, thanked her for suggesting the idea. Then we made plans to see a movie together later this week. The contrast between her and Helen is remarkable. I'm always excited see Helen after we've been apart, but her company soon becomes irritating. With Elizabeth, the opposite happens. I seem to have nothing to say to her at first, but then begin to enjoy her company after we've been together without interruption for a long period of time.

I'm barely keeping up with incoming orders for the business. There are now over two hundred messages in the email queue, some of them dating back to almost a year ago. But instead of doing anything about these or the stack of fax orders sitting on my desk, I spent all of yesterday and much of today updating this journal. I did manage to work off most of the phone messages this morning, including ten from an exasperated reseller who is wondering whatever happened to an order he placed two months ago: "I keep calling and never seem to get through. Would someone please give me a call here." When I called him back, I told him, in an ominous sounding tone of voice: "I've been away for several months and we've been having various personnel problems here..." So now I'm probably a standing joke with this reseller. The vendor from hell, the guy who takes two months to fulfill an order that should have taken no longer than a day. I gave equally preposterous excuses to other customers to explain my delays.

Another bug in my program. The customer sent the initial bug report by email six months ago, which I ignored. Then another email last month, which I also ignored. Finally, today, the woman called by telephone. I made up an excuse about the "other workers" not processing email properly and promised to get back to her tomorrow. I was able to reproduce the bug without difficulty. Now it becomes a matter of how to fix it.

Elizabeth came by, later than we had originally planned, due to scraping her car fender on the way and having to stop and make an accident report. We watched a "romantic" movie together, then had dinner at a restaurant. We had nothing to say to one another, so she tried to start an argument, but I was too bored to take the bait. Back to my apartment afterwards for sex. I hadn't come in several days, and so was very sensitive and had difficulty restraining myself, and ended up losing control just as she was coming. I tried to pull out, but she grabbed my buttocks at the last moment, so that I ejaculated inside her. She was worried afterwards, and rightfully so, that this was a foolish thing to have done, since she is near the mid-point of her cycle.

Helen sent an email and then called in the afternoon, asking if I still had the bottles of sleeping pills she had left here two years ago. I told her I had thrown them out because the expiration date had passed. She and Paul are back to squabbling, it seems, and she can't get any sleep. Or perhaps she wants to fake a suicide attempt. We couldn't talk long because I had another call on my business line.

Dinner with Elizabeth at the home of friends of hers, a married couple. The hostess is several months pregnant.

Elizabeth spent the entire drive to their house trying to start a fight. She wanted to know why I don't ask her questions and then accused me of not caring enough about her to be curious as to what she does when we are apart. I finally asked what she did yesterday and she said she went salsa dancing with one of her woman friends. Neither of them danced. Elizabeth wasn't interested in the men, and the men weren't interested in her friend. "The place was full of older women who no one wanted to dance with, and all I could think was, this is what will happen to me some day. I'll be old and alone and no one will want me," she said. I told her I also went salsa dancing, though at different nightclub. She said she had anticipated that was what I planned to do. An argument about my belief that couples shouldn't dance exclusively with one another when they go out, but should swap partners with other couples. We were still arguing when we arrived at her friends' house, but declared a temporary truce so as not to cause a scene.

While discussing some troublesome weeds on their property, the host joked that one of their neighbors was trying to get pregnant but that her husband was so lazy (supposedly he refuses to do anything about the weeds on his property) that he wasn't surprised that she was having difficulties. Elizabeth quipped that perhaps the host should offer help these neighbors out. That is, offer to impregnate the woman himself. The hostess got very upset: "That's not funny. Not even as a joke. He's my husband and I don't like that suggestion at all." Elizabeth later explained to me that the neighboring couple consisted of a white husband and black wife, the opposite situation from that of our hosts, and that our host had a history of philandering with black women. No wonder the hostess reacted strongly to the joke.

After dinner, we played some competitive question-and-answer game, over my objections and those of the host. The host became sulky because his team (he and his wife) lost. He even half-seriously accused Elizabeth of cheating by looking over the questions beforehand. Why didn't the couples separate, with the men on one team and the women on another, precisely to avoid this sort of rancor by the losers? Perhaps because Elizabeth wanted to cause hard feelings?

We stayed much too long (well past midnight), but managed to leave on good terms, despite the ruffled feathers over the game and Elizabeth's tactless quip. Both of us feel asleep shortly after returning to Elizabeth's apartment. I was feeling sick from all the wine I drank (at least five glasses).

While having sex in the morning, I withdrew and ejaculated on Elizabeth's stomach. "I wanted you to come inside," she said. "Do you want to get pregnant?" I asked. She replied no, and that she was worried about our "accident" the other night when I did come inside her, since she thinks she was ovulating that day. I didn't say anything. The prospect of a child with her doesn't bother me, not even the expense. I just don't want to live with her (or any other woman).

Lunch with Helen. She and Paul visited the therapist again last week. This will be their last session. They agreed afterwards that professional therapy was too expensive ($110 an hour, partly paid by Helen's health insurance) and also counterproductive, since they felt angrier towards one another after the session than before. They decided to try home therapy instead. An hour sitting together on the sofa, talking calming to one another about important issues, listening without interrupting, trying to avoid hurling accusations.

But then that very night, they had a terrible row, precipitated by Paul's refusal to compromise on the issue of getting up at dawn to go swimming. Helen concocted some implausible scenario ("Suppose I were pregnant and you knew that getting up early might cause the baby to get brain damage due to me not sleeping enough") and asked if this would cause Paul to change his mind about getting up early. He replied stubbornly that it wouldn't. For whatever reason, whether his getting up early or guilt about the abortion or anger at her mother, Helen has been having sleep problems for almost a week, and so was feeling very irritable. After spending a while in the bedroom alone, sulking and fuming over Paul's intransigence, she charged out and grabbed him by the neck as he was preparing to fall asleep on the sofa (he had agreed to sleep there avoid disturbing her excessively when getting up at dawn) and shouted in his ear: "There! You can see what it's like to be waken up when you're trying to sleep! I hate to think that I went through all this pain of the abortion mess for someone so despicable as you." Paul demanded the phone number of the therapist and of Helen's mother and sister and suggested that Helen should be hospitalized for behaving like a lunatic. He also threatened to go stay with friends again to get away from her. They finally managed to calm down and reconcile, but not until the wee hours of the morning. So she ended up being deprived of sleep yet again. The next day, she skipped work, and slept until late in the afternoon, before resuming normal sleep patterns that night.

On a brighter note, Paul has finally found some temporary work, and thinks he might have a chance at a job in the midwest. Helen isn't sure whether to follow him there. She might like to remain here for a while, and have a few months to herself. I inquired about this: "Why, so you can try to find someone better?" She mumbled a non-committal reply, so who knows what she is thinking. Then she half-jokingly asked: "Would you like to be my sperm bank if I decide to be a single mother?" I laughed and replied that I didn't see how I could explain that to Elizabeth. The comment did make me reflect, however, and to regret that Helen can't satisfy me as a sex partner and that I therefore have to pursue these other women.

Elizabeth and I had dinner at a restaurant to celebrate the birthday of one of her woman friends. Ten people at the table, mostly in their forties or fifties, none of whom I knew. Three of the men were homosexual (and supposedly also a fourth, who was there with his wife). Elizabeth mentioned something about a gay sex club, and how I was familiar with it. I explained that she and I had read about but never visited this establishment, and that Elizabeth was the one who was interested in going there sometime. (I didn't describe why she was curious. Namely, because the article we read alleged that whenever a woman goes to one of these gay sex clubs, dozens of men with rock-solid erections surround her and jack off while she watches. Reality is no doubt different from this lurid fantasy.) She later accused me of embarrassing her with this comment.f I retorted that she was in no position to complain, since she had tried to embarrass me first.

Later, when we returned to her apartment, we had a long and tedious conversation about her job, which she detests and is thinking of quitting, and then climbed into bed. I started kissing her breasts, but she lay passively without responding. When I put some saliva on my fingers, in order to lubricate them and thus facilitate fingering her, she pushed me away: "Don't you spit on me!" I rolled back onto my side of the bed, and then we had another long and tedious conversation, this time about our relationship. Where is our relationship heading, she wants to know. I replied that I didn't think about such things, that as long as I enjoyed her company I would continue visiting her and that when I stopped enjoying her I would stop visiting, and that if she wanted me to stop sooner she should just say so. She complains that she feels lonely even with me sleeping beside her, that I have no real love for her, that I don't buy her flowers, that I never behave romantically, that I never call her spontaneously to say hello or check if she is still alive, that all I want from her is sex. I told her that she was asking me to act out of character, that the only way I would be able to force myself to call her spontaneously would be to write a computer program to randomly schedule these "spontaneous" calls, and that eventually she would see through this charade and despise me for being a hypocrite.

"Candor is one of my best qualities," I said. "A rare quality, too, I might add. And you don't appreciate it. Instead you want me to pretend to be someone I'm not. If you don't feel loved, then I'm sorry. I'm a cold sort of person, a fact that I've never tried to conceal from you, and I just don't feel this sort of powerful love you want me to feel. You might even say that I have the soul of a reptile, a lizard or snake, for example."

On and on it went, rehashing the same topics without getting anywhere, until we finally fell asleep. What provoked this mood in her? Her complaint is partially justified, though. While I do have some feelings for her, besides the mere desire for sex, these are nowhere near as deep as those I have for Helen.

Helen stopped by unannounced in the late afternoon, and declared that she was convinced now that she wanted a child, even if she were to end up as a single mother. "What is all this worry about how hard life is as a single mother? Women have children in wartime, for God's sake! They don't worry about how to pay for it. Think of Mother Courage. I'll be like Mother Courage. I am Mother Courage! Poverty doesn't scare Mother Courage." On and on she went, pacing about, gesticulating, and working herself into a sort of frenzy.

She is full of anger at her mother and sister for "forcing" her to get the abortion. The latter recently called her at work, inviting her to a birthday party for her daughter. Helen's thought was, "why should I care about her spawn when she encouraged me to kill mine?" She got so emotional that her hand started shaking and she spilled tea all over her dress and computer keyboard. Later, when her mother called to inquire as to how she was doing, she brusquely replied "fine" and terminated the conversation. Now she says she plans to cut all ties with her family. I warned her to think about her inheritance.

She complained that Paul has been wanting sex daily ever since they got back together two weeks ago: "I've been under constant attack. Every night he wants it!" Anal sex, mostly, since her vagina is still recovering from the abortion. She joked that she planned to use diarrhea as an excuse for refusing his constant demands. They tried oral sex, but he couldn't come that way: "On and on it went. I was tired and my neck was all twisted up and he just wouldn't come." Another reason for not having vaginal sex is that she doesn't want to risk pregnancy again so soon after the abortion. Which brought up the issue of birth control. Paul refuses to wear condoms and can't be trusted to withdraw, and Helen doesn't want to take the pill because it makes her sick. She asked if I knew anything about the "male pill". I replied that I didn't know there was such a thing, whereupon she frowned: "There ought to be. There's probably a male conspiracy to keep it a secret." We then discussed orgasms and why she doesn't have them and hence doesn't enjoy sex very much. Her conclusion was that her mother is partly to blame for this as well, because she tried to repress her sexuality as a teenager.

I showed her pictures of Elizabeth and myself on our recent trip. Helen commented that Elizabeth is very pretty. I replied that Helen was equally attractive to look at, but that Elizabeth was more satisfying in bed, since she didn't have Helen's sexual problems. Helen seemed aroused, as if wanting me to make a play for her, as if regretting that she let this "other woman" get close to me, especially when I revealed that Elizabeth and I have been having sex without using birth control, and that Elizabeth might therefore be pregnant. "She definitely wants to have a child by you," said Helen, confirming my own intuitions.

Salsa lessons and dancing in the evening. I did very well with five women, as follows. A slender hispanic—my first dance of the night, so I wasn't completely loosened up, but nevertheless we did well together, using simple patterns and a very light touch. Then a slender blonde wearing a tight red dress—she was an average dancer, who liked my light touch but complained about one pattern which she finds painful to perform (it hurts her shoulder). Two long songs with an anglo woman in her thirties—strong energy between us. She has been taking the same classes as me and so was able to follow all of my leads with ease. A black haired italian or hispanic looking woman—the only woman to apply strong arm pressure, which I normally don't use because I find it less sexy than a feather light touch. And finally, a slender but heavy breasted beginner, in her early twenties, with black hair and wearing black pants and a long sleeve black velvet top—the most sexually attractive of the women, in my opinion. She was with a boyfriend, however.

In addition to the above, I danced twice with a muscular young woman with thick legs and buttocks, heavy breasts, and a fairly attractive face, who seemed drunk or on drugs. She dragged me onto the dance floor without asking, then humped my leg in a most obscene manner, saying: "Look at my energy! Here, feel my body's energy!" Then, when I showed signs of wanting to escape, she leapt about chaotically, colliding with me, the wall and the other dancers. My first thought was that she was some sort of transsexual or lesbian, trying to make a fool of me. I felt relieved upon later seeing her behaving the same way with other men, most of whom seemed as perplexed and disgusted by her behavior as I had been.

Helen called and asked, half-seriously, if I would be willing to be a consultant for the corporation she works for, which recently fired its resident computer expert, after he talked back to a supervisor. I said no, but that I would be willing to give her free phone advice. She was supposed to have been training the past four months to replace this computer expert, but has learned very little, because she was distracted by her pregnancy and rocky relationship with Paul.

Dinner with Elizabeth, who tried to start an argument.

"You know, I still haven't gotten any flowers," she complained.

"I know. I thought about that on the way to your apartment, when I passed the flower shop," I replied.

"And?"

"Like I said before, buying flowers just isn't my style. It makes me feel hypocritical. I never did it with any previous girlfriend."

"Well, it is my style. You're saying that you don't want to ever do anything except what you want. I want romance and spontaneity and you don't want to give it to me."

"Let's suppose I bought you the flowers. Fine. You feel good. And then a couple of days later, you think to yourself, there's something wrong here. It's as though he bought me these flowers just because he knows I wanted him to buy me flowers, and not because he really enjoys buying them. He's pretending to be a spontaneous, romantic, flower-buying sort of person when in fact he's exactly the opposite. You're not stupid, Elizabeth. I can't fool you about the sort of person I am. And if I try, then you'll detect that I'm lying and feel more resentful than ever."

"Maybe you're not the man for me."

"Maybe not."

"What are you offering me, then?"

"I don't know. The same things you offer me—sex and companionship. I enjoy these things with you, but if you don't enjoy them with me, then I don't know what to say."

She is taking care of three baby kittens for approximately three weeks, as part of a volunteer "foster pet owner" program run by the pet society. The kittens have lost their cat mother and now need to be raised together as a litter until they are at least eight weeks old, at which time she will return them to the pet society so they can be put up for permanent adoption. I'm not sure what her motives were in signing up for this program. Her explanation is that she remembers wanting to take care of kittens as a young girl, but that her mother refused to allow her to do so, and now she wants to belatedly satisfy this childhood desire. It occurred to me that she might be trying to see what sort of maternal instincts she has, in case she is pregnant by me, so she'll know whether to go through with having a child. If so, then the following comment of hers leads me to conclude that she is already sobering up: "I can see now why women have postpartum depression. I'm tired after less than a day with these creatures. And these are nothing like real babies."

We spent several hours playing with the kittens after returning from the restaurant. I fell asleep almost immediately upon laying down on the bed. I don't know why I was so tired.

Sex in the morning, with orgasms for both of us. Then we played for a while with the kittens, and then had lunch at a nearby cafe. On the way back, we stopped at a flower shop, where Elizabeth pointed to some flowers she liked, which I bought and gave to her. "See, I do give you flowers sometimes. And you even get to choose which one's you want." In the afternoon, we drove to my neighborhood, where Elizabeth bumped into another car. Neither car received more than paint scratches, but Elizabeth nevertheless insisted on exchanging insurance information with the other driver, who was at fault and who would have preferred to ignore the accident. We then spent several hours roaming around at a nearby street fair.

Afterwards, we briefly stopped in at my apartment, where I picked up a drill and other tools for use in repairing her sash window, as I had long promised to do. Then back to her apartment to feed the kittens, followed by dinner at a restaurant, where we had a long discussion of homosexuality. Is it a genetic or cultural phenomenon? Elizabeth suggested that men might become homosexual because they were having problems with relationships with women. I argued that men didn't care about "relationships". They just wanted sex. Elizabeth became upset, saying that this was my view and other men did want relationships.

Upon returning to her apartment, Elizabeth busied herself with the kittens, while I skimmed several books about cancer—the only interesting reading matter I could find in her bookshelf. Most of the rest of her scanty collection consists of "coffee table" type books—large illustrated books about art and fashion and interior decorating. One of the books I skimmed alleges that the average person has six outbreaks of cancer in a lifetime, even though only one in three people die of cancer, and that the body is normally capable of detecting and destroying cancer cells, and that when the body fails to control cancer, it is often because the mind doesn't want the cancer to be controlled. The book cites the following example. Most women with cancer of a sex organ—breast, uterus, cervix—have recently broken up with a boyfriend. The book suggests that by having cancer of a sex organ, the woman is protecting herself from again suffering due to love affairs, since she will have destroyed what attracts men to her in the first place. By some strange logic, this example led me consider that I might someday develop cancer of the anus, because this would be a way for my anus to get revenge for the hostile attitude I've had toward it ever since I was constipated as a teenager, which was mainly due to the low-fiber diet I ate then. Another book, even more fascinating, was about nutritional factors that might cause or help cure cancer. This led me to think that perhaps my recent craving for sunflower seeds was due to my body realizing that it had cancer, and that there was something in the sunflower seeds that could help me fight this cancer. I fell asleep again early, while Elizabeth was playing in the living room with the kittens.

The next morning, on the way to work, Elizabeth remarked, "I noticed you fell asleep on me early again last night." I mumbled an excuse about being tired recently. Apparently, she wanted sex. Why didn't I want sex with her last night? It wasn't lack of sex drive, since as soon as I got back to my apartment, I tore off my clothes and masturbated furiously—and to images of fucking her, no less. Afterwards, I worked briefly on my business, but then left early, to go shopping for pants, as I am feeling dissatisfied with the black jeans that is my current uniform. Experience tells me that this dissatisfaction with clothing is the sign of some deeper dissatisfaction with my life, probably something to do with my relationship with Elizabeth.

Lunch with Helen, who is disappointed with Paul's job hunting efforts. He was optimistic about the opening in the midwest, but hasn't received a response regarding his recent interview there. This past weekend, he was doing some free-lance consulting work for a former coworker who now owns his own business. He faxed off his results, but then a few hours later the former coworker called and complained that his work was so poor that he couldn't accept it. Paul lost his temper and shouted some insults into the phone, thereby permanently severing this relationship with the former coworker. Helen isn't sure whether Paul is really incompetent, or just has a bad work attitude. Immediately after receiving this consulting job, he had complained about being forced to work weekends, despite having been unemployed for eight months and hence not working either weekends or weekdays for that length of time. Then he complained that the other man wanted him to drive to his house: "I'll be on his turf then and thus subservient to him". And finally, having finished complaining, he only spent four hours working and then submitted his results without double-checking them first. He excused himself by saying, "I just can't concentrate for more than four hours a day. And, anyway, numbers never were my strong point." Then why is he an engineer, I wondered? He is still spending recklessly. The latest spree was for two portable phones. Helen asked, "why two?" He replied that he needed one for himself and one for her, though she can't imagine why she needs one. She says now that she doesn't think she wants to spend her life with him, other than possibly to have a child. On other hand, she hates her apartment as much as ever, and doesn't want to leave him yet and have to return to living alone there again.

She gave me some documentation for the computer system at her workplace, which her supervisors want her to maintain, now that they've fired the computer expert who originally set it up. She insists that she doesn't have the requisite computer programming background to do the job properly. I promised to look the documentation over and help her out as needed. Strange that I have enthusiasm for this non-paying project, but none for my business. It isn't just that Helen is involved. The enthusiasm is for the work itself.

Elizabeth came by in the early afternoon. We had sex, with orgasms for both of us. She is bleeding from her period, which means she is definitely not pregnant. I was greatly relieved by this news. Lunch at a restaurant overlooking the park, then we walked around, then spent the evening at her apartment, playing with her kittens and watching television. Elizabeth became upset when I discussed one of my previous girlfriends, who had been grossly overweight as well as ten years older than me, so that people would stare at us when we tongue-kissed and petted heavily in public. "Now you see why I don't want to tell you anything about myself. I don't want you talking about me this way," she said.

Lunch with Helen. We spent most of our hour together discussing her work. I had some questions about the notes she had given me, and also some ideas for improving and simplifying the system. We had discussed going into her workplace one weekend, so I could see the system in operation, but she was adamant about not wanting to work this coming weekend, since she already had plans. One of these plans was to return three pairs of black sandals she bought last week during a shopping frenzy, which she later realized she didn't particularly like.

She and Paul are getting along reasonably well. The dispute this past weekend, regarding his free-lance consulting work, has left him very discouraged about ever getting a job. He suggested that Helen might want to call some of his former coworkers and ask them why he is having such difficulties. She is convinced now that she can't pledge to support him financially, given that she doesn't feel particularly secure in her own job.

I called Mark, who had left a message a few days ago. He filled me in on what has been happening in his life:

"Oh it's so good to hear from you. Everything here has been illness and death and I've just about got my fill of it. You remember Catwoman? That's what I call the woman who lives across from me who I take care of. She's about on death's doorstep. Very sad. Her face is almost half eaten away. The cheek is gone, the jaw is gone, the nose is gone and now the eye is gone. Horrible to look at. The worst was the eye. You wouldn't believe what a deep socket it left when it finally fell out. I can't abandon her now, though it's starting to become a strain on me to be around her. She needs medicating twice a day, and if she doesn't get it, she becomes frantic. You know how those senile types are. Running about, worrying they might have lost something.

"And the thing is, this type of cancer she has is one of the most curable types there is. Provided a person gets proper treatment in time. Basal carcinoma it's called. But she doesn't trust doctors or medicine. Now, when I first met her, she had this little bump on her face, maybe the size of a fingertip. And before that, it was probably the size of an eraser, like an eraser on the end of a pencil. She could have gotten that taken off at the dermatologist's office. But she has this agoraphobia and mistrust and that was her undoing. So, a couple of years later, it grew to the size of a mouse. That was when she used to creep around with her hand over her face, or wear a shawl so no one could see. And now it's the size of six mice. I'm telling you, it's the most horrifying thing I've ever seen. The Phantom of Apartment 203 I sometimes call her.

"Like I said, I'm the only person she's got left. I did manage to get her on the hospice program. So she gets a nurse to come by twice a week, plus all her medicines are paid for. And to do that, I had to get a doctor to certify that she had no more than six months to live. I think people should have the right to die at home, don't you agree? I mean, she's not stupid. She knows that if they took her off to a hospital, they'd turn her face into some sort of medical exhibit. Show her off to all the medical students as an example of the sort of untreated cancer that just doesn't appear in this country anymore. Yes, indeed, you got to go to a foreign country to see this type of freak. So I can see why she wants to die at home. But it's really sad that she let it get out of hand. The doctor said that this type of cancer was 99% curable, if treated in time. And then the other day, we called in a podiatrist. You see, all the years I've known her, I've never seen her feet. But I did notice that she always used to tear the tops off her shoes. One Christmas, for example, I gave her this pair of real nice slippers that I got cheap at a yard sale—almost new—and she just fucking annihilated them. Took a pair of scissors to them and make them look like they'd been torn up by some dog. I was sort of hurt when I saw what she'd done. Of course, I didn't say anything because she's so sensitive. You have to be very gentle with her. All it takes is one false step, and she puts you on her shit list for life and there ain't no coming off it. I don't know what it is about me that made her trust me so much. I'm not a saint or anything. I mean she is paying me and then she put me in her will to inherit her apartment.

"But anyway, about the podiatrist. First of all, did you know that all Medicare pays is $50 for a house visit? I mean, for a medical doctor, $50 isn't worth pissing on. By the time he drives here, parks the car, walks up the stairs, does the job, walks down the stairs, drives back—we're talking a whole afternoon wasted. But I finally managed to appeal to the conscience of this one guy and got him up here. So, anyway, the first thing was to get her feet washed. And that was when I finally laid eyes on them things. Good Lord! I mean, I am not exaggerating when I say she hadn't cut her toenails in ten years. They were going this way, that way, right, left, forwards and backwards, corkscrewing every which direction. It's no wonder she couldn't wear normal shoes all these years. Those feet looked like something you'd find on an animal, like a hoof maybe. But that podiatrist, he came in and helped cut her nails. She put up a big fuss and did everything she could to get rid of him, but I told her that we can't have the doctor come up here anytime we want. Doctors just don't make house calls these days. He's made an exception, just this once, because he knows you hate to go out, I told her.

"I don't know how she got to be this crazy. I told you how she used to scream and holler all night that the communists were trying to bug her apartment and then she used to accuse the man below—he was a taxi-driver, Darnell his name was—of bringing women up to the apartment and strangling them there. Said she heard the screams. There was a rash of unsolved murders in the news then. I told her, if you think you know something about these murders, then why don't you call the police hotline? But no, she didn't want to. And then she suspected him of boring a hole in his ceiling to get through to her apartment. All night I'd hear her yelling: Darnell, you murdering son-of-a-bitch, I know you're trying to come through that floor! I think the cancer worsened her psychosis, but she was crazy before. Otherwise, she would have gotten treated like any normal person. And it wasn't just the lack of treatment. She also used to pick at it. Constantly, picking at it and then smearing it with petroleum jelly and other crap. No wonder it got so horrible looking. I'm telling you, it's worse than anything you've seen on one of those horror movies. And then it's always leaking some sort of fluid. And smells bad, too.

"So that's what I'm up to, besides caring for the old lady in the suburbs. She's another one on the verge of death. My sister is out there now. Sometimes, I think they get too panicky. She coughs twice and they think it's the death rattle. But maybe she is ailing. I'm sticking around here to give Catwoman her shot, then up there to relieve my sister. Maybe I'll end up meeting them in the emergency room."

Elizabeth prepared dinner at her apartment, and afterwards we watched a video together—a domestic evening. Her adult cat is throwing up. Probably emotional stress from fear of being replaced by the kittens. We had sex before going to sleep, with orgasms for both of us.

Elizabeth wasn't particularly interested in sex in the morning, but I was insistent and she finally relented. While fucking, she asked me to hurry up and come since her vagina hurt. A bloody mess afterwards. Blood soaking through the towel she had put underneath and staining the bed sheets, blood all over her thighs and my cock. "See, I knew this would happen. That's why I didn't want sex," she complained. I apologized and felt like a cad for having pressured her. We had breakfast at a nearby restaurant while her laundry was cleaning, then wandered around shopping. Dinner at another restaurant, then we watched a movie together.

An argument about politics while shopping. Upon passing some street demonstration, I commented that I detested political activists. She replied that she was glad that cancer activists existed because their actions benefited her. I then explained that while I was certainly happy with the results achieved by some activists, I still didn't like them personally: "The bacteria in my intestine are also useful to me. Without bacteria, I wouldn't be able to digest food. That doesn't mean I want to have a conversation with these bacteria, nor do I want to become a bacteria myself. Likewise, I don't like the conversation of activists, and I hope I never go insane to the point of becoming an activist myself. I think they've poisoned their own minds with political thinking. I certainly don't envy them. And as far as helping the world, my feeling is that if God weren't happy with the way things were going, he or she or it could just snap its fingers and fix things." Elizabeth disagreed. Activists benefit her, therefore they are admirable and it is wrong for me to criticize them. On and on in this vein. The truth is, I am sometimes afflicted by the same mania for politics as the activists. I long for the day when politics utterly fails to arouse my interest.

I invited Helen to lunch, but she already had plans to eat with coworkers. She says she is thinking of going to law school. I predicted that she would drop after one semester, once she discovers that law is as boring as computers. She replied that she was determined to attend either law school or graduate school in literature, where she would resume work towards a doctorate in that field. Whereupon I mentioned that I had recently found some sex-obsessed notes of hers on my computer, dating from the time when she was working on her master's thesis in literature. Below are some excerpts. Only the note about Tony (one of her ex-boyfriends) is original to her. Everything else was taken from books she was reading then:

"Epistemophilia" is the pleasure in gaining knowledge, especially about sexuality. Curiosity about sexuality (Where do I come from? How do parents have intercourse?) is an important component of infant's curiosity about the world in general. Freud speaks of an "instinct for knowledge" between the ages of three and five. Epistemophilia is related to oral and excremental interests. Mother's body is assumed to be the scene of all sexual processes and developments.

Oral-sadistic phases of the child, and the anal sadistic. Project of entering mothers body and stealing or cannibalizing the desirable objects. Love and fear of mother, guilt of sadistic impulses leads to impulses towards reparation. Looks for breast substitutes: thumb, toy, penis.

Good and bad images of the breast and penis in child's imagination. Constantly seeking for new objects to introject. Knowing is experienced as a kind of cannibalism. Associated with the mother's body it can cause fears of retribution. Earliest guilt is from desire to eat mother, not of being castrated by father (Klein differs from Freud here).

Intellectual inhibition relates to concern over the safety of the mother's body—do not want to feel you are harming her. Knowledge = Food. Oral envy connected with theories of oral intercourse between parents. Incorporation of knowledge places knower in receptive, thus vaginal feminine position. Object of knowledge is combined mother-father or breast-penis (bisexual).

Father's penis equated with breast from sucking point of view and thus becomes object of desire. Because of child's imagined sadistic attacks upon the father's penis, it transforms into a terrifying weapon. Transformation of desired object into terrifying monster might explain why the quest for knowledge in science fiction narratives is haunted by Uroboric monsters of a sadistic character. Uroboros is archetypal figure of pre-Oedipal consciousness: the most primal of all symbols. Vagina/penis equates to mouth/breast. Infant turns from nutritive gratifications of primordial object to the less substantive, imaginary gratifications of its proto-linguistic substitutes.

Lacan's alterations of Klein's theories change emphasis from bisexual nature of infants' imagination to questions of sexual difference—this mystification is a structuralist abstraction. Klein shows (in contrast to Lacanians) that the splitting of the subject and symbolization arise prior to parental intervention.

How might we disengage signification from its phallic anchor? New terms: the womb, the vagina, the clitoris. Language always invokes a crisis in relation to the body, since language is not about turgid and graspable organs, but about their fantastical, promiscuous, polymorphous representatives in metaphorical consciousness. The Lacanian phallus is arguably a sublimation of the penis-breast. Need to learn the maternally-related aspects of speech and subjectivity. Penis/breast as a metaphor of language, of metaphoricity.

Femininity phase implies part of men's development. Feces = child. Mode of knowing in dominant culture is hung up on femininity phase, preoccupied with a kind of knowing based on masculine fantasies of excremental birth, and a mode of production based on the mining, creation, transformation, exchange, and accumulation of wastes. Also, an envy of maternal reproductive organs: boy lacks the organs for birthing. Excessive protestations of masculinity follow, an exaggeration of the male position. Displacement of his desire to produce a child onto the intellectual plane. Masculinist culture is a result of these upwardly displaced epistemophilic tendencies. With phallus decentered, cultural critics can pay attention to other kinds of organ-symbols deployed at not entirely conscious levels of discourse.

Male illocutionary force, white magic. Patriarchical demons in the house.

...

The scene in the ski mobile shop: Tony being seduced by the sales people to buy the skimobile. Tony seeming to challenge, to provoke, to acknowledge that he was being seduced. The ski mobile as a masculine object connoting speed. My position was mute. I had no technical knowledge. I felt extraneous being there.

Lunch with Helen. She and Paul are back to quarreling. For several weeks now, she has been doing all the household cleaning, with no help from Paul. It seems their old idea of having lists of his and her chores has long since been abandoned. This past Sunday, after Helen had finished cleaning the kitchen, Paul brewed some coffee and then left the dirty coffee pot and cup in the sink. Helen then made some tea, and afterwards conspicuously cleaned her tea cup, without cleaning the dirty coffee pot or cup. Paul noticed this, and complained.

"I have to tell you that something is bothering me," said Paul.

"Oh, and what is that?" asked Helen.

"I noticed that you are once again refusing to clean the coffee pot. You are trying to distinguish what is yours from what is mine." Some more discussion of the issue, until Helen finally lost her temper.

"Fuck you! I do all the cleaning around her and I'm sick of it and sick of you!" she exclaimed.

"Once again, it's obvious that we are about to break up, so I don't see why we bother prolonging this relationship," replied Paul.

"Fine."

"Another thing, I finally received a reply from an email I sent to my old friend, the day after you went crazy and attacked me. She said she was surprised that we hadn't broken up yet. Which just confirms that any sane person would have long since left this relationship."

"Then you can pay half the medical bills!" Helen was referring to the bills for the abortion. The doctor's bill alone was over $2000. Most of this will probably be paid by her insurance, however.

Continued quarreling all that day, with Helen bursting into tears several times. Finally, the quarreling stopped and Paul became jolly, as if they were once again reconciled. But Helen is determined now to leave him. She mentioned possibly quitting her job and moving to another city, where the cost of living is less.

Helen and I then discussed the computer system at her place of work. She showed me a printout of macros, which I reviewed. My conclusion was that the system is simple, and that she should therefore be capable of maintaining it, though she remains doubtful. I asked her to email me various files, and promised to look them and the macros over more carefully this afternoon and tomorrow and to help her as needed.

Elizabeth came by in the late afternoon. She remarked that I seemed distant, which I was. Partly this was because I had masturbated twice in the morning, despite knowing that Elizabeth and I would be getting together in the evening, and partly it was because I was thinking about Helen and realizing how much I preferred her company to that of Elizabeth. I didn't tell Elizabeth any of this, of course, but instead gave some confused sounding excuse about being preoccupied with business issues. Then, in an extraordinary display of intuition (or had she perhaps seen Helen and me together earlier in the day), she asked: "Have you seen Helen recently?" I was taken aback, but recovered well enough to mumble something along the lines of: "Oh, I suppose she's doing okay." Then later, while discussing some innocuous topic over dinner, Elizabeth startled me again.

"What if I told you I wanted to have a child?" she asked.

"By me?" I said.

"Maybe. I'm not sure."

"Well, if it doesn't involve me then it's none of my business."

"If I have a child, I want the whole deal."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning I don't want to be a single mother."

"You mean you want to get married and live together?"

"Exactly."

"Hmmmph."

"Does the idea disgust you?"

"No, not at all. Disgust is definitely the wrong word."

"Then what's the right word?"

"Sobering. A sobering thought. It wakes me up."

"It was intended to."

"Of course, given how you've been acting—sex without contraception and all—I shouldn't be surprised. But still, I am sort of surprised."

"I know I told you originally that I didn't want children. But I've changed my mind. I'm past forty, and because of my cancer and the chemotherapy and other factors, I may not be able to have children any more. But I want to try. And I don't have much time left."

"So, you want an answer soon, in other words?"

"It doesn't have to be right this minute. But yes, I would like to know soon, so I'll know how to proceed with this relationship."

"Well, let's discuss it after the play."

The play was one of these lifeless productions of the "culture" industry. Despite my inability to appreciate the performance, I politely thanked Elizabeth afterwards for having bought the tickets.

When we arrived back at her apartment, it was almost midnight. She seem too tired for a discussion, though I was prepared for one. It hadn't been hard to come to a decision. Namely, that I did not want to spend my life with her nor to live with her. I was willing to consider paying child support for a child by her, or to keep her on as my mistress, but I knew she would be offended by such propositions and so I didn't plan to make them. My answer, in other words, would be a simple no. Since I knew she would end the relationship when she heard this answer, I decided to henceforth refrain from sex with her. Despite my not making any sexual overtures, she volunteered that she was still bleeding heavily from menstruation and didn't want a repeat of the bloody mess that had occurred last time. Perhaps she also realized we were on the verge of breaking up, and so also didn't want more sex.

Elizabeth took the next day off from work, so I remained at her apartment until mid-morning, playing with the kittens. Before I left, she asked me if I had thought more about what we discussed last night. I said I had, and was ready to give an answer, though it might be best if I waited a few days. She agreed that a delay in giving the answer might be a good idea. I think she realizes that my answer will be that I don't want to marry her. A light kiss on parting.

I spent three hours in the cafe studying printouts of the macros underlying the computer system used at Helen's place of work (which she emailed me yesterday), and then stayed up until well past midnight working on ideas for a redesign of this computer system. It is very unlikely that I will be paid for these efforts, so why all the enthusiasm?

Lunch with Helen in the park, after which I accompanied her to return one of the three pairs of sandals she bought last week. I discussed Elizabeth's desire to marry and have children, and said that I just couldn't see myself spending the rest of the life with her. Then I proposed that Helen and I get back together under the following arrangement. We would maintain separate apartments, both now and for the rest of our lives, since being in close proximity for more than a few hours at a time causes us to fight. We might have a legal marriage, depending on the tax and other legal ramifications. If she wanted, she could have children by me, which I would support financially and help raise. She is currently the major beneficiary of my will, and I would retain her as such, in addition to adding any children we might have. I might take a mistress if our sex life were unsatisfactory, but it would be an older woman, so there wouldn't be any possibility of her wanting more children. Helen replied that my proposal was a shock to her, but that she would think carefully about it.

Elizabeth called in the late afternoon, since she was about to leave work and I had neglected to call her earlier in the day. We arranged for me to stop by her apartment tomorrow evening, and from there to drive to an art gallery opening where her ex-boyfriend works. I sense that she realizes that my answer to her ultimatum ("marry me or our relationship ends") will be that I want our relationship to end.

I continued work on designing a replacement for the computer system at Helen's workplace—a table-driven design instead of one using in-line macros. The problem with macros is that only someone with programming expertise can maintain the system, and neither she nor her coworkers has this expertise. Later, it occurred to me that the complexity of the existing system is an advantage, as it gives Helen job security, and replacing it with something simpler might not be such a good idea after all (at least not from Helen's perspective).

In the afternoon, I took the bus to Elizabeth's apartment. We played there briefly with the kittens, which she will be returning to the pet society tomorrow, then drove together to the art gallery opening. We both agreed that the art was terrible. Kitschy, brightly colored lithographed portraits of celebrities and sport heroes, the sort of trash that is normally sold in discount department stores for $20 (including frame), whereas this gallery's prices were more like $10,000. Her ex-boyfriend, who works at the gallery and whose invitation was her main reason for coming, wasn't there, so we only stayed about ten minutes. She said she broke up with this ex-boyfriend because he wasn't "sophisticated enough". Dinner at an expensive restaurant. We seemed to be on pleasant terms throughout the evening. Several times she put her hand on me and squeezed affectionately, to which gesture I responded in kind. But I made a point of not kissing her. She probably noticed this, but didn't comment on it.

After dinner, we returned to her apartment, and found it filled with some sort of petrochemical fumes, as from paint solvent. The fumes didn't bother me, but Elizabeth complained that she could barely breathe and that her eyes were watering, and said she wanted to take no chances with what were obviously poisonous chemicals, given that she had a weak immune system and had already suffered one bout of cancer. The fumes came from the apartment below, which had been painted earlier that day. The painters had shut the windows when they left, so that the fumes accumulated and then leaked through interior walls into Elizabeth's apartment, especially into the bathroom and kitchen, where there were numerous holes in the floor for piping. She opened all the windows, then rummaged in the construction debris in the yard until she found an empty paint can, whose label stated that the contents gave off poisonous fumes and so should not be used without adequate ventilation. "What did I say? This stuff is poison!" she yelled out. She then called the maintenance man and demanded he do something about the situation. He agreed to come by tomorrow and open the windows in the apartment below. Afterwards, she fretted that she had appeared like an hysterical female during this phone conversation, and that even so, hadn't obtained what she really wanted, which was for the maintenance man to come by that minute and open the windows, even if it was late at night. Then she cursed the apartment building and the construction workers, and slammed some pots around in the kitchen so that the cat went scurrying under the bed in fright.

"First I have two car accidents, then this construction work waking me up every morning, then these poisonous fumes. What other terrible things are going to happen to me this month, I wonder?" she said. I was ready to give my answer to the ultimatum, but the timing didn't seem appropriate, given how upset she was about the fumes. So I decided to wait until tomorrow. I went to bed before her, at about midnight, while she was still playing with the kittens, and fell asleep quickly to ensure we didn't have sex.

I was out of bed early the next morning, did my calisthenics, showered, then returned to bed, and lay there quietly for a while, before deciding it was a good time for a discussion with Elizabeth.

"You remember what we were discussing the other night?" I said.

"Yes," Elizabeth said.

"Would you like to discuss it now?"

"Do you have something to say?"

"Yes, I do. My answer is no: I will not marry you or have children with you."

"Is there a reason?"

"Well, there is—several reasons, perhaps—but one important one. Namely, that there is still a relationship between Helen and me, even though we don't have sex and even though she is living with another man and even considering marrying and having children by this other man. Her getting married doesn't bother me. I know she'll just get divorced later. But, if I were to get married and have children, I wouldn't get divorced, and that would mean that Helen and I would be split up forever, and that I don't want."

"I see. Well, that answers that. Do you want to leave now?"

"Do you want me to?"

"Yes."

"Okay."

While dressing, I considered packing up my extra toothbrush and shaving supplies, which I had been keeping in her bathroom ever since we started sleeping together. I knew she would probably throw them out as soon as I was gone, which seemed a waste (though they were only worth a few dollars). But packing up these supplies would have given the impression that I had no hope that our differences might be resolved—which was how I felt, but not how I wanted her to think I felt—and so I left them behind.

It was early when I left, so the streets outside were empty. I felt a slight nagging worry on the bus ride home that I might have behaved badly in this relationship. If Elizabeth had told me earlier that she wanted children, then it definitely would have been wrong to have continued seeing her, given that I was sure I didn't want to marry or have children with her. But she had told me the opposite. Namely, that she definitely did not want children. Or, if I had been having sex with Helen, then it might have been wrong not to have told her so. But I wasn't having sex with Helen. Given that I told her, from the start, that I was looking primarily for a sex partner, and that I never planned to live with her, I think I was in my rights not to reveal that I loved Helen much more than I would ever love her, and that, in fact, I didn't really like her company and also didn't trust her as a dependable friend. Still, I had some nagging doubts about my behavior. I had expected a sense of relief, but there was none, probably because there wasn't much anxiety to be relieved from. My feelings for Elizabeth have always been weak, so that it didn't bother me to lose her. My strongest feeling was of happiness at knowing that Helen and I can now spend more time together, especially evenings.

There was a message on my answering machine when I got home: "This is Elizabeth calling. Would you please mail me my things? My address is ..." She was referring to some clothes and cosmetics that she had left in my apartment, which I put into a box for mailing tomorrow.

Lunch with Helen. I discussed my breakup with Elizabeth and proposed again that Helen and I get back together. I even agreed to marry her if that's what she wants.

"Maybe the only reason we're doing well together is that we only see each other once a week," Helen argued.

"I'd like to see you more. It's just that that keeper of yours won't let you out," I said.

"My keeper seems to have gotten wind that something is up, because now he's tying me down to the bed."

"What are you talking about?"

"He's tying me down."

"I don't understand. What are you talking about?"

"This weekend we bought some rope and handcuffs and now he's tying me down to the bed."

Helen and I then both burst out laughing uncontrollably. This past weekend, she and Paul went shopping for bondage and discipline gear. They visited two stores and spent over $400, of which Helen paid about $100 (for a whip, a butterfly vibrator and a leather collar with metal studs), and Paul paid about $300 (for a leash for use with the collar, handcuffs, rope, and a leather bra and skirt). All of this apparatus is to be used on Helen. They tried the equipment out as soon as they got home, but Helen found the reality of being tied and spanked to be much less exciting than the fantasy (which she has had since being a teenager). The next day, Paul suddenly became aroused and so they tried using the equipment again, but by the time they finished the elaborate preparatory work of getting her into the leather skirt and bra and then tying her to the bed, Paul had lost his erection. So they gave up and went to sleep frustrated. Helen refused to say whose idea it was to buy the equipment. Probably she planted the idea in Paul's head long ago, and only now has he become enthusiastic about it.

I frittered the day away in the same manner as I've been doing most of this month. Instead of working on my business, I spend my time lying in bed daydreaming and masturbating, or exercising, or listening to music, or browsing on the internet, or sitting in the cafe reading, studying Spanish or looking out the window at the passersby, or occupying myself with diet and health manias. Amazingly, despite the atrocious way I'm acting, the business continues to do very well, with over $117,000 in profits since the beginning of the year. Then I spent the evening revising my instructions to the executor of my will. Why this obsession with putting my life in order? I act as if the end were nigh. Do I have reason to suspect that I might die soon?

I called Helen and invited her to stop by the cafe. There I proposed marriage again, with possibility of us moving to another, smaller city where the cost of living is lower. She would live in a house, while I would split my time between this house and a separate studio apartment. If she wants to have sex, I'll be monogamous and have it with her. Otherwise, I'll find a mistress. I agreed to give her between $20,000 and $30,000 a year, which should pay for her housing costs plus the cost of any children, so that she would only need to earn about $10,000 a year after-tax for her personal expenses, which she should be able to do by working part-time. I also told her that I anticipated that our relationship would always be a stressful one, but that I had realized that she is the only woman I will ever really love, and so, whatever her faults, I have no choice but to prepare to spend my life with her. She said she would think my proposal over.

I asked her to linger in the cafe, but she was anxious to get home to Paul. He may be getting a job in the midwest after all. The prospective employer there has been sitting on his application for several weeks, and only now has responded with an invitation to a second interview. If Paul moves, he wants Helen to move at the same time, which may be as soon as two weeks from now. He suggested they buy some more bondage gear this coming weekend—ankle cuffs, to complement the hand cuffs they bought last week. Helen doesn't see the point, since they aren't making use of the equipment they already have.

I accomplished a small amount of work this week, but the backlog continues to grow. There are phone messages on my answering machine from two weeks ago that I still haven't responded to, and unprocessed fax orders and unopened envelopes piled on my desk and spilling onto the floor. Angry resellers and customers are bombarding me with email and phone messages, demanding to know why my processing of orders is so slow. One reseller was particular irate. I told him "we" had been having email problems. A weird conversation. I think he knew I was lying. After we hung up, I began laughing aloud, somewhat hysterically, and felt as though I've lost all my dignity and sense of shame. But then I did manage to get his orders processed that afternoon.

Instead of working on my business, I spend my days browsing on the internet, or else lying in bed, day-dreaming and masturbating. Or else I leave work early and sit in the cafe. Twice this week I went out salsa dancing. Why do I have the energy for that but not for my business? I seemed to do very well at the dancing, incidentally.

I spent the entire day in my apartment, revising, editing and trimming my older journals and other autobiographic writings. Perhaps I'll put some of these on the internet when I'm done. I was feeling stir-crazy towards midnight, on account of being inside all day, and so took a walk around the nightclub district. There is something desperate about the Saturday night crowd there.

I spent the day revising my transcribed voice diaries, and thereby refreshing my memory of the time Helen and I lived together and how she used to get on my nerves. Consequently, I'm feeling some reservations about marrying her. But if not with her, then I'll probably never marry and have kids. Do I care? My current happiness seems so fragile. Why do I risk tinkering with it?

It is so difficult to know what I really want. I sometimes think I want to marry and have kids only so as to silence some nagging inner voice that tells me that without marriage and kids I haven't lived a full life and am therefore a failure. Why am I bothered by this voice? I've never climbed Mount Everest either, but no voice complains that I've been deprived of that experience. I remember how, when younger, I used to suffer from thoughts of being "deprived of my rightful share of sex with beautiful women." I tried to dispel these thoughts by reasoning that "all women look alike in the dark" and "masturbation gives most of the pleasure of sex with none of the hassle and expense". But then some voice would chime, "Sour grapes! You say you don't care about women because you've never had the sort of woman you think you deserve. All the women you've loved and been loved by have been second-rate (in your opinion) either in looks or intelligence." This nagging voice was only silenced after I became lovers with Helen, who is a physical beauty as well as being very intelligent. I was at last able to walk down the street and see men accompanied by beautiful women and not feel the slightest pang of envy or deprivation. I could finally accept that I preferred solitude and masturbation to living with a woman. Perhaps this is why I now propose marriage and children, so I can someday confidently say, "I never really wanted marriage and children" without having to listen to some nagging voice saying, "Sour grapes! You never had the opportunity to have children and that's why you say you don't want them." Or maybe I really do want children.

A middle-aged man at the cafe, loudly ranting and raving to his companion: "Listen, I busted my ass for five years, working from early in the morning until late at night, every day. Hey, I'm not violent, but I have a right, I have an obligation as a citizen of this country to protect my freedom. That's what it means to be an American, as I understand it. I have a God-given right to work. And I say, fuck anyone and anything that gets in my way. I'm not violent, but I will fight. Try to take away my right to earn a living, and I'll put your eye out. I'll break your fucking knee. I eschew violence. But if you push me, I'll strike back. I love bicycling, I have since I was a kid. I work on bikes because I love them, not for the money. So I'm not going to have someone tell me I can no longer work in my chosen profession. Okay? My family thinks I'm a failure because of what I do. They wanted me to be an eye surgeon like my father. I said, hey, it's my life, I do with it what I want. Okay? So, now I'm this black sheep of the family. Relatives don't want their children to spend too much time with me. I have a reputation that precedes me. They think my thought processes might corrupt their kids, make them reject this authoritarian control system their parents are trying to shove down their throats until they want to puke from it. People don't realize it, but this country is headed for a meltdown. A total meltdown of the economy and social structure. It isn't going to be pretty, believe me. We're living in a very repressive era. The pressure is building and it will explode someday, and explode violently."

I bought two more pairs of the same black and white plaid pants that I bought five pairs of last month, so I now have seven pairs total, which seems ridiculous. But I hate to shop and I know I'll never find these pants available for sale again, so I reasoned that I might as well stock up while I can. And anyway, they're only $14 a pair.

I've noticed before how groups of street-people enter the pay-toilets together and then stay inside for twenty minutes or so, presumably to have sex or shoot up drugs. Two separate couples used the pay-toilet in the park in this manner while I was sitting there today. First a man and woman entered together, then two men together. One member of the all-male couple, a lanky black, tried to catch my attention, pointing at his crotch and yelling something like: "Hundred dollars! Suck this big mother-fucking dick of mine!" His companion was a smaller Chinese man.

I've been thinking some more about Helen. My memories of her are among the most precious memories I have. But since these memories already exist, why do I propose marriage and children? I suppose if I had children, memories of those children might someday be as precious as my memories of Helen. But that's looking far down the road, too far for me to really care one way or another.

Lunch with Helen. Paul is not certain of getting the job in the midwest. She hopes he does get it, but probably won't go with him, thereby breaking up with him without feeling guilty about abandoning him in his time of need. Once again, we discussed my marriage proposal. She wants me to give her $400,000 or so, so she will be financially independent of me, and won't have to beg me for money. I can see her point, but I'm worried that she might not be sufficiently frugal and thus will exhaust the money too soon, causing us to have to return to working. I reiterated that I planned to get a mistress if she didn't want sex. She said she might get a lover if I got a mistress. I replied that if she wanted sex, she could get it from me, and I would abandon the idea of a mistress. I warned her that I might become somewhat unstable in the next decade or so. Perhaps going off on a trip around the world or spending several months in a monastery or something of the sort. We discussed cities to live in.

"If the truth be told, I don't really know what I want," I confessed.

"I get that impression myself from listening to you," she replied.

"All I've every really wanted to do is read, listen to music, exercise, walk around the city and masturbate. The same simple, inexpensive life I led during the inter-semester breaks at college, and which I've dreamed of returning to ever since. The life I lead now, in fact, except no business to worry about. Then it occurs to me that someday I might regret not having children. But if I'm going to have children, I'd rather have them with you than with anyone else. And I'd like to have you around for company, at least occasionally. I can afford the $500,000 it would take to marry and raise a family with you. So putting all these thoughts together, it makes sense for me to propose marriage. After all, what better way to spend all this money I've accumulated than on you?"

I fall farther and farther behind in my business. Phone calls go unanswered and stack up on the answering machine. Orders go unprocessed. I think to myself, in all seriousness, that maybe my slowness will discourage customers, especially the resellers. I want to be free of this business, and these long-term business relationships with resellers make me feel entangled and trapped, which I resent. But then how can I be so calmly contemplating marriage with Helen? Marriage is, after all, the ultimate long-term ("until death do us part") business relationship.

I'd previously noticed that my rayon nightclub shirt picks up body odor and then smells stale the next day, so tonight, when I went out salsa dancing, I wore a cotton undershirt. But the undershirt hadn't been washed properly, and so started to smell terribly once my body heated it up. I was in the nightclub when I noticed this. By the time I took the undershirt off in the restroom, the foul smell had already permeated the rayon shirt. Thus, my plan to protect the rayon shirt with the undershirt completely backfired. This foul smell, along with some annoying experiences with incompetent and immature followers, put me into a tense mood, and I was unable to enjoy the evening.

There are now twenty-two messages on the answering machine. Angry customers are demanding to know why I've not answered their technical support questions. One of these customers played an trick on me today. First he sent a request for ordering instructions, to which I sent the standard reply, and then later he sent another email, asking why I respond to questions about ordering, but not to technical support questions. Another email was from a customer who filed a problem report several months ago. She wants a status update. I've yet to resolve the problem and so didn't respond to her inquiry. There are now thousands of dollars in fax and email orders piled up unprocessed, and probably several thousand dollars more of potential orders, if I would just follow up on phone calls.

I hate this feeling of giving bad service, especially when there is no one to blame but myself. I have a backlog because I never do any work. For some time now, I've been having occasional thoughts of suicide, as the ultimate way to escape work. Thank God I don't have a gun at hand, or else I might suddenly carry through with these horrible thoughts. I'm not depressed by any means. Indeed, once I get out of the apartment, away from the incessantly ringing phone and the piled up faxes, I'm as happy as I've ever been.

Instead of working, I just lie in bed, listening to music and putting the pillow over my head whenever the phone rings. And then I leave work early and go shopping. Today I bought some exercise cables at the sporting equipment store. I have always had a tendency to want to buy things when I'm feeling under stress.

Dinner with Helen at the cafe. I agreed to marry her next month and give her $300,000 or $400,000 shortly thereafter. The exact amount I am to give her remains in dispute (she wants more, I want to give less). She will quit her job in a few months. Our current plan is to spend another year here in the city, before moving someplace with a lower cost of living. She wants to spend some time relaxing before getting pregnant again. I warned her that I will probably want her to sign a premarital agreement.

Needless to say, I'm not entirely enthusiastic at the idea of giving up such a large sum of money, though I've been contemplating giving to her for many years now. Indeed, I drew up my will last year about this time, precisely because I was anxious to provide for her in case of my death. Even if she were to divorce and leave me immediately after we married and I gave her the money, I'd still be glad of having given her financial independence. The only scenarios which would really hurt would be if she squandered the money or gave it to another man.

Two men sitting outside at the cafe drinking wine at the table next to me. The speaker was in his forties, with a huge mane of curly bleached white hair, a deep tan, a pot-belly, and wearing short pants, sandals and no shirt:

"Where's that fucking waiter? Garçon! Two more of these white wines. What are you doing? We're not finished with that. Fucking take twenty-five cents off your tip for that—just kidding. Did anyone ever tell you that you're a very handsome man? Listen, I'm a connoisseur of male beauty, and you are a handsome man. Two white wines... So he's straight—so what? Fuck it. This wine isn't so hot, either, you know. Listen, I know wine. I fucking know wine! I'm a fucking expert bartender. I make fucking $500 a day bartending at the most fucking exclusive joints in town so don't fucking tell me what is and what isn't good wine! Fucking-A!

"Oh, this is the life! Sitting outside on a sunny day, drinking wine, looking at all these gorgeous men and dreaming about sucking cock! Of all the types of sex, I love sucking cock the most. That feeling of having a man there in my mouth, completely under my control... Where the fuck is that wine? Hey, garçon! Where's our wine? Did I tell you I'm suing that fucking landlord of mine? The fucker says I can't have a waterbed anymore. I said, fuck this and fuck that, I've been living in this fucking apartment for the last two fucking years and nobody said I couldn't have a waterbed and now the fucker says get rid of it. You can't fucking do that to me! So I'm suing the fucker.

"You know, I used to have this palace up the hill: two bedrooms, fabulous view, huge. How much do you think I paid? Come on, guess. How much? I paid $500 a month. And then one night, I wake up half-wasted from some sort of orgy. I don't even remember now, there've been so many. I hear the fucking fire alarm. Someone's fucking banging on my door. I jump up and open it. I'm fucking buck naked from head to toe, my cock and balls swinging there in the breeze. Don't even have a chance to get a towel. I'm running down the fucking hall trying to escape. Next thing, I'm out in the fucking street, watching everything I've got go up in smoke. So then I move to this other place, half the size, I'm paying $850 a month, I had to buy all new furniture and then the landlord pulls this shit of trying to evicting me because of the waterbed. Fuck it!

"What's this? You trying to get rid of us? I don't want the bill yet, we're enjoying ourselves. We might have a couple more drinks after these. I'm in the service business myself. You never ask a customer to pay before he's ready. Where was I? Oh, yeah, the waterbed. Why don't you come by and check my place out? I didn't say you have to give dick. All I'm doing is inviting you to come see it. What, you think I'm hurting for it? Look at me! Am I hot-looking or what? Tell me I'm not gorgeous! Do you really think someone like me has a problem getting all the cock he wants? I haven't been so gorgeous in years. Off the drugs, off the heavy drinking. A bottle of wine, sure. A couple shots of vodka, no problem. Just none of this getting plastered. And I get a daily dose of sun. I've got a great tan these days. Best I've ever had."

Dinner with Helen at the cafe. At first, she was in a somewhat foul humor, stressed from work and upset at her mother, who called to inform her that a elderly aunt had recently died, and to relate various other family news, and finally, to ask about her and Paul. "She wants to know what Paul and I are doing for fun. After coming out here to kill my baby, she wants to talk about fun! I have not forgiven that woman," Helen fumed.

Paul is in the midwest tonight, for a job interview. Helen feels guilty about breaking up with him and marrying me, considering all they've been through. Last week she used his computer to check rental costs in one of cities she is currently most keen on us living in. She now worries that he will be able to discover her activities by examining the computer history log, and so later on will say—once he learns that she is married to me—"The little cheat! While living with me, she was already planning to marry another man. What's more, she used my computer to look for places to live with him!" He asks her constantly, "Are you mine, all mine?" as if suspecting that she is thinking of leaving him. She feels guilty at saying "yes", and so mumbles instead. A barely affirmative sounding mumble.

Last week they had lunch together at a restaurant in a chi-chi department store, where he bought some fancy salad tongs for $50 (he is living off credit cards, but his extravagances continue). Afterwards, she noticed him walking away in the opposite direction from what she had expected. It turns out he was going back to the bondage and leather store to buy ankle cuffs. She then noted that she was tired of being required to have sex constantly and might not want sex at all in the future, and that I should understand this before committing to marriage. I replied that lack of sex would not be a problem, as long as she agreed that I might take a mistress.

We agreed that we would sign a premarital agreement, with both of us relinquishing all rights to money earned by the other after marriage (normally, this would be community property, in which we would each have a half interest), and that I would give her $300,000 immediately after we married and another $100,000 a year later. She had initially expected me to give her $400,000 immediately, but I explained that I had to prepare for the worst case. Namely, that we divorce soon after marrying. She currently has $85,000 of net worth. Together with the $300,000 I am giving her, she will have $385,000. I showed how she could spend 4% of her net worth each year for the rest of her life, or $15,400 a year, and never run out of money, assuming the money were prudently invested in stocks and bonds. $15,400 is enough for her to live modestly in a small town. Or, supplemented with $5,000 from part-time work, it would be enough to live in the city. Thus the $300,000 I am giving her will enable her to be free from full-time work for life, if that is what she wants. Certainly it is what she has been saying she wants every since she started full-time work.

It occurs to me, based on my inability to deal with the stress of my business, that I should not contest my father's will, regardless of how unfavorably towards me it is written. I was able to cope with the stress of the conservatorship lawsuit only because it was mostly about showing myself to be responsible member of society, someone who properly and competently took steps to protect his father. It was more about honor and pride, in other words, than money. A will contest, on the other hand, would be mostly about money, and only secondarily about standing up for my rights, refusing to be insulted, getting revenge on my sister, and other non-financial issues. I now realize that I don't love money enough to stomach an extended lawsuit for money's sake.

I turned off the phone before I went to bed last night, to avoid being woken this morning by business phone calls. Three more messages on the answering machine by the time I finally crawled out of bed. I didn't bother to process these calls. In fact, I did almost nothing in the way of work today. Instead, I revised my old voice journals. So much enthusiasm for journals, dancing, reading, new exercise and diet regimens, and so little for my business!

Another week of getting little done in the way of work. Instead, I spend my days lying in bed or practicing salsa dancing. As of today there are eighteen messages on the answering machine, along with almost three hundred emails and a huge stack of faxes and unopened envelopes. The bigger the backlog, the more distasteful it becomes for me to do anything about it. Angry resellers are leaving messages demanding to know what has happened to their orders. Why do I hate this business so? All I need do is work a few hours a day to earn over $5,000 a week. What has happened to all my youthful fascination with accumulating money?

Lunch with Helen. I agreed to give her $320,000 when we married, subject to a premarital agreement denying her any further claim on either my premarital separate property or any income I earn during marriage. I also agreed to switch apartments with her next year. She complains of feeling guilty about breaking up with Paul. She tried to lay the basis for refusing to follow him to the midwest (assuming he gets the job there, which isn't certain, since there are two other candidates for the opening) by saying she didn't think she could stand the summertime heat in that part of the country. And then she pretended to be made listless by the very thought of hot weather. Whereupon Paul dragged her off the bedroom for sex, as a way to reenergize her. The usual anal sex, with her wearing the studded collar. They didn't bother with the other bondage gear. This studded collar, being a symbol of her sexual enslavement, provoked him to declare that he wanted her to follow him everywhere in the future—even into the bathroom—so he would always have her body available to satisfy his sexual whims. I suggested she refuse to have further sex with him, if she was serious about breaking up with him and marrying me, perhaps using her "bladder infections" as an excuse, and predicted that, without sex, he would soon tire of her and ask her to leave.

Salsa dance lessons in the evening. These lessons were at the beginner level, so I learned little, other than something I already knew. Namely, never correct your dance partner, no matter how badly they are dancing.

Lunch with Helen. She and Paul haven't been having sex lately, and he is starting to get irritable, as I had predicted would happen. They had some sort of tiff this past weekend over her wanting to return to the apartment to pick up a sun hat, or some other trivial matter. She is worried that he might not get the job in the midwest. It seems he acted up at the interview. After being introduced to two women he would be supervising, he said something about not wanting to be a manager. Helen isn't sure, but has the feeling that he left a bad impression of not wanting to cooperate. The company hasn't called back, in any case. She wants him to get the job, so as not to feel guilty when she leaves him. I suppose I should be happy that she has these scruples. Elizabeth wouldn't have thought twice about ditching a man in these circumstances.

There had been few new emails this week, and I thought with some delight that at last the business was coming to and end. Alas, today I discovered that the problem was that my service provider was not forwarding email properly. So now there are fifty additional emails in the queue, and I'm feeling more depressed about my business than ever.

Lunch with Helen. There I gave her the proposed premarital agreement to review. There is still some disagreement as to whether I am to give her $320,000 or $400,000 after we marry. Though I didn't discuss it with her today, I'm feeling strongly about retaining the clause in which we relinquish rights to inherit from the other's estate. Of course, in all likelihood we each will leave everything to the other. It's just that neither of us can be certain that this is the case. It makes me uneasy to think that anyone, even someone I trust as much as Helen, might be certain of profiting financially from my early demise. This may seem paranoid, but only to someone who hasn't seen, as I've seen, how seemingly decent people can metamorphose into absolute monsters when large inheritances are involved.

Paul has received no response regarding the job in the midwest. He has been without an income since being fired last year, and is apparently living on credit cards and the last of his savings. Despite his straightened circumstances, he continues to spend extravagantly. This past weekend, for example, he was on the verge of buying a $300 crystal bowl from some ritzy department store, something that sits in the middle of a table and holds fruit, and only backed down from this completely unnecessary purchase due to Helen's remonstrances. "It's sad, he wants to buy nice things because his life is going bad. It's going to be ugly when I leave," she said.

I was woken by a flurry of phone calls this morning, which I ignored. Finally, after hearing the phone ring every two minutes over a period of a half-hour or so, I finally mustered the energy to get out of bed and turn the ringer off. I had the strange feeling that most of these calls were from the same caller. Some angry customer probably, who has been trying to get in touch with me for weeks and who knows that I am deliberately ignoring his calls. I had planned to catch up on the backlog of email, but the sight of ten messages on the answering machine sapped me of all my enthusiasm for work. This pretty much tells the story of what I've been doing in the way of business all week. Namely, very little.

Swing dancing in the evening. For some reason the movements of swing dancing don't appeal to me. I also don't much care for the old-fashioned attire of many of the dancers—zoot suits and two-tone shoes and whatnot. It reminds me of little girls and boys playing dress-up with their parents old clothes in the attic. On the other hand, the music associated with swing dancing is jazz, which I like. And then there is a surplus of attractive women at the swing nightclubs, which is a pleasant contrast from the situation at the salsa clubs, where there is usually a shortage.

I'm finding it difficult to stay within my budget of $30 a day for discretionary spending (comprising everything except rent and utilities), despite no major expenses lately. And yet I had told Helen that $30 a day would be sufficient for her to enjoy a life of leisure. If I can't stick to this budget, why should I expect her to be able to? Already, on what was supposed to be a day of negligible expenses (allowing for a day of extravagance in the future), I've spent $15 on lunch and then another $1.55 on candy and a cookie.

It occurred to me how I've reduced my life to the bare essentials, and how horrifying it is to contemplate this existence, and yet how I also don't have the slightest wish for my life to be otherwise. I masturbate, then reluctantly crawl out of bed. Not because there is anything I particularly want to do with the day, but rather because I want to avoid the grogginess that inevitably results from oversleeping. I perform my calisthenics so I won't be anxious later, on account of lack of exercise. I eat a healthy but insipid breakfast of oatmeal. I putter around the apartment until boredom and restlessness compel me to leave it. I buy an oatmeal cookie at the corner store (a sudden flicker of desire here), then walk to the library. Thence to the cafe, where I stuff myself to the point of satiety with pizza and blueberry pie (another flicker of desire). Three hours there reading, not so much because I'm anxious to read, as because I've learned from experience that without spending several hours daily in some public place, I will feel restless by the time bedtime rolls around. And since I can't just sit there doing nothing, I sit there and read. When the three hours are up, I am free to return to my apartment. On the way home, I deliberate at length regarding whether or not to buy a candy bar. Do I need the extra calories and fat? Should I pass up this opportunity for physical pleasure? At the last minute, passing a corner store two blocks from home, I come to a decision in the affirmative. Back at my apartment, I putter around on the internet again, listen to music, read, drink several glasses of wine, and finally topple into bed.

I gave twenty cents to Preacher, the crazy street person who always wears a man's dress suit and who reminds me for some reason of an itinerant street preacher. I regretted not giving him a dollar. His hand was very callused, I noticed.

I accomplished little in the way of work. Fifteen phone calls in the morning, but I had the ringer turned off, and let the answering machine take them all. Later, I returned those which interested me. Namely, the ones where the caller was asking for information, as opposed to wanting to order one of my products. I've been through this issue before, as any review of this journal will show only too clearly, and I still don't know why it is that I no longer want to sell my product or why I hate the idea of taking money from customers. It doesn't matter whether the customer is polite or rude or groveling or unemotional as a machine. Simply the fact that they are offering me money is sufficient to make me hate them and their money and to aggravate my current generalized feelings of anger at the world. I'm angry that I have a backlog of email and faxes and phone calls. I'm angry that I have bugs that haven't been fixed and that I don't know how to fix. (I've figured out that the underlying causes of the bugs in my program are bugs in the operating system itself, including some sort of timing glitch and a memory leak, both of which are nearly impossible to reproduce and which the operating system vendor therefore won't acknowledge.) I'm angry that the phone keeps ringing. I'm angry that I can't complain about my work situation because it is such an enviable one that 99.9% of the people in this world would change places with me at the drop of a hat. I'm angry that I'm angry and don't really know why or what to do to about the situation. The thought of blowing my brains out crosses my mind constantly. Yet I don't feel unhappy, at least as I understand that term. Do I understand it, though? How do I know when I'm happy versus unhappy?

In any case, instead of doing something about my anger, I just lie in bed with the pillow over my head to muffle the sounds of people leaving messages on the machine (I turned off the ringer, I forgot to turn down the speaker volume). And then when I finally arise, I contemplate the huge backlog of orders and other work, and suddenly feel paralyzed. Instead of working, I piddle around on the internet reading other people's diaries, then perform my calisthenics, then listen to music and finally leave the apartment in mid-afternoon.

Tango dancing in the evening, where I managed a passable job, more or less correctly performing the small number of moves in my repertoire. I offered to buy an $8 drink for one of the women I danced with—I don't know why, since she was married—bringing my total tab to $25.

Lunch with Helen. More discussion of marriage. Some quarrel between her and Paul recently regarding him watching television late at night while she is trying to sleep. She says she is anxious to get away from him but doesn't know how. I explained how I was having problems getting any work done, and she offered to help. But then, upon listening to me rant like the unhinged neurotic I'm becoming, she retracted her offer and commented that our working together might cause more harm than good. And she is probably right about this.

I'm starting to worry about Helen, who yesterday expressed some reservations about the whole idea of a premarital agreement. The truth is, I probably won't benefit significantly from this contract, since I have no plans to divorce Helen, and even if we do divorce, most of my wealth will be separate property, since my current plan is to live off the investment income of what I have now, instead of working to accumulate more wealth. However, I still think a contract is worthwhile as a way to minimize any feelings I might have of being trapped and exploited by marriage.

The woman salsa instructor said hello and touched cheeks with me (as she's done each week for the past three weeks), and then stood next to me moving her body to the music, as if wanting to be asked to dance. But the song that was playing at that time was merengue, and I hated the thought of doing my very first dance with her to music I dislike, and so delayed my invitation, expecting the song to end soon and then be followed by one of salsa. As luck would have it, this was a particularly long merengue song, and by the time it ended, the instructor had gotten exasperated and walked off. I felt like a complete dunce. On a more positive note, I managed to dance fairly well with five beginners. Unfortunately, I couldn't resist giving some advice to one of these, despite my vow to never give advice while dancing socially. (I suggested she relax her arm, which was so tense that I was afraid of hurting her shoulder during turns.) The woman thanked me afterwards for my instruction, though it occurred to me later that her thanks might have been laced with sarcasm. Or am I just projecting my own surliness onto her?

For much of this week, including today, I've left the phone ringer turned off, so as not to be disturbed by calls. Something in me is sending a message, loud and clear, that it's time to pack this business in and move on with my life. Today I took off early and visited the wilderness park, where I sat on a bench, thinking of absolutely nothing. My mind was blank and blessedly calm. I want to take a long trip somewhere. I want to experience boredom again. I want to feel that I have more time than I know what to do with. I want there to be a shortage of interesting things for me to do. The opposite of what I feel now, living here in a city with something new to do every night of the week.

The consciousness that I'm destroying my business and my reputation is making me feel very tense. The rant the other day about anger just hints at the turbulent emotions seething inside me. I just hope I don't have a stroke or kill myself or get hit by a car because I'm too busy fretting and raging to look for oncoming traffic.

Lunch with Helen. She and Paul are bickering to the point of breaking up: "I hope my life raft is still available because the home ship is sinking fast." I told her that my plans hadn't changed. She then asked if I minded her still living with Paul, even while planning to marry me. I replied that the situation seemed peculiar, but didn't specifically say I disliked it. The fact is, I feel neither sexual jealousy nor any strong desire to have sex with Helen myself. My primary concern is that she might get pregnant by Paul, and so I'd end up paying to raise another man's child, a prospect I don't particularly relish. She said once that she was attracted by the way Paul says he definitely wants to have children, in contrast to my ambivalence on the subject. One interpretation of this statement is that it means that she would prefer the biological father of her children to be Paul instead of me. I didn't tell her my concern, however, since I don't want to plant ideas in her head. She then expressed a concern of her own. Namely, that I might get cold feet and call the marriage off once she left Paul, and so she'd be left living alone again with no one to marry. "You have to do right by me." I assured her that I would carry through with my promises. She is right to be worried, however, because I do have a tendency to misjudge my emotions. I suggested that one way she could reduce the possibility of my getting nervous about marriage would be to sign the premarital agreement, the latest version of which calls for me to give her a lump sum $385,000, in exchange for both of us waiving all rights to what would normally have been community property, as well as all inheritance rights. She consented to doing so.

Paul remains determined to buy the $300 crystal bowl. He lacks ready cash, and so proposes instead to purchase using the store credit plan. Helen, meanwhile, has gone on another of her shoe-buying frenzies: four pairs of sandals in the last few weeks, all but one of which she has since returned. She was carrying a box with the remaining pair today at lunch, and this she also plans to return, and after doing so plans to buy yet another pair which she saw somewhere on sale. But who am I to criticize? After all, I bought seven pairs of pants of the identical style earlier this month, and then made various other foolish clothing purchases earlier this year, not to mention spending almost $1800 on a rug several months ago.

I updated to my web site to indicate that the business is temporarily unable to accept orders. So perhaps this will give me a chance to catch up with the backlog. A reseller called, wanting to know the status of several orders he had placed, with the first of these dating back to over a month ago. I said we had been experiencing a rash of illnesses (in fact, this statement is partly true, if we consider my recent state of mind to be a form of mental illness). I processed his orders immediately after hanging up, which took all of ten minutes. Why my reluctance to process these orders previously?

I called Mark, who had left a message for me last week. The woman who lives across from him finally died. At the request of one of the physicians who had treated her, Mark took some photos before the funeral home carted her body away, showing how her face had been eaten away by cancer. The physician wanted these photos as evidence to show why there should be more in-home treatment of elderly and mentally ill patients who cannot or will not visit hospitals. I shuddered when Mark told me that he had made copies of these photos and planned to send a set to me. What ghouls he and I are!

Tango lessons and dancing in the evening. I felt utterly clumsy, as if I've regressed back to beginner status. I danced once, then left in disgust at my inability to improve. I think I'm going to have to pay for private lessons.

I processed a few orders, and answered the phone for the first time in days, but didn't make much of a dent in the backlog. The web site no longer shows contact information and also indicates that the company is not processing orders anymore, but customers nevertheless continue to call in.

I called Helen and invited her to lunch. She plans to move back to her own apartment this weekend, at the request of Paul. "Just being myself and doing what I want instead of what he wants was enough to make him kick me out." She was referring to an incident that occurred this past weekend. While they were lying in bed, Paul asked Helen if she wanted an omelet. She replied yes, whereupon he went to the kitchen and spent almost an hour there preparing an elaborate breakfast. Helen was still sleepy when they started eating, and so had difficulty showing enthusiasm for the meal. In particular, she sighed and yawned several times. Paul took offense and asked her if there was something wrong with the omelet. She mumbled an excuse, then got up from the table, walked to the sofa, sat down and resumed yawning and sighing. Paul then exclaimed, "That's it. I want you out of this apartment now!" Helen objected that it was too hot to move, and so they agreed that she could stay an extra week and move back to her own apartment this coming weekend.

We discussed children, and in the course of this discussion I said that $10,000 per year per child should be more than sufficient, given the lifestyle I thought we had agreed upon. Helen objected that this sum would not be enough for daycare. I replied that daycare wouldn't be necessary, since neither of us would be working. She then argued that college would cost at least $20,000 per year, based on the assumption that we would send the children to private universities. I said I had no intention of paying for private undergraduate education. The children could live at home and attend public universities, or else work part-time to pay for private education, if that's what they really wanted. At this point, she crossed her arms and said, "Well, in that case, why don't we just give up the whole idea of children?"

I don't mind her holding a different opinion, especially given that we won't have to make the final decision about college for at least another eighteen years, but I deeply resent the way she stopped all discussion by proposing to completely abandon the idea of children, just because of this minor difference of opinion. I managed to calm her down and we parted amicably, but it later struck me that I am rushing into this marriage much too fast, and I am being particularly incautious about committing myself to give her $400,000. Either she wants children or she doesn't. If she wants them, then surely it is absurd to give up the idea completely, on the grounds that I'm only willing to give her $400,000 up front, and then commit to spending another $10,000 per child per year. Does she really think she will get more from another man? Does she really think $10,000 per child per year is insufficient?

I felt like telling her that if she was having second thoughts about having children by me, then I was having second thoughts about marriage, and that, in any case, we should put everything on hold for a few months. The more I think about the subject, the more I wonder if I really want marriage. Is this the cold feet she was worried about?

Swing and salsa dancing in the evening. I was very encouraged by the swing experience. I'm starting to get the hang of the dance, and there was an abundance of attractive and friendly followers. Salsa was a different story, to the point where I'm thinking of giving it up altogether, once I learn swing. One of the followers told me I wasn't leading properly (in fact the problem was with her—she was off beat and unable to turn on account of wearing platform shoes), so I glared at her, then she asked if I was having a good time, so I glared some more, then she walked off in the middle of the song. Later, I asked some of the other beginning followers to dance, but they were all so incompetent and unenthusiastic that the effort didn't seem worthwhile, whereupon I made my annoyance evident, which made them upset and then they refused to dance with me any more. Also, the woman salsa dance instructor, whose interest in dancing with me I rudely ignored last week, pretended not to notice me tonight. Of course, it was inevitable that we would eventually have a misunderstanding. She is one of those cheerful, extroverted people who I naturally like, but who are utterly incapable of understanding me. I act sullen because I'm tense or tired and they mistakenly think I dislike them. But I don't feel too bad about the incident, or about my behavior with the followers. I've more or less resigned myself to being an unsociable loner, for now and for every more.

I continue to reconsider the idea of marriage and children with Helen. My best strategy--"best" in the sense that I would thereby retain the maximum amount of power, and so be able to prevent her from squandering money on daycare and private universities—would be to get her pregnant as a single mother, force her to file a paternity suit, and then pay the child support. Of course, this would realize her worst fears about having children with me. Namely, that I would control the purse strings and use my power to control her behavior. Looking back in my transcribed voice journals, I see the same situation then. Me afraid of her wasting my money, her afraid of being controlled by me. I thought our relationship had developed since then, but apparently not.

There were two messages from Helen on my answering machine when I returned from the cafe, in which she asked for help with a computer problem. Based on her tone of voice, I would say she is feeling depressed, remorseful and anxious.

Swing dancing lessons in the evening. Even though I'm improving, this dance style still fails to charm me. I watched the better dancers and saw nothing I wanted to emulate. I think I've been spoiled by tango and salsa. The instructors encouraged everyone to smile ("dancing is fun!") and then the followers complained about my failure to follow this instruction. I still remember being annoyed as a child by photographers demanding that I smile for the camera, and I have always felt that an obsession with smiling is a sure indicator of immaturity, insincerity and/or shallowness. Why am I bothering with this swing dancing?

I called Mark and talked for an hour or so. He mentioned that some mutual friends of ours are planning to visit the city in a few weeks. I promised to show them around the city if they called. Tony is still in prison, about to complete his sentence for one crime, but with charges still pending on some other incidents, so he isn't sure when he'll get out for good. Tony's parents are becoming frustrated at his mounting legal bills.

Lunch with Helen. I explained to her my concerns about her acting like a dependent again. We both agreed that we are moving very fast and should probably postpone any marriage for several months. She is planning to move back to her own apartment this weekend in any case.

Helen noted that she has not been suffering from bladder infections recently. Given that these so-called "bladder infections" are (in my opinion) just a symptom of an incomplete orgasm, it is hardly a surprise that she isn't suffering from them lately, since she hasn't been getting sexually aroused lately either.

Last week, Paul obtained a temporary consulting job, starting next month and lasting several months, unless he gets himself fired somehow. Because this job is located in a remote suburb, he asked some friends of his who live near the job site to let him sleep at their house while he was working, and thus spare him a long commute each day. I said this seemed like an extraordinary request to make of friends, especially since the job will last several months.

Paul went on a spending spree immediately after receiving his acceptance letter for this temporary job, and so has probably already spent much of what he expects to earn in the coming months. First, he purchased a complete set of expensive copper pots and pans. "Copper is best for cooking omelets," he explained. Next, there was the $300 crystal bowl he has been lusting after for the past month and which he finally went ahead and bought. According to Helen, this bowl is indeed an object of great beauty, so at least he squanders his money tastefully. However, no sooner was his desire for the bowl satisfied than a new desire arose to take its place. Namely, for a $95 box for storing chopsticks. Paul spotted this box in a gift store in a small town about an hour's drive away, but didn't want to buy it until he was sure it was large enough to accommodate some expensive ivory chopsticks that he already owns (but almost never uses). So now he plans to drive back to the store in the near future, carrying his chopsticks with him, and, if the box will hold them, buy it. If the box isn't large enough, then he is considering having one specially made, although, in the opinion of the proprietor of the store, who he asked about this possibility, the cost of doing so would be "prohibitive". He also bought an expensive leather briefcase, on the grounds that "having the right image is very important if I'm going to be a consultant". For this same reason, he is thinking of buying a new car, since his current vehicle is somewhat dilapidated. Another purchase occurred while he and Helen were browsing in an art store, where she bought a small painting to decorate her apartment, for about $30. Almost as if taking this purchase of hers as a challenge, Paul responded by buying a larger and more expensive painting for himself.

"He's addicted to spending money, like most people in this crazy society we live in. Myself not excepted, I might add. The more he spends, the worse off he is financially, and so he spends even more to make himself feel better. As for you, the way you encouraged him to buy that painting by buying one for yourself, that makes you like one of those people who aren't alcoholics themselves but who drink with an alcoholic, thereby encouraging and justifying his behavior. You're what's called an enabler," I said.

"I tried to stop him," Helen protested.

"What you did was like someone ordering a glass of wine, while having dinner with an alcoholic who's been trying to stay on the wagon. Naturally, he decides to have a glass of wine himself, and before long, one thing leads to another and he's drunk again, and then you try to excuse yourself by saying, I tried to stop him. You shouldn't have bought anything, given that he's known to be a spendaholic."

I didn't answer the phone for my business even once. There are now thirty-one messages on the answering machine and an unknown amount of email (unknown since I haven't checked recently), plus a huge stack of faxes spilling over onto the floor. What a fiasco I've made of this business!

Tango dancing in the evening. I did fairly well, but left after the lesson was over. Part of the reason I've made no progress in tango is that I keep trying to dance before I have an adequate repertoire of moves, and so feel clumsy and thus lose confidence in myself, which just makes me more tense and less competent. My current plan is to do with tango what I did with salsa. Namely, take one lesson a week, then watch the other dancers after lessons are over, then go home and practice by myself what I learned in the lesson, and only ask women to dance once I have mastered an adequate repertoire of basic moves.

I spent the day reading in the library, then stopped by the cafe. While sitting there, a woman came over to my table and started talking. (Or at least I think this peculiar looking creature was a woman. She might have been a transsexual, since she definitely had breast implants and also a considerable amount of plastic surgery had been performed on her face.) Am I finally beginning to look approachable, I wonder? She was all excited over a dispute she had recently with her work supervisor, which started when a coworker made fun of her deformed finger.

Helen came by in the evening. We had originally planned to go tango dancing, but she was too tired, so instead I cooked up a batch of lentils and rice and we ate this while talking and listening to music. She says she is only "separated" from Paul. She doesn't want to commit to breaking up with him until she is sure about me. She is willing to work part-time, and is anxious to quit her current full-time job. My inclination at present is to wait a month or so, then marry her and to hell with the premarital agreement and the $390,000 gift of cash.

While talking, I started fondling her and eventually managed to get her shirt undone, then kissed her breasts, whose nipples were swollen into hardness. Her cunt, however, which I tried to finger, was bone-dry. "I don't know what happened to my libido," she said apologetically, when I looked at her inquiringly upon touching her dryness. She kept evading my attempts to kiss her on the mouth, so I asked her if I had bad breath. She replied that my breath was fine but she just wasn't sexually aroused. I was somewhat disgusted by this virginal attitude. She is, after all, thirty-six years old and for years we were lovers. I finally just held her head firmly in my hands and forced her to kiss me. She seemed to loosen up a bit after this. So I carried her to the bed, where we continued fondling and kissing. At some point, she reached down and, through the front of my pants, touched my erection, which then I pulled out and gave to her to suck. Though I was anxious to fuck her cunt, I knew she would put up resistance (due to worry about the "bladder infections" and pregnancy) and so decided to make the best of what she was offering. Namely, her face and mouth. We tried mutual oral sex briefly, with me on top, rubbing my cock and balls against her face while licking her cunt. While in this position, I noticed that her cunt had finally gotten wet, and so decided to at least try fucking her, if for no other reason than to demonstrate to her that her cunt did interest me. But she put up strong resistance, and so I gave up the attempt to penetrate her and instead just jacked myself off against her breasts. I was highly aroused, but would have been more so had I not masturbated this morning. Though she didn't come herself, she said she felt very "energized" by the sex, and that my cock reminded her of a "lollipop". I walked her home afterwards.

I called Helen in the afternoon and arranged for us to have dinner together at the cafe. We had to move to a different table from our first choice, on account of a shirtless and shoeless street person, who was stumbling about on the sidewalk, dropping his groceries and cane, and bumping against the table where we were seated. "I can't help it. I have AIDS." My own opinion is that he was on drugs, though he might very well have had AIDS as well. I tried to avoid eye contact but he seemed in a belligerent mood, as if annoyed by the very existence of clean-cut and healthy heterosexuals like Helen and myself, and I was afraid he might spit on us with AIDS-infected saliva.

After dinner, I insisted on accompanying Helen back to her apartment, despite her objection that she had a headache and wasn't in the mood for any "tricks". We sat on the sofa there, then lay on the bed, then I undid her blouse and sucked her breasts and before long was fucking her face again. She made it clear that she absolutely didn't want any vaginal penetration, since even the tentative probing from last night had nearly brought on a "bladder infection". I explained that I felt bad about satisfying myself without doing anything for her, whereupon she reminded me that she liked being licked. I should have remembered this, but had gotten completely out of the habit during my months with Elizabeth. So, after coming on her breasts, I went down and licked her to orgasm. We then washed up and sat for several hours on the floor, listening to music and talking.

Tomorrow, she plans to have dinner with Paul. I expressed some concern about this, but I also understand her point of view. In that she doesn't want to finalize the split with him until she is sure about me, especially about my willingness to accept a wife who doesn't enjoy vaginal penetration. I must admit, I find it difficult to see her spread out naked and know I won't be able to stick my cock inside her cunt on a regular basis. On the other hand, fucking her face seems a perfectly adequate substitute, and even preferable in some respects.

Yet another day of me performing absolutely no work for my business. There are thirty-nine voice mail messages and an unknown number of email messages in the backlog. While idly reviewing this journal, I was appalled to realize that I was receiving bug reports as far back as a year ago and possibly earlier. I also noticed a very acute observation regarding how the secret to worldly success is to continue to do something long past the point at which it has become boring. Consider my own example. If I had given up my business when it first began to bore me, which is at least two years ago, I would have missed out on almost $500,000 in profits ($250,000 after taxes). Unfortunately, knowing what to do is not the same thing as doing it. I know I should continue my business a few more months, and yet something in me rebels.

Salsa dancing in the evening. During lessons, I practiced with the dance instructor. Both of us smiled and acted pleased to see the other. So the rift between us seems to be healed. I danced very well with several beginners, but then the ranks of available women thinned, and I could find no one to dance with, and so left early.

Elizabeth left a message for me on my answering machine. I called her back, but got a recording, and so left a message of my own. There were no further messages from her later in the day, though she might have called and not left a message. Given that I'm not answering the phone these days, it can be difficult to reach me, as my customers have already discovered. The idea of having her as a lover is appealing, as a way to give some variety to my sex life. In particular, to give me an occasional taste of vigorous cunt fucking. However, I don't know if she will be willing to accept being part of a love triangle (her, me and Helen). The ideal situation would be if she were herself married or involved in a stable long-term relationship, so she wouldn't feel humiliated at being the mistress of a married man. For example, she might marry her homosexual boyfriend, with whom she is supposedly compatible in all matters other than sex, and then have me as her lover.

Dinner with Helen at the cafe. Paul called yesterday, but they didn't have dinner together, as they had originally planned, though they might do so this weekend. I told Helen I didn't mind her having boyfriends besides me, but she had to understand that I expected to be the father of any children she might have. She mentioned wanting to get married prior to her birthday, which is about two months away, when she will be thirty-seven years old. After dinner, we walked to her apartment and had our usual sex. I sucked her breasts, then fucked her mouth, then ejaculated on her breasts, then licked her cunt until she had an orgasm. We lay in bed listening to music and talking for a short while afterwards, and then I left, since she wanted to get to bed early.

The answering machine apparently won't accommodate more than fifty messages. That limit was reached today, whereupon the display started blinking, and so I finally got around to listening to these calls from the past week. Most of the messages were from a small number of resellers calling repeatedly—cheerful sounding at first and then increasingly exasperated after the third or fourth message with no response back. As I listened to and transcribed these fifty messages, I kept hissing to myself—"leave me alone, do you hear me? leave me alone"—like a schizophrenic lunatic who's being plagued by voices in his head.

I called Elizabeth and talked with her briefly. It turns out that she was seeing another man just prior to our breaking up a few months back. Unlike me, this other man is interested in marrying her and also in having children, or at least so he says. She, however, isn't so keen on marrying him. One problem is that he is currently unemployed. He worked previously in computer industry sales and either quit or was fired. He gives conflicting stories about this. Another problem is that she doesn't really enjoy sex with him. I told her to think of me as "more or less" married to Helen, and thus unsuitable as husband material.

"I don't want to waste your time, Elizabeth. You're getting old to have children, so if you really want them, you have to make that your first priority. Which means you need to find a man who has good genes and who is capable of helping you raise children, financially and otherwise. Sex is a minor concern. You can always just get a lover," I said.

"But I don't want to do that. I want someone who satisfies me in every way," she said.

"I don't doubt it. But your clock is ticking, and you might have to make compromises. You're sure you want children?"

"Yes, I'm sure. One child. Though I don't know if I'm capable of having children any more."

"As I said, I don't want to waste your time. Think of me as a potential lover, but not as a potential husband and father. I'm sorry if I misled you before about my relationship with Helen."

"No, you were honest. Anyway, I all along suspected you still felt strongly about her. And I'm sorry for making you think that you were the one to blame for us breaking up. This other man came along offering me what I wanted, and what you weren't prepared to offer, but I didn't feel right just coming out and telling you that I wanted to start seeing him instead of you. I miss your company, though."

"And I miss yours."

We had to cut the conversation short, since she was at work. I suggested we meet sometime soon at a cafe, but she declined, saying she "wasn't prepared" for a meeting this evening and had plans for this weekend and most of next week. So then I promised to call her that evening at home.

During this second conversation, she asked what were the other reasons for my not wanting to marry or have children with her. Reasons other than my relationship with Helen, that is. I explained that my other reasons were vague, a general disinclination towards having children, at least with her, and the reason I brought up my relationship with Helen, was that I was worried that if I gave a wishy-washy answer ("well, I just don't feel like marrying and having kids right now") then she might decide to wait another six months and see if I changed my mind, and I thought this would be unfair to her, assuming she really did want children. Whereas telling her about Helen would make her realize that I was never going to change my mind. Then she asked about my current situation with Helen. I didn't tell her about our plans to get married, but only that I had offered to pay for any children Helen might have by me, and that Helen and I would definitely not be living together. My goal is to lay the groundwork for making Elizabeth my lover again.

Elizabeth finds her new boyfriend sexually attractive, but he doesn't satisfy her in bed. I didn't get the details, but apparently she doesn't have orgasms from sex with him. She complains that he doesn't seem to want to please her, the way I did, and that he seems "hostile" in bed. I reiterated what I had said previously about her first priority being to find a husband and father for her children.

"I want a husband who meets all of my needs," replied Elizabeth. "I don't want him to think of me as just the mother of his children. Some old woman who gave birth to his kids, a piece of breeding stock that no one wants to have sex with except to get her pregnant."

"Then get a lover if you want to feel like a sexually attractive woman," I suggested.

"I don't think that works. You can't help but feel strong emotions towards a person you have sex with."

"So? You have strong emotions towards your mother. Does that stop you from feeling strongly towards men? Of course not. You can have many relationships, including relationships with both a husband and a lover."

"I still don't like the idea. Though it fits with what two of my girlfriends were telling me. They both said that all the men they met who wanted marriage and children seemed to be lousy lovers. Some sort of Madonna-whore complex."

"It's a common phenomenon for husbands and wives to get tired of one another sexually, irrespective of this so-called Madonna-whore complex."

"Well, I don't want that sort of marriage. At least I want to start off with good sex."

"I think starting off with lousy sex has merits. That way, you base the marriage on important things, like non-sexual love and common goals regarding children and money. Arguments about money cause more marriages to fail than arguments about sex."

"That's your opinion."

"Why don't you marry your homosexual friend? Many homosexuals want children, you know. And you say you two are compatible in all respects except sex. He might make a great husband and father."

"That's absurd. Why would I do that? If I married him, I'd definitely have to get a lover. And how would I get pregnant?"

"There are ways. Other than normal sex, that is."

"I don't know that he wants children. And anyway, he has a lover who he lives with now. I hardly ever see him anymore."

"Marriage isn't primarily about sex. Just remember that."

"That's your opinion. In any case, this is all hypothetical, since I'm not marrying a homosexual."

Elizabeth then complained that her new boyfriend seldom talks about himself, so she really doesn't know what sort of person he is. He started discussing marriage and children and living together from the day she met him, but hasn't made a marriage proposal yet. Her past experience has been that men who fall in love quickly, the way this current boyfriend seems to have done, also fall out of love quickly. Also, besides his being unemployed, she is worried about his heavy drinking (about five drinks each evening) and occasional pot smoking. She especially doesn't like feeling pressured to accompany him in drinking. She has been cautious about alcohol ever since she had breast cancer several years ago. One night he asked if she wanted to try the drug Ecstasy. She gave an emphatic no as a reply, whereupon he told her she was "uptight and rigid". Now she is wondering how many other "exotic" activities he engages in.

I spotted Sonya in the grocery store, but had absolutely no desire to talk to her. This is what happens when two people have sexual desire for one another and don't carry through with this desire. They end up being unable to tolerate one another's company.

I called Helen in the morning to invite her to go tango dancing, but she wasn't home. Evidently she spent the night with Paul at his apartment. I called her again later and repeated the invitation, but she declined, as she wanted to spend the evening quietly reading. I then asked her about what was going on between her and Paul, and reiterated that, while I didn't mind her having boyfriends, she had to make sure that any children she bears are mine. She replied that she didn't think the affair with Paul would last much longer, primarily because she didn't think she could continue lying to him about her relationship with me. "This strain of living a double life is starting to drive me crazy. I don't think I can go on like this. But I just feel bad about leaving him. He's like a little baby. He needs me so bad. And then he asks me constantly: Are you mine? Are you all mine? Is all of you mine? Though I'm not sure what he means by that."

Tango dancing in the evening. I learned a useful pattern, but didn't seem to be able to execute it properly. I seemed to be unusually tense, perhaps due to a new leg exercise I added to my routine yesterday, which has left my thighs and buttocks feeling sore. Since there weren't enough women available, I decided to act as a follower myself and let the other men lead me. I discovered that following—at least with incompetent leaders—is not as easy as I had thought. I left as soon as the lesson was over, without asking any women to dance. I really need a steady practice partner if I'm ever to improve in this tango dancing.

I gave a quarter, which was all the change I had in my pocket at the time, to the crazy street-person who I call "Preacher", because he reminds me of an itinerant street preacher, then felt disgusted by my cheapness afterwards. From now on, if I decide to give anything, I'll give a dollar bill. I'm careful to always keep at least three of these in my wallet, for use as bus fare or with vendors who can't break a twenty. Thus I don't have to worry about the possibility of rummaging in my wallet after having stopped to give, only to discover I don't have any small bills, with the result that I might end up giving nothing (which seems cruel, given that I had raised someone's hopes), or giving more than I wanted (which makes me resent the object of my charity), or asking for change back (which is ludicrous).

I did nothing in the way of work. The morning I spent practicing tango dancing, while in the early afternoon, I drank some red wine, which gave me a splitting headache—almost a migraine—which persisted for the rest of the day. So now I am drinking during the day. A new stage in my disintegration. I spent the evening in the cafe, staring out the window for the most part.

Helen called in the evening. We discussed the possibility of marrying soon, next week perhaps, without the premarital agreement, without the $390,000 cash gift (I would still give some gift, albeit a smaller one), and without her finalizing the split with Paul. I noted that we would end up paying about $5000 more in taxes if we married this year (a consequence of how the tax code treats couples versus single persons), but that doesn't seem to bother her, nor does it really bother me. I think it is pretty clear than Helen and I will be together for life, given all we've been through together so far, and so the premarital agreement is more insurance than I need. Furthermore, the worst case divorce settlement would award her far less than $390,000, assuming that I stop working, so that most of my wealth continues to be separate property. I dislike the idea of giving her a huge sum of money, all at once. Helen then talked about wanting to spend much more time with me. I wasn't too keen to hear this, given that I had been hoping to regain Elizabeth as a lover.

I processed two orders today. The first orders I've processed in two weeks, I was startled to discover. I decided to quit selling all but one of my products. I have been earning about $2200 a month on these other products, but, given that I'm not able to do any business these days, it makes sense to reduce the scope of my operations and concentrate on my most profitable product. One frantic reseller sent twenty faxes demanding to know the status of his order from a month ago. What is happening to me that I'm falling apart like this? While reading a trade magazine, I noticed some complimentary references to my product in an article about another, competitive product. This is precisely the sort of press coverage I wanted several years ago. And yet now I'm more disturbed by it than gratified, since the article might bring in more customers and then I'll feel even worse about not continuing with my business and thus abandoning all these additional potential profits.

Dinner with Helen at a restaurant. We talked more about marriage. She doesn't like the idea that I want to be away from her so much and that I'm reneging on the promise to give her $390,000.

"How do I know you're not all talk and no action? What if you leave me several years from now? How I can be sure you're telling the truth?" she asked.

"How do I know you're telling the truth? How do I know that you and Paul aren't secretly plotting to get the $390,000 from me and then run off somewhere together?" I replied.

"That's absurd!"

"I'm 99% sure that you're not going to do that. But I have to consider the worst case possibility."

"And I have to consider the worst case possibility. Which is that you'll leave me in ten years and I'll be a single mother. We should trust one another."

"If we trust one another, then you should trust me to give you money each year, instead of a huge lump sum up front that you could run away with."

"The idea of the lump sum is that you wouldn't be able to tyrannize me by threatening not to give me money because I won't do what you want."

"The idea of the lump sum was that you would be giving up your normal marital rights to community property. Since we won't be signing this premarital agreement, we don't need the lump sum. Nevertheless, I'll still make some gift, albeit a smaller one."

I walked her back to her apartment, and on the way suggested that she write down what she wanted from life and a relationship with me, since it seemed like I was the one doing all the planning and she was just nodding her head in order to get a lump sum of money. We separated on tense terms.

I'm feeling all sorts of hostile thoughts towards Helen. I resent how she refuses to resolve disputes in a mature manner. I resent her obsession with the money I'm to give her. But mostly, I resent how she refuses to fix her sexual problems, or even admit that she has problems. I'm starting to realize that the arrangement we worked out (whereby we marry but I take a lover) simply isn't going to work. Even contemplating the idea of being married to Helen and yet unable to have normal sex with her makes me feel emasculated. If she weren't sexually attracted to me or I weren't sexually attracted to her, then marriage would be absurd. But we are sexually attracted to one another, and strongly attracted, at that. If Helen wants to destroy and repress her sexuality, then so be it. But why should mine be destroyed as well? Why am I marrying a frigid woman?

Salsa lessons and dancing in the evening. I was feeling tense due to all my hostile feelings towards Helen, but nevertheless managed to dance well with about six beginning followers. So now, not only am I capable of putting on an impressive performance when I'm at my best, but I'm also capable of doing an adequate job when I'm at my worst, and thus am now a fully competent intermediate level salsa dance leader, which has been my goal ever since I first tried salsa dancing about a year ago. Why did it take me so long to get to this point? Partly because I wasn't consistent—for several months, I quit attending dance lessons. Partly because I didn't take a methodical approach to learning to dance salsa. In particular, I neglected to write down the patterns after each lesson. Partly the lack of a practice partner.

I accomplished nothing in the way of work. There are now forty-six messages on the answering machine (the limit is fifty, at which point the machine will refuse to accept more messages). Also, I haven't checked my business email in over two weeks, so who only know how big that backlog is. Probably there have been hundreds of incoming emails in the past two weeks.

I'm feeling less hostility towards Helen than yesterday. She stopped by the cafe in the evening, where we had dinner together. Afterwards, we walked back to her apartment. I had masturbated twice in the morning and hence wasn't particularly aroused, but nevertheless got hard and fucked her some in the face then came on her breasts. I then licked her briefly, but she was too tired to have an orgasm. Paul called and left a message on the answering machine while we were having sex. She says she is slowly distancing herself from him. On my way out the door, she handed me a letter she had written, and told me to read it when I got home. But I was tired and just put it away for reading tomorrow.

I read the letter Helen gave me yesterday. Essentially, she reiterates what she has said before, about wanting the lump sum of money in order to be free of possible tyranny by me. And, as I've said before, I can see her point. My current plan is to offer $300,000, with no premarital agreement, and with the marriage occurring at the beginning of next year, to give me time to close out my business and wrap up some other matters, as well as saving the $5000 in extra taxes that we would incur if we filed as a couple (though I could probably earn this $5000 if I just continued running my business for a few more weeks).

Helen stopped by the cafe while I was there. We walked back to her apartment together and spent several hours talking and hugging. No sex, however, since I had already masturbated twice in the morning and hence had little desire. Another reason for no sex is that she is feeling the onset of a bladder infection—supposedly, caused by her sweating while exercising—and she was worried that vaginal stimulation might aggravate the problem. I mentioned that Elizabeth had called recently, and told Helen about how Elizabeth had already been dating her current boyfriend before breaking up with me. Helen found this deception amusing. I didn't mention to Helen that I was hoping and planning to have Elizabeth as a lover again in the future.

I gave sixty-seven cents to Preacher, despite my resolution after our previous encounter to always give a dollar. My reasoning was that, for once, I knew I had a decent amount of change in my pocket. Also, it occurred to me, upon seeing him sitting on the steps of an apartment building, smoking nervously and muttering harsh-sounding curses into the air, that he might have some sort of government pension due to his obvious mental illness. I didn't want to give a full dollar until I had considered this possibility at my leisure. In particular, I wanted to consider whether I would feel like a "sucker" if I gave to someone who already had an adequate income. (Which is absurd, of course, but then my whole life is absurd at present.) "Thanks, pal," he said as I dropped the coins into his palm. I don't know why I like him. Perhaps, as was the case with Bernelli, I feel some sort of affinity for his particularly form of insanity. I later decided to go ahead and give the full dollar, regardless of whether he might have a pension. Henceforth, I plan to always keep a dollar bill in my pocket, which I'll be able to nonchalantly slip into his hand (or the hand of any other street-person who catches my fancy) in passing, as if I were tipping a hotel doorman.

Dancing to live salsa late at night. A thoroughly unpleasant evening. The dance floor was extremely crowed, most of the followers were off beat, the band didn't start until near midnight and then they played only briefly. I danced many times, but only two of these experiences were enjoyable. The first of these with a beautiful younger woman, who apologized in advance for being a bad dancer but who nevertheless was able to follow the beat perfectly. The second good dance with an attractive older woman, who wasn't bad, though I couldn't do much with her due to the crowded conditions. After finishing my first and only dance with this older woman, I stupidly thanked her and walked off, and some other man snapped her up and followed her around the rest of the night. But why do I say "stupidly"? What would I have done with her if I hadn't walked off? I doubt she would have been up for a one-night stand, and I can't exactly start a longer-term relationship, given that I'm on the verge of marrying Helen.

I woke up late, almost at noon, then fantasized about blowing my brains out with a handgun in order not to have to deal with the backlog of email and voice mail and faxes and hardcopy mail. Later, I stopped by the bookstore and read sections of a book there about the psychology of debtors. How they blame their problems on creditors, ignore their growing debt, screen phone calls using an answering machine, suffer from mounting internal despair while maintaining a facade of happy indifference, refuse to even think about their situation or how to deal with it. Just replace "creditors" by "customers" and "debts" by "orders" and the description of the overwhelmed debtor becomes a description of me and my business.

Tango dancing in the evening with Helen. A bad experience because she kept leaning backwards (a typical mistake of beginning followers), so that I kept stepping on her toes. We separated on good terms, but agreed to abandon the idea of ever dancing together again.

I played truant from my business today. I skipped out of the apartment in the morning and spent the day traipsing around the wilderness park, stopping at a bench to read a detective novel, enjoying the overcast day and the wildflowers and the first taste of boredom I've had in months, fantasizing about face and cunt fucking some lusty older woman. I am not sure why sex with Helen doesn't fully satisfy me. Something about her immaturity and fear of participating fully, which is related to her inability to have complete orgasms. I've resigned myself to the idea that she will never change, but I can't resign myself to the prospect of never again having satisfying sex with a grown woman. It isn't so much that I need such sex as that I don't want to be prohibited from having it. After all, I've spent most of my life not having good sex on a regular basis, but rather masturbating to fantasies of such good sex. I think I want the possibility of good sex more than the reality.

I played truant again. Today I browsed in the public library in the morning, then sat on the steps outside, staring into space and accustoming myself to doing absolutely nothing. In the afternoon, I went shopping for a backpack, for possible traveling once my business is shut down. Why am I constantly distracted by ideas of buying things? Why can't I go a single day without spending or thinking about spending money? I managed to restrain myself from any purchases, and good thing, because I later realized that all the backpacks I had looked at were much too large for the sort of travel I was contemplating. Namely, staying in cheap hotels in cities, where there would always be nearby grocery stores to buy whatever I might not be carrying.

Helen stopped by the cafe and we had dinner there together. Afterwards, we walked to her apartment, where I fucked her in the face and came with a tremendous orgasm. This was despite having masturbated in the morning. At first she wanted to keep her pants on, then she became aroused by sucking me and so took them off. I tried licking her, but she kept squirming about, alleging that her clitoris was too sensitive for direct contact. In fact, she was just not in the mood to come, so I gave up. The fact is, preposterous though it may seem, I understand her sexual response better than she does. The reason is that most of the orgasms she's ever had in her life have been from me licking her. I've encouraged her numerous times to masturbate, and though she tries (she even experimented with the "butterfly vibrator" that she and Paul bought at the bondage store) she has never been able to reach orgasm through masturbation, other than a single instance when she was a teenager and came after several hours of bouncing atop a small pillow. (This pillow had been hand-embroidered by one of her brother's girlfriends, whatever the significance of that is.)

We discussed marriage again after finishing with the sex. The current agreement is that I will give her $300,000 and that she will continue working part-time since $300,000 plus the $100,000 she already has won't provide enough of an income to live on (based on a 4% return on investment after taxes and inflation, and her current living expenses of about $20,000 a year, half of which is rent). I offered to call the county clerk and inquire about requirements for marriage, but Helen insisted this was the bride's responsibility. We agreed not to tell anyone until the marriage was a done deed, in case one of us got "cold feet" at the last minute.

The answering machine for my business is responding with the message "box full" and then hanging up when people call, without allowing them to leave a message. Since I'm not picking the phone up and the answering machine doesn't work, I am essentially unreachable.

Helen stopped by the cafe in the evening, and complained that the $300,000 I had promised her wasn't enough. I was disgusted by her bringing this subject up again and behaved brusquely. She detected that I was annoyed and apologized, saying: "I should keep my mouth shut. I promised not to talk about money any more. Whatever you give me, I'll be content with. Whatever you feel is right." But I was still annoyed and so said I wanted to stay in the cafe instead of accompanying her back to her apartment. She called me later in the evening. I politely told her I was feeling tired and wanted to go to sleep. Without question, having separate apartments is the key to making our relationship work.

I feel like I've been masturbating too much. Today, for example, I woke up at dawn, but then dawdled in bed all morning, masturbating twice, so that I didn't leave the apartment until noon. I then took the bus to the wilderness park again and sat on a cliff there. I'm obsessed by thoughts of vigorously fucking some older woman. Why can't I be satisfied with masturbation? Why do I torment myself with these thoughts? More self-tormenting in the evening, when I went salsa dancing. Why don't I learn to be utterly self-sufficient, instead of involving myself in activities—sex, dancing, conversation—where I become dependent on another person for my happiness?

I finally got around to downloading email for my business from the past three weeks. There were over two hundred new emails, so that there are now almost five hundred messages in the queue! And the answering machine still has its limit of fifty voice messages. I would just delete these, except that one of the messages might be important. Though, in the context of the way I've been acting recently, I'm not sure what "important" means anymore. And, of course, there is also a huge stack of faxes and hardcopy mail. My head begins to swim every time I think about the situation, and then I laugh, because if I didn't laugh, I'd start thinking of suicide again.

I haven't bothered to call Elizabeth, though I promised to do so. Perhaps one of the voice mails on my answering machine is from her. Or perhaps she called and got the "box full" message.

I called the county clerk and learned that there is a procedure for getting married without a witness, which had been a concern of myself and Helen, since neither of us has any friends we could call upon for this purpose. I called Helen at work to inform her of this fact. She then informed me that she would be spending tonight with Paul—"a prior engagement." In other words, she plans to marry me without having completely broken up with Paul and without even telling him about her relationship with me, and also without telling her family that she has broken up with Paul and gotten back together with me. The amazing thing is that this doesn't bother me in the least. After all the worry about premarital contracts and divorce and lack of a decent sex life and so forth, I've come to the conclusion that I should just get married and give her the $300,000 and then continue to live alone and pursue older women, just as if I were still single.

I spent the evening masturbating with a butt-plug up my ass. A very satisfying sensation, I might add. The fantasy was sex with a woman. Fucking her in the face, inserting the butt-plug in her ass, manipulating it while fucking her from behind. I imagined myself both as the man and the woman.

I masturbated three times in the morning, despite resolving yesterday to restrain myself in case Helen and I get together this evening. On the one hand, I dislike feeling sexually drained, but on the other hand, I dislike walking around all day feeling horny to the point where I can't sit still.

I met Helen at the cafe, where we ate dinner together. Afterwards, I accompanied her back to her apartment, and there fucked her in the face but didn't come, on account of the masturbation orgy this morning. I apologized and promised to restrain myself in the future. She is having severe "bladder infections" and so didn't want me touching her vagina or otherwise trying to arouse her.

"Getting aroused makes it hurt, so we can't do anything," she said, before we undressed.

"What if you pretend you're a sex slave and can give pleasure but aren't allowed to receive it?" I suggested.

"Maybe that thought itself makes me aroused."

Without giving full particulars, Helen noted that my crotch was much cleaner Paul's, which was one reason she didn't perform oral sex on him. Another reason is that his cock is much smaller than mine and, supposedly as a consequence of its smaller size, doesn't excite her as much. As for last night, she and Paul did nothing together in the way of sex. She still isn't sure how or when she is going to break up with him. "He is like a baby, the way he clings to me. It's pathetic. I feel so sorry for him." I told her I didn't care if she kept him as a friend or lover, so long as she didn't get pregnant by him, but she doubts he will agree to such an arrangement. We then discussed possibly getting married this coming week.

I finally listened to and deleted most of the messages on my answering machine, thus making room for another slew of new messages this coming week. At least Helen can get through now. She has been complaining about not being able to do so. Also, I worked off most of the hardcopy mail backlog, which consisted primarily of check payments for previously placed orders. There are only about $3500 in orders for the month, as compared with at least $20,000 per month for every month since at least two years ago. I don't feel much regret at having killed the business, however. I took a stab at being a businessman, and was successful in all respects other than one. Namely, I was unable to keep myself interested. Being a successful businessman just isn't my destiny. After the novelty wore off, the falseness of my situation because increasingly hard to bear, until finally I felt as uncomfortable as I do when wearing the "wrong" type of clothes. I wanted to run away and pull the mask from my face and resume "being myself". In fact, I still feel this sense of wanting to flee, since the business isn't yet completely dead.

I met Helen at the county clerk's office, fifteen minutes late because I got distracted on the way, while shopping in the drugstore for vitamins that I had been reading about on the internet. We obtained a license to marry, and made an appointment for the ceremony itself to be performed next week. I would have preferred to complete the marriage today, which the clerk indicated was possible, and put an end to these six years of vacillations between myself and Helen. But Helen wanted to wait until at least next week, because just yesterday she and Paul went on a picnic with her sister, acting as if they were still engaged, and this coming weekend she has also already arranged to spend with Paul. She said she would feel thoroughly dishonest if she were to spend time with him while married to me. She mentioned that one reason Paul was hesitant to marry her was the concern that she might not be able to have children anymore, on account of the abortion, which might have damaged her body somehow. I felt a pang of disappointment at the idea of a childless marriage, though I later reflected that I've never really had a great desire for children, so why does the possibility of not being able to have them suddenly bother me? It seems so irrational and self-defeating that I feel deprived, simply because I can't have what I don't want anyway, and yet I seemingly can't resist thinking this way.

I stopped by Helen's apartment in the evening and fixed dinner there, then worked on her computer afterwards, arranging for it to connect to the internet, which led to various disputes. I then tried to initiate sex, whereupon she complained of "bladder infections" and said she didn't want any more sex until these "bladder infections" disappear, which led to further acrimony. These "bladder infections" reappeared shortly after she and I resumed having sex earlier this month, which just confirms my belief that the problem is related to her inability to achieve a complete orgasm. "So, what you're saying is that you're sexually dead and that I should find a lover, even as we're considering getting married next week?" She replied that it might not be sex but rather her apartment that was making her ill, or perhaps something she was eating that she hadn't been eating while living with Paul, such as bananas. I finally left in a huff.

Why am I marrying her? Why don't I just shut down my business and forget about children and women and responsibilities and devote myself instead to enjoying life? My restlessness is the result of having achieved all my goals in life and having nothing of consequence to complain of. Why am I tampering with what amounts to almost perfect happiness? I don't feel particularly relieved at not having married Helen yesterday, since I suspect that we are doomed to eventually marry, and that these disputes just postpone the inevitable.

I want to take a trip by bus, but where to? It seems so desperate to take a trip just for the sake of taking a trip. This sort of seeking of adventure seems obscene. It's like playing Russian roulette for excitement. I want to be pulled along by desires coming from deep within myself. But what are these desires? The only strong desire I can think of is for sex. What is worse: to have no desires, or to be dependent on someone else for satisfaction of one's desires, as is the case with sex?

I've finally reached a decision as to my business. Namely, to stop selling the software and start giving it away. I'll probably make the change fully effective at the end of this month, to give myself some time to reconsider. What I'm giving up is the potential for perhaps $300,000 in profits over the next year, which amounts to perhaps $150,000 after taxes, which simply isn't worth the trouble, given that I'm currently worth almost $1,500,000 and was recently considering giving Helen $400,000, which gift I've since decided to renege on.

More and more, I feel as though Helen's lack of sex drive is a subtle way of emasculating me. She sent me several emails yesterday, complaining that she had called but couldn't leave a message because the answering machine has once again reached its limit.

I shrunk from a strapping young man on the sidewalk, who was cursing loudly at the air, as I was worried that his violence might suddenly turn physical. But then once I had left him a safe distance behind, I felt a sudden surge of energy. Why is it that these "songs of rage" (the expression that springs to mind) make me want to skip for joy? Perhaps because in this rage is the energy that I hunger for but find missing elsewhere in our society.

"Get the fuck away from me!" he shouted. "Get the fuck away from me! You ain't no better than me! Just because you got some bed to sleep in, some fancy apartment with air conditioning and running water, and a big color television to watch, and a stereo you bought on the installment plan, and a credit card and a card to get money from the bank with, and a big car to drive around in... You ain't no better than me! Get the fuck away from me, man! I can't even say nothing to nobody. They pretend I don't fucking exist. Get the fuck away from me, man! Bitch! What the fuck makes you think you're better than me? Motherfucking bitch! I'm as good as you! Get the fuck away from me! I don't want nothing from you! I'm as good as you. You listen to me! Get the fuck away from me!"

Helen came by unexpectedly. I told her that I wanted to postpone or even give up entirely the idea of us getting married. She took the news calmly, then gradually showed signs of being upset.

"I knew someone like this would happen. You shouldn't propose to someone if you don't really mean it," she said.

"I did mean it when I said it. But emotions are tricky things. I thought I could accept you as you are, and then after the othernight, I realized we would end up back where we were two years ago. And why? What am I getting out of this marriage? I don't really want children. I give you $300,000 and what do I get? A relationship that makes me miserable? I've lived alone all my life. Why should I change now?" I said.

"I told you I couldn't have sex. I can't help it that I get these bladder infections. There is nothing psychological about them, either, despite what you say."

"And I believe the opposite."

"I don't want to hear it! I do not want to hear anything on this subject!"

"You want to destroy me."

"Oh?"

"Yes. You want to emasculate me with these sex problems. You want to castrate me."

"And why do I want to do that?"

"Because you are destructive by nature. You chose to be a victim and you realize that this was a foolish choice. A quadriplegic in a wheelchair has no choice but to be an object of charity. But you aren't helpless. You are intelligent and attractive and physically healthy and there is no reason you can't actively pursue whatever it is you want in life, instead of sitting around like a helpless victim waiting for a windfall from heaven."

"I suppose this apartment of yours with the nice view represents heaven, in which case you must be God."

"You realize that acting powerless is your choice, and that it is a bad choice, and you resent people like myself who are not powerless, and your resentment makes you hate me and want to destroy me. You aren't a vicious person by nature, and you don't have any consciousness of your destructiveness, but it is there nonetheless, and I'm afraid of it."

"I see. Are you sure you're not projecting your own destructiveness onto me?"

"I have no desire to destroy you. I'm just afraid of you. And it isn't just me you try to destroy. It's all men who are stronger than you. One of the reasons you're comfortable with Paul, I think, is that he's unemployed and earns less than you. You like his being unemployed, I think. And you resent and want to destroy me because I have more money than you."

"If you really think I want to destroy you, why did you propose that we get married?"

"I can't think clearly around you. You have some sort of power over me."

"You knew what sort of person I was."

"I did. And I thought we could work things out. But when I saw how you were acting the other night, I realized that for us to marry would have been wicked. It would have been an abomination in the eyes of God."

"You were the one who violated the informal marriage contract. There is a clause which specifically states that when one of us wants to be left alone, the other has to leave."

"I know and I thought I could live with that. But I can't."

We had breakfast at a nearby cafe, where she started sobbing to herself.

"Get the hell out of my life, you hear me! Get the hell out of my life and never come back! I'm leaving this city. And you better not follow me, either. I'm going to quit this job that I hate so much—the salt mines that you promised to liberate me from—and move to a little seaport, a fishing village. I'll have a little house with shutters to keep out the storms and a window where I can look out while I'm writing at my desk. Or else I'll live in a old lighthouse. A nice big lighthouse, with a huge octagon shaped living room, and lanterns on the wall and rugs on the floor, warm and comfy, not just a little stump of a lighthouse, but a great big one. And once a week I'll take a boat to the village to buy food. Or maybe I'll move north and live with my friend in the ghetto there, with prostitutes in the apartment next door. Paul can come with me. We'll be happy together, away from you and all your machinations. I told him about us, you know. I told him you'd broken up with your old girlfriend and you were even proposing marriage. He said I was deceitful, and he's right. I am deceitful. Bad and deceitful. His whole family and all his friends told him that he should break up with me. And that was before I told him about you. Ever since the abortion, everyone asks him, Have you got rid of that bum yet? That's what they think of me. Now he's out of town. His brother died of a heart attack last week and he had to rush off to the funeral. That happened after you got so worked up about me not wanting to have sex. What bad timing I had! Here he is, rushing off to a funeral and I'm telling him about you and thus possibly ruining things between him and me. He asked me if I planned to have an orgy with you in his apartment while he's away. I said no. What must he be thinking? His brother's last advice before he died was 'Get rid of that bum'. And now that he knows about my deceitfulness... I don't care though. Maybe I don't deserve anything. I have to learn to like my job. I do like it. The people there are very nice. It was nice while it lasted, that dream of the $400,000 that you promised me. Of course I should have known it was too good to be true. First you whittled it down to $300,000, then you talked about multiple installments because you didn't have the cash on hand and had to sell stock and that would take time, or who knows what excuse. You're always coming up with new excuses. And now it's down to nothing."

"I was thinking about an indemnification for the trouble I've caused you. A small sum."

"Small. That's probably all I deserve. A small sum. You're right, though. You shouldn't have to give me anything. I went out on the internet and read up on how some couples manage their master and slave relationships. For example, some masters don't give their slaves any money. The slave has to ask the master's permission for anything she wants to buy and then he decides whether it's appropriate or not."

"That sounds like a lot of work. Now if you want high-level advice, I'd be happy to give that."

"I knew it would be too much for you."

"I'd be worried about a slave revolt. The slave would have to be utterly powerless before I'd want to be her master. Otherwise, I'd have to be constantly watching my back. She might be a destructive, rebellious slave."

"I just thought you'd be much better at this sort of thing than Paul. You enjoy lording it over me."

"Anyway, I thought you were finished with reading smut."

"I couldn't help it. I realized after you left the other night that I probably was being bad and I shouldn't have been so rebellious."

"Look, if you want a fling, I'd be happy to oblige. But this marriage between us is on hold for the foreseeable future. My present opinion is that it just wouldn't work. It would be evil for us to get married."

"I know. Maybe you could pay me each time we have sex. I'd be your whore."

"Pay you? Are you sure about that?"

"I could supplement my income that way. But I'd demand a high price."

"I see."

We walked back to her apartment without mentioning sex, but as soon as we got there, we both took off our shirts, as if sex was what we both wanted. She made no resistance as I pulled her down on the bed and began sucking her breasts and rubbing her crotch through her pants. I tried kissing her on the mouth, but she wrenched herself away. "Let me suck your cock," she said, "I love to suck your cock." So I let her suck it, then rubbed it and my balls against her face while continuing to rub her crotch. She wouldn't allow me to insert my finger in her cunt, however, and also declined my offer to lick her. I had masturbated in the morning and had some difficulty coming, but finally managed to jerk myself off in a powerful orgasm while she sucked my balls.

Neither of us was satisfied by this sex, which isn't surprising, given her inability to fully participate with an orgasm of her own. I was anxious to leave after coming, but politeness seemed to dictate that I hang about idly chatting, while she packed up some clothes to take to Paul's apartment, where she planned to stay this weekend, while he was out of town. Incidentally, because of this trip for his brother's funeral, Paul will miss the first day of work at his temporary job. A very inauspicious beginning, Helen and I agreed.

Giving money to Helen each time we have sex is probably the most honest arrangement we could have. I would feel like I was getting something for my money and so wouldn't resent her so much, while she wouldn't have to feel indebted to me. The words "whore" and "prostitution" make such an arrangement seem sordid, though it would probably contribute far more effectively to our mutual happiness than would the supposedly "respectable" arrangement of marriage.

Not since my years in college, when I did nothing during the weeks between semesters, have I had so much free time as I have now. And yet this surplus of leisure just seems to make me lazier.

I gave a dollar each to the quadriplegic and to Preacher. The latter was sprawled out in front of the tobacco store in a pathetic looking manner, as if his legs were crippled, gesticulating and making horrid-looking faces. Perhaps he was miming a smoker, as a way of begging for cigarettes. I felt rejuvenated after making these donations, as if I had "unburdened" myself. Perhaps this is what my father was thinking—that money is a burden—when, during his conservatorship trial, he said: "Get rid of it. All my money. Get rid of it. Give it away."

A woman in her fifties, dressed in a purple pantsuit and with her hair tied in a bun, walking down the street and muttering to herself in a musical sounding voice:

"Oh, come on! What's the point of this? Dragging all this junk down the street, like we're all supposed to feel sorry for them because they're homeless. Half of these so-called homeless people are really millionaires. I'm not joking. My mother warned me about this sort of thing. I just want to get back to the other side of the river where I grew up. Don't believe a word they say. Oh, he's got everything piled up in a grocery cart and pushes it down the street like he's about to topple over from exhaustion so we're all supposed to jump up and give him a dollar. And then you find out he's got this huge wad of dollar bills stuffed in his pocket. I mean it's like someone has this three hundred dollar a day heroin habit, but instead of spending it on heroin, they put it in the bank, so that at the end of the year they're all millionaires. And I'm supposed to give to them? Like just this afternoon, I see this old woman hanging out on the corner. Right down there. All these bags around her. She's asking for money. Then, the next thing you know, she hops in a limousine and drives off. A limousine! A limousine picked her up! She pretending to be poor! It's just like my mother warned me about. And another thing, this asthma. The medicine they give you for asthma actually causes asthma. It's like that saying, how does it go? One person's poison is another person's medicine. Or something of the sort. I don't know. Swell, so now I take this asthma medicine and I end up sicker than ever. The stuff's supposed to clear your nasal cavities. Why don't they just go and give us all cigarettes? I mean that's something that might cure a person's sinuses—the smoke and heat and all. But don't give to these street people. They don't need the money. I guarantee you, at least half of them are millionaires."

She paused in front of the cafe where I was sitting, and I was hoping she would remain there and continue her monologue, since I enjoyed listening to it, but a young woman sitting at the adjacent table became hysterical and demanded the older woman move on:

"Go away! You're crazy! You're talking to yourself! I don't want to listen to you! You're a crazy person! Go away or I'll call the police!"

I felt depressed at the realization that, in three short years, I've managed to fill a large one-bedroom apartment with junk. Certainly, many of these things I've bought and otherwise accumulated are beautiful. But the world is full of beautiful things. I feel burdened by all this junk, and yet I hesitate to dispose of it. Why? Because it was so expensive and troublesome to accumulate? Because I might need it someday? When I was in my twenties, I used to be proud of the fact that everything I owned would fit in the trunk of my car.

I spent the evening investigating the possibility of moving to Basin City, to save on rent and income tax. Also, a move would force me to shut down the business and otherwise "streamline" and simplify my life. I felt a wonderful sense of excitement at these ideas.

I called Helen at work and told her about my idea of moving to Basin City. She was angry about my recent behavior.

"Just because you're crazy doesn't mean I have to be dragged down with you. You should think before involving other people in your madness," she said.

"I can't help it, as you are fond of saying about your bladder infections. Anyway, part of the problem is that my life has become too luxurious, with all these beautiful paintings and beautiful carpets and beautiful furnishings and clothes and junk of every variety, and this beautiful city full of beautiful people and blessed by beautiful weather. It makes me want to vomit. I think I'd be better off in a harsher environment, living in a sparely furnished room, surrounded by angry people driven by coarse animalistic appetites for food, sex, alcohol, drugs, and the excitement of gambling," I said.

"Well, good luck. But don't expect me to accompany you."

I paid for a four day package tour to Basin City and then bought a backpack to use on this and other trips in the future. Then I visited the pornographic video booths, where I spent ten minutes masturbating (without coming, as I had already masturbated in my apartment in the morning). Someone in the adjoining booth briefly stuck his cock through a hole in the wall, as if inviting me to suck or touch it, but I hadn't the slightest desire to do either, nor did I have any desire to stick my cock through the hole.

My current problem is one of lack of desires and ways to pass the time. I once thought the pursuit of women might fill the hours, but this doesn't seem to be working. For one thing, few women seem worth my time or otherwise capable of arousing my desire. As for the other conventional pleasures and occupations of the idle rich, they have little appeal to my ascetic and intellectual nature. So what do I do?

I bought a map of Basin City and printed out a list of apartments there for rent, obtained from the internet. It seems I will have little difficulty in finding a nice one bedroom apartment for at most $500 a month. Since I am currently paying $1272 a month, my savings on rent will be $9264 a year. Add to that at least $3000 a year savings on income taxes and I'll be saving over $33 a day. When I told this to Helen, she asked, "Given that you're worth over a million dollars, why do you need to save money?" To which question I had no immediate answer.

I received a letter addressed to Helen but with my last name, which I couldn't resist opening. Some company was offering, for $15, to assist with the paperwork needed for an official name change. Thus it appears that some public notice has already been made of our now cancelled marriage. What if, due to some mix-up, the official records somehow have the marriage listed as performed instead of cancelled?

Helen called with a question about computer programming for her job, which I helped her with. I then told her I had more or less decided to move to Basin City, and soon, too.

"This damn apartment that you constantly complain I drove you out of is turning out to be an albatross around my neck. $1272 a month in rent and more space than I need and a beautiful view, all which just encourages me to live in a sumptuous manner that makes me feel uncomfortable. Also, I'm embarrassed to invite poor people here. I'm going to get rid of all this junk and go back to living cheap. I'm taking a trip there this weekend. I've got everything planned. Rent the apartment, rent a truck, move some of my junk, put the rest into storage, shut down the business and start living like a life of leisure," I said.

"You're acting very impulsively," Helen said.

"Maybe, but I feel like my old self again."

"I just hope you realize what stress you've put me through these past few months."

"Well, part of the problem is you just don't know what you want."

"I know exactly what I what, and it's most certainly not to be living in squalor in Basin City. Besides what I am supposed to do in the way of work there?"

I spent much of the day housecleaning—ten bags of old magazines and other junk down the trash chute. Then I moved my once-beloved sausage shaped sofa to the office to see what the living room looks like without it, and guess what? I prefer the living room without it. I'm realizing that I'm been much more restrained in accumulating junk than I had at first feared. It seems as though, as I grow older, I'm building up a resistance to the lure of junk, so that I'm cautious about bringing things home, even to the point where I often suffer for months because I refuse to buy something I need. Case in point. My heels have become calloused and dried out due to wearing sandals and several weeks ago the skin split and started causing me pain, as if a splinter of glass was penetrating deep into the flesh of my heel. But I did nothing about this pain until a few days ago. And yet all it took was two days of using a pumice stone and moisturizer, and the splits have almost healed. Why didn't I buy a pumice stone several weeks ago?

While at the cafe, I couldn't resist staring at a young transsexual (or at least that what I think she was) at the next table, who boldly stared back, inviting me almost irresistibly with her eyes to approach. I had ambivalent feelings later about having ignored her invitation. She gave off the scent of danger, though perhaps that was why she was so attractive. "Wild thing" is the term that springs to mind, a term which applies to all of these young transvestites and transsexuals. Untamed outsiders, fierce, proud, reeking of energy and danger and violence and uncontrolled passion and a special type of honesty—everything that is lacking in ordinary women.

I arrived in Basin City about noon, checked into the hotel, then took a walk around the town. Several hours later, I was suffering from a terrible headache. The temperature itself was mild, as long as I stayed in the shade, but the desert sun was pitiless. Other than this sun, however, the city is ideal for walking or biking, with sidewalks on all streets, pedestrian crosswalks, curb ramps, and a moderate amount of traffic. There were few pedestrians or bikers today, however. I was disappointed by the small number of coffee shops, and surprised by the abundance of dilapidated honky-tonks advertising two for one drink specials for "ladies".

The only part of the city that seemed full of people was the casino district, where the sidewalks are shaded by tall buildings. I tried to soak in the atmosphere at one of the casinos, but my headache was aggravated by the incessant bell ringing and flashing lights and clatter of coins dropping into trays, so that I had to flee back out into the street. I was wearing my small backpack all the while, and for this reason seemed to attract attention from the casino security guards, probably since backpacks are not commonly worn in Basin City, other than by the homeless.

I took a nap in my hotel room in the late afternoon, feeling sorry for myself for not being successful with women and blaming them for not being willing to accept that men want them primarily for sex. The usual rubbish that my mind invents to justify not making conversation with an attractive young woman who was part of the tour (she and I were the only tour members under age fifty) and who had made an obvious invitation for me to approach.

After my nap, I went down to the casino, where I managed to convert the free playing credit that comes with the package tour to $20.25 in cash. Then I walked around the city, still looking for a coffee shop. I finally found one, and sat there on the patio, enjoying the coolness of the desert night (which greatly alleviated my headache) while listening to the mixed sounds of crickets chirping, some young women talking, and a wretched amateur folk music group playing inside: "Oh, I'll make yellow corn porridge, and then I'll share it with you!"

My intention to move to Basin City in the near future is now confirmed. The primary disadvantages are that this move will definitely mean the end of my business, and that I will find it difficult to ever move back to West Metropolis, given the rental situation there. Mitigating these disadvantages are the facts that I've been wanting to shut the business down for almost a year now, and that I've never really taken advantage of living in West Metropolis or made many friends there, and regardless, I can easily visit. Meanwhile, I'll be saving a huge amount on rent and state income tax. An additional advantage is that a move will force me to simplify my life and reflect on what I really want to do with it. And, of course, I am not making a long-term commitment. I can always move again elsewhere several months down the road.

The next morning, I received another $13 of playing credit for the slot machines, which I managed to convert to $13 in cash. Afterwards, I had breakfast in the casino restaurant, then walked to a nearby park. A widow in her fifties, accompanied by two pre-school boys, came and sat on the same bench as me—the only bench in the shade--and we struck up a conversation. The two boys are the grandchildren of her friend, who took custody of them after their mother, a drug addict, wanted to give them up for adoption. The widow tries to keep the boys busy in the morning to give their grandmother a chance to sleep, since she works nights. The widow's own daughter is also a drug addict, and allegedly robbed her several times to pay for drugs. "She completely cured me of motherhood, that's all I can say."

This widow is currently retired, and has a permanent residence in a small town several hours away, as well as a ranch, which she is in the process of selling. She doesn't own a car, but borrows those of friends. She facetiously calls herself a "druid", meaning she doesn't hold with any traditional religion. She was talkative, even annoyingly so at times. Her face was tanned and wrinkled from the sun, but her body was in very good shape.

I invited her to lunch, where we continued our conversation, during which I mentioned my own situation. Namely, that I was in the process of retiring and planning to move to Basin City temporarily. After lunch, we toured the casinos. I made a point of flirting with this widow, though to be honest, there was little chemistry between us. What perversity! It seems as though, if a woman excites me, I interpret the excitement as danger and flee or takes steps to reduce the level of excitement (such as by behaving so boringly as to make the woman disgusted). Only when a woman doesn't excite me can I relax and enjoy her company.

I took a long walk around the city by myself later, first through a park, then through prosperous suburbs of ranch type houses, then through a bleak area of cemeteries, dusty highways, warehouses, and mobile home camps, and finally back to the casinos. In walking along the river, I felt like I was returning to my carefree boyhood, when during summers and on weekends I would similarly wander along the river. I will certainly have a difficult time spending all my money in Basin City, but then I've never found ways to spend all my income. "Be careful of what you ask for, because you might just get it." As a boy, I dreamed of being financially independent and never having to go to work or school. Sex, friends, women, fame—none of these played a role in my dreams. And, lo and behold, I've gotten exactly what I wanted, nothing more and nothing less.

My body is feeling very healthy. In particular, my right knee, which used to ache after walking more than an hour, is giving me no problems. Yesterday's headache was probably due more to lack of sleep than to sun and heat, since today I got an even heavier dose of these and yet felt fine.

I rented a post office box, then submitted an application for a one-bedroom apartment, with monthly rent of $550 and typical gas/electric utilities of $60 a month, for a total cost of $610 a month, versus the approximately $1295 I am currently paying in rent and electricity, for a savings of about $687 a month, or $8244 a year. It occurs to me that I am leaving perhaps $100,000 or more of potential business profits on the table, which dwarfs these potential savings on rent. However, my mind doesn't seem to register that there is an inconsistency here. I feel as if I've been postponing enjoyment for too long, and it's time to stop procrastinating and start living my dreams in life. But how is this feeling related to my plan to move to Basin City? I just hope my intuition is working properly, since the logical part of my mind clearly isn't.

I've been trying to limit myself to masturbating only at night, so that I'll be sexually "charged" in case I happen to meet a woman during the day, but this morning I lost control while playing with myself. The problem is that I have little sexual energy at night. Regardless of when I last masturbated, all I want to do at night is go to sleep. By contrast, in the morning I am always horny. I forced myself to have another orgasm this evening, to try to develop the habit of masturbating at that time of day (fantasy was fucking various blondes I'd seen throughout the day). I can see that my vow to swear off women just won't last. This afternoon, for example, I passed a tall anglo man, walking towards a motel with a young, much shorter, well-dressed, and very attractive mexican prostitute, who he was lewdly fondling and gazing at with bedroom eyes.

I had a brief conversation with a Native-American man in the riverside park, who said he had seen me hanging around the park the past few days, and thought I might be "stranded", and invited me to pay him a visit if that was the case. He lives nearby, in the house of an elderly couple who he takes care of. I wasn't sure what to make of this invitation, but decided not to accept, mainly because he bored me. Perhaps I should have been more adventurous and accepted, though maybe not. He didn't seem homosexual, but then maybe my "gay-dar" isn't working anymore.

The last casino on the tour is cleverly located in the middle of an industrial suburb, thus forcing us to spend time inside the casino itself, since there is little else to do nearby during the six hours layover. I received $10 in gambling tokens, which I immediately converted to cash. Then I walked through the industrial suburb to the river, then along the river, then back through the industrial suburb to a park. I had a splitting headache by the time I reached this park, partly due to insufficient sleep last night (the bed is softer than I'm used to) and partly due to the sun. (I had been wearing a hat, but the dry sand and concrete over which I had been walking reflected the sun back into my face.) I read for three hours in the park, then returned to the casino for lunch, then returned to West Metropolis in the evening.

Once back at my apartment, I cleared off the answering machine then downloaded email (over two hundred new messages since I last checked my email two weeks ago). Resellers and other customers are frantically inquiring about their orders. I am trying to think of a cover story to explain the business's demise, something that doesn't make me look like a complete flake. Though, then again, it hardly matters what I do to my reputation, given that I never plan to work again.

I called Helen and invited her to lunch. She was upset by my decision to move to Basin City.

"What is going on here? Two weeks ago we were planning to get married and now you're planning to move. What about me?" she asked.

"I don't want to be miserable. Why should I be miserable? And misery is all that this marriage would have brought me," I replied.

"And what about me?"

"How are things with Paul?"

"Finished, of course. I told him about us and then he said I should choose him or you and I told him I was choosing you and that was that."

"Where are you living now?"

"In my own apartment, where else? I can't live with Paul anymore."

"Hmmm."

"I don't want to live with him. I want to live with you. I want us to get married. Basin City isn't my first choice but I'll go there if I have to."

"I was thinking that you might stay here for a few more months, and I'd come visit you."

"Why do you have to move so soon?"

"Because of the money I'll be saving."

"Money! You could earn that amount of money and more if you just processed your orders. Or at least that's what you've been telling me."

"That's true, but I'm sick of the business. I want to move and I'm going to move and I'm going to move soon."

"Why are you doing this to me? You've got me in the palm of your hand. What more do you want? And I don't care about children, if that's what you're worried about."

"What do you mean, no children? I thought that's what you wanted."

"That was just to please Paul. Later, once I got pregnant, the hormones kicked in and then I didn't want to lose the baby. But I don't think I ever really wanted to get pregnant in the first place. If I had wanted children, I would have had them by now."

"Another example of your fickleness. First you want children, then you don't. I don't want you blaming me for your not having children."

"I won't blame you."

"You always blame me! It's always my fault! Everything is my fault! I'm the source of all your problems!"

"I won't blame you!"

"And what about Paul?"

"I don't care about him anymore. Even if you leave me, I'm glad to have gotten away from him. You don't know how manipulative he is. And so clingy. He wanted us to do everything together. We even had to bite into the same piece of pizza and then chew at the same time. You're worse in some ways, but still, I'm glad to have gotten away from him."

"Tell me again, what do you want from me? Besides money, of course."

"I want to be with you! I want us to get married."

"But why? Since you don't want sex and you now say you don't want children. Why do you want men at all?"

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe I'll make some women friends."

"You've never made any before."

"Why are you punishing me like this? What did I do that was so bad?"

"Whatever, it doesn't matter. I've already got the apartment picked out. $550 a month, plus $60 in electricity. A savings of almost $700 a month compared to what I'm spending now!"

"Are we going to live there together?"

"In the same apartment? Of course not!"

"Is it a nice apartment?"

"Very nice. I could have gotten a cheaper unit. The studios go for $475 a month, plus $50 electricity. Also, this complex is near downtown and somewhat more expensive than apartment complexes further away from downtown. And then there's the possibility of a furnished room, for about $350 a month."

"I want a one-bedroom, too."

"You don't need a one-bedroom. You can't afford it. A studio is plenty big enough."

"You're already telling me how to spend my money!"

"If you want me to give you money then I'm not going to see you squander it on needless infrastructure. Neither of us needs a one-bedroom. I'm getting one temporarily because I'm still evaluating how much furniture to dispose of. If I didn't get a one-bedroom, I'd have to rent a storage unit, and then there would be the problem of accessing the storage unit, since I don't have a car."

"Why do we have to move to Basin City? That's the last place I would have considered."

"Because the city fits my image. I have these workaholic tendencies, and West Metropolis has a bad effect on me, because the vibe here makes me think I should be working like all the other people, whereas in Basin City, I have this wonderful sense of freedom. I like the idea of saying I live in Basin City! I feel at home there."

"What about me? Will I feel at home there?"

"You can visit me after I move and check it out."

"And then what? I was planning to quit my job soon. You don't know how much work they are piling on me. Contracts to write and then this systems business. You were supposed to help me with computer questions. How can you help me if you're in Basin City? And what sort of job can I get there?"

"I might give you enough that you would only have to work part-time."

"The $400,000 is not going to happen, then?"

"No. I decided that if I gave you a large amount of money that I might resent you."

"I don't want you to resent me."

I promised to stop by in the evening, but then changed my mind and called her instead. We had a long conversation, about many of the same topics we had discussed at lunch. All the wonderful sense of freedom that I had felt while walking around Basin City seemed to disappear during these conversations with Helen, as if she were my mother scolding me for having stayed out late. As for sex, while the idea of fucking her face and mouth is appealing, the reality is that I'd just as soon masturbate back at my own apartment, and thereby avoid being blamed for causing her "bladder infections".

Helen called with a work question. She acted stupid, and so I was sharp with her ("What's the problem here? I mean this isn't rocket science, you know..."), whereupon she started crying hysterically and hung up the phone. I immediately called back and asked what she was so upset about. She was still sobbing: "I don't need this from you!" Then she hung up again. What a drag she can be! I feel as though she has completely destroyed the euphoria I had been feeling regarding my move and shutting down the business. Why do I feel such affection for her? Am I doing her a favor by constantly wavering in my resolves to leave her for good? Perhaps we would both be better off alone. Why do I worry about her happiness? Isn't selfishness ultimately the only way to bring good into this world? By intervening to "help her out", I only end up destroying my own happiness while simultaneously preventing her from learning to stand on her own two feet, which is the only way anyone achieves real happiness in this world.

I spent the afternoon at the wilderness park, then got drunk in the evening on half a bottle of red wine followed by two vodka tonics.

I discovered that the reseller who has been calling me most frequently, and sending the frantic sounding emails and faxes, happens to owe about $1400 in past due invoices. Of course, I haven't bothered complaining, nor do I plan to complain in the future, nor is this disconnect between myself and his accounts payable department a significant cause of my shutting down my business, but it is a fact worth noting. My current rough estimate is that I will have a net profit of $130,000 for the year, prior to personal income taxes. I could have earned at least $250,000 for the year, had I not let the business go to hell. It also appears that I will have to maintain my business checking account for several more months, to accommodate a trickle of payments for overdue invoices as well as for paying off various bills. Thus I will probably have to keep the business running for yet another year, at least for tax purposes.

I'm continuing to feel anger towards Helen and her immaturity. Why does she have such a hold on me? I continue to reflect on how there is something truly offensive about how she refuses to let me touch her cunt or otherwise bring her to orgasm. She thereby denies me the sense of satisfaction that comes from knowing I can please a woman sexually.

I received a response to a recent personal ad ("White male, age thirty seven, tall, handsome, happily but platonically married, seeks lover: attractive, intelligent, married or attached or older"). The responder calls herself a "submissive", and says she is interested in exploring "surrender" and bondage and discipline and "power exchange". She is currently married (an "open" marriage) and works as a massage therapist. I jerked myself to orgasm in the evening to images of giving this "submissive" a thorough workout in both mouth and cunt.

I was feeling extraordinary energetic today. I updated my business web site to make all of my products free, then removed all references to the business phone and fax numbers and address. I feel ashamed at acting like such a flaky businessman, though perhaps giving away what I had been formerly been selling will make people forgive me. But then again, given that I'm going out of business, why do I care what people think?

I spent most of the day preparing one of my old computers so that the next user, who will presumably be a computer novice, will have an easy time getting hooked up to the internet and otherwise making use of it. I feel bad about accepting money for this computer or any of my other belongings that I plan to dispose of before moving to Basin City. My primary concern seems to be that these former belongings don't go to "waste". Why do I feel this way, I wonder?

In general, I seem to have little need for other people to do things for me. On the contrary, I mostly need them so that I can do things for them. I want to give more than I want to receive. A major reason Helen and I can't get along is that she refuses to let me give her sexual pleasure. One reason I'm sick of my business is that I feel like all I do is receive money without giving anything of value. Of course, in reality, if the product I'm selling weren't valuable then people wouldn't be so desperate to buy it. Nevertheless, I don't feel that it is valuable. I don't why. I used to think it was valuable.

Speaking of money, I feel "bloated" and "stuffed to the gills" at the thought of the $1,500,000 I've got saved up. What am I going to do with this huge sum? I realize now that giving to Helen is a mistake. It is morally wrong, though I don't know why exactly. Perhaps it is wrong in the sense that leaving a large inheritance to a child is wrong. A huge gift would rob her of the satisfaction of succeeding in life on her own.

I decided to give away my breakfast table and eat standing up in the future. Who came up with the notion that we need to sit down to eat? Why all these chairs and sofas? With proper posture, standing is almost as relaxing as sitting, I've realized. I threw away another four bags of old magazines, thereby clearing out space on my bookshelves. Into this vacant space I then moved books that I plan to keep. Oh, what a wonderful feeling it is to be ridding myself of excess material possessions! I feel like a man who's been hugely overweight for years, but now is finally taking steps to slim down and regain the trim figure he had as a youth. How disgusted I am now with the idea of buying and owning things!

I suspect that I'm acting crazy right now, and yet I'm also very confident that I'm moving in the right direction with my life. Also, for what it's worth, I have a feeling that my luck at the casinos last week is an omen of general good fortune that awaits me in Basin City.

I woke up feeling remorseful about Helen. When she called and suggested we have lunch together, I agreed. Then I wrote out a check for $10,000, which I planned to give to her as compensation for the trouble I've put her through these past few months. But then she shocked me by proposing that she would move into my apartment after I moved out, and I decided not to make the gift after all, since I didn't like the idea of my money being wasted on rent.

"You can't afford that apartment!" I exclaimed.

"Don't tell me what I can and can't afford. It's none of your business. You don't run my life," she replied.

"You're going to bankrupt yourself, and by then your parents will be dead and you'll come running to me to support you."

"Ha! Maybe in your fantasies. I'm not going to bankrupt myself. I earn enough now to pay for the apartment, and I plan to earn more in the future. I've realized that I have talents and that I'm way overqualified for this job I have now and that I can do better. Anyway, how I pay for the apartment is none of your business."

"I thought you hated working. That's what you said last week."

"I said many foolish things last week, in moments of weakness. I'm going to try to be strong in the future."

"Are you planning to get a roommate?"

"No, but if I do, it's none of your business."

"It is my business because I'll still be the person leasing the apartment."

"We both signed that lease."

"Ah, but then you signed that letter indicating that you wanted to be taken off the lease. Remember?" There was a long pause after I said this.

"You've ruined my opportunities in life once again," said Helen finally. "What did you do that for?"

"I was worried that you might get back into the apartment—and as co-signor of the lease you had the right to enter at any time—and throw my computer out the window or destroy things. Or you might have gotten a restraining order on the grounds that I was threatening you and I would have been forbidden to even enter the apartment. I was very concerned about that. It would have meant the end of my business."

"There's are word for people like you. Paranoid. You are really paranoid."

"I was worried that you might go crazy."

"You're the crazy one."

"Well, anyway, I'll have to be on the lease, so you'll have to pretend you're just a girlfriend visiting. You can get your mail at a post office box."

"You got me taken off the lease. Now I want to be put back on."

"There is no way the landlord will allow you back on the lease. They're not stupid. Because of rent control, they have a powerful incentive to get me out so they can raise the rent back to market levels."

"I want that apartment!"

"You're obsessed with that apartment!"

"You're obsessed with moving to Basin City!"

"Anyway, I'll have to think about this proposal. In particular, the legal and financial ramifications and risks thereof."

"What financial ramifications? I'm agreeing to pay the full rent."

"Oh? I've had financial dealings with you before. For example, what about that $200 for the printer that you never repaid?"

"I'll pay you now."

"I'm not worried about that $200 anymore. I am worried about how you don't follow through on business agreements."

"I'll pay the rent. If I don't, then I'll be evicted. It isn't your problem."

"I'm on the lease. If there is a lawsuit to evict you, I'll be hit with the legal bills and it will be on my record."

"I'm not going to be evicted! We wouldn't have this problem if you hadn't been so devious about making me sign that letter."

"That letter was a standard letter that tenants sign when they don't want to be responsible for an apartment after they leave. I know about these sorts of things. I was a landlord myself once, and my father was a landlord, and most of the relatives on my father's side of my family are landlords of one sort or another. Landlording is in my blood. Furthermore, I didn't trick you into signing that letter. I gave you over $10,000 in compensation for moving out, and that letter was part of the moving out process. Also, that letter was to protect your rights as much as mine."

And so on. Assuming I agree to let Helen move into the apartment after I move, the worst case scenario would be that she brings in an irresponsible roommate, who then trashes the apartment and refuses to leave, so that (as lessee) I get hit with both repair bills and the cost of the eviction lawsuit. Realistically however, the costs in this worst case scenario shouldn't be more than the $10,000 I had been planning to give Helen today. So why am I so worried? Also, since she currently pays $760 a month rent, the additional cost of renting my apartment would be only $512 a month or $6144 a year, and so perhaps she can afford it after all. In any case, seeing how I spent perhaps $10,000 over the past few years frantically buying furnishings for this apartment, which furnishings I am now just as frantically planning to dispose of, who am I to question someone else's spending habits?

I inquired about Paul. Helen replied that he wants her to move back in with him, but that her current plan is to live alone, and give up men altogether. I mentioned that I might want to stay in her apartment, in case I visited the city in the future.

"I suppose you can stay with me, provided I invite you first," she said.

"I'll pay you for the nights I stay. The same as if I were staying in a hotel," I said.

"You will do nothing of the sort. Assuming I invite you—and I might not, by the way—you'll be my guest, and I don't ask guests to pay for staying with me. Also, you'll sleep in the guest room. There'll be no hanky-panky, I hope you understand that. I've been through hell this past year because of men. It's no wonder I can't do my job properly."

"Well, I've been through hell, too. My stomach was churning after that fight last week."

"My stomach was churning ten times worse."

"Every time I get around you my blood pressure goes up. Something about you makes me hyperactive."

"You stress me out far worse than you stress yourself out. It's for the best we had that argument, though. I realize now that there is no way I could live with you in Basin City. Especially not in Basin City! We just don't mix well."

I slept on the floor, or, to be more precise, atop a flannel sheet laid over a thin rug with a hardwood floor below the rug, using the pillows and comforter from my regular bed (which is itself a futon on the floor). I was trying to see whether I really need a bed or futon, and the answer seems to be that I don't, provided the floor can be kept clean. Thus I can further reduce my needs for apartment space and possessions. There is something about the popular notions of "abundance" and "luxury" that produce in me the exact opposite feelings. "Deprived" is how I feel amidst luxury. I feel deprived when eating the rich food served at expensive restaurants, instead of my usual plain fare. I feel deprived when living in a large one-bedroom apartment with magnificent view, instead of in a studio with no view. I feel deprived when my business succeeds and customers inundate me with orders and requests to take their money in exchange for my software. It's as if I'd rather have no customers. I feel deprived when I sleep in a soft bed instead of on the floor. I feel deprived at the very thought of owning a car, or of getting married and having children (what was I thinking when I proposed to Helen!), or of being famous. If I ever found myself in a situation where numerous attractive women wanted to have sex with me, I would probably feel more deprived than I feel now with no lovers. In other words, I'm an ascetic and nothing irks me more than to be deprived of my natural ascetic lifestyle. Why? Should I worry about being an ascetic? Should I try to change?

I am particularly irked by possessions I can't easily replace, like my one-of-a-kind paintings and rugs and my custom-made sofa. I worry that I may later regret having got rid of these "precious" objects, and so am tormented with indecision as to whether to keep them or not. And if I do decide to keep them, then no doubt I'll worry later that they might be damaged or stolen.

I called the "submissive" woman and had a pleasant enough conversation with her. For some reason, I said I was "vanilla" in my sexual tendencies, which seemed to disappoint her. Why did I say this when she had specifically indicated that she wanted someone to engage in bondage and discipline and other exotic types of sex play? She will possibly call back to arrange a meeting. I couldn't resist masturbating after this conversation to fantasies of fucking her in the mouth and cunt. My plan was just to play around, but then I lost control and had an orgasm. This was in addition to a powerful orgasm last night. So now I'll have to skip tonight's masturbation session and then be absolutely sure to restrain myself tomorrow, in case she phones. After all, I wouldn't want to show up for a meeting and give the impression of being sexually exhausted.

While looking through my email, I discovered to my horror that an old associate of mine, who works for one of my competitors and who once tried to recruit me to work with them, has recently been trying to buy my product and wants to know why I've shut everything down. Because he is a programmer himself, he probably suspects the truth about what is happening. Namely, that I'm just acting flaky. Indeed, my behavior is not all that extraordinary. Programmers and other introverted creative types are known to have a tendency to go crazy at the prospect of success and publicity, and to have sudden urges to flee back to safe obscurity. So he probably suspects something of the sort is happening to me. I feel so embarrassed! But why, given that I haven't had anything to do with this guy for years and never plan to see or speak to him in the future? In any case, I'm determined to stick to my guns and shut my business down no matter what people think.

The office supply store today delivered a huge load of folded cardboard boxes. These boxes, together with the general disarray brought on by my moving preparations, have made the apartment look cluttered again, which in turn makes me feel depressed. It is amazing the effect surroundings can have on one's mood. Perhaps I should be more tolerant of Helen's obsession to move into my apartment when I leave. Maybe her current apartment really does have a negative effect on her mood, as she alleges.

While I was sitting outside at the cafe, a beautiful young transsexual walked past several times. He noticed that I was staring at him, and so sat down at an adjacent table and initiated a conversation. I moved to his table so we could hear one another better.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't usually give that out. So many strange people. I'm from here, you know. Not right here, but around here. Do I look like I'm from here? Well, I am. I guess I can tell you. My name's Jamie. That's my real name. I mean, it's not an alias or a made-up name. This friend I'm looking for, she's in bad shape. She's been up for six days straight. Now where I come from, they don't have this sort of speed. Oh, sure, you can buy it. But just not openly. Not like here. I was on heroin. See my arms? They're almost healed now. You know how in Alcoholic Anonymous they give those chips for one year of sobriety, or two years or whatever? That's how I feel about my arms. I've been clean for over a year. But this boyfriend I had, he tried to get me back on the stuff. Not directly. He would say like, Well, Jamie, I know you don't take heroin any more, but I do have this stuff and so if you want to shoot up with me, that's okay. Are you a cop? I thought you were, the way you were staring at me. Why were you looking at me?" he asked.

"You have a beautiful body. I like looking at you."

"It ought to be beautiful, I worked enough at it! Four years I've spent on it. It's all hormones, of course. I did it all myself, too. I mean I didn't go to any doctor. I just knew what to do. See, I have triple chromosomes, two X chromosomes and one Y chromosome. My body is all fucked up. I'm like halfway between boy and girl. I didn't know what I was when I was growing up. And puberty was hell. My dad's a redneck so he took me to the doctor and they gave me testosterone, but I knew that was wrong. He and the doctor were laughing at me. Can you imagine? But I felt so exhausted all the time when I taking testosterone. I lost my interest in music, and music is my life! I love music. So then I changed and went the other way and took the other hormones and now I'm full of energy. See my tits? These are real. I'm the real thing. You know all these drag queens? Oh, well. Anyway, some of these old queens they go around with beards and try to get dates. They don't even take the hormones. I never do that sort of thing. Though maybe I should. This girlfriend, I tried to straighten her out. But she took everything I had. She took $3000 I had and spent it all on drugs. And my brother who lives here is dying of AIDS. Full-blown AIDS."

"Here," I said, and took $20 from my wallet and extended it to him. "I don't want a date, though. I'm straight."

"You're straight?" he asked. And indeed, question marks are appropriate whenever my sexuality is the topic of discussion. Why, if I'm straight, do I have this fascination with transsexuals?

"Without a cunt, I don't think I'd get aroused. But take the money. I'm enjoying looking at you." He took the money.

"Oh, well, I don't usually do this. See? I keep all my money in my underwear. I wear sheer panty hose type underwear. That's because once I was in this bar and the next thing I knew, some guy had me up against the wall and then when he dropped me, all the money in my pockets was gone. The reason I thought you were a cop is because the undercover cops they have around here look like you. This girlfriend, you see, she's in big trouble. She sells heroin at the bar. I told her not to, but she does. People come in and knock two times at the bar or something of the sort, and then she deals drugs. So the cops are after her. I used to work for the cops. They straightened me out though. I mean, the program I was in would have cost $5000 if I had gone as a private patient. Then once I was off drugs I went to work for them, helping them bust the dealers. People say I look naive. That's why I don't get as many dates as some of the girls. I look too young and innocent."

He talked for about an hour, in a beautiful, melodious voice, before wandering off, supposedly to resume looking for his friend.

Helen called. She was taking the day off from work, so I dropped by her apartment in the afternoon for tea. I gave her the check for $10,000 (compensation for the trouble I've put her through), and then we resumed the discussion of her possibly moving into my apartment after I leave. One reason she wants my apartment is that it is large enough to accommodate furniture she hopes to get from her parents, who are in the process of selling the house they have lived in for the past thirty or so years. She and her siblings will be visiting her parents before their house is sold and the contents auctioned off, to select pieces of furniture they want to keep, and Helen is worried that she won't be able to select anything because she doesn't have room to accommodate any more furniture in her existing apartment, and thus she will feel like a failure in front of her parents and siblings. Later in the conversation, she became hysterical about the pressures and deadlines she is facing at work and started sobbing: "I hope I die young, I really do!" And last week she made jokes about suicide during a meeting with her boss, something along the lines of: "That phone cord looks very attractive at this point. Just wrap it around my neck and jump."

I gave another dollar to Preacher. He was sitting outside the liquor store, with his legs splayed out in a peculiar way and a bible with red cover at his side. "Can you help the homeless, sir?" he called out as I approached. Strange how I gave him that nickname of Preacher long before I ever saw him with a bible or any other indication of religious interest. I must have known intuitively that he was obsessed with religion.

I had a dentist's appointment in the late morning. It is amazing how oppressed I feel by such appointments. The necessity of getting to a certain place at a certain time completely upsets my sense of freedom until the appointment is over and done with.

While sitting outside at the cafe, a woman walked past—a brunette in her thirties, very attractive, carrying a book. A tourist I would guess, based on her attire. We made eye contact and there seemed to be a strong, instantaneous and mutual attraction. She continued walking about ten more steps, then turned and walked back to the cafe and entered. I remained sitting outside to give her time to buy a drink, then turned and looked inside. She was sitting in the seat nearest to the door and looking directly at me so that our eyes met again. It was obvious what I was supposed to do—namely, go sit down beside her and ask her name or otherwise strike up a conversation—but instead I turned away and then sat as if paralyzed, tapping my knee idly with my finger for about ten minutes until she finally got up and left. On the way out, she crumpled up her cup and threw it into the waste bucket behind me so that it made a loud thud—a gesture of disgust.

It is so strange how I refused to approach her, especially compared to how ready I was to engage in conversation with Jamie the transsexual. Admittedly, Jamie was more aggressive than the woman today, to the point where I couldn't pretend not to notice Jamie. Is that why I approached Jamie but not the woman today? Do I require the woman to force me into doing something? Or am I just more at ease with transsexuals? If so, is this because transsexuals excite me more, or less, than regular women? I don't recall feeling much sexual excitement with Jamie. I knew he would suggest sex and I knew I would decline the offer. Perhaps I misinterpreted my state of excitement with the woman today. Perhaps I thought my excitement signified danger instead of sexual arousal. Or perhaps it really did signify danger. The danger of marriage and children and life in the suburbs.

Later, Preacher walked by and sat briefly in a nearby chair, then held out his hand to me, saying: "Help for the homeless?" I gave him the usual $1 bill, after which he shook my hand and said, "I love you. Have a nice day, sir." I felt better after this act of charity. Though I can't conduct myself properly with women, at least I can do so with transsexuals and homeless schizophrenics and quadriplegics and other outcasts of society. I decided to increase my gift to him to $2 henceforth, since that will be enough to buy him a pack of cigarettes, which he smokes like a demon.

Helen called in the evening. She has arranged appointments with the tenants union and with a lawyer, to get some advice about the legal situation involved with her moving into my apartment after I leave. I was in a foul mood, and so was nasty with her: "You've tried to hurt and destroy me ever since I met you. I want to sever all ties with you, to put some distance between myself and you and get you out of my life entirely. I won't try to obstruct your moving into this apartment, but I won't try to help you either." She wanted copies of the lease and the letter she had written to the landlord, which I agreed to let her make tomorrow morning.

I accompanied Helen to the copy shop. She was in a cheerful mood and informed me that her bladder infection had abated as of last week. I was in a good mood myself and pleased to see her, though I initially tried to hide these feelings and pretended to be angry, so as to continue the process of destroying our relationship. However, it is hard for me to remain ill-disposed to her for long, and so by the time we parted a half-hour later, I was laughing and smiling.

I broached a proposition that had occurred to me upon awakening this morning. Namely, that we simply switch apartments, and I give up the idea of moving to Basin City. Helen was distressed by this proposition, and complained that it left her more confused than ever about my intentions. As it turns out, upon further reflection I also decided it would be a bad idea. Backing off from the move is just a lazy way to avoid the hassle of moving. And laziness is precisely what I need to resist at this point.

I saw Jamie the transsexual while walking down the street. His face was a wreck, much worse than the last time I saw him, covered with all sorts of pimples and ulcerating sores. We had a brief conversation, during which he told me a tale of woe. I gave him another $20, and also my phone number and email address. I realized today that I have absolutely no desire for sex or even companionship with him. His mask of femininity had slipped badly today, and he was revealed for what he really is—namely, a boy of the streets. "I like you," was the explanation I gave in handing him the $20 bill. In fact, I'm already tired of him and don't want to see him again. In parting, he threw himself at me in a light hug, which I let happen only because I didn't know how to gracefully refuse.

Another acrimonious discussion with Helen. I accused Helen of being sexually frustrated and of wanting to emasculate me and of having no sexual desire for me and of only wanting to marry me for my money. She then accused me of planning all along to fail to carry through with my promises to marry her and give her a large sum of money so she could quit her job, and of being "criminally minded" and a "paranoid sadist" for having tricked her last year into signing the letter giving up her rights to my apartment. (The worker at the tenant's union called this letter a "sinister document".) We hung up on bad terms, but a few minutes later she called back. We apologized to one another and then agreed that there is something about the way our personalities interact that causes both a strong mutual attraction as well as a tendency to strife, and that marriage between us is out of the question. But then the conversation disintegrated into yet another round of accusations. What a relief when she finally hung up!

While sitting in the cafe, Preacher came up and dropped to his knees on the sidewalk outside, staring at the cafe window, though not directly at me.

"You fucking son of a bitch. You fucking son of a bitch." A low, angry mutter, repeating the same phrase over and over, but accenting a different word each time. I had originally planned to give him $2 the next time I saw him and so had carefully folded two $1 bills together, but then had second thoughts that such unwarranted generosity might somehow disrupt our relationship, and so carefully separated the two $1 bills from one another with my hand still in my pocket, and then pulled out just one. He stopped his muttering as I approached.

"Help for the homeless, sir?" he said, looking up at me.

"How are you doing?" I replied, handing him the $1 bill.

"Thank you, sir." Then he offered me his hand, which I shook. As I walked back into the cafe, I could hear him behind me, once again muttering angrily. By the time I sat down again, he had risen from his knees, but still faced the cafe window. The target of his curses seemed to hanging in the air just before his face, invisible to everyone except him. The muttering was briefly interrupted when he stuck his head inside the cafe door and waved to me, saying, "Thank you again, sir." I waved back, and then he walked off, having resumed his angry muttering.

I imagined myself trying to explain to someone why I moved to Basin City. "Well, you see, it's like this. I made some money in the computer business. Not a lot, but enough to give me a modest income, so that now I don't have to work for a living, provided I live somewhere cheap. So low cost of living is one reason I came here. Another is the atmosphere. Lots of old people here, and I've always felt old myself. I remember when I was ten years old, how I felt and acted fifty-five. You might say I came here to die. Gradually, of course. I'm only thirty-seven, in perfect health, and all my relatives lived to a ripe old age, so I'm probably looking at another fifty years of life on this planet. Anyway, I guess you could say I came to Basin City to wait to die." Then I reflected that, if I do carry through with my move to Basin City, at last I'll have a compelling reason to travel. Namely, to preserve my sanity.

I find myself completely unable to carry through with my plan to masturbate in the evenings instead of the mornings. Both today and yesterday, I couldn't resist indulging twice—once just after awakening, and then again several hours later. To repeat what I've probably already said previously, the problem with morning masturbation is that it leaves me sexually drained for the rest of the day, so that I easily get bored. Whereas when I don't masturbate in the morning, even the simple act of walking down the street is exciting, since I feel like I could pop an erection on a moment's notice. Though such horniness also makes it difficult to sit still for any length of time. In the evenings, by contrast, I have no desire for sex. I just want to go to sleep. It seems sick to force myself to masturbate in the evenings, instead of spontaneously masturbating in the mornings, but how else am I to avoid feeling sexually drained all day?

I dropped off a load of household junk at the thrift store on the way to the cafe. Earlier, I had spoken to the apartment manager to inquire about disposing of my futon and mattress, which I don't need now that I've determined to sleep on the floor for the rest of my life. It seems that the trash company charges $25 to haul away mattresses, which I'll be damned if I'm going to pay. Unfortunately, now that the manager knows I'm trying to dispose of both a mattress and a futon (I stupidly mentioned both in our brief conversation), she would know I was the perpetrator if she saw either of these abandoned anywhere nearby. If I hadn't alerted her, on the other hand, then I could simply drag the mattress and futon outside in the middle of the night and leave them on the sidewalk, and let someone else figure out how to get rid of them. What a pain in the ass these mattresses are! Now that I've seen the light, I can't believe everyone doesn't sleep on the floor.

I'm starting to wonder about this move to Basin City. What exactly do I plan to do with myself there, given that it will too cold to sit outdoors and there seems to be a complete lack of the sort of coffee shops to which I've become accustomed? I certainly can't see myself hanging out in honky-tonks.

I saw Jamie walking past the cafe at least three times while I was sitting inside eating a pizza. I think he noticed me, but didn't dare approach while I was still inside (perhaps fearing that I would get angry), because when I was about to leave, I saw that he had taken a seat just outside the door. I wasn't in the mood to reject his pleas for money, and so left using the back door, which he probably wasn't aware of and which leads to a cross street through an adjacent parking garage. The idea of his puzzling over how I managed to slip away made me feel gleeful on the way home. I fairly danced a jig for joy! Then I reflected more somberly on how I always have problems like this after I establish contact and show kindness to a person. I'm a great naysayer until I finally say yes once, and then I can't say anything but yes.

I'm continuing to have second thoughts about moving to Basin City. What am I going to do with myself there? Granted, I don't currently do much in West Metropolis that I couldn't do in Basin City. Somehow, though, I worry that I might get bored out of my mind. And then there is the issue of Helen. She called me today to discuss again the idea of us swapping apartments, instead of my leaving the city entirely. "The city would be very barren if you left. I don't know anyone else here," she said, and I realized then with a sudden pang that I would miss her acutely were I to move to Basin City. So I reviewed the financial situation once again, hoping that numbers might give me some clue as to what course to take.

Instead of moving to Basin City, I could move to a cheaper apartment here in West Metropolis, and then the net rent/utilities savings of a move to Basin City would amount to only about $2000 a year, and the state income tax issue could be resolved with a little creativity, so $2000 is really all I'd be saving by this move. $2000/year equates to less than $6/day. Do I get $6 per day of pleasure from living in West Metropolis as opposed to Basin City? What do I want out of life? I feel like my life is spinning out of control and I don't know what to do. The whole point of moving to Basin City was to give me a chance to drastically simplify my existence and slow down and take time to reflect, and instead this proposed move just seems to be adding to my worries.

Helen was appalled at what I am doing to my business. "How can you just let it collapse like this after all the effort you put into building it up?" I explained that I didn't feel the slightest sense of regret at what I was doing, any more than when I quit the corporation where I had worked for twelve years prior to starting my own business. That was the only professional job I had ever held, incidentally.

I strained my neck while masturbating this morning. I was pretending to be a woman being fucked missionary position, and threw my head back violently as some women tend to do in this position at the moment of orgasm. I suspect this injury might be related to my posture exercises, or perhaps to the calisthenics I've been performing recently, or even due my sleeping on a hard floor instead of a futon, since certainly I've thrown my head back violently before without incurring injury.

Here's another way to analyze the economics of a move to Basin City. Assume that Helen and myself constitute a partnership, and that if we remain in West Metropolis, she will continue to work, but if we move to Basin City, she won't work. Then a move to Basin City has a negative financial impact on our partnership, since her after-tax income will almost certainly cover the additional costs of living in West Metropolis versus Basin City. Furthermore, I will probably be happier with her working, since work tends to make her too tired to annoy me with hyperactivity.

I had another discussion with Helen regarding our proposed apartment swap. The lawyer she consulted seems to think there will be no problem. The theoretical worst case would be for the landlords to object to the move since both leases specifically state that only the lessees are allowed to live in the respective apartments, and guests can only stay a total of fifteen days in a single year, but these provisions are almost never enforced in practice. The realistic worst case would be if my landlord sent a letter by certified mail, within sixty days of our notifying them that Helen had moved back in, notifying us that Helen would not be covered by the original lease, so that if I ever officially moved out, then they could raise the rent to market levels. But if I never officially move out, then the fact that Helen was not covered by the original lease would be irrelevant. We might make the swap as soon as this weekend.

I ran into Jamie while returning from the post office, even though I was walking in a direction away from the area he frequents, precisely in order to avoid him. He had been talking to a grizzled old man ("trolls" are what hustlers call these old pederasts) but abandoned him in order to pour forth a flood of words into my ear:

"I doing pretty well. Got a job lined up. And an apartment, too. Down on skid row, but at least I'll have someplace. And then in two days I get paid. So that'll be great. Last night was pretty rough, but I finally managed to get indoors. Tonight though, I don't know. I'd like to stay at my brother's, but I need the $10 guest fee and I don't know where I'll get that..."

"I've got to meet someone," I said, and pointed vaguely down the street.

"Okay, sure, see you around," he said. Then he held out his hand and we shook as limply as is possible, just barely touching fingertips. This whole relationship is phony. At least the old troll genuinely wants Jamie's company, whereas I want nothing from him. I suppose I have gotten something from the money I've given him. Namely, better insight into his situation and how degrading it is. Being financially independent makes me forget the humiliations of poverty.

I gave another $1 to the quadriplegic. "Good luck! Good luck!" he says to me. I smile, give him the $1, wave and then walk away. I've been seeing and giving to him about twice a week as of late. I sometimes feel a tinge of annoyance at having to get up out of my seat and hand over the $1 donation, but afterwards I feel the same good feeling about myself that I get after making a donation to Preacher. Evidently I made the right decision in committing to regular donations to these two persons, and the wrong decision about Jamie.

I notified the apartment complex in Basin City that I would not be moving there, then investigated the process of formally notifying the government that my business is being shut down, and realized that the minor cost savings don't justify rushing things so much. It's simpler to just let the business continue for another year.

I feel like scales have fallen from my eyes of late, and for the first time in my life I can understand my situation clearly. I am actually very happy doing nothing with my life, except that I torment myself with guilt about not having children, and masturbating instead of engaging in sex with real women, and not being richer than I am, and not doing something to make myself famous, and not doing anything to "improve" the world. I have internalized all sorts of expectations placed on me by relatives and friends and even society at large. The real me is happy as a clam being idle. I also realize that there is no such thing as a "wasted" life, since all lives are ultimately wasted. I printed up some cards with the following quote, which seems capture my vision of life, and kept one of these cards in my shirt pocket today, and took it out every few hours to read and contemplate.

The Human Condition: "We wait to die, without wanting this wait to be shortened, and meanwhile try to avoid pain, including such purely mental forms of pain as boredom, guilt, fear, loneliness, humiliation, anxiety, depression, etc."

I attended a lecture in the evening at a bookstore run by the orthodox christian church. Afterwards, I talked to one of the young monks and asked him how he got involved with the orthodox church. He spoke in a musical mountain accent.

"Well, see, I was born back east and raised Disciples of Christ—that's my momma's religion—but then I got involved with some real bad things. I was living the hippie lifestyle. Lots of drugs. That was the worst part. I thought those things would make me happy, but they didn't. And then—this was about three years ago—me and my girlfriend was driving cross country to get here, because we had heard all the great things about this city. I don't know exactly what happened. She was driving while I slept and I guess she fell asleep. But what they told me later was that the car went off the road and I got thrown though the windshield and ended up in the hospital unconscious and with a broken back and neck. They called my momma and told her I was going to be paralyzed for life and she just dropped to her knees and started praying. Well, somehow I recovered. But I still had this terrible injury to my head. And so when I was recovered enough to walk, I would go around the town back home shouting Praise the Lord! and trying to preach to people. And then later I met these people from the orthodox church and they showed me how this was the true faith of Christ and so I joined up. I'm just a novice in the monastery and I don't really know how far I'll go. There's about ten of us there. No electricity, no running water, no telephones. Least not in the monastery itself. There's a house nearby with all them things where some of the other brothers go to work on the computer and write books and communicate with the outside world. But mostly we stick to ourselves. Though there's pilgrims come visit and stay with us for a week or so. And, of course, like tonight, we sometimes go out in the world to bring the message to people. We bring down the grace from heaven at the monastery itself but that's not enough. We also have to spread it out. But we don't stay out long. A week at the most. It's been real hard for me being here, with all these half-naked young girls running about. Just a terrible temptation. I pray for strength because I know I've been down the wrong path before and I don't want to go back. I tell you what, though, why don't you take this booklet? It explains about orthodox christianity."

I noticed a price tag of $3 on the booklet and so offered to pay this amount but he refused and I didn't insist. I reflected later that I might want to spend a week in this monastery, as a pilgrim or whatever, with a donation of $25 a day to cover my expenses. After all, there is considerable wisdom in religion, once the medieval superstition is discarded and the underlying ideas are recast in a modern scientific form.

I spent the day with Helen, including breakfast together at a restaurant run by the same orthodox christian group that operates the bookstore where I attended the lecture yesterday. According to the lawyer she consulted last week, if a landlord does nothing after being notified that a new tenant intends to move into a currently occupied apartment, then after sixty days that tenant will be covered by the terms of the original lease, including the controlled rent provision. However, the landlord also has the option of either altogether refusing to let the new tenant move in, or else allowing them in subject to the stipulation that they are not covered by the original lease. Helen and I discussed at great length the best way to notify my apartment manager so as not to cause the landlord to take one of the actions just noted. For example, I might orally tell the manager, "I just want to tell you that Helen is moving back in to this apartment. She moved out when the previous manager was working here, and since you've never been introduced to her, I thought I should notify you. She's on the original lease, so that shouldn't be a problem." Then later send a written notice: "I forgot to mention this, but since Helen is moving back in, we'd like to get her name on the mailbox again." A copy of this written notice could be used to prove that we officially notified the landlord of Helen's moving in. Also, Helen would start paying rent with her checks shortly after moving in, so the cancelled check could be used as proof of the date of her move-in.

In any case, all this scheming may be for naught, since by the end of the day we were utterly frazzled by one another's company. We wandered back and forth between her apartment and the cafe and my apartment until both of us were nervous wrecks and nothing had been accomplished. I didn't tell her so, but I am convinced now that best thing for me is to cut all my ties with her, business and otherwise, and forget about swapping apartments.

We parted ways in the late afternoon, on more or less amicable terms, because she planned to spend the night with Paul, who she now realizes will make a better long-term mate than me, given how she and I can't stand more than a few hours of each other's company per week. On the other hand, her relationship with Paul has its own set of problems. Last month, for example, after learning that Helen was again seeing me, Paul threatened to start seeing other women. Helen responded by lightly slapping his face. "I assumed that's what a woman should do when a man says something like that. That's what they do in movies, especially those old movies that Paul and I have been watching lately." Paul went berserk and called the police, who came by in person to investigate. Helen admitted to slapping Paul and also to interfering when he tried to call the police. "Those are both felonies, ma'am," the policeman warned her. Helen might easily have lied, especially since she had ugly bruises on her arms where Paul had restrained her (she bruises very easily), whereas he had no marks on his body. The police left without filing a report. Afterwards, Paul called his friends and told them how Helen had "once again" resorted to violence. Much later, he explained to her that he called the police in order to avoid resorting to violence himself.

The truth is that Helen has a way of driving her lovers to the point of insanity. She does it with me, she does it with Paul, and (by her own admission) she did it with the men she lived with prior to meeting me. All this emotional intensity sounds like the recipe for great sex, except that she has no desire for sex. "Believe me, sex is the last thing I want from Paul. In fact, I'm trying to think of some way to get out of sex tonight. I just like his apartment. I sleep better there." She alleges that the neighbors upstairs from her apartment come home late and make noises at three in the morning and wake her up. But this has been going on for two years. Why is it suddenly disturbing her sleep? The truth, of course, is that she simply can't live without a man in her life.

Later in the evening, I decided to go ahead with the move to Basin City and establish residency there, but also to retain my existing apartment in West Metropolis for at least a few more months. The ideal situation would be to have two low-rent apartments and shuttle back and forth. Retaining my West Metropolis apartment will give me time to consider where I'm going with my life. It is clear to me that I need to get away from Helen.

I gave $2 to Preacher while walking down the street with Helen. He had been cursing at someone, but desisted and walked off after receiving the $2. I saw him again later, but this time averted my gaze and put on a hard expression and otherwise pretended not to notice him, since I didn't want to make more than one $2 donation per day. Though I find it hard to switch like this from being generous to ignoring someone altogether.

I spent the afternoon talking with Jamie at a sidewalk cafe, several blocks away from the neighborhood where he usually hangs out. I had picked this cafe precisely because I'm trying to avoid him, but then he walked by and asked if he could sit down and I didn't feel right refusing. We sat talking for about three hours, with him chain smoking cigarettes all the while. I remarked, "That's another vice I've avoided." To which he replied, "You're really proud of yourself, aren't you?" At one point during our conversation, the quadriplegic in the wheelchair passed and I gave him $1. Meanwhile, I had been subtly hinting that I planned to give nothing to Jamie, despite his tale of woe. However, in the end I felt bad about being stingy, and so first offered to buy him a pastry and then gave him $10 and then gave another $5 as he stood up to leave. Though I suspect the money goes right into the pockets of a heroin dealer, for some reason I enjoy giving to this Jamie, at least sometimes. Some fragments of our conversation.

"Now you, for example, you don't give off the vibes of being gay," I said.

"I'm not gay. I try to explain that to people," he replied.

"So what do you call yourself?"

"Trans-gender."

"And yet you certainly aren't a straight man, though you act straighter than most gay men I've know, and you don't resemble a woman either. I'd say you most resemble a young girl, at the age when they first discover boys, except the boys their age haven't yet discovered girls. That doesn't mean I find you immature, though. How old are you anyway?"

"Twenty-five."

"Really? You look younger." He pulled out a photocopy of his driver's license (the original had been stolen and he couldn't afford the $10 for a replacement) which proved that he was indeed twenty-five years old.

"I feel like I've been through many lifetimes. You see that guy over there? He looks like my ex. Though my ex was more muscular. He made me throw away all my dresses and try to act straight. It took me almost a year to recover from him and get back to being myself again. Have you ever been married?"

"As I was telling you, I have this acute sense of danger. Which is why I can hang around neighborhoods like this and not get in trouble. For you, on the other hand, this neighborhood is full of temptation and bad influences."

"I know."

"As soon as I get a whiff of danger, I run. For example, if I were in a room and someone pulled out drugs, I'd sort of ease myself away, without making a big deal about how I disapprove of drugs. I don't disapprove, in fact, nor do I approve. I just try to avoid trouble, and drugs means trouble. Same thing with women, especially women of child-bearing age. First I fall in love, then we marry, then we have children, and before you know it, we've moved to the suburbs and I'm totally screwed for life."

"It doesn't have to be that way," said Jamie, shaking his head.

"Maybe not. Anyway, older women are much less trouble."

"I like older men myself. Men in their late thirties and early forties. Well-groomed men. I could never get excited by the sorts of people in these homeless shelters. Though I do like the company of men there more than that of the women. The women in those shelters tend to be old and with mental problems. At least with the men I can hold an intelligent conversation."

"One of my ex's was a ex-prostitute, by the way. She worked for an escort agency. Personally, if I were doing that sort of work, I'd work the street. At least you can see what you're getting that way."

"Oh?"

"It's an illusion that just because someone calls an agency that they are somehow better than someone you'd meet on the street."

"I guess you're right. I've done that by the way. It can be a lot of money. Some people pay as much as $100 for a night."

I changed the subject at this point. But then why had I brought to conversation round to the topic of prostitution in the first place? What sort of sex would Jamie and I engage in anyway, assuming I were to offer him $100 for a night together? Would I fuck his mouth and face? I never fantasize about him while masturbating, and yet I feel the stirrings of love for him. In any event, the risk of disease is simply too high for even protected sex.

Helen called. She complains that she can't sleep at Paul's apartment because he insists on waking at dawn to study Spanish, nor can she sleep at her own apartment because the neighbors make noise at three in the morning, and thus the only solution is to move to my apartment. I replied that I wasn't interested in discussing this issue until the end of the week, since I was still feel stressed out from our last get-together.

Another quiet day. I sat for two hours on the grass outside the public library, then spent another couple of hours sitting and reading in a cafe. I resolved to accelerate the process of shutting down my business, as it is evident to me now that my interest there has utterly vanished. In the evening, I got slightly drunk on wine while rearranging furniture in my apartment.

I saw Preacher muttering curses at the air ("Fucking asshole! Fucking asshole!") but he was on the other side of the street, so I didn't have a chance to give him anything.

I spent most of the day planning the shutdown of my software business. Upon reviewing the tax code, I discovered that there is no legitimate way to avoid state income taxes this year. In retrospect, I probably should have established residency and organized the corporation in another state several years ago, which would have meant a savings of perhaps $50,000 in state income taxes these past three years. Alternatively, I might have continued running the business another few years (phone and email orders continue to come in, despite the notice on the web site about how the business has been closed) and thus earned an additional $500,000, thereby making the issue of state taxes inconsequential. But these thoughts of what might have been make me dizzy.

Helen called and invited me to lunch, but I wasn't interested. She is staying with Paul, but the situation there is one of "madness", she says. She then tried to discuss the apartment swap, but this caused me to become agitated and so I cut the conversation short. Why does she have this power to so completely discompose me?

I carried two garbage bags full of unwanted clothes to the thrift store. This is the third such load I've carted away in as many days. It would be simpler, of course, to request that the thrift store send a truck to pick up these excess possessions, instead of my carrying them a distance of fifteen blocks, including four blocks up hill. However, my mind works in such a way that I can only reconcile myself to disposing of a limited number of possessions in a single day. (This same mental block precludes my conducting a sidewalk sale, incidentally.) Thus I'd have to request multiple truck trips, and I know my mind would rebel if I tried to bring strangers into my apartment more than once for the purpose of taking away my possessions. And so I fall back on this arrangement whereby I carry as much as possible, and only call for a truck to take away the heavy furniture.

I gave $1 to the quadriplegic and $2 to Preacher. I no longer really enjoy giving to the quadriplegic, but don't know how to stop, now that I've established this precedent of having a brief conversation and then giving $1 every time I see him. By contrast, I feel no obligation to give to Preacher, perhaps due to the emotional distance we maintain from one another. I simply hand over the money, with perhaps some fleeting eye contact or ritual exchange of words ("How are you doing?"), while he interrupts his mutterings just long enough to say "Thank you". Or maybe I just like Preacher more. There seems to be a sort of bond between us, as if we had something in common.

Salsa dancing in the evening. The first salsa dancing I've done in almost two months. I did very well, considering that none of the followers knew how to do the basic properly. I had two exciting partners. The first was a short young anglo, with face and body reminiscent of one of my ex-girlfriends from many years ago. Enjoyable to dance with but too young to be worth pursuing. The second was a tall mulatto, Brazilian I think, with voluptuous body, long hair and friendly smile. She seemed eager to be pulled close, so that our mouths were almost touching and now and then we bumped pelvises together. We danced two songs together, during which I got and lost an erection several times, as the excitement waxed and waned, then she wanted to stop and get water. I followed and got the water for her from the bar, only to discover that she was with friends, including what appeared to be a boyfriend, who smiled at me as I handed her the water and then escorted her away. So apparently she is just very friendly.

Another night of salsa dancing. About ten thoroughly enjoyable dances and perhaps twenty duds. Since the dance floor was crowded, I limited myself to leading rotating basics and cross-body leads. Though simple to lead and follow, this limited repertoire tends to expose any problems we might have in synchronizing our steps to one another or to the music, which is why so many of the dances were less than fully enjoyable. In particular, many of the women seemed to insist on breaking on a different beat than me (I break on beat two), with the result that the dance turned into a sort of wrestling match.

I spent the day with Lisa, who had called last week for the first time in several months. I picked up the tab for lunch, then we walked around the park and discussed various topics, and afterwards returned to her house, where we had the following conversation while she stood at the sink fixing soft drinks.

"I was telling my friend that maybe the reason I can't get laid is because I don't weigh enough. It seems like the fat women get more sex than me," she said. I approached her and began stroking her breasts and stomach. She made no attempt to move away.

"How'd you like to have two lovers?" I asked.

"I don't think I can. My boyfriend keeps me on a pretty tight leash. Is it because I told you about him that I seem like less responsibility and thus more attractive to you now?"

"Sort of. The reason I didn't make a pass at you before is that you want more from a man than I'm willing to offer. I'm a loner by nature."

"Then I can't believe you got hooked up with a woman who wants children," she said. I had told her earlier about Elizabeth.

"I don't think she really wants them. I get the impression that what she really wants is sex, but she can't admit it and so tells herself that she wants more than sex. You give off the opposite vibes. You say you want sex, but you really want more than sex."

"Maybe so. I told you about that boyfriend who was just a sex partner and didn't want to get more intimate than just sex now and then and how I wanted more."

The drinks were prepared, so I took mine and left off touching her. The conversation drifted onto the topics of money and jobs and my plans to move to Basin City. I mentioned that I had a computer to sell, and offered a price of $150, which Lisa quickly accepted. So we drove back to my apartment where I loaded the computer into her car.

I masturbated afterwards, but not to images of Lisa. I really don't know what to think about the pass I made. My feeling at being rejected was one of relief more than anything. For some reason I felt that I should want sex with her, even though I didn't really want it. Probably, if she had accepted my offer, I would have been impotent. And she probably realized this herself at some intuitive level.

Tango dancing in the evening. I realize that the reason I make no progress is that tango music and dancing both bore me. Or is it that they bore me because I make no progress? Regardless, I'm giving up.

I've decided to move to a less expensive apartment here in the city instead of moving to Basin City. I should probably be able to find a studio on the outskirts of skid row area for $750/month, a considerable drop from the $1272/month I'm currently paying, and not significantly more than I'd pay regardless of what city I lived in. I rearranged furniture in my apartment again in an effort to determine what can be discarded and what I definitely want to keep and also carried two more bags of clothing to the thrift store.

I've tentatively decided to forget the scheme of swapping apartments with Helen, as the swap scheme we had envisioned would require us to be on the lease together (at least temporarily), which I don't want. She'll be angry at me, of course, but then she always finds reason to be angry, and she always ends up forgiving as well.

I've found a studio apartment I like on the outskirts of skid row. The rent is $795/month. I spent the afternoon drawing diagrams of how to rearrange my furniture so as to fit into this new apartment and then played with numbers so as to get a feel for just how delightful it would be to only have to pay $795 instead of $1272 per month in rent.

Salsa dancing in the evening. I had several enjoyable experiences with beginning dancers, mostly pretty blond anglos in their mid-twenties. Then I danced four times with a heavy-set woman in her early thirties who I found very sexually attractive, though she is far from the current American ideal of beauty. Overweight, large sagging breasts, a plain but nevertheless attractive face, wearing no makeup, long brown hair pulled back into a single pony tail, wearing a peasant type dress that came down to her ankles. I bought her a drink afterwards and then we had a long conversation at the bar and then on the street outside. She is originally from Sweden and came to America several years ago to study computer graphics and now works in that field. She is currently looking for a studio apartment, but wants to pay at most $700/month. A situation that is difficult to find in West Metropolis these days, other than in the skid row area, where she is reluctant to live. She has moved three times since the start of summer, jumping between sublets.

Somehow we got onto the subject of family and I mentioned my various legal disputes with my sister. She then told how her aunt (her father's sister), who is rich, had connived to steal all of her father's money when he died, even though she and her mother, who are not rich, should have been the beneficiaries of his will. She didn't seem particularly upset at the loss of money, however. Her parents were artistic types of some sort. She tried swing dancing, but none of the men would ask her to dance. The reason is obvious to me. Namely, most anglo American men, especially the yuppie types who dance swing, find big, heavy women like her to be unattractive. I didn't tell her this, of course. I gave her my card, then asked for her phone number, which she gave me, and then I promised to call her and arrange for dinner together sometime.

For some reason, I felt compelled to lie to her twice and am now left wondering how to avoid being detected in these deceits. The first lie concerned why I was also looking for a new apartment. I made up some story about a roommate moving out recently and how I didn't want to pay for a bigger apartment than I needed. Why not just tell the truth? Namely, that I no longer need a separate office for the business. I had, after all, told her about the business being shut down, though in doing so told a second lie. "I sold it off," I said. "Sold it off to who?" she asked. And so I made up some story about selling the business to a reseller. I gave the name of the business web site along with my card, perhaps to show her that I wasn't lying about having owned my own business. But then what if she reads the ominous sounding notice on the business's web site, about "operations being suspended for reasons beyond our control"? How do I reconcile this notice with the story about having sold the business to a reseller? What I mess I've created for myself with these lies!

While waiting at the bus stop, a street person approached and held out his hand, and said: "Bus'll be another thirty minutes. We just missed that last one. Let me ask you a question. Man to man. Can I do that? You see, I'm in a real tough spot. I haven't had a decent meal all day and those shelters don't open until tomorrow and what am I going to do until then? See, I just got out of the penitentiary. I done forty-eight months there. Me and my old lady. Can't mess with her no more. If the parole officer found out I was with her and all those drugs, why I'd be right back inside. Oh, I tell you! You know how it is out here when a man's done time and doesn't have any money. It's very hard. I've applied for assistance and I've applied for food stamps and I've applied to the shelters, but in the meantime, where am I going to eat? What I'd like to get me is a real meal. You know, pancakes, and syrup, and biscuits and hot coffee and eggs and bacon. That type of food." I was moved by the idea of his gorging on these fattening breakfast foods, which for health reasons I no longer eat myself, and so gave him $6.

I had a most satisfying masturbation session using images of the Swedish woman from last night. Fantasies of ticking my face between her meaty thighs, then fucking her hard.

Mark called. The latest news is that Tony accepted a plea-bargain whereby he agreed to one more year in prison, but avoids the possibility of a five year sentence if he had pled innocent and were then convicted. Mark has officially inherited the apartment of his former neighbor who he used to help care for. A smallish studio with a limited view, which he thinks has a market value of $30,000, but which he offered to me for $25,000. (Compare these prices with my current annual rent of $15,264!) He is also thinking of buying, for $110,000, the house of the old woman he currently helps care for. All of these prices seem like excellent values, but then I've forgotten how depressed prices are in East Metropolis and how inflated they are here in West Metropolis.

I submitted an application for the apartment I viewed yesterday. The property manager pointed out that my current rent of $1272 was not at all unreasonable for a one-bedroom apartment in the current market. Still, I am convinced that it makes no sense to pay $500 extra for this one-bedroom when all I really need is a studio.

I saw Jamie and gave him $10. He told some story about being mugged this morning and robbed of $18 and of planning to move back to his hometown as soon as possible. I found him extremely attractive, as usual, but not in a sexual way. My feelings for him resemble those I had for my nieces when they were between six and ten years old. He has the same sweet-tempered, cheerful, energetic personality of girls that age, combined with the street-savvy of a grown man.

The manager informed me that studios in my current building now rent for $1150/month, which means my one-bedroom apartment would probably go for at least $1750. So if I move, I will probably never again live in such a beautiful, spacious and quiet apartment, assuming I remain in West Metropolis, and rents here remain high, and I remain frugal. This is a sobering thought. Given how happy I am in my current apartment, there is little possibility of my being made more happy by moving (other than by removing my concern about my current rent being "excessive"), but great potential for my happiness to be somehow disrupted by a move.

The process of applying for a new apartment and getting my credit and landlord references checked makes me realize how ill-advised were the various "schemes" Helen and I had been considering, for somehow being able to swap apartments without being forced to sign new leases. In the current tight rental market, all it would take would be one bad landlord reference to make it impossible for either of us to ever rent another apartment in this city. Thinking along the same lines, I also reflected that the last thing I want now is to spend the next few years tormenting myself with worries about being detected in the various shady tax avoidance schemes I've been revolving in my head this past month. And, of course, I'm still regretting the lies I told the Swedish woman. Honesty is truly the best policy in life.

Salsa dancing in the evening. I seemed to have bad energy with almost all the women I danced with. I didn't enjoy dancing with them and they refused second invitations to dance from me. In some cases, the problem was simply bad dancing by the woman. Using too much or too little muscle tone, or dancing on the wrong beat, or turning too fast, or turning too slow, or otherwise making the dancing more of a chore for me than a pleasure. Perhaps their incompetence was deliberate, once they detected that I wasn't really enjoying dancing with them. An older hispanic woman pushed me away when I tried to commence with the closed hold, so that we danced the whole song apart. She was dancing off beat (perhaps because the song was a guaguanco rhythm, which some people have difficulty with), and might have mistakenly thought it was me who was off beat, and then she jumped to the conclusion that I didn't know how to dance because I'm anglo. In any case, I was insulted by her behavior, and I made my annoyance apparent by refusing to smile or look at her while dancing or to say thank you afterwards. Why did she agree to dance with me if she was going to be so uncooperative? She seemed to dance fairly well with other men—dancing close hold much of the time, breaking correctly on beat two, and following the man's lead. A man sitting at her table threw me some dirty looks later, perhaps because I had publicly insulted the woman by not smiling at her and he didn't realize that it was she who had insulted me first.

I should point out that the beautiful $1800 rug I bought earlier this year, and whose expense I was bemoaning just a month ago, is now the centerpiece of my living room, and will also be the centerpiece of the studio I'm moving into. So, it wasn't a wasted purchase after all. And some of the other items I've been regretting having purchased are also turning out to be worth keeping.

I paid the deposit and first month's rent to the new landlord. Another prospective tenant was offering $850/month for the unit I wanted, and so I had to raise my offer to $825 a month. I mentioned to the new property manager that my current apartment would probably be renting for $1800/month after I moved out, and that it was a truly beautiful apartment—spacious, well-lit, quiet, with sweeping views of the city and bay. He inquired as to why I and my former roommate wanted out of such a nice place. I mentioned that the former roommate was an ex-girlfriend (Helen, that is), and he then laughed and said he understood completely. He said he'd moved out of apartments himself after breaking up with a girlfriend, to "escape the bad memories". I realize now that this desire to escape memories may be my real reason for my being so anxious to move, and not the $500/month I'll be saving in rent, though that is certainly a factor. These bad memories aren't just of Helen. They are also of the business that I hated so much and for so long. Incidentally, today I shredded $10,000 or so in unfulfilled fax orders for this business. Strange how I have no regrets about this foregone income.

I gave move out notice to the resident manager of my current apartment building. She then asked if I had thrown a piece of stereo equipment down the trash chute this weekend. "It got stuck in the chute and we had to spend two hours getting it unstuck. If it wasn't you then I'm going to find the person who did that and kill them!" she half-joked. I was indeed the culprit, but lied and said I wasn't, and then felt ashamed of myself afterwards. She clearly knows it was me, and so all my lies accomplish is to make her despise me as a liar. Furthermore, she may well take revenge on me by making my move out more difficult than necessary, or by falsely alleging some damage to justify withholding from my security deposit.

I advertised a moving sale this evening exclusively for the tenants of my current building. A grand total of three of perhaps fifty tenants came by to look my goods over. My experience with my software business has certainly spoiled me. I've forgotten just how hard it can be at times to find buyers, even for sellers with good merchandise and good prices. I printed off some notices to post in local cafes. Hopefully, I'll get a better response that way. The total of the asking prices of the items I'm trying to sell is about $1500. So I suppose I shouldn't grieve too much even if the thrift store does end up taking everything. In fact, it's less the money I won't be making that bothers me about giving to the thrift store, than the idea of my once precious possessions (especially the computer on which I ran my business for two years and my once beloved sausage shaped sofa) being pawed over and scorned and unappreciated by the sort of hoi polloi that frequents thrift stores. I didn't have such scruples about the items I previously donated to the thrift store (the bags of clothing and other junk), because they never were precious to me.

I spent the day preparing for the move. Throwing out rubbish, tacking up notices around the neighborhood to advertise a moving sale (I still haven't received a single phone call about this sale—it seems things are truly hard to sell these days!), calling the thrift store to discuss disposing of unsalable items (they'll take my mattress and futon, I was happy to learn), handing over the signed lease and receiving my key, calling the electric and phone companies, and so on. I'm feeling excited and happy with my new apartment: an upper floor with northern exposure, so no direct sun but huge amounts of reflected and ambient sunlight; excellent street view; closer to cafes and public transit than my current apartment; well laid out and spacious, especially considering that I don't have a bed anymore; and, not least, almost $500/month less expensive than my current apartment. The only possible defects are: there might be street noise late at night (though I've never been particularly sensitive to such noise); there might a problem getting a second phone line for internet access (I'll find out next week when the technician comes by); all of the large windows border a fire escape, making it easy for a burglar to break in (however, since this fire escape is on the front of the building, such a burglar would be running a huge risk of detection).

I took a nap in the late afternoon, since I had woken at dawn and wanted to be fresh when I met the Swedish woman at nine tonight for a date we had arranged. Dinner at a restaurant in the neighborhood where she currently lives. We had a lively discussion about food, apartments, our work history, and the English, who she detests. She lived in London for several years prior to coming to West Metropolis three years ago to study computer graphics. "The English are like people who've been pickled in formaldehyde, pasty faced and born half-dead. They don't like foreigners, and they don't like expressive people like me. I express what I'm feeling." I joked that, if what she said was true, I'd probably fit right in to English society. She replied, "Perhaps you would. You would fit like a hand in a glove! Ha, ha! That's how the saying goes, isn't it?"

The situation seems to be heading down the same path as with Sonya. As I did with Sonya, I couldn't resist offering this Swedish woman various valuable gifts shortly after meeting her. I paid for drinks on our first date, I paid for dinner tonight, and I offered to give her the computer and various other items which I'd been trying unsuccessfully to sell. I'll either bring these items by when I make my move, or else she'll come pick them up when she makes her move next month. Upon parting, I leaned forward to kiss her, but she was evasive, so finally I said, "Do you mind if I kiss you?" She turned her cheek and I lightly kissed that. The same lack of sexual response as with Sonya.

I stopped in briefly at my new apartment, at about midnight. The corridors inside the building were absolutely quiet, while in the apartment itself there was a moderate amount of street noise coming through the partially opened windows. Nothing I couldn't sleep through, however. Then, while walking around the skid-row district, I reflected on how much more joy there seems to be in the air here, as compared with the prosperous but deathly dull neighborhood surrounding my current apartment building, which brings to mind the phrase "The sadness of rich people".

I've decided to avoid Helen until the move to my new apartment is complete, lest she somehow derail things.

I moved to the new apartment. I didn't complete packing yesterday, and then had to rush to avoid a "no stopping" restriction during today's evening rush hour, so a significant amount of smaller items are still at the old apartment. I plan to carry these by hand over the next two days. I felt physically and mentally exhausted by the time I finally got back to my apartment.

I spent the day making eight trips to carry the remaining items to my new apartment. Thankfully, the burden-carrying half of each round trip was mostly downhill. Then I spent the evening scrubbing the old apartment in preparation for the check-out inspection tomorrow. I felt even more exhausted than yesterday by the time I finally quit for the day. I see now that my moving plans were completely disorganized. Clearly, I should have packed everything up the day before and then picked up the truck earlier so as to be able to move everything before rush hour yesterday, and thus avoid all this carrying by hand.

I completed the check-out inspection of the old apartment, then waited around several hours for the thrift store to haul away my "junk". Sixteen boxes of books, two books of music disks, the mattress and futon, exercise equipment, various other items. Finally, about mid-afternoon, I walked away from the old apartment for the last time, feeling euphoric at the idea of the move being complete. In looking back, perhaps I wasn't completely disorganized. After all, it took less than two weeks from the date I first decided to move to a cheaper apartment here in West Metropolis (as opposed to remaining in my current apartment or moving to Basin City or some other city) to the date this move was complete.

I felt absolutely exhausted upon finally returning to my new apartment. My muscles aching, my fingers sore, my hands covered with minor cuts, hungry from not eating enough for the past two days, tired from insufficient sleep. I took a short nap, then masturbated, then spent the remainder of the afternoon busily cleaning windows, which were covered with paint and filth, and hanging paintings. Afterwards, I had a leisurely dinner at my favorite cafe, which is only four blocks away now, instead of twelve.

It occurs to me that one reason I feel so much more comfortable in my new apartment is that, because it is a studio, women will be unlikely to contemplate moving in with me. Whereas in my previous apartment, the empty bedroom was like an invitation for a roommate.

All things considered, this was a fairly inexpensive move: $48 for the truck, $10 for a street person to help unload in time for rush hour, $100 in new furnishings and cleaning materials, $70 in phone service activation fees. These costs are more than offset by a $475 reduction in security deposit ($1400 for the old apartment versus $925 for the new), $213 income from furnishings I've sold or agreed to sell, and $475 per month savings on rent from here forward.

I did some more cleaning of my new apartment in the morning, then sold my music keyboard and various computer equipment for $60 to someone who responded to my ad. This is the only sale I've made through this ad. I'm feeling a letdown from yesterday's mood of euphoria. My muscles are starting to recover, though they still ache slightly. I gorged on food, in an attempt to gain back the weight I lost from not eating enough for the past few days.

I updated my business web site to reflect that all products are now free. I also removed all ordering instructions, including the idiotic notice that "operations have been suspended for reasons beyond our control". I've been telling people that I "sold most of the business off" and I don't want them then visiting the web site and seeing this notice and wondering what's up. I just hope no one probes me about this "sell-off", since I doubt I can maintain the lie under any pressure. I felt some sense of regret at this final step of giving away what I had been selling for so long, but this feeling soon passed.

I had a brief conversation with Mark, who I had called to give my new phone number. I told him I might be visiting in a few weeks. His former roommate Tom has also recently moved to a new apartment. One closer to the bars where spends all of his free time these days. His thinking is that this way he won't have to drive after getting drunk. He can just stagger home.

Jamie passed by the cafe while I was sitting inside, saw me, stopped, and kissed the window. I beckoned him to come in. His complexion has finally cleared, so that his face now resembles that of a girl's, or maybe he just had on heavy makeup. The rest of his appearance was grubbier than usual, however. Filthy hands, pants held together by masking tape, a beat up jacket. And he had a new haircut. Some sort of incompetently performed ghetto mop top. I gave him a $20 bill shortly after he sat down.

"You always do that," he said.

"I like you," I replied. A true enough statement, though I wasn't particularly comfortable to be seen with him. I noticed that the pretty brown-skinned waitress seemed appalled to see me sitting with this disheveled street person of dubious gender.

"It's been a pretty good week for me. I got two boom boxes, but both were broken. So I don't know. And I got some new shoes. See? They're really nice. But I don't know about this city. I've been staying in the shelters mostly. Tonight, it's like, will I get in or won't I? I'm thinking about going back to my hometown. But then there's my brother, who's dying of AIDS. I don't want to leave because of him. But then the hotel manager there is really getting uptight about not letting me in unless I pay my guest fee. And one of the shelters won't let me in unless I have an ID. You saw how I have the photocopy of my ID. But they want the real thing, and I don't have that. I just don't want to leave my brother. It would be like what happened with my mother. She and I were just starting to get along okay. I was with my fiancée and she had my son, so I called my mom, but then I didn't get around to getting down there because of something or another and the next thing I knew, I get this call, and they're telling me she's dead. So she never got to see her grandson. We were doing real well then. We had a house and I was working in a television repair shop. They had me replacing tubes because I had the least seniority. God, I hated that! All these TV's full of dead roaches and shit. So, now it's like, what do I do? What time is it, anyway? I got my internal clock all screwed up. I'm like, what time is it? Do I seem sort of tweaky tonight? That's how I feel. Sorry, I mean I don't like to just split like this, but I think I gotta go. I mean duty calls, you know. I've got to get down to the shelter before they start letting people in."

"Take care, Jamie."

"Thanks, you too."

He seemed to feel guilty at leaving so soon after I gave him the $20, as if I were paying for his time and he was somehow shortchanging me. In fact, I was anxious for him to leave, and hadn't intended that the $20 be payment for his company. The truth is that I don't know why I give him money. As for what he told me tonight—about once having a girlfriend and a son and a house and a job in a television repair shop—I don't how much of this to believe. And is he really off heroin, or will my $20 be squandered on drugs? Advice from me to someone in his situation is useless and annoying, and so I refrained from giving any.

I had been thinking of him earlier today, and imagining perhaps inviting him to my new apartment to spend the night, with us sleeping separately, and with no obligation on his part to perform sexually. Though if he wanted to suck me, I wouldn't refuse. I wouldn't have dared bring him to the old apartment, lest the neighbors be offended by my bringing street people into the building, but the new apartment is a different story. After all, the surrounding neighborhood is skid row. But our brief meeting in the cafe this evening shattered this idea about my wanting us to become closer. Quite the contrary. I think I'd like more distance between us.

I spent the day fixing up my new apartment and notifying friends, relatives and other acquaintances of my new phone number. It struck me how few people I keep in touch with. Other than relatives, the only people close to me are Mark and Helen.

Helen took the news of my move as I had expected: "Traitor. That's what you are. A traitor. Go ahead and give me the address. I'll come there once—one time only—to pick up my things, and then I'll never see you again. You knew I wanted that apartment you were in but you were determined not to give it to me. And don't try to make excuses, either." Then she said she had an urgent need to go to the bathroom and so hung up the phone.

When I called my sister, to tell her of my apartment move, for once she answered in person instead of screening the call with an answering machine. She refused to let me speak to my father, however: "Let's put it this way. I'll tell him you called, and if he wants to call back, then he can do so. He's pretty disgusted with you and so I'm not sure he even wants to talk to you." My uncle has likewise had no luck recently in getting through to my father. My father's two best friends, by contrast, speak to him regularly by phone and may even visit him soon. He seems happy, as best as they can tell, given his limited abilities to speak.

I ran into Jamie on the street and walked with him for a while, but didn't give him any money. We had a rushed sort of conversation, with him doing most of the talking. Something about him once spending $2000 a day several years ago, back when he was earning big money working with computer networking and television repair, and writing a check in the morning then taking out more in the evening from the cash machine, and being too young to know what he was doing, and how he couldn't get into the shelter last night, and so spent the night with a friend who made him pay for all the drinks and food. "That's the thing about this city. You don't want to do people favors because once you do they're always at you for more," he said. A comment which would apply equally to the relationship between him and myself, of course. Now he is thinking of moving to Hawaii, where welfare supposedly pays $1800/month. There was tension in the air upon our parting, as if we are sick of one another.

I called Elizabeth at work in the late afternoon. She broke up with her boyfriend—the one with whom she was considering marriage and children—almost two months ago, shortly after our last conversation. "I was always feeling angry with him. And so things just finally ended. Ever since I've been working on unresolved conflicts from my childhood, trying to see why none of my relationships last. I definitely know that I want a relationship. And I'm back doing ballroom dancing and foster parenting for stray kittens from the animal shelter. I'm starting to like that very much. Maybe I like it more than I would having children. Funny you should call, though. I was just thinking of calling you yesterday." We agreed to have dinner together later this week.

The Swedish woman returned my phone call from last week. "Are you sure you want to give me the computer?" I was snappish with her for some reason. Perhaps because I was just feeling tense, perhaps because of the lack of sexual desire she showed on our last date, perhaps because I no longer need her now that I plan to get back together with Elizabeth, perhaps because I resent the idea of giving various valuable computer equipment (which I had advertised for sale for about $500) to someone I barely know and who I no longer plan to actively pursue as a potential lover. Despite not really wanting to talk to or see her, I encouraged her to come pick up the items this weekend. Then I told her I was about to go out, and the conversation ended abruptly.

A terrible night of salsa dancing. I danced only twice, both times with incompetent beginners who went flying out of control on the turns. Ten or so women declined my invitation to dance, perhaps because they had seen me flailing about with these beginners earlier and thought I was the cause of the problem. I felt utterly disgusted and left early.

I called Helen, who remains upset about my move: "Traitor. You've ruined things for me. I was planning to use that apartment to trap a rich investment banker husband. That's right. It was going to be my bachelorette pad. If you knew anything, you'd know that these yuppies are very appearance-conscious. How am I supposed to attract a stockbroker when I'm living in the skid row district? Don't make excuses. You've been wanting to ruin my life all along. That night, after you told me what you'd done, I could barely sleep. I literally woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. It was as if darkness had descended on my life. That apartment was the one ray of hope I had left in life. It was like a flower that I had been cultivating, and then you came along and crushed it under your heel. I thought to myself, he's got me trapped in a dark basement for the rest of my life. I'll never see the light again. How am I supposed to meet someone nice living in that dump I'm in now? All I'm meeting now is men like you and Paul. Don't try to make excuses for what you've done! I talked to a lawyer and he said our plan would work, so don't try to say I don't understand the law. The idea of me moving to skid row! I looked in the skid row area two years ago and every place I looked at there was wretched. Traitor. That's your name from now on: Traitor." After much pleading, I finally managed to get her to agree to meet me for lunch, though later I had to cancel due to a repairman coming by to fix some problems with the plumbing.

A wonderful night of salsa dancing, especially with various older women. What a contrast with last night!

A telephone solicitor called trying to sell newspaper subscriptions. "Fuck off! How did you people get my number so soon? Fuck off!" I roared into the handset. "Oh, my God!" I heard him laughing as I hung up. Afterwards, I spent some time imagining myself as the plaintiff's lawyer in a class-action suit, asking for a billion dollar punitive damages judgement against this newspaper, with the money to be distributed to anyone who's ever been disturbed by one of these telephone solicitations: "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, this is not about money. This is about hatred and revenge." I have no idea why I exploded like this, especially since I was in a cheerful mood both before and after this call.

Another brief conversation with Helen, regarding when she is to come by this weekend. "I had a dream last night about that apartment, which is lost to me now forever. I was living there and had guests. My family, I believe it was. They were sitting in the living room, which was filled with furniture of my choosing. Tasteful things, in other words. Nothing of yours. Everything refined and elegant, the sort of environment I like. And then there was this horrible, jarring flashback. Something went wrong. The tea kettle starting screaming hysterically, or else boiled over, or maybe the handle on the stove broke off. I don't remember what it was exactly, except that it reminded me of you. It was like switching scenes in a movie between two opposing views of life. On the one hand, we have refinement and elegance: me. On the other hand, we have a studio apartment in the skid row district: you," she said.

"Wait until you see the place before passing judgement. You might want to move down here yourself," I said.

"I don't think so. Also, I hope you realize how awful this thing you did was, and that you are not forgiven."

Dinner with Elizabeth. She gave me copies of the developed photographs we had taken on our trip to the desert, except that there were no pictures of her: "I look fat in all my photos and so I don't want to show those." A long conversation about her ex-boyfriend and how she never felt comfortable with him, and how he was always telling her what to do, and how she suspected him of being a liar, and how he accused her of wanting him to be a "lap-dog", and so on. She continues to be fixated on this idea of "locking down" a man now, so she won't be alone when she is sixty-five, assuming she lives that long. I told her I was seeing Helen off and on, but not having sex with her. I said nothing about how Helen and I had almost gotten married.

After dinner, we stopped by my apartment. Elizabeth lay down on the rug which I now use for my bed, and I lay down beside her and we started kissing. But when I tried to undo her dress she stopped me.

"I'm not ready," she said.

"It's not like we just met," I said.

"I'm not sure I want to return to the situation as we left it. I wasn't satisfied then, and unless something has changed I won't be satisfied now."

"How weren't you satisfied?"

"I've told you before. I want to live with someone. I want a house in the country, with a garden. I want to be married. I'm just sick of this life I'm leading."

"You'll be sick of the house in the country, too, after living there a few years. You'll always be discontented. It's your nature to be restless."

"Thanks a lot."

"It's not something good or bad. It's just the personality you were born with. A restless nature. I notice you're no longer talking about children."

"I'm not sure about that anymore."

"The question is not so much wanting children, as whether you want to spend the effort and time and money to raise them. It would be one thing if you could have the kid and then give it to your mother or my mother to raise. Raising a kid yourself is lots of work."

"I want to live with someone."

"Why?"

"I just want to. I was thinking of traveling the other day, and how when I was younger I would travel alone, and now that idea just doesn't appeal to me. I want to be with someone else."

"You don't have to live with someone to be close to them. We're only two miles away from one another, Elizabeth. What advantage would there be to living together?"

"Other couples live together!"

"Living separately is a luxury that not everyone can afford. Think carefully, think very carefully. Do you really want me around all the time? When you live alone, you live in the neighborhood you choose, which might not be skid row."

"Definitely not."

"You decide how to decorate your apartment, you decide what music to listen to. The historical norm is whole families living in a single room. Mom and dad and grandparents and eight kids and dirty diapers everywhere. Like that immigrant family we passed on the way up the stairs."

I had been rubbing her crotch through her pants as we talked, which seemed to get her aroused. She rolled onto her side and we resumed kissing. I then undid the buttons of her shirt and kissed her breasts for a while, then we both undressed and fucked. I had some difficulty getting an erection, until she took my cock in her hand and tugged on it, which brought it to stiffness in short order. Her cunt was wet, but more tight than usual, so that I had to insert myself gradually. I had excellent control, so was able to bring her to orgasm with little difficulty, after about ten minutes of slow missionary position fucking. My own orgasm occurred about a half-minute after hers. I waited until her body stopped shaking, then sped up my thrusting, then pulled out (since I wasn't wearing a condom) and came on her stomach. We lay quietly in each others arms for another hour, then she had to leave, since her car had to be moved by two am to allow for street cleaning. I asked her if she wanted me to accompany her back to her apartment, but she replied no. Something about "not being ready to go to that level yet." I walked her to her car and promised to call tomorrow morning.

Another call from a telephone solicitor. At least that's what I think he was, since I didn't wait to let him identify himself.

"Hello?" I say. I hear the clicking sound of one of those voice-activated switches, used by telephone solicitors to avoid wasting their time while waiting for the phone to be answered. Of course, they don't care how much of my time they waste.

"How are you doing today, sir?" A male voice, high-pitched and meek and mild in tone, all the better to provoke my fury.

"What do you want?" I snarl, in a menacing tone.

"Are you alright, sir?"

"What the fuck do you want?!"

"Why are you speaking to me this way, sir?" At this point I hang up, feeling pleased with myself. Later, I regretted not having thought to yell "I'll speak to you any goddamn way I choose, you fucking son-of-a-bitch!" and then to hang up.

Elizabeth called while I was preparing to take a nap, wondering why I hadn't called this morning, as I had promised to do. I lied and told some excuse about how I thought I had promised to call tomorrow rather than today. The truth is that I deliberately decided not to call, because I didn't have anything to say. Her intuition probably detected that I wasn't being truthful, but she didn't pursue the issue. Though I suspect she will pursue it the next time we get together. We arranged to meet at the museum tomorrow afternoon.

Helen came by to sort through the fifteen boxes of her possessions that I have stored in my closet. She took two boxes away and filled another two with items to be given to the thrift store. I told her about my getting back together with Elizabeth.

"I was thinking of us getting back together, the way you were pleading so to see me. We might have worked things out," said Helen.

"You know I love you. But I can't tolerate living with someone who doesn't want to have sex with me," I said.

"I can't go through another year like this! You and your betrayal and then Paul and then work. You don't know the stress they are putting me through at that place! I asked for a raise and they just laughed. I might have to go back and live with my parents again."

The latest dispute between her and Paul occurred when she mentioned that she might be attending a book-signing by one of her former graduate school literature professors. "How embarrassing if she asks what I'm doing now. Imagine! Telling her that I'm working as a low-level flunky in a corporation," said Helen. Paul frowned, then said: "I'm not sure I want to be associated with someone who doesn't like her job." Helen was still seething about this incident two days later.

I visited the art museum with Elizabeth in the afternoon, using some free passes she had obtained. I couldn't resist offering up my usual philistine comments: "I always prefer the gift shop to the museum itself. At least there you can paw over the merchandise. None of this hysteria about not touching things. Also, everything in the gift shop is improved over the originals. There is something so arrogant in this notion that the original is superior to the version in the gift shop. This idea that great artists have a monopoly on taste and intelligence. It's like a writer refusing to work with editors, or a musician refusing to work with recording engineers."

Elizabeth discussed her trip to see her family this past summer. A complete fiasco, so that she doesn't want to visit again for Thanksgiving or Christmas. She was bored by her brother and his family, driven crazy by her mother (who has no hobbies or female friends, and wants a lover but not an old one, and so ends up watching television all day), and to top it all off, caught food-poisoning and had to be brought to the hospital.

We had another bout of excellent sex in the early evening, followed by a long discussion about children.

"Why do you think I don't want children?" she asked.

"You do want them. Almost everyone wants them to some extent. You just don't have an overwhelming desire for them," I replied.

"That's probably true."

"People have children for various reasons, most of which don't apply to you. They may be competing with siblings or friends to see who can have the most children. There may be heavy pressure from their family: guilt trips, threats to disinherit, disapproval. Peer pressure. They can't participate in activities with friends who have kids. They want to be part of the suburban lifestyle. They don't know what else to do with themselves. These aren't particularly pretty reasons, I should note, which is one reason modern middle-class families are so dysfunctional. Everyone says they want kids, and they love their kids, but the fact is they don't really know why they had kids, and the kids detect it. The kids realize they are useless, no better than pets, and being someone's pet is a condition that humans find degrading. It was different with our ancestors. They had children to provide free labor on the farm, or to care for them in their old age. Children were an economic asset. Today, for middle-class Americans at least, they are an economic drain. People will tell you they love their children and having kids is the best thing that ever happened to them, but they may be trying to convince themselves as much as trying to convince you. Imagine the alternative. Imagine a parent thinking, Gee, I wish I had never had these kids. I wish I had aborted them all. People are ashamed to feel this way. And, of course, repressing a thought doesn't make it go away. Instead, it just festers in the subconscious and eventually emerges in some sort of irrationality. Which is why many parents talk about loving their children and then act as though they hated them. This phenomenon of people not wanting kids is not new, incidentally. In the late Roman Empire, for example, people had to be coerced and bribed into having kids. Apparently, children were as economically disadvantageous then as they are now in our society. There is also the issue of what happens to people like you and me when we have kids. There's this slippery slope effect. Even if we tried to resist, we would probably find ourselves forced to live a suburban lifestyle. Which would make me miserable, and probably you too. Now having children and then giving them up for adoption is another story. That I might consider. You get the satisfaction (if any) of knowing you've produced biological offspring, without the hassle of raising them."

"I don't understand that logic at all. I would never consider adoption. Why go through the trouble of pregnancy, if you're just going to give the children away? A woman doesn't think that way. Though I do regret not having had children."

"If you had had children as a single mother and then given them up for adoption, you wouldn't have these regrets."

"I'd have even more painful regrets at not knowing how my own children were doing."

"You could maintain contact with them. There are plenty of couples that would be anxious to adopt a healthy baby of yours. You'd have the bargaining power to demand they let you maintain contact, as part of the agreement to give the child up for adoption."

"Maybe."

Helen called in the morning. She was feeling stressed from work, and so took a sick day off, and wanted me to come by and "comfort" her. We had breakfast together at a nearby restaurant, and discussed our relationships with the opposite sex.

"I've decided that you would make a better mate than Paul and so, yes, I accept your marriage proposal," Helen said at one point.

"We're spiritually married. And we'll be together for life. I love you much more than Elizabeth. But I have sexual wants and needs, Helen. I can't live with anyone, I've decided, and I can't limit myself sexually to you. It's too unsatisfying," I said.

"That's okay. You can marry me and still see Elizabeth. I'll agree to that."

After breakfast, we went shopping together at the grocery store, then stopped off to view an apartment for rent, which we agreed was small, dark, dirty, poorly laid out and otherwise vastly inferior to my new apartment. The rent, however, is the same as what I pay ($825/month) due to the location being slightly more "upscale" than that of my apartment.

We then returned to Helen's apartment, where we lay on the bed and started hugging and kissing. During a break, I traced my finger lightly along her lips. Whereupon, Helen took my finger inside her mouth and sucked at it. So I unzipped my pants and pulled out my cock and balls and sat up and pushed her head down into my crotch. I was highly aroused, and yet had no strong desire to come, and thus we were able to continue the sex for several hours. I offered to lick her cunt, but she was concerned about "bladder infections", so I had to confine myself to rubbing her crotch through her pants and sucking her breasts. I left in the late afternoon, with neither of us having reached orgasm, and neither of us particularly wanting an orgasm either.

"I wish you could stay," said Helen.

"I told you before that I had already arranged to meet Elizabeth."

"The other woman..."

"You know I love you. But I want real sex and you won't give it to me."

"I know, and I know we agreed in the marriage proposal that you could have a lover. Though maybe someday I'll be fixed. You can be a very good lover when you want to be. If anyone can make me have an orgasm it'll be you. I liked the way we did sex today. It was tantric and spiritual, without all that banging."

"We could sex like that always, if you weren't so rebellious."

"I am rebellious! Very rebellious. It's my worst fault. I think that's why I'm attracted to the idea of having a master. I need someone to help me control my rebelliousness."

After leaving Helen, I confirmed my date for the evening with Elizabeth, then showered and brushed my teeth and even shaved a second time, to remove all traces of Helen's scent, since I suspect that Elizabeth has an extremely acute sense of smell.

While walking to the bank, I ran into Jamie, who insisted on accompanying me. I didn't want to take money from the cash machine and then give none to him, and so just kept walking as I passed the bank, instead of stopping there as I had originally intended. He told me a long rambling hard-luck story. His face is full of sores because he rubbed it with an abrasive to remove all the hair; his brother is dying of AIDS; etc. When we arrived at the base of the hill, it dawned on him that I didn't plan to give him anything. "Bye, and you take care," he said as he backed awkwardly away, with both of us feeling somewhat embarrassed by the situation. As soon as he was out of sight, I walked back from whence we had just come, but down a side-street so as not to encounter him on the way.

I met Elizabeth after work and we had a late dinner at a restaurant. The conversation was on various topics, including a dispute at her workplace over her being asked to answer the phone while the secretary is out (which she finds demeaning) and my problems coming up with a "cover story" to explain how I make a living (I don't like telling people I'm rich).

Back at her apartment, we played for a while with the new kitten, which she is taking care of temporarily as part of the "foster parent" program of the animal protection society, then we climbed into bed and fucked for about ten minutes, culminating in a powerful orgasm for her, so that she cried out with pleasure (she is usually silent during sex), and an orgasm for myself immediately following. As usual, I withdrew just before orgasm so that my semen shot onto her stomach.

"That's three in a row," she said, referring to orgasms. "Really, it's pretty amazing. Apparently, you've figured out my secret."

We then had a merry discussion of what her friends and relatives must think of me—a man with neither a car nor a job, and living in a studio apartment in the skid-row district. Her mother's comment was: "Why do you keep meeting men without jobs? I thought I raised you to be smarter than that." All this mirth seemed to get Elizabeth aroused again, for, while still laughing, she took my hand and placed it on her pubic mound. I had no desire for further sex myself, and so, instead of using my cock, I brought her to orgasm manually.

During the night, Elizabeth was woken several times and I was woken once by the whining of the kitten, who hates being locked in the bathroom. She'll be taking him back to the animal society this weekend, to be neutered and then offered up for adoption.

I called Helen at work.

"I'm very sick, and it's because I can't sleep at that apartment of mine anymore. The only alternatives at this point are, either we swap apartments and you buy a futon because I can't sleep on the floor, or else I stay in a hotel for a month until I find another apartment," she said.

"What's happened with you?" I said.

"I'm sick and it's because I can't sleep!"

"Why don't you come spend tonight with me?"

"You have to get a futon first. I am not sleeping on the floor."

"I don't sleep on the floor. I sleep on a sheet on top of the rug. You've never even tried it. Believe me, it's as comfortable as a futon."

"I refuse to sleep on the floor, can't you understand that? Also, I've already made reservations for a hotel for tonight. The only remaining question is whether I book reservations for an entire week."

"A hotel! How much is that going to cost?"

"It's none of your business. Anyway, I have to go to a meeting."

I felt disgusted with this inability of hers to sleep by herself. I surmised that the real cause of her agitation is that I left her yesterday in order to spend the night with Elizabeth. Though that's her fault, as far as I'm concerned. If she had wanted to keep me, she should have taken steps years ago to grow up and overcome her inability to enjoy normal sex.

She called again in the late afternoon, while I was out, and left a message. Her voice on that message seemed much calmer.

I called Elizabeth in the late afternoon. She had an art class this evening and so we weren't able to get together, which pleased me just fine, since her company is beginning to bore me. I suspect my company is also beginning to bore her.

"Why don't I call you tomorrow about getting together this weekend?" I suggested.

"Are we planning to get together this weekend? You have to ask me, you know," she replied.

"Would you like to get together this weekend?"

"Maybe. What did you have in mind?"

"Well, we can always go dancing. How would you like to have dinner this weekend?"

"Oh, I don't know. When?"

"Whenever is convenient for you."

"Whenever is convenient for me?"

"Either Friday or Saturday, whichever you'd prefer."

"Well, there was this concert I wanted to go to on Saturday..."

"Why don't I call you tomorrow and we can discuss it then."

"Alright."

We have been down this path often enough that I can guess what she is thinking. Namely, that I am just using her for sex and not "giving enough" and she wants "more". The fact is, neither I nor any other man can do anything about her vague, generalized dissatisfaction with life. She might be able to achieve serenity via philosophy, she might achieve it as part of the natural process of aging and its associated hormone changes, or she might never achieve it. In the meantime, all I or any other man can give her is good sex and companionship, and thereby relieve all of her sexual dissatisfaction and some of her loneliness. Many men can't satisfy her sexually, because she only enjoys achieving orgasm from intercourse (as opposed to via manual manipulation or cunnilingus), but she does not achieve orgasm easily through intercourse. She has admitted that no one before me had discovered the "secret" of always bringing her to orgasm. So I'm certainly fulfilling my "sexual duties." As for loneliness, she senses, correctly, that I am not really emotionally intimate with her the way I am with Helen. But this is because we have such different world views, which is not something either of us can easily change. Furthermore, she denies me emotional intimacy as much as I deny it to her. Time and time again, she has requested that I not discuss some topic because she finds it offensive, so that we end up reduced to discussing trivia. She has only herself to blame if I am often bored by her company or if I fail to fully open my heart during the limited conversations we do have.

A conflict is brewing between us, I can tell.

An unattractive homosexual tried to pick up several men in succession at the cafe, including myself, but we all declined his proposition. A monkey-like creature he was, with ugly sores on his neck, yellow teeth, dirty clothes and two days growth of hair on his shaved head and face. I let him engage me in conversation on the off-chance that he might be an intellectual fallen on hard times, but no, his intelligence was as mediocre as his appearance.

When I called Elizabeth at work, we had a confrontation, almost exactly as I had anticipated.

"I just feel like things are back where they were before..." she said with a sigh.

"What do you mean?" I said.

"You know what I mean."

"I want to hear it in your words."

"I just feel like you're not giving me the things I want."

"You're implying that I am deliberately withholding something you want. In fact, I can't give you the emotional intimacy you want. Our personalities are too different. I knew this on our first date. I knew we could never achieve deep emotional closeness."

"But why is that?"

"Our personalities are simply too different, and personality is not something a person can change. The problem isn't all mine, either. You don't give me the closeness I want."

"Has any woman ever been close to you?"

"Yes, Helen."

"Why didn't you stay with her?"

"I've told you before. We can't have sex. Look, Elizabeth, life is short. I give you something that I know you want. I don't mind you dating other men to get emotional closeness. I don't even mind you having sex with them, as long as there is no risk of disease. What I don't understand is this spiteful, all-or-nothing attitude whereby, because I don't give you everything you want in a man, you'd rather be alone. Would you be happier without me?"

"I don't know."

"Do I make you feel less lonely than you were two weeks ago?"

"Yes."

"Do I satisfy you sexually?"

"Yes."

"And how about the man you dated this summer, after the first time we broke up?"

"He gave me emotional intimacy but couldn't satisfy me sexually. I don't know why. It just never worked."

"And how did that lack of sexual satisfaction make you feel?"

"Frustrated."

"So why don't you let me take care of your sexual needs, and let someone else take care of your emotional needs?"

"I can't do that! I feel like a cheat, like I'm betraying both men. How would you feel if I was dating another man while seeing you?"

"It wouldn't bother me in the least."

"That isn't very reassuring. How do I know you're not doing the same thing?"

"I have sexual needs, just like you. You fully meet my needs. I want to continue seeing you. Assuming you don't ruin things, I see no reason to stop seeing you. I certainly wouldn't give you up with no replacement in mind, which is what you seem to be planning to do. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

"It sounds so cold-blooded, the way you talk."

"I'm just being sensible. The question is, are you happier with me or without me?"

"I want more!"

"How will getting rid of me give you more?"

"I might meet someone else if I didn't have you."

"Oh?"

"Like this last man, I met him when I was eating out alone. If I had been with you, I wouldn't have met him."

"But you were still seeing and having sex with me when you met him! Just not that particular night. Perhaps you want more time to go out by yourself? We spent three night together last week. Is that too much?"

"No, that's not what I'm saying."

"Suppose you break up with me. What do you plan to do then to meet another man?"

"I don't know."

"Then why break up with me? Perhaps you think sexual frustration will spur you to find another man, the way hunger is said to be a spur for struggling artists?"

"No, I'm not saying that."

"Then why give me up? Life is short. Why not grab what pleasure you can while you can? I'm just asking that, until you meet a man who meets all of your needs, you let me continue to please you sexually."

"I just can't live like that! It's like my homosexual friend said. We're just fuck-buddies!"

"We're sex partners. I don't like that term fuck-buddies."

"Whatever."

"Do you want us to break up or not?"

"I don't know."

"You're aren't the first woman I've been lovers with, and assuming you decide to throw me out, you won't be the last. If you throw me out and I then meet another woman, I won't come back to you if you change your mind later."

"Go ahead and date other women. I don't care what you do!"

"I'd like to know how things stand between us, so I'll know how to proceed. Or should I give you some time to think?"

"I suppose so."

"Okay then, I'll wait a while, a few weeks, and then give you a call."

"Sure. Bye."

"Bye."

Sometime later, she called back and suggested we get together tomorrow night after all. So, it seems that she has changed her mind about our breaking up, just as I had expected would happen.

Between the time Elizabeth told me she wanted us to break up and when she called back to cancel this break-up, I followed up on a response to a personals ad which I had placed last month, the headline for which had read "sex toy wanted". We had a brief conversation, which concluded with the woman saying she wasn't interested in our meeting. At one point she had asked: "what do you do?", meaning: "how do you earn a living?" I explained, in a confused and no doubt suspicious sounding manner, that I used to run a software business but sold it recently and presently am taking some time off. She then asked where I lived. At first I replied "downtown", but this answer prompted further inquiries, since downtown is not known as a residential district. To clarify, I gave the cross streets nearest to my apartment, whereupon she exclaimed: "Oh, yes, some of the children in my classes [she teaches elementary school] are from the skid-row district." I got the impression she wasn't too impressed by this location.

A disappointing night of salsa dancing. A crowded nightclub, but plenty of space on the dance floor, due to the shortage of women. I only managed to dance once, then left early. I spent the next hour sitting in a cafe, snacking on a brownie and oatmeal cookie, and watching the traffic into and out of a strip club across the street.

Helen called and we had lunch together. She revealed the real reason she had gone to stay in a hotel this past week. Namely, her most recent "altercation" with Paul. The trouble began on Sunday. Helen had wanted to get some work done, but Paul insisted they fritter the time away enjoying one another's company: "Our relationship is more important than a job. Jobs come and go. Our relationship is forever." On Monday, however, Paul was confronted by his supervisor at his temporary job, who expressed displeasure at how little work Paul had accomplished in the past two months. He came home determined to henceforth make work his number one priority. Both he and Helen went to bed early that night, with him sleeping on the sofa, since he gets restless when they sleep together without having had sex beforehand. (I asked about her sex life and Helen replied: "I can't remember when we last did it. It's so unmemorable. It's like asking me the last time I had a bowel movement.") It seems that Helen didn't get enough to eat that night, so that she woke at four in the morning, feeling famished. While rummaging in the refrigerator looking for a snack, she made some noise, which caused Paul to wake up.

"I have a job to do, and I can't have you waking me up at four in the morning. Why don't you just move back to your own apartment for a month?" he snapped.

"Oh! So now you know what it's like to be woken up when you're trying to sleep and have to go to work the next day!" Helen replied.

"Why don't you get the hell out of here!" Aside from being hungry, Helen was also feeling angry from stress at her job. This anger was suddenly redirected towards Paul.

"You know what you are? You're a fraud. Nothing but bluster. Like a politician. You put on this big show of being so important and then when it comes time to do anything, you can't perform. You can't make it in the world. You're a failure at your job. You're nothing but a fraud!"

Matters continued to escalate, reaching a climax when Paul grabbed her key chain and removed from it the keys to his apartment, in response to which "act of provocation" Helen slapped him hard. Paul retaliated by knocking Helen down and "beating her silly". Helen made me feel a bump on the back of her head which had allegedly resulted from this "beating". Paul then called the police. A very stupid move, as Helen pointed out to him, since he was the perpetrator of most of the physical violence and therefore the one most likely to be arrested.

Helen had composed herself by the time the police arrived, and tried to turn the situation into a sort of farce: "My, my! Four of you! Well, come on in and make yourselves comfortable. Look, Paul, these four nice gentlemenn decided to pay us a visit." The police handcuffed Paul and took him aside, so as to get his and Helen's statements separately. They then talked among themselves.

"You think we ought to book 'em?"

"Sounds like a four-thirty-six to me."

"If you go by the rules, it counts as a two-thirty-one."

"Two-thirty-one means three days mandatory lockup."

Helen speculates that the police were trying to scare Paul by handcuffing him (and not Helen) and by this talk of three days in jail. If so, their tactic seemed to work, as Paul was visibly shaken. In the end, it was agreed that the police would give Helen a ride back to her apartment and there would be no charges filed.

By then it was dawn on Tuesday, the day Helen and I spent together. She hadn't wanted to tell me then of the events of the night before, because she was ashamed of returning to me "on the rebound", after having been "beaten" by Paul. I wouldn't have been able to notice this "beating" without being told of it, since there were no marks, other than the bump on the back of her head, which was hidden under her hair. That night, as well as the two subsequent nights, Helen stayed in a nearby hotel (at a cost of $120 per night).

Meanwhile, Paul had called Helen's sister and warned her that Helen might be contemplating suicide, based on her ominous talk about planning to stay in the finest and most expensive hotel in the city and "when the money runs out...well, who knows?" Helen's sister became frantic and called around and finally managed to reach Helen at work. Helen described to her sister what had happened, and then mentioned that she had considered spending the night with me (since she can't sleep at her own apartment due to noise from the neighbors upstairs) but that I no longer have a bed or futon. Helen's sister became furious upon learning that I gave away the futon (worth at most $100 back when it was new), which was hers and supposedly on loan to me and thus not mine to give away, even though she hasn't asked about it in over three years.

Helen and I parted amicably, after having spent much of the day together, as I had already made plans to spend the evening with Elizabeth.

While Helen and I were still inside the cafe, Jamie had passed and knocked against and then waved through the window. Helen immediately guessed who he was, since I had previously told her about him.

Movie then dinner at a restaurant with Elizabeth. Back to my apartment afterwards, at about midnight. I was too aroused to properly control myself, and so came just as Elizabeth was approaching her orgasm. As I wasn't wearing a condom, I had to withdraw as I came, and so Elizabeth was left stranded. I remedied the situation as best I could by hurriedly wiping my fingers free of semen and then bringing her off manually.

I slept well, though realized, by a sort of empathy, that the floor really is far less comfortable in some respects than a mattress. Elizabeth didn't complain, however. We woke at about nine, but remained in bed until nearly three in the afternoon, alternately talking, fucking, and quietly hugging while listening to music. Sex bout one resulted in a normal orgasm for her, but a dry orgasm for myself, as I was apparently drained from last night's activities. Bout two began with some mutual oral sex as foreplay, followed by slow fucking dog-style as the main course, and then some rapid thrusting in missionary position for the finale. While doing it dog-style, Elizabeth had cried out, "I want you to explode in me!" I therefore put on a condom, in order to be able to ejaculate inside her, but the latex irritated her as well as reduced sensation so much in me that I knew I wouldn't be able to come at all. So I took the condom off, and resumed fucking without it, then withdrew as usual just before ejaculating. Elizabeth neither came nor expressed any desire to come during this second sex bout.

We had a very late breakfast (in the mid-afternoon) at a nearby cafe. On the way back, we passed Preacher, to whom I gave $2. A few blocks further on, we ran into Jamie.

"Oh, my God! It's really you. How are you? Is that your sister or your girlfriend?" asked Jamie.

"My girlfriend. Listen, uh, I'm..."

"Can I just talk to you for a minute? Please. I'm so stressed. I mean all this shit is happening to me..."

"Maybe later. I've really got to go," I said, waving my hand dismissively and hurrying away.

"Who was that?" Elizabeth asked, a half-block further on.

"Some guy I once gave money to. We got to talking, he told me a hard luck story and so I gave him a few bucks. A mistake, of course. I should only pick worthy people to be objects of my charity. Like that schizophrenic I call Preacher. People who don't constantly bug me for more money."

"Why did he ask who I was?"

"Just making small talk, I suppose. Trying to ingratiate himself with me so I'll give him more money."

Elizabeth seemed to accept my explanation. I shudder to think how, by inviting this Jamie back to my apartment, as I had once contemplated doing, I might have opened myself to blackmail.

Another bad night of tango dancing. My lack of a repertoire makes me bored and frustrated. The woman picks up on these feelings and thinks she is the cause, and so tenses up. I realize that the woman is having a bad time and so become even more anxious. And so the situation spirals out of control until we both can't wait until the song ends and we can get away from one another.

During the lesson that preceded the tango dancing, I was greeted by a woman who I thought had snubbed me at a salsa dance a few weeks ago. I had asked her to dance, to which she had replied, "I don't dance with people I haven't met." I interpreted this response as a chilly refusal, and was offended by it, and so flashed a hostile smile, said something on the lines of "Very well", and then walked off. She apologized tonight and explained that what she intended to do was invite me to sit down, so that we could "meet" before dancing, but I had walked off so quickly that she didn't have a chance to say anything further. I still think her behavior peculiar. I didn't ask her to dance tonight because, given how poorly I was doing, such an invitation hardly seemed like a favor.

I called Helen at work. She is exhausted from being kept awake by her upstairs neighbors, and blames everything on me for having given up my old apartment instead of letting her move in there, and for having given away my futon. I tried to discuss the possibility of her finding a new apartment, but she hung up upon hearing me utter the term "infrastructure", which is a favorite term of mine but which she detests.

I talked to her again in the evening. She was much calmer than in the morning, having just viewed an apartment for rent for $850/month, located a few blocks from mine and therefore a few blocks away from the skid row district. While not as large as my apartment, this apartment she viewed is both sunny and on the top floor, and thus satisfies her primary requirements. The top floor requirement is so she will never have to worry about noisy upstairs neighbors. We couldn't talk long, as she was rushing to get ready for a concert. The leader of the group that was playing is an ex-boyfriend of hers, but she wasn't planning any romantic get-together. Indeed, her going accompanied by Paul precluded such a possibility.

"With Paul? I thought he beat you silly last week?" I said.

"That's true, and I haven't forgiven him, but I was ashamed to go alone, and I can't go with you because you're going tango dancing," she replied.

I ran into Jamie on the street. I was in a good mood and so gave him $10. An hour later, he came into the cafe and sat at my table, and said he had been forced to give half the $10 to repay a loan to a big hoodlum and then spent the remainder on food. So I gave another $10. He talked of an ex-girlfriend and a son and their living in a house with a luxurious glass-walled bathroom that looked out on a yard, and of trying to kill himself as a young boy ("My family was highly dysfunctional") and of having sustained permanent heart damage as a result of this attempt so that he now has arrhythmia, and of spending six months in rehabilitation to recover, and then staying on a farm for disturbed boys, and then later injuring his head while falling down a rocky slope, and of being eligible for Social Security and Medicare on account of being an epileptic. I don't know how much of this story to believe. He says he was robbed of his disability check at the homeless shelter recently, which is why he is so desperate for assistance now. I keep looking for holes in his stories, but haven't found any glaring ones yet.

I visited the Social Security site on the internet later to check whether epilepsy really was considered a form of disability (it is, in severe cases). This is assuming that Jamie really is epileptic. "Isn't there a drug to control epilepsy seizures?" I had asked. In fact, I already knew the answer to this question, but pretended ignorance in order to test him. "Yeah, I used to take Dilantin and then various Phenobarbitals. But they're all beta-blockers. That's how they work. They're downers and I don't like downers. I don't even drink alcohol." So he passed my little test. But then that proves nothing, since these street kids are always experts on the subject of drugs.

The Swedish woman came by in the evening to pick up the computer equipment which I had promised to give her, and which I wanted to get rid of because it was collecting dust and taking up space in my closet. About $500 worth of equipment (though I doubt I could sell it for that much), for which I was apparently getting nothing in return, other than a little-known acquaintance who now owes me a favor which I probably won't ever ask her to repay. But what's the alternative? I've tried to sell computer equipment in the past and the little money I got hardly compensated for the hassle involved.

I received what was effectively a private tango lesson for only $12, since no other students showed for what was intended to be a group lesson. I offered to pay at least half the usual private lesson price, but the instructors politely refused. The woman instructor commented, "You have an extremely light touch. Not that I'm criticizing, since your touch is a reflection of your personality, and you shouldn't try to change your personality." What does having "an extremely light touch" say about me, I wonder? "Extremely light"—that sounds to me like the description of a woman's touch. The male instructor laughed when demonstrating a move with me as the follower, since I did the woman's role so naturally—crossing without being prompted to do so, for example. I certainly enjoyed following him much more than leading either him or the woman. Am I perhaps, like Jamie, a woman in a man's body? Both instructors pointed out that my left arm is not properly toned and tends to collapse, but that the rest of my posture is very solid.

I received a call from my lawyer regarding my father. It seems that my father's former lawyer has now come around to the view that my sister is mistreating my father. There are several reasons for his change of heart. First, he has no hope of ever being employed in the future by either my father (whose affairs are now being managed by a conservator) or my sister (who hired him originally, but who has another lawyer of her own now) and so turning against my sister can't hurt him financially. Second, he might be genuinely ashamed of the role he played in helping my sister rob my father. Third, he might want to clear any blemish on his reputation for honesty by pretending he was as much a dupe of my sister as everyone else. Fourth, he is a Vietnam veteran, gung-ho patriot, and lover of all things military, thus was incensed to learn that my father's conservator had visited the old family house while preparing it for sale, and there found my father's military plaques and medals (including his commendation and purple heart) lying in a pile of rubbish, along with other items of obvious sentimental value (such as numerous family photographs), all of which items she boxed up and carted back to my father.

This former lawyer of my father ran into my lawyer recently, and mentioned that he had paid my father several social visits, and had even driven my father to the city once for a ex-Marine military function they both wanted to attend, and that my father seemed anxious to speak to me, but didn't know how to do so. I informed my lawyer that I definitely want to speak to my father, and asked him to please communicate this fact, along with my current phone number, to my father's former lawyer, to be then forwarded to my father. According to my father's lawyer and the conservator, my father now has his own phone line, though neither I nor my lawyer know the number.

My lawyer then reminded me of the three year of statute of limitations for taking action on the $300,000 that my sister "borrowed" from my father. It will be necessary for either my father's conservator or myself to file suit before next April, asking that a judgement for this "loan" be officially recorded. Without such recordation, my father will lose many of his rights to ever recover the $300,000. Alternatively, collection of the judgement could be deferred until my father's death, at which time the amount would be subtracted from my sister's share of the estate.

I then called the conservator, who immediately started babbling about her concern for bringing families closer together. "I'm a family-oriented Christian." Though when I asked for my father's personal phone number, she refused to divulge it, on the grounds that she didn't know for sure that he wanted to speak to me. She then expressed great reluctance to file suit over the $300,000, unless at my father's request, though promised to discuss the matter with him. I told her I would call back in several weeks to discuss the issue again.

On a lighter note, my lawyer informed me that my sister's latest craze is participating in goat shows. The local newspaper even ran a front page human interest story about her successes, and printed a photograph of my sister and her daughter and their prize goat.

Helen called in the afternoon. She is feeling sick, after having attended the concert last night with Paul, and asked if I wanted to visit her this evening. I declined, as I had previously arranged to meet Elizabeth. Helen has decided not to rent the apartment she viewed yesterday. I had walked past the apartment building myself yesterday and based on the exterior would tend to agree with Helen's assessment of the place. Modernistic and without character. On the other hand, it is almost certainly quiet. I made this point, whereupon Helen blurted out: "The apartment you had before was quiet. You could have swapped with me and then I wouldn't have to worry about noise." To which I replied, "Your insane obsession with that apartment just confirms that I was right not to swap it with you." The conversation quickly escalated into the usual acrimony.

Dinner with Elizabeth at a restaurant, then we watched a movie I had rented, which Elizabeth didn't particularly care for. No sex because it was her period and she was feeling queasy in the stomach, partly due to the movie, or so she alleged. The lack of sex made our fundamental incompatibility painfully apparent. We had nothing to say to one another, so that I was reduced to droning on about the future of the computer industry in order to avoid an uncomfortable silence at dinner.

The fact of her having a period means she is not pregnant, which brings up the issue of the risk she and I are taking by using withdrawal as our sole contraceptive technique. Neither of us likes condoms, Elizabeth doesn't like diaphragms and can't take the pill because it might cause a recurrence of her cancer, and neither of us wants to be sterilized. Perhaps we both want her to get pregnant, but also want it to be by "accident", so we don't have to take responsibility. Or perhaps we take risks because the high potential for pregnancy makes for more intense sex.

On my way to the cafe, I ran into Jamie, who invited himself along. Surprisingly, he paid for his own cup of coffee: "I had this one last dollar in my pocket and was just thinking, Where can I have a good cup of coffee?" The latest news is that he met a man yesterday who wanted Jamie to accompany him on a trip, but Jamie was worried theirs might turn out to be a short-lived love affair, which he doesn't want. I don't particular like the idea of being a prostitute myself, but then I abhor poverty, so I have little sympathy for his qualms, unless it is disease that is his real concern. By maintaining a grim expression on my face, I finally managed to convey that I wasn't particularly interested in Jamie's company and wasn't going to give him any money. So he excused himself and walked off, and I was then able to indulge in several hours of my favorite pleasure after masturbation. Namely, sitting alone in a crowded cafe on a crowded street, listening to good music in the background, reading a good book, and all the while consuming delicious food and several cups of tea.

Lisa called and offered tickets to a concert tomorrow. I lied that I had a previous committment, but thanked her anyway for her invitation. We then had a brief, polite and excruciatingly boring conversation about the current apartment rental market and the computer I sold her. My hope is that she finds my company as tedious as I find hers, and so won't call back soon.

Helen was taking another day off from work for sickness. I walked to her apartment to resolve a computer problem she had called about. Soon enough, we were engaged in one of our typical arguments, followed by the usual reconciliation and an agreement to have dinner together. We stopped by my apartment on the way to the cafe, so Helen could sort through several more boxes of her possessions, and decide which she wants to give to charity. There was more acrimony during dinner, starting with a discussion of Helen's plans to spend $1200/month on a studio in the same apartment complex where her supposedly ex-lover Paul currently lives and where she insists she would feel safer than in the neighborhoods where nice studios go for $850 or less per month, such as the skid row area where I live. Somehow, this subject led to that of marriage. I declared that I could envision nothing but misery for myself in being married to her, especially as she seemed to be screwing up right and left in her life, including at her job. She was offended by these remarks and stormed out, though later called on the phone to apologize for losing her temper. I apologized in turn for my harsh comments: "I'm sure you're much more competent and intelligent than you appear, and not such a fuck-up at work as you sometimes seem." She was offended once again by this "left-handed compliment", but we nevertheless managed to stay calm and part on good terms.

Jamie continues to annoy me with his importunities. Upon my entering the cafe today with Helen, he had tried to sell me a radio. I brushed him off, saying: "No, I'm with someone else." Then later, after Helen had left, he stationed himself on the sidewalk outside the cafe's front door. I noticed him there as I was about to leave, and knew that he was waiting for me, ready to pounce with a hard luck story and a plea for money. This I was in no mood to contend with, and so I sneaked out the cafe's back door (which I suspect he doesn't know about) and hurried home by a side street. I suppose at some point I'll have to be brutal, and make it clear that I don't intend to give him any more money. It isn't right that I should feel myself persecuted just because I once showed him some generosity. I must learn to harden my heart and be pitiless.

Dinner and a live jazz show with Elizabeth in the evening. We returned to her apartment afterwards, and had sex with easy orgasms for both of us. She complained that I never compliment her on her appearance: "I asked you whether you thought my hair would look better cut differently and all you could say was that it looks okay as it is. I guess it's like with the flowers. I won't be getting any compliments from you." I reflected that I do spontaneously compliment Helen, though not Elizabeth. So I made up some compliments then and there about her body, which is indeed attractive to me.

I slept poorly, on account of Elizabeth's cat clambering over me all night. Both of us were feeling lazy in the morning, which we spent sitting about the apartment, reading and commenting on articles in the various women's magazines she subscribes to. "Oriental sex secrets that will have him begging for more! Are you overdressed? Successful women talk about using sex to climb the corporate ladder. What your lipstick says about your personality." What I find most amazing is that Elizabeth freely admits that these magazines are full of tripe, and yet she can't resist reading them. Lunch at a restaurant, then we browsed in various stores, then had dessert (in lieu of a full dinner) at a chi-chi cafe (we shared three pieces of cake accompanied by a pot of tea). Afterwards, we returned to Elizabeth's apartment. During sex, she climbed on top and deliberately tried to excite me, so that I was unable to control myself and came just before she did, thus leaving her feeling aroused but unsatisfied. I tried to bring her off manually, but she was too tense, so that my manipulations only irritated her further. Both of us went to sleep late, though in her case it was a fitful sleep, broken by tossing and turning that woke me several times. Near dawn, she reached over and fondled my cock until it was hard. I brought her to orgasm after a long and hard bout of missionary position fucking. I didn't have to any desire to come myself, though my cock was rock-solid, and so desisted from fucking as soon as she came. Both of us fell asleep shortly thereafter, and slept soundly for several more hours.

Breakfast at Elizabeth's apartment, then we sat about reading the newspaper, then another bout of sex, dog-style this time, with her kneeling on the floor and resting her chest on the sofa. I administered over three hundred strokes with my cock, each lasting about ten seconds (one second to withdraw, six or so seconds of pause, a rapid thrust, several more seconds of pause while inside her), so that the fucking went on for almost an hour, with Elizabeth whimpering the whole time. I used various concentration techniques to maintain a rock-solid and yet sensitive erection all the while—reading the titles of the books on her shelves, counting backwards by seven from eleven hundred, fatiguing my leg muscles by maintaining a difficult posture. I brought her to orgasm in missionary position, balancing on my elbows and the toes of one foot in order to continuing fatiguing my leg and other lower body muscles. We came simultaneously, then lay hugging silently for another half-hour or so, then I took the bus home. My whole lower body felt exhausted and drained.

I spent the evening with Helen at her apartment—helping her with her computer, preparing and eating dinner, lying in bed and talking. We managed to behave pleasantly with one another for once.

Dinner at a restaurant with Helen, followed by dessert at the ice cream shop, then grocery shopping, then several hours at her apartment, lying in bed and talking. She jokingly discussed the possibility of living with another woman, since she can't have normal sex with men, and perhaps having a child with me as the father: "I want a young blonde with big breasts as my lover. Someone I can easily manipulate." I replied that I don't mind the idea of being a father, but that I won't live with her (or any woman) and also don't plan to deeply involve myself with raising any children I might have, other than as a provider of money. Conversation then drifted to other topics. I had a splitting headache when I got home.

Jamie sat down uninvited at my table at the cafe and recited some story about getting a job as a technician starting next week, and of meeting a policeman this weekend who let Jamie stay at his luxurious apartment, and of feeling tired, and so on. He then complained that I didn't seem enthusiastic about seeing him anymore. I coldly replied, "I really like to be alone when I'm in this cafe." And so he slunk off, with his head lowered like a boy on the verge of tears. I felt little sympathy, however. Quite the contrary, I hope I did offend him and that he therefore won't approach me anymore in the future, especially not while I'm sitting inside the cafe.

I spent the night with Elizabeth. Dinner at a restaurant, where we discussed the topic of women who marry homosexual men without realizing it. "I think that would be the most embarrassing thing that could possibly happen to me. I would feel like such a complete fool if my husband left me for another man. Another woman is bad enough, but another man is just too awful to contemplate." Then she described various dreams she has been having in which she calls me but some other man answers the phone and how these dreams make her very worried. She thinks these dreams might be related to worries she has been having ever since our encounter with Jamie last week, that I might be engaging in unprotected sex with homosexual street urchins. I assured her that I had no homosexual inclinations, and certainly wouldn't risk my health with someone like Jamie. I reflected again on what extraordinary intuition Elizabeth has. How easily she guessed that I lied about the depth of my feelings for Jamie!

Elizabeth has changed her mind about visiting her family for the Thanksgiving holiday next week. She plans to go after all, despite her unpleasant experiences during her visit to her family this past summer. I offered to let her cat stay with me while she is away. No sex, since she is still sore from this weekend.

Lunch with Helen, who hasn't spoken to Paul since they went to the concert together last week. Her suspicion is that he has gotten back with his ex-fiancée: "Her ex-husband was a wife-beater, so they'll have something in common, since Paul accuses me of being a boyfriend-beater."

Helen called in the morning, complaining again of her job and threatening to quit and move back in with her parents. She called again in the evening, and left a message inviting me to have dinner with her. I was still feeling disgusted by her display of nincompoopery in the morning, however, and so decided not to reply. If she wants me to see me more often, then she'll have to agree to a regular visiting schedule, on the days when I'm not with Elizabeth. And too bad if she doesn't like playing second fiddle. The woman I have sex with is the woman who gets first priority in my life.

I called Elizabeth, who has been feeling somewhat ill. We will probably get together tomorrow, depending on how she is feeling then.

Helen called, but I wasn't in the mood to see her and so declined her suggestion that we have dinner together. Helen's companionship is one of the great joys of my life, but I just can't tolerate more than one or two days of it per week. She and Paul will be going to a play together next weekend.

"So, you two lovebirds are getting back together, then?" I asked.

"Oh, no. We bought these tickets long ago," replied Helen.

I felt in a strange mood on the way to Elizabeth's apartment, and somehow got the notion that she didn't want to have sex with me. Perhaps I was somehow blaming her for my state of almost painful arousal—due to my not having masturbated recently, precisely in order to make tonight's sex more exciting—and decided to get revenge by denying sex to her in the same way she was supposedly denying it to me.

She kissed me passionately as soon as I entered her apartment, but I had managed to convince myself by then that she had done me some wrong, and so I responded only tepidly. During dinner at an upscale restaurant, I acted hyperactive, as if deliberately trying to annoy her. She mentioned the theory that married women with children are generally depressed, while married men and single women are generally happy.

"What about single men?" I asked.

"They're as bad off as married women with children," she replied.

"A high suicide rate, perhaps, but that doesn't mean they're miserable. Men like violence, and what could be more violent than blowing your brains out? That's one reason I've never owned a gun. Who knows? Some telephone solicitor calls me late at night, I lose my temper and decide, fuck this, I'm sick of this goddamned world. Heaven or hell, here I come! A gun is too easy. It doesn't give you time to reconsider. Now a knife, on the other hand. I'd be thinking, what a mess that would make, all that blood on the floor, it might ruin my beautiful rug. Of course, if I blew my brains out, there'd be a mess from that as well, but then I don't think that way. Whereas slitting my throat..."

"Would you please stop talking about this!"

"Oh, gee, sorry."

Back to her apartment, where I gave her a massage and ranted and raved and expounded on a plan to someday be a diet and health guru. When we finally got into bed, she shoved at me and laughed and said: "You really know how to turn me off sexually." And so, we didn't have sex.

I leapt out of bed early in the morning to brush my teeth and do my exercises. Elizabeth called out to see what I was up to. Probably, she was worried that I was getting dressed and planning to leave. After washing up, I conspicuous donned my underwear before climbing back into bed (normally, I sleep in the nude), as if to say, "I have no intention of having sex." It was obvious from the tension in the air that both of us wanted sex, but also that neither of us was willing to say so. What exactly was I trying to accomplish?

We arranged that she would come by my apartment later in the afternoon, after attending to some errands. So I took the bus home, and masturbated to orgasm as soon as I arrived, despite knowing full well that Elizabeth would probably want sex later, as indeed happened. We carried her cat and its accessories from her car up to my apartment (I will be taking care of this cat while she is visiting her relatives), then had tea at the cafe (where we saw Jamie try to use the restroom, only to be refused access by the cafe employees), then returned to my apartment, where Elizabeth hinted that she was aroused. Naturally, I had some problems getting an erection, due to having just masturbated, but eventually I managed to get rock hard. I brought her to orgasm with little difficulty, though didn't feel like coming myself. I blamed my lack of interest on "nervous tension".

"Why are you tense?" she asked.

"Oh, it's just a biorhythm thing. My body is acting up," I said.

"Have you been masturbating lately?"

"As a matter of fact, I haven't masturbated all week," I lied. "I don't know what the problem is. I get tense like this now and then."

Elizabeth returned to her own apartment after we finished with sex, in order to pack and otherwise prepare for her flight tomorrow morning. I noticed that the apartment seems to have a completely different atmosphere with the cat in it. It is warmer and less solitary feeling. I'm not sure that I like this new atmosphere, however.

Tango dancing in the evening. I was in a self-pitying mood and so only asked a small number of women to dance, though several made it obvious that they wanted me to ask them. Do they detect that I've already got a woman and for that reason find me more attractive? I washed my cock and balls in the sink after finishing up with Elizabeth, but didn't take a full shower, so perhaps her smell on me was still detectable. I left the nightclub early and wandered around the commercial district, feeling that I rightfully belong among the homeless.

My lawyer sent me an email almost a week ago with my father's direct phone number, which he probably obtained from my father's lawyer. But since he sent this email to my business address, I didn't read the message until today. This is just what I had been fearing—that something important would be sent to my old business email address. I called my father in the evening and we had a pleasant conversation. He is doing well and was happy to hear from me, and so I promised to visit this coming Christmas. Then he mentioned the word "lawsuit", in a tone of distaste. At first, I thought he was referring to the conservatorship suit, but later I reflected that perhaps the conservator had spoken to him regarding the statute of limitations suit and that he doesn't want to pursue this issue. Oh, well! The loss to me by his not recovering the $300,000, assuming his will gives me 3/8 of his estate, would be about $75,000 after estate taxes. A large sum, but not enough to get too steamed up over. I promised that I'd be calling him once a week from now on. After hanging up, I called various of his friends and relatives and gave them his direct phone line and suggested they call him sometime.

I saw Jamie while walking to the cafe, but turned away so as not to make eye contact, and then hurried along as if I hadn't noticed him. A few hours later, he entered the cafe and took a seat beside me. It's been raining lately, which occasioned all sorts of complaints from Jamie about how hard life was on the streets in the winter, how he gets wet and then asked to move along by police and merchants, and how the shelters are overflowing with creeps taking refuge from the inclement weather who harass him in the showers, and how he is worried his shoes will wear out quickly because he can't afford socks—the socks he had he threw away because they were filthy—and how he can't hear well anymore because his father used to box his ears until blood came out and now his eardrums are covered by a layer of scar tissue.

"You've been a good friend to me. I just hope I haven't ruined our relationship somehow, by something I did or said," he said, with a sad expression on his face.

"No, not at all," I said.

"I just want us to be friends. I'm so sensitive to people not liking me."

And then he mumbled some more and finally lapsed into despondent silence, with his head sagging over his empty cup of coffee. He has a way of moving my heart. But I was pitiless today and gave nothing. While walking away from the cafe, I looked through the window and noticed that Jamie had slumped down on the table, as if sleeping. This posture, together with his soiled clothes and stench, is guaranteed to provoke the waiters to ask him to leave. As it was, one of them had approached when he first sat down, to ask, "Is everything okay?" as if offering to assist me in getting rid of this street person if I so desired. Hopefully, Jamie won't create too much of a disturbance. I don't want to be known for encouraging troublemakers.

I called Helen. She and Paul will be attending dinner at her sister's house tomorrow. "He's back in my good graces—for now. Anyway, it was too abject to have to take the bus there and show up alone. He has a car, so he can be my chauffeur. That's very important to me in a man." She then related how Paul had gone on a spending spree after their most recent breakup. First he bought replacements for all household items which Helen had taken away upon moving out, then he spent perhaps $1000 on new video equipment.

Thanksgiving holiday dinner with my uncle, his sons and various other relatives, several of whom asked me about my job situation. I told the usual story of how I used to run my own business, but recently sold it, but told the story with such a lack of enthusiasm as to leave the impression that I'm trying to hide something of which I'm ashamed. One cousin, who is familiar with the city, asked me for the cross-streets nearest to my apartment. "Wow! That's a rough neighborhood! Why did you move there?" he asked. "To save on rent," I replied. Putting two and two together, one comes to the following conclusion: "he tried running his own business, but it failed, and now he's having money problems and so had to move to skid row."

The truth is that I'm glad to have experienced this minor embarrassment. It hammered home to me once again the importance of respectability. Someday I may call upon my relatives for help (a recommendation as to my character, for example), which they are unlikely to give if they remember me as some sort of contemptible flake. Respectable people don't want to be dragged down into the gutter by association with the dregs of society. I have been thinking recently of working at various menial jobs, such as janitor or postal clerk, as a way of broadening my horizons. But what if I were seen by my relatives working as a janitor? The obvious conclusion would be that I was hard up financially but couldn't get a better job. But they know I graduated near the top of my class at both a prestigious high school and the university, and that I worked for many years at jobs that demand intelligence and responsibility. Have I perhaps committed some heinous felony or become addicted to drugs or otherwise become unfit for a "good" job? I could, of course, tell the truth—namely, that I'm financially independent and work now for pleasure, not money—but then that implies that I'm a complete madman, since who else but a madman would choose to work as a janitor? Either way, I'd be shunned, as unfit for association with respectable people.

Elizabeth came by in the early afternoon to pick up her cat. Sex with easy orgasms for both of us, with me withdrawing and ejaculating on her stomach. Then dessert together at a museum cafe, then we took a walk in the wilderness park. Afterwards, I browsed in a bookstore while she attended to a beauty appointment.

Dinner at a restaurant, where Elizabeth complained at great length about her mother. "Why do you visit her if you find it so unpleasant?" I asked. "I don't know," she replied. "I keep asking myself that. Other people ask me the same thing. My spiritual friend says she is creating negative energy in me. I don't know why I keep going there. I just can't seem to get away from her." We then discussed her mother's personality in detail, and both of us noted that her mother and I share many traits.

Another bout of sex before going to sleep. Elizabeth sucked my cock briefly and then insisted on sitting on it. Though my erection was solid and I cooperated as best I could with my hands and mouth (fondling and sucking her breasts, for example), nevertheless all she accomplished with her gyrations was to become frustrated. So finally I rolled her over and tried to bring her off by fucking hard in missionary position, until it became clear that she was too tense to come and that persistence would just make her sore. I brought myself to orgasm by banging her hard. I tried to withdraw at the moment of orgasm, but she held me by the buttocks, so that I came inside. Despite not coming, she seemed contented: "You rode me hard this time."

Lunch the next day at a cafe with two other couples—friends of Elizabeth. Then grocery shopping and dinner at Elizabeth's apartment, where she prepared an elaborate candlelit meal. We had pleasant conversation on various topics, followed by sex, during which I brought her to a powerful orgasm, then ejaculated inside her immediately afterwards. Neither of us commented about my not withdrawing.

While driving to work in the morning, Elizabeth remarked: "I had another dream last night. This one was about babies. I hope it doesn't mean anything. But at least it was a pleasant dream, unlike those involving my mother." I shrugged and grunted in reply. I suspect her true feelings are the opposite of what "hoping it doesn't mean anything" would suggest. Should she become pregnant, my current plan is to insist that she continue working and that we continue to live separately. We might marry, in which case a premarital agreement would not be necessary, since, given that I don't plan to work in the future, all my wealth would be separate property and thus protected in the event of divorce.

Jamie once again invited himself to join me at my table in the cafe. I listened impassively to his tale of woe, and gave nothing. He needs a shower badly, but he doesn't like to use the showers at the homeless shelter because he gets hassled whenever he gets naked there. He feels itchy all over. He sure would like to be able to take a shower. But to do that he needs the $10 guest fee to be able to share his brother's hotel room. He tried panhandling, but the police harassed him and, anyway, no one is out because it's raining. He barely earned enough for a candy bar, or maybe two candy bars. Not much of a dinner, but hey, what do you expect? He does the best he can in this type of weather. Huddles up in a doorway at night if he can't get into the shelter and doesn't have the $10 guest fee, and tries to keep dry and warm. In two days though, he gets his disability check. So now he is about to burst with excitement. The only thing necessary to complete his happiness would be if he could spend these last two nights indoors and get a shower and be refreshed and ready when the check arrives. But to do that he needs the $10 guest fee. And how can he get that when no one is on the street due to the rain? It's a real problem. The worst month of his life, and yet he thought last month was bad. But next month, once he gets that disability check, everything is looking like roses. His own apartment, new clothes, decent food, a television maybe, twenty-four hour security, no limits on guests and no guest fees.

I was annoyed at having him at my table, especially in his current ragged condition: rank-smelling, dirty and carrying a torn and soggy cardboard sign upon which was scrawled "temporarily homeless—please help". "I want to get back to reading this book," I said finally. As if stung, he immediately stood up, then beat a hasty retreat, mumbling apologies and wearing his scolded puppy expression. I felt disgusted at this spectacle of degradation.

I called my father, per my plan to call him once a week from now on, but got no answer. Why not? I worked myself into a fury by assuming that my sister is somehow preventing me from speaking to him. I considered the possibility of suing both her and the conservator. The conservator doesn't want to get involved because she fears my sister? Very well, I'll make the conservator fear me even more.

Dinner with Helen at a restaurant, then several hours at her apartment, lying in bed and discussing, among other topics, how we spent our respective weekends. I mentioned that Elizabeth might have gotten pregnant, while Helen described the recent squabbles between herself and Paul. I tried molesting Helen, but she wasn't interested. "If I can't have a big-breasted, twenty-year-old blonde to fondle, then I'd just as soon be celibate. Men don't interest me sexually anymore. I've given man after man pleasure and now it's my turn," she said.

Dinner with Elizabeth at a restaurant. She was agitated with worries about a presentation she has to make at work tomorrow. Something to do with the company's retirement plan and a dispute she is having with a coworker. Later, she tried to calm herself down by staying up late baking a cake. No sex, because we were too tired by the time the cake was done. Fitful sleep for both of us, with vivid dreams that we couldn't remember the next morning.

Helen called from work with a computer question. For whatever reason, the conversation quickly escalated into acrimony and concluded with her snapping "fuck off!" and hanging up.

Jamie approached me while I was at the cafe, but didn't sit down. He was carrying a sack of items from the drugstore, which he said he couldn't wait to put to use cleaning himself up. A hoodlum knocked on the cafe window to get his attention but Jamie waved him away: "They see I've got money and so now they all want to be friends with me. But when I was broke, it's another story. I try to bum a cigarette and it's like, get the fuck away from me white boy." He asked if I was busy, and I replied yes, whereupon he said, "Just tell me when you're ready to talk to me again." Hopefully, he has intuition enough to guess my thoughts. Namely, "I'll speak to you when you're clean and nicely dressed and have a normal haircut instead of this ghetto moptop." Perhaps his story about the disability check is true. Unfortunately, I suspect that in matter of days the money will all be spent, or else he'll be robbed by the hoodlums. In either case, he'll be desperate again and looking to me for assistance.

I called my father, who is agitated once again with feelings of powerlessness: "I can't do a goddamn thing! I'm powerless!" He seemed happy to hear from me and expressed a wish for me to continue calling him in the future, but when I mentioned my plans to visit at Christmas, he requested that I not do so. I pointed out that the plane tickets and hotel reservations were already paid for, but agreed to refrain from visiting if such was his desire, and said Elizabeth and I would instead spend extra time touring the countryside, and that if we saw him outside while driving past the property, we'd wave.

"Come on in!" he exclaimed.

"So you want me to visit then?" I asked.

"Sure," he replied.

Then he became flustered and talked of seeing his lawyer and of wanting to "give control" to my sister, and complained that he "can't do a goddamn thing" and of being "powerless", and finally spoke vaguely about making another will. I mentioned that I had been trying to get in touch with him each evening this past week, but that the phone just rang and rang with no response.

"Were you out?" I asked.

"I don't know," he replied, as if confused.

Then I questioned him as to whether he had received calls from the friends and relatives to whom I had given his number, and he replied that he hadn't. What is going on, I wonder? What is my sister telling him?

I walked to Helen's apartment in the evening. "I want to cuddle, but none of that groping like you did last time," she said. We lay on the bed hugging, then I showed her how I had a hard-on. She made no objection to my pulling it out, so I sat up and let her kiss my cock and hold my balls in her palm while with my hands I massaged her neck and back. "A penis makes a good eye pillow—warm and soft," she said at one point, having moved her head so my erect cock rested against her eyelids. Then I licked her breasts and offered to lick her cunt, but she covered this latter with her hands, and said she was worried about getting a "bladder infection" if I attempted cunnilingus. I masturbated myself to orgasm while she watched, then ejaculated on her breasts. We washed up, ate dinner, then returned to bed and lay there for several hours, hugging and talking and watching the muted television and listening to soft music.

"Who gave you the right to have two women?" she asked.

"For a long time, you had two men—me and Paul," I replied.

She talked of possibly placing another personals ad. I left when it was her bedtime, which is about three hours before mine.

This orgasm with Helen was my second of the day, as I had masturbated by myself in the morning. And yesterday I had also masturbated twice. Hopefully, I won't be drained tomorrow, in case I have to perform then for Elizabeth. I'm certainly not tired of sex, but two lovers is probably my limit. Any more and I'd start to feel overwhelmed and resentful of intrusions upon my solitude.

I called Elizabeth in the afternoon and arranged for us to get together tomorrow night. She wants to do something "exciting", rather than simply eating out at a restaurant. The following is an excerpt from our conversation, which leads me to wonder: how long before Elizabeth discovers that Helen and I are still seeing one another regularly?

"We can get together either tonight or tomorrow—either night is okay with me," I said.

"Oh? Either night... What did you have planned for the other night? Did you plan to see another girlfriend then?" she asked.

"Of course not! I'll spend the other night in the cafe."

Helen called in the evening and suggested I visit her, to provide "comforting". I replied that I had already made plans to go tango dancing, but that she was welcome to accompany me, which invitation she declined, on account of feeling sick. I told her that I wouldn't be able to see her until Monday, as I was planning to spend the remainder of the weekend with Elizabeth. Helen made no complaint, though I suspect she will work herself into a depression at the thought of my sleeping with another woman while she is left alone.

Movie and dinner at a restaurant afterwards with Elizabeth. I went off on a rant about "Nincompoop thirty year olds who're still afraid of sex. Well excuse me for trying to rob you of your virginity, ma'am!" We managed to avoid a quarrel, thankfully. During a lull, Elizabeth remarked, "the word to describe you is maddening." We didn't have sex because she was cramping from heavy menstruation. Menstruation means she isn't pregnant. I was relieved to learn this.

Elizabeth became aroused in the morning from my stroking of her legs while we sat hugging on the sofa, and so we had sex after all, despite her menstrual cramps. Orgasms for both of us. I was feeling highly aroused, due to having refrained from coming since the masturbation orgy several days ago, to the point where I had a difficult time keeping myself under control. As Elizabeth had predicted would happen, there was a bloody mess on the towel afterwards.

Tango dancing in the evening. I felt tense and did terribly, as if deliberately trying to drive women off. A beautiful young woman who I had danced with wonderfully two weeks ago kept looking at me with longing eyes, but I evaded her. Given the overpowering sexual tension between us, I don't see how we can remain merely dance partners. As for sex, surely she wants either a long-term monogamous relationship or none at all, and I can't offer the former because of Elizabeth and Helen.

I talked briefly on the phone with Helen. By mutual agreement, we cancelled plans to have dinner together, as both of us wanted solitude more than company.

My current mood is one of feeling harried by people and activity, despite spending most of my time these days alone and idle. Perhaps I'm just restless and bored, for which the proper remedy is not peace and quiet, but rather exertion. As in, for example, a three-week cross-country bus trip by myself.

Another lazy day, passed in the usual aimless way—oversleeping, masturbating, exercising, eating, reading, listening to music, sitting in the park. I mulled upon the possibility of salsa dancing, as a way to pass time, but then lost interest as the evening progressed, and so stayed home and masturbated instead. I took up partner dancing to find a lover. Now that I have one again, it seems pointless.

While walking down the street, I noticed Jamie sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk: his head hanging despondently, his face ugly with blemishes, a tattered cardboard beggar's sign at his side. I felt compassion for him, offset by a desire to avoid being dragged down in his maelstrom of self-destruction. I ducked into a store then doubled back so he wouldn't see me. Perhaps a month of begging in the cold and rain will teach him the importance of putting money in a bank instead of asking to be robbed by carrying large amounts of cash on his person.

I called my father, only to be greeted by a phone company recording to the effect that his phone number is now "unpublished". My sister's doing, no doubt. She knows me only too well, I'm afraid. She knows that eventually I'll tire of this constant petty battling and desist from trying to speak to or see my father, and then she'll be home free and inherit everything. I consoled myself somewhat by the thought that at least now I don't have to struggle to make conversation with my father each week.

Email from my lawyer, who recently talked to my father's former lawyer, who in turn had recently talked to my sister. Her story is that the phone number was changed because my father was tired of being "bombarded" by calls from relatives. Of course, just last week, my father told me he hadn't received any such calls, other than one call from me.

Dinner with Elizabeth. She related that last night she had nightmares about being brutally raped. I asked if the rapist resembled me, and she replied that he didn't. She is now wondering whether she might have been sexually abused as a child. Conversation on this and various other topics, with me acting somewhat hyperactive. Perhaps it was my behavior or perhaps something else turned her off sexually. In any case, she wasn't interested by the time we climbed into bed. So I rolled over and prepared to go to sleep, but neither she nor I could do so due to her fidgeting. Finally, she reached over and fondled my cock, and explained that she had changed her mind about sex, provided we did it dog-style. So we fucked that way for about ten minutes, before giving up due to discomfort on her part. We finished up with some very slow fucking in missionary position. Orgasms for both of us, with an especially intense one for myself. I waited until the last minute before withdrawing, so that I was plagued by worries afterwards that I might have dribbled some semen inside and thereby impregnated her. Why don't I just get a vasectomy? Am I really certain that I don't want kids?

Dinner with Helen in the evening, at an expensive restaurant for a change. She talked of being depressed. I was saddened to hear this, though I have long suspected that her manic gaiety is just a facade. I suggested that she be more honest in the future. If she is feeling depressed, then act depressed, since pretending to be happy is likely to lead to even greater depression, culminating in a complete nervous breakdown. She says she wants the same life other women have—a normal husband, as opposed to madmen like Paul and myself, who supports her so she doesn't have to work, a house with a yard, children. She insists that she can never be happy living alone. My opinion is that the husband, house and children would only lift her from depression temporarily, and that eventually she would lapse back, since she wouldn't have addressed what I consider to be the underlying problem. Namely, the repression of her sex drive. What did her mother do, I wonder, to cause her to be so terrified of sex?

It is difficult for me to understand depression, since for most of my adult life I have tended towards cheerful, exuberant mania—the very opposite of depression—and I naturally assume that everyone around me shares my manic tendencies, especially someone like Helen who puts on a facade of gaiety. As a teenager, however, I was very depressed, which I realize now was because I repressed my natural mania, which I was afraid would lead me into trouble. In reality, it was depression that led to self-destructive behavior. My natural mania is only reckless when there is no real danger involved. Once I accepted myself, my depression lifted, as I am sure will also happen to Helen when she accepts herself. In particular, when she accepts her obviously powerful libido. A woman with a body like hers is not a woman with a naturally low sex drive.

I can do little to help her, since she refuses to listen to my opinions. Perhaps the best thing would be for her to meet some new friends and/or a new lover. She asked me what I wanted for Christmas. Being in a somewhat maudlin mood, I replied, "The best present you could give me would be to once again be happy."

Movie and dinner at a restaurant afterwards with Elizabeth. We ran out of other things to discuss, and so somehow returned to the only subject which really interests me—namely, sex. While elaborating on the topic of women with high sex drive, I mentioned a grossly overweight former lover of mine, who I refered to as "The Hippo". Elizabeth became upset: "I don't like it when you talk about your ex-girlfriends. I'm afraid you'll talk about me like that someday. I don't want the private details of my sex life told to anyone else. I don't talk about my ex-boyfriends, do I?" At this point, I interjected that I would be delighted if she would discuss her ex-boyfriends, which idea she of course nixed. Why is she so worried about me gossiping about her? The worst thing I could say is that there's nothing to say: "She was a fairly normal person. We were lovers and the sex was good. Otherwise, she was quiet and normal and boring as all get out."

We can't talk about sex. We can't talk about ex-lovers, which means we can't talk about our relationships with other people, since, for both of us, our adult relationships have mostly been with lovers. We can't discuss politics or religion or philosophy, due to my excessive cynicism. We can't discuss the economy, because my predictions are gloomy. We can't talk about money, my favorite topic after sex, because Elizabeth thinks it vulgar to harp on money the way I like to do. We can't talk about computers, since she is ignorant regarding this subject and so I'd just end up lecturing her, which is condescending. What's left? Our jobs—a topic which we've exhausted, and which never was particularly interesting. Our relatives—another exhausted topic. All that remains is to talk about the things bored rich people at cocktail parties talk about—travel and pets and parties and junk you can buy at the store. Very well, that's what we'll discuss. But then she can't blame me for complaining of being bored by our conversation.

No sex, partly because I had masturbated earlier today and twice yesterday and so wasn't very aroused, and partly because sitting through yet another tedious movie and then being scolded for talking about forbidden topics left me feeling suffocated and wanting, not to merge our bodies, but rather the opposite—to widen their separation. I just hope we don't have a breakup before the trip to visit my relatives for Christmas. I've paid for the tickets and I am counting on her accompanying me. If I go alone, I'll get bored—of that I'm sure—and will have to spend all week holed up in a bar getting drunk.

There was tension in the air the next morning due to our not having had sex the night before. But we didn't have time to remedy the situation because Elizabeth had plans to attend an art exhibition with a woman friend—an outing to which I was happily not invited. This woman friend was recently divorced, and now has plans to make a living as a spiritual advisor of some sort. She seemed hopelessly bourgeois and unspiritual to me. Elizabeth thinks she is heading for the "poorhouse". This friend asked me what I did for a living, and so I gave a gruff response to the effect that I was not working currently. I drove with her and Elizabeth part way to the museum, since my apartment was on the way. As it happens, the corner where they dropped me off was populated this morning by a crowd of drunken bums and otherwise looked particularly seedy. So now this spiritual friend can gossip about how Elizabeth has been reduced to dating unemployed men who live in the skid row district.

Tango dancing in the evening. The instructor was excellent, but I nevertheless learned nothing, because she was teaching an advanced move and I lacked a practice partner. When the dancing started, I stood and sat alone, without dancing even once, despite there being a surplus of available women. I felt as if I were being conspicuously rude. My behavior this weekend with Elizabeth demonstrates how little I really care about sex with other people, and besides sex, what are flesh-world people good for? Elizabeth made some complaint about feeling "interchangeable" with my previous lovers. We're all more or less interchangeable. At least that's the impression I get from having waded through hundreds of online diaries, regardless of how poorly most of them are written. We're animals, with little more real difference between us than exists between individuals of any other monkey-like species.

Why do I go tango dancing? Because each day I must leave my apartment and spend time in a room with other people—preferably strangers, so that I don't have to make conversation—or else suffer from a feeling of stir-craziness. It was tango dancing or the cafe, and the cafe is where I spend every other night and I wanted a change. I don't dance because I'm not there to dance. I'm there to prevent the feel of stir-craziness that would have resulted from staying in my apartment. I don't want another lover and I don't enjoy conversation, and so what is the point of asking women to dance? Even were a woman to indulge my wildest fantasies—to beg me to fuck her in a dark corner behind the stage, for example—I'm not sure the pleasure would be greater than what I get from flaunting my availability, and then not asking anyone to dance, and then going home to masturbate.

I spent most of the day reading online diaries. I'm starting to feel numb from exposure to such a profusion of consciousnesses in such a short period of time. I'm more and more convinced that all human minds are similar, and that artificial intelligence is inevitable, and that we have no free will, and that electronic relationships—those between readers and writers of online journals, for example—are a valid substitute for relationships between flesh-world humans.

Elizabeth called in the evening. Perhaps she was worried, due to my lack of sexual initiative this past weekend, that I'm falling out of love with her. We had a pleasant conversation, concluding with an agreement to possibly get together tomorrow.

Dinner with Elizabeth. She spent the afternoon getting her hair cut and colored, at a cost of $175, which we both thought outrageous, but she was disappointed by the results. The salon she described as having a "spooky" atmosphere—homosexual hairdressers flitting about and attending to wrinkled old women, giving them "poodle-like" haircuts and pushing expensive cosmetics: "This is what Tiffy uses and she has skin just like you. Her husband practically owns this city and she comes here all the time." Elizabeth failed to explain why she chose to patronize such a salon.

I lost control while fucking her and had to withdraw just as she was coming, so that her orgasm was incomplete. I finished her off with my hand. It is really unfortunate that she delays until well past midnight before climbing into bed. I am tired by then, and consequently the sex is almost always inferior to what might have been possible had we commenced earlier in the evening.

There was a drunken message from Mark on my answering machine, timestamped from two am last night. When I called back this morning, he explained how his intoxication was an unintentional side effect of drinking a moderate amount of alcohol together with some sort of cold medicine. This makes a very potent cocktail, apparently. I discussed my recent troubles with my sister, and promised again to visit him next spring.

Helen called several times, requesting assistance with computer programming, which she is learning as part of her job. In the evening, we had dinner together at the cafe, followed by several hours of conversation back at her apartment. She hasn't seen Paul since they went to an office party ten days ago, given by the company for which he is currently doing consulting work. She thinks he has completely depleted his savings and so, should he lose this temporary job, which he holds on a week to week basis, would be unable to pay his rent. His precarious financial situation hasn't caused his spending to abate, however. The latest extravagance was a reversible (brown suede/smooth black) leather coat from the most expensive store in town, to add to his existing collection of two similar leather coats in perfect condition.

About midnight, I walked to the corner store to get a brownie. What a wonderful neighborhood this is at night! The neon lights and raucous rock music of the bars, the shady characters slipping in and out of porn shops and theaters and massage parlors, the hookers parading in front of liquor stores, the bums plopped down on the sidewalk passing around a bottle, the cars barely under the control of road-enraged drivers accelerating and honking at pedestrians who dare cross their path, the sirens blaring in the distance. I wanted to skip and shout for joy at the thought of being part of this non-stop carnival. What a furious outpouring of energy!

I tarried working on the computer and so was almost an hour late to arrive at Elizabeth's, which upset her, so that the next hour I spent soothing her ruffled feathers. Dinner at a restaurant, after which we returned to her apartment, where she wrapped packages and baked cookies she planned to give as Christmas gifts. No sex, despite my best efforts to arouse her. She complained of feeling tired, which was not surprising given that it was almost two am before we finally climbed into bed.

I lingered over tea with Elizabeth in the morning, then left about noon, to give her a chance to run errands. When I returned to her apartment in the evening, I again tried to arouse her, with as little success as last night. At last she confessed that she hasn't been particularly enthusiastic about sex for some weeks now.

"Haven't you noticed anything different?" she asked.

"I thought the problem was that we kept going to bed late, so that we were both tired, and that was why the sex has been second-rate. I didn't suspect that you might be deliberately going to bed late, though that certainly explains everything," I replied.

The above exchange took place in bed. I desisted from my efforts to arouse her, and instead we just lay hugging silently and without moving. Sometime later, she began fondling my cock.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"What do you think it means?" she replied.

So we had sex after all. I was highly aroused and unable to control myself and so dribbled inside her while trying to hold back on my orgasm, with the result that once again I'm worried about her being pregnant. Also, I had to finish her off with my hand since I didn't last long enough to make her come. Afterwards, she explained that her lack of interest in sex was due to back pains and being worried about bone cancer. She also complained of being unable to breathe at work—of feeling as if her upper body muscles were all seized up—which she thinks might be related to some sort of stress she is experiencing there, though she didn't elaborate on that situation. What the cause of Elizabeth's loss of desire, it makes me feel degraded, as if I'm no longer sexually attractive. This is the same problem that led me to break with Helen. But at least with Helen, I had common interests besides sex. With Elizabeth, sex is the only thing that brings us together.

We had originally planned to go out for dinner, but by the time we finished with sex, it was late and neither of us was in the mood to go anywhere. So we snacked at her apartment on crackers and cheese, with several glasses of wine and two beers for me.

My orgasm last night was incomplete, so that I was still highly aroused in the morning. I tried again to get Elizabeth in the mood, but in vain. In the end, I just masturbated while kissing her lips and ejaculated on her stomach. As soon as I was done, she leapt out of bed and ran into the bathroom to wash off—all the better to spoil the mood.

Afterwards, we dawdled around her apartment all morning and much of the afternoon, and then finally had a late lunch at a nearby cafe, where who should show up after we were seated than the Swedish woman to whom I gave the computer, who I haven't seen or talked to for over a month. I greeted her and we had a brief conversation, in which she mentioned that her new apartment was not far away, which means that she lives near Elizabeth. She said she had been intending to call me, and that she might be throwing a party soon, to which she would invite me, and that the computer I gave her was working fine. I think she was lying, and has no desire to see or speak to me again.

After we left the cafe, Elizabeth accused me of having lied about no longer trying to meet women while dancing and said I couldn't be trusted. Then she remarked that the Swedish woman had a bad complexion and was overweight and altogether didn't seem particularly attractive.

"But I guess you aren't very picky. As long as a woman doesn't get on your nerves, whatever that means, and is willing to have sex with you, that's good enough," she said.

"I consider it a compliment to be told that I'm not picky. I'm tolerant and easy-going, and I accept the good parts about a person without troubling myself excessively over the bad. Anyway, you have nothing to be worried about. She's one of those youngish fools—the type that wants a soul mate," I replied.

"What's wrong with that?"

"It's immature. Notice how she was alone. And I doubt she has many suitors to choose from. But she can't take just anyone because she's waiting for her soul mate to arrive. And so she doesn't have a sex life. Stupid, if you ask me. But this is how these young women like you think."

"I'm older than you!"

"You're older physically, but spiritually you're young and immature."

"You afraid of commitment!"

"What that does that stupid phrase mean?! I like to eat, to have sex, to read and to talk. Those are my interests. My only goal in life is to pursue those interests."

"That in itself is a pathetic statement."

And so on. The truth is, without sex, Elizabeth's company bores me. I had planned to return to my apartment this evening, but, after the encounter with the Swedish woman, I couldn't very well do so without provoking another argument, and so I had to spend another dreary evening with Elizabeth. I fixed a dinner of lentils and rice while she chatted on the phone with her mother, then I fell asleep on the sofa while she watched television in the other room. When I woke about midnight, I was too alert to return to sleep, and so sat in the living room and read, while Elizabeth slept.

After masturbating twice, I grew tired, but I had no desire to share a bed with Elizabeth, given how tired I was of her company and how disgusted I was at having to masturbate instead of fuck, and so I decided to sleep on the floor of the living room. Sometime towards dawn, I heard her stirring in the bedroom and so hurriedly sat up.

"What are you doing?" she asked, upon opening the living room door.

"I'm practicing yoga," I replied.

"You were sleeping."

"I was tired and so had the lights out, but I wasn't sleeping."

"You're acting very strange."

To avoid annoying her further, I returned to bed and remained there until nine am, half-sleeping, half-dreaming. Then we both arose, since she had to go to work.

If Elizabeth doesn't find me sexually attractive anymore, then why does she bother with me? And what exactly are we supposed to do together during our vacation next week, if not fuck? If the truth be told, I'm starting to hope for a rupture in our relationship, so I won't have to drag her along, but can instead spend the week alone. Getting drunk alone in a bar is surely not so bad as being tied to some dull-minded woman like Elizabeth who doesn't even find me sexually attractive anymore. Of course, there probably won't be a rupture, for the very reasons I find her company so unstimulating. Namely, she'd be afraid of what people might say.

I called Helen, who is feeling stressed from work as usual. This past weekend, she had dinner with Paul and his relatives from out of town, but didn't spend the night at his apartment. She mentioned feeling uncomfortable at this dinner, since these relatives know the story of how she was pregnant by Paul but then had an abortion. Tonight, she and Paul plan to have dinner again, and so she declined my dinner invitation. Instead, she proposed we meet for lunch, and so we did.

These lunches and other get-togethers with Helen make me realize how little I like Elizabeth. I'm bored and lonely around her because I can't put my mind into action, because if I did, I might offend her. I might broach one of the forbidden conversation topics, for example. Why do I bother with this woman, I keep asking myself? The prospect of spending nine days in the company of her and my relatives leaves my nerves feeling completely shot.

I masturbated in the afternoon, then took a nap, then walked down the street and watched a large wood-frame apartment building burn. Great jets of flame shooting from the roof, at least twenty fire trucks and a hundred firemen struggling for over twelve hours to control the blaze, and only succeeding after the building was completely destroyed. It seems appropriate here to review my own disaster preparedness plans. Almost all of my valuable data is stored on my computer, which I try to backup nightly. Every two weeks or so, I put some recent backups in a bank safety deposit box. My only irrecoverable losses in the event of a fire would be art objects, plus assorted useful but not essential documents—such as the paper evidence for my business expense claims—plus data entered into the computer within the past two weeks. In the event of a computer disk malfunction, I would only lose data entered within the past day.

I'm feeling tormented by worries about this coming trip. Why do I fear my sister so? Do I really expect her to shoot me or sic her dogs on me or falsely accuse me of assaulting her? My intuition says I should forget about her and my father and any possible inheritance, and otherwise cut all ties with my past. As for Elizabeth, I no longer have any desire for her to accompany me. What I really need is a long vacation by myself—with no Elizabeth and no visit to my sister and father. And this wild talk of spending the week holed up in a bar if I'm alone is absurd. I'll spend the week retracing the streets I walked as a boy and savoring my memories.

I arrived at Elizabeth's apartment in the afternoon, feeling very tense about the upcoming trip. We kissed, but I didn't respond passionately, and quickly broke away in order to play with the cat. I sensed the same physical incompatibility between us that I've been noticing for weeks. It's as if we don't excite one another anymore. Her day at work was stressful, she said. Also, her mother had called to inform her that many flights were being delayed or cancelled. The idea of being stuck in an airport overnight increased my sense of tenseness and restlessness. "This is going to be a trip to hell," I glumly predicted.

Matters came to head at the cafe in my neighborhood, where we ate dinner. Conversation died and we finished our meal in gloomy silence, broken at last by Elizabeth.

"I think this relationship has reached an impasse," she said.

"Oh?" I said.

"We have no common interests and we have nothing to say to one another. All you want is sex and I don't care about sex anymore. A relationship based just on sex can only last a few months, and then it becomes impossible. And that's where we are."

"I've noticed something was wrong myself."

"Then why didn't you say anything?"

"Why should I? You're the one always harping about commitment and worries about dying old alone. I'd think you'd be happy that I haven't wanted to leave."

"I don't like feeling that sex is expected of me."

"I don't like pressuring you. It's humiliating to be in bed with a woman who doesn't find me desirable, you know."

"I agree. I've been in the same situation myself." Perhaps was referring to the time when I was repeatedly impotent with her.

"You don't have to accompany me, if you don't want to. The ticket is paid for. Consider it my Christmas gift. Given all the cancelled flights and crowding this time of year, you should easily be able to trade it in for a flight someplace else. Or you can come with me. If so, nothing will be expected of you in the way of sex." She made no reply.

We returned to my apartment and sat on the sofa, drinking wine and continuing our discussion. At one point, apropos of I don't know what, she exclaimed,

"I want to be like other women! They're cheerful and I'm always the gloomy one! Elizabeth is such a bitch. I know that's what they think of me. Always in a bad mood. They don't like me because I'm a drag. And being around you drags me down even more."

Later, she complained that I hadn't given her a Christmas present (she had given me a teapot and cups), and so I retrieved an inlaid box from my bookshelf. I had bought this box a year ago, intending to someday give it to Helen. But Elizabeth objected that this box wasn't a real gift, because it wasn't new and it wasn't wrapped. I then pointed out that we had nothing to talk about because she refused to discuss the topics that interested me, such as past lovers.

"I'm not interested in discussing my past lovers," she replied. "Maybe the reason we don't have anything to say to one another is that I just can't live with men."

"Give up men and you won't have to worry about your appearance any more. You can cut your hair short. Throw away your lipstick and other cosmetics. Let yourself grow fat. Wear dowdy clothes and flat heels."

"It sounds very appealing."

"Lots of women your age let themselves go. If you don't like sex, why bother with appearance?"

"Why indeed?"

I then asked what her plans were relative to our trip, and she replied that she had come this far, and didn't see the point of backing out now, and so yes, she would be accompanying me. I spread the sheets and we lay down, facing apart initially, which is how we normally sleep. But I was feeling restless and so turned and hugged her in spoon position and caressed her shoulders and hips, which aroused her, so that soon enough we were engaged in sex—the passionate, electric, tingling sex that we used to have—so different from our perfunctory routine of the past few weeks. My erection was rock solid, but also under perfect control, so that I was easily able to bring her to a satisfying orgasm. After a brief pause, I resumed fucking, with deep, powerful thrusts until I felt myself coming, then withdrew and ejaculated on her stomach, with my whole body wracked by spasms.

Contrary to the predictions of Elizabeth's mother, there was no problem with flight delays. We picked up the rental car and drove to my aunt's house, and from there to my cousin's, where we had dinner. His daughter, age thirteen, was showing off her breasts with a most provocative low cut dress. How much kicking and screaming to get her mother to permit that outfit, I wondered? I mentioned the display of cleavage later to Elizabeth, who objected: "Why do you always have to talk about such things?" But then sometime after, my aunt made a similar remark about how the girl had been flaunting her breasts.

Elizabeth seemed in the mood for sex this morning—responding to my foot squeezes with foot squeezes of her own, for example. And so I kissed her breasts and fingered her as foreplay, then put on a condom, since I was highly aroused and sensed that I wouldn't last long without one. What a loss of sensation that caused! Unfortunately, sensation is what enables me to be a sensitive lover. With a numb cock, all I can do is thrust clumsily. Also, latex seems to rub and irritate Elizabeth more than bare skin. Another possibility is that she doesn't get excited and wet when we fuck with a condom due to the reduced chance of pregnancy, which she seems to subconsciously want, and that it is this lack of lubrication, rather than the latex itself, which causes the irritation. In any case, she didn't even approach orgasm, and soon grew tired and sore and asked me to come without her. This I did—after a minute or so of powerful thrusting. One positive aspect of wearing a condom was that I was able to come inside her for a change, instead of withdrawing.

Lunch at a restaurant with my aunt, who told me, while Elizabeth was in the restroom: "She has the most beautiful eyes and mouth! And such a sensitive girl! It's like she has antenna radiating from all over her body! Hurry up and marry her before she gets away!"

In the afternoon, Elizabeth and I wandered around the tourist district, then ate dinner at a restaurant recommended by my aunt. Though acclaimed as a tourist attraction, the city utterly fails to charm me. Perhaps because I grew up here and have bad memories of it. A few days ago, I had anticipated pleasure at walking the streets I walked as a boy. But now I realize that I hate this city and always have. I never feel "free" here. I told this to Elizabeth later.

"What will freedom bring you?" she asked.

"I don't know. I know I need to be free in order to be happy. I'm different. I always have been," I replied.

"You'll end up a lonely old man."

"I enjoy loneliness."

Then we discussed my aunt's recommendation that we get married. A calm discussion, with both of us realizing that our relationship is doomed and that we are on the verge of breaking up, but also with neither of us wanting to break up just yet. At one point, Elizabeth said: "I'm always afraid in a relationship that it won't last, that I'll do something and we'll break up, so I always feel like I'm walking on eggs." Of course, in reality, she herself seems to have a penchant for breaking up at the first signs of discord, more so probably than her partners.

After dinner, we walked back to my aunt's house, past beautiful mansions of the sort that would make me feel buried alive if I owned and lived in one of these places myself. The evening we spent in conversation with my aunt. This aunt currently lives with her sister—my other aunt—who is afflicted with some disease (Alzheimer's or similar) which has caused her to mind to rot and her body to shrivel up to where she now resembles a cadaver. This other aunt is cared for by round the clock caretakers (paid $7/hour, so that the cost of caring for her is $61152/year just on salaries), who give her powerful drugs to control her anxiety. Without the drugs, she would be shrieking and running about like a madwoman. With the drugs, she lies in bed or sits slumped over in a chair, mutely nodding and trembling—a horrid spectacle altogether. One of these caretakers (my aunt doesn't know which) apparently stole my aunt's silver, which would cost about $5000 to replace from a secondhand silver store. This occasioned a discussion in which I commented that I hated to own valuables such as silverware, precisely because I disliked worrying about the possibility of theft, while Elizabeth remarked that she owned some valuable crystal glasses, that she had inherited from her grandmother but was afraid to use, lest they be broken.

Elizabeth was still aroused from this morning, and had showered just before climbing into bed (and thus was clean for a change), so I decided to lick her. While doing so, I pressed upwards with my middle finger against her g spot, which seemed to make her highly aroused and wet. I then began fucking and brought her to what might well be the most intense orgasm she has ever had with me. All the while she was trembling and whimpering and as she came she cried out involuntarily. Normally, she tries to refrain from making any sounds during sex. I had excellent control of my cock, and so asked if she would like a second orgasm. She replied yes, and so I continued fucking. But the sensitive fucking that had brought her off before didn't seem to work this second time. At her encouragement, I switched to banging hard, so that her body shook with each thrust. But this was equally ineffective, and so I pulled out and we rested briefly.

We resumed with passionate kissing, then she rolled herself on top and guided my cock inside, then opened her thighs so I could fuck upwards. An incomplete but tremendously powerful orgasm for me, so that my whole body was shaken by uncontrollable spasms. It was incomplete because I am unused to fucking on the bottom and so pulled out too soon. The intensity was due to being able to collapse entirely at the moment of orgasm. When fucking on top, by contrast, it is necessary to maintain some muscular tension in my upper body even after orgasm, in order not to crush the woman with my weight.

About dawn, both Elizabeth and I awoke, needing to visit the bathroom. She went first. When she returned, I said to her, "Helen, I mean, Elizabeth, where's the bathroom?"

"That's the second time you've done that." She is referring to a similar incident during our trip to the desert, where I also mistakenly addressed her as Helen.

"I'm sorry."

"It just shows who you're really thinking about all the time. How would you like it if I called you by some other name?"

"Like I said, I'm sorry. I lived with her for so long."

"That's no excuse. Though maybe it doesn't matter."

"Anyway, which door is the bathroom?"

"You can find it yourself."

I eventually found the bathroom. Upon returning, I climbed into bed and hugged her, trying to make up for calling her by the wrong name.

We both slept late and then Elizabeth was slow to dress, so that we didn't arrive at my cousin's until noon. But it hardly mattered, since dinner wasn't ready until four in the afternoon. I drank too much and became involved in a loud theological argument. I remember nothing of what anyone else said, which isn't surprising, as we were all mostly listening to ourselves. I ate myself sick and had both a stomachache and a splitting headache by the end of the evening.

The bed we had been sleeping on had a soft mattress, which had given us both backaches yesterday, so that early this morning Elizabeth decided to move to the living room and sleep there on the floor instead. I was too lazy to accompany her, then didn't descend until much later. Upon seeing me, my aunt shook her head.

"Why are you two sleeping separately? Did you already break up?" she asked. I explained about the bed, but she didn't seem convinced. "What are you running away from? That girl has such a beautiful face. And she has such insight into herself! What are you afraid of?"

"Afraid?" I said.

"You're running from life is what it is. Your own parents had an unpleasant marriage and so you think the same thing will happen to you. And so you go through life living alone and terrified of being a human being."

"I'm happy alone."

"You're not happy! What are you doing with your life?"

"I'm enjoying myself."

"You're scared to death of living! What a waste!"

Lunch with my aunt and several cousins. In the afternoon, Elizabeth and I toured the historic residential district. Thus far, I had been deliberately driving down streets lined with beautiful mansions, since these are the parts of the city which are generally considered worth seeing. Of course, this gives a false impression that everyone in the city is wealthy. To give perspective on the true situation, I briefly drove today through one of the poor districts—streets full of potholes and lined with boarded up houses and abandoned cars, including one interesting specimen with a shopping cart thrown through the windshield, ragged children running everywhere, men lounging about and drinking whisky and beer from bottles. "I've seen enough," said Elizabeth, after a mere minute of such sights.

We concluded the day with a walk in the park, followed by a light dinner, since both of us were feeling stuffed from overeating, and then played a board game with my religious cousin. He asked how we met, and so I described our courtship in some detail, thinking it might do him good to learn something about how people behave outside his little world of fundamentalist religious fanatics. According to my aunt, he "wants a woman to be his slave and no one acts like that any more."

"Elizabeth pressed up against me while we were dancing tango," I explained. "I couldn't let that pass without responding and so I gave her my business card—a business card gives me instant credibility with women, according to a book I once read—and then I asked for her phone number." And so on, with interruptions and laughter by Elizabeth to keep the tale lively.

"Ah, yes. These women they want to steal our bodily fluids," said my cousin, as if jest, though it later occurred to me that he might be serious. That this might be a quote from some religious tract.

The game lasted until well past midnight, so that both Elizabeth and I were tired by the time it was over, and thus unable to indulge in another round of sex. We slept together on the living room floor.

I updated this journal in the morning, while Elizabeth continued to sleep. Upon finally emerging, she noticed me writing, and asked what I was up to and so I confessed that I was taking notes for a journal. I would have liked to conceal the existence of this journal, since I'm worried that she might someday read and be shocked by its contents. But her intuition is such that it's hopeless for me to lie. Perhaps I should simply have refused to comment.

Lunch at an expensive restaurant with my aunt. Afterwards, Elizabeth and I engaged in an excellent bout of sex. I licked her, then fucked her, with a powerful orgasm for her, followed by an equally powerful one for myself, with me withdrawing before coming and ejaculating on her stomach. Though she insists she doesn't like cunnilingus, the truth is that it excites her tremendously. But only if she has recently showered and so isn't feeling self-conscious about her smell or state of cleanliness. The question is, why doesn't she always shower before sex so as to always be clean when I try to lick her?

After sex, we packed, then drove to the small town near my father's property. Dinner at a restaurant, where I limited myself to a cocktail and a bowl of soup, since I was feeling bloated from all the eating of the past few days. The evening we passed in the casino, where I played the nickel slot machines—coming out ahead by a dollar—while Elizabeth played five dollar a hand blackjack—coming out ahead by five dollars. This casino seemed much more cheerful than those of Basin City.

"This seems so far from West Metropolis, and I mean that in a good way," Elizabeth remarked as we returned to the hotel. I was happy to learn that she was enjoying the trip. When visiting this part of the country alone, I tend to lose all initiative and just retrace old paths from my youth and visit relatives, and soon become bored and anxious to leave. Having a companion makes the trip far more enjoyable. We discussed the visit to my father tomorrow, about which I have no enthusiasm. "Your sister probably feels like a failure, because she doesn't measure up to the rest of the family," was Elizabeth's take on the situation.

Another bout of great sex this morning. First I softly licked her cunt lips, with an occasional tongue flick against her clitoris, and now and then a gentle nibble at her thigh tendons, with my middle finger inserted in her cunt all the while, pressing upwards against her g spot. Then various types of thrusting, with the most effective being to withdraw slowly and pause so that her anticipation builds, then penetrate firmly and pause again until her tremors diminish, then repeat. A varying, unpredictable rhythm initially, switching to a rapid, even rhythm as she approaches orgasm, riding high so that the upper length of my cock glides against her clitoris with each stroke. We both had powerful and nearly simultaneous orgasms, with me withdrawing and ejaculating on her stomach as I came.

Lunch at an historic restaurant, which had been highly recommended by one of my cousins, but which Elizabeth and I thought resembled a cafeteria, in both food and atmosphere. Afterwards, we dawdled in a jewelry and antiques store, where Elizabeth bought some earrings. Finally, about mid-afternoon, we drove to my father's property, about a half-hour drive from town, stopping off on the way to view some historic ruins. Anything to delay the dreaded visit.

Contrary to my fears, the gate was not locked and so we opened it and drove on in. My father was sitting outside in a hanging swing sofa. I introduced Elizabeth, then he invited us to sit down beside him, which we did. He and I are both taciturn by nature, and so, as is usual, the conversation soon withered and we rocked on the swing in silence. Elizabeth grew fidgety and wandered off to view the goats, which were grazing in a nearby field. Now that my father and I were alone, I broached the various controversial issues I wanted to discuss with him.

Regarding changing the phone number to be unpublished, my father just shrugged. I asked for, but of course he didn't know, the new number. As for the $300,000 loan, he insisted that my sister planned to pay this back. I then tried to explain the issue of the statute of limitations and the need for the loan to be officially recorded, but he was clearly unable to understand. "I'm lonely," he then complained, to which I didn't know what to say, other than to reiterate that, without a published phone number, he can't very well expect calls. Then he launched into a bitter denunciation of my uncle, who he accused of stealing some furniture that had belonged to my great-aunt and that was rightfully his. The complaint is a valid one (my uncle had flown down immediately after this great-aunt's death and ransacked her house for all the best pieces of furniture), but the incident occurred almost ten years ago. Why resurrect this ancient quarrel? I have to think that this is my sister's doing—that she is stirring up the issue as an indirect way of accusing me of being unscrupulous—hoping that, by faulty logic, my father will conclude that since I and my uncle live close to one another, we act like one another as well. Then my father shook his head and accused me of being "bad" for having sued to put him under conservatorship, and bitterly complained of being "powerless". I suspect his agitation regarding this topic is also the result of my sister's insinuations.

About twenty minutes after our arrival, my brother-in-law drove up on an small all-terrain-vehicle. My sister's house is about two hundred yards further down the road, and apparently she and her husband use these vehicles to commute back and forth to my father's house. He greeted Elizabeth, who he had never before met, then looked my way, then drove off, splashing through muddy potholes in the road on his way. About ten minutes later, my sister drove up, also on an all-terrain-vehicle.

"Are you okay, dad?" she asked.

"I'm okay. Sit down," replied my father, beckoning to the empty seat on the swing.

"I got nothing to say. Nothing to say at all," snapped my sister, with her face filled with hate. Then she drove off.

"She's trash," I said in disgust.

"Look, damnit! No!" exclaimed my father, waving as if to silence me. We sat mutely for several more minutes, then he invited me into his small house.

It was a humble dwelling as seen from the outside, with broken screens on the windows and peeling paint and trash strewn on all sides: rusting pieces of roofing tin, a dirt-encrusted shower stall, several overturned and open bags of garbage, empty cans. Hardly the sort of place one would expect a man with my father's wealth to be inhabiting, and hardly the sort of place in which he had lived for most of his life. But it was the interior that really shocked me. Immediately upon entering, I was struck by an overpowering rodent smell—a smell with which I am familiar, from having raised mice and gerbils and other rodent pets as a boy. Then I looked around, to see what was causing such a stink. Whereupon I beheld every horizontal surface—floors, shelves, countertops, tables, the top of the refrigerator—covered with mouse droppings, and every container in the cupboard that a rodent could possibly eat—crackers, cereal, coffee—chewed into and the contents devoured. On the table and countertops and in the sink were dirty plastic cups, the sort that are given away at fast-food restaurants, filled with brownish fluid and dead insects. My father suggested I have a glass of water or fruit juice, and so I looked around for a glass, but none was to be found, and the prospect of drinking from one of these filthy plastic cups turned my stomach, and so I had a beer from a can instead. The garbage can stank horribly, as if something had died inside, and swarming around its opening was a cloud of flies. In fact, the whole house was full of flies. In every corner and every gap between furniture and wall was a matting of dusty and insect laden spider webs. Of course, given the profusion of flies, the presence of spiders might well be a blessing. The bare wood floors were thickly covered with dirt tracked in from outside, so the house might as well not have had a floor. The furniture, every piece of which was coated by dust, looked as though it had been salvaged from the junk yard or else bought from a thrift store. The only items of any possible value were the television and stereo, both of which were blaring. Altogether, it was a depressing environment, as if calculated to make my father weary of life.

I took a look around the house, and noted that it consisted of two bedrooms, a bathroom, a small living room and a combined breakfast room and kitchen, plus some small closets and a screen porch. The bathroom was particularly decrepit looking, with the wallboard falling down in several places. The only positive aspect of the situation was that neither my father nor the house smelled of urine. So either my father's incontinence is cured, or else he is being scrupulous about wearing diapers. As for his person, he was dressed shabbily, but had been shaved recently—whether by himself or by my sister I don't know. He seemed feeble, but probably that is due primarily to age and illness rather than to neglect or mistreatment.

He had taken a seat in his vinyl easy chair (as cheap-looking as the rest of the furniture, covered with dirt and with a large burn mark on the side) and gestured to me to pull up a chair from the breakfast table. This I did, but as I was wearing good pants, I patted the seat first, to check for dust. Immediately, a cloud billowed up. Only after brushing the seat perhaps twenty times was I satisfied that it was ready to be sat upon, and even so I got myself dirty.

"How can you live in this sort of filth?" I demanded. My father just shrugged. "Are you happy here?"

"Yes, I'm happy. Lonely, but happy," he replied.

"You might be less lonely if the place were less filthy. Your friends are probably ashamed to visit when things are this dirty. This isn't how you used to live. It's like a pigsty! And you're happy with this? All you have to do is snap your fingers, and I'll get this place cleaned up. I'll tell the conservator to hire someone to clean it. And if the conservator refuses, I'll go to court and get a new conservator. Just give me the word."

Again, my father just shrugged, and so, after repeating myself several times, I finally let the issue drop. He seemed sunk in stuporous apathy, and unwilling to disturb his tranquility by complaining or otherwise offending my sister. We looked over some old photos and then Elizabeth entered. Like me, she made a face at the rodent smell and appeared reluctant to dirty herself by sitting on the dusty chairs, but otherwise tried to be polite and uncomplaining. I asked my father how he spends his days and he indicated that he watches television, and listens to the radio, and sits on the swinging sofa and watches the goats and chickens, and occasionally works jigsaw puzzles, but that he can't read, due to poor eyesight and the effects of his stroke. For companionship he has an old cat—an overweight female with one eye clouded over with a cataract. One would expect her to keep the mice under control, but apparently not. Perhaps she is overwhelmed by their numbers.

I had originally planned to invite my father to have dinner with us at a restaurant, but after seeing his shabby appearance and feebleness, as well as his reluctance to offend my sister in any way, I changed my mind, and suggested a short drive instead, to which suggestion he readily assented. I called my sister on the phone, but she was out and so I left a message on the answering machine, describing our plans, and then we climbed into the car and drove down the road. I stopped at the gate, which Elizabeth proceeded to open, when my sister roared up on her all-terrain-vehicle.

"Where are you going?" she asked angrily.

"We're going for a drive," I replied.

"As long as dad is under my control, I want to know when he is taken off of this property!"

"I left a message on your machine."

"My machine! Like you didn't know I was working outside! Why couldn't you walk your butt over there and tell me in person?!"

"I thought you didn't want to speak to me? Anyway, I left a message on your machine. As far as I'm concerned, that was sufficient."

"Dad, are you okay?" asked my sister, looking in at my father.

"I'm okay," replied my father.

"You're sure you aren't being forced to take this ride?"

"It's okay."

"And where are you going?" said my sister, turning to me.

"We're going for a short drive," I replied.

"Oh, yeah, just like two years ago you took a short drive to that lawyer. Is that the scheme you've cooked up now? To take Dad on another drive like that?"

"Why don't you just follow us, if you're so worried?"

"Dad, are you sure you're not being forced to go against your will?"

"I want to go," replied my father.

"Dad has the right to go wherever he wants," I added.

"I know what rights he has," snapped my sister. Then she asked what our specific plans were, and I repeated what I had said on her answering machine. Namely, that we were taking a drive around the countryside and would be back in about an hour. My sister sniffed in disgust and beckoned to Elizabeth to get back in the car and then opened the gate herself. And so we drove off and toured back roads for an hour. About halfway through this drive, my father began anxiously looking at his watch, and continued to do so every five minutes thereafter, until we had returned, as if he were afraid of angering my sister by being late.

The sun had fallen by the time we arrived back at the property, and, this being the countryside where night comes quickly, it was already pitch dark outside. So I helped my father up the stairs safely, and then Elizabeth and I sat with him for a short while in his living room, watching the news on television while listening to the radio station playing classical music. As we rose to leave, I promised to stop by again tomorrow, despite feeling absolutely zero relish for such a repeat visit. Aside from having nothing to say to my father and not particularly enjoying his company—and certainly not enjoying the unpleasantness of my sister—the squalor of his living conditions made me depressed. Still, it seemed only polite to at least spend some time in his company, given how I hadn't seen him since the lawsuit, which was over a year ago. Elizabeth politely leaned over and let my father kiss her on the cheek as we said a final goodbye.

Afterwards, Elizabeth and I had an excellent dinner in the historic section of the town. Though she agreed with my assessment of the meal's quality, the pleasure for Elizabeth was somewhat allayed due to her having a headache.

"It started during that visit," she explained. "It was so filthy in that house. How can someone live like that? All those mouse droppings. That's not just disgusting. It's unhealthy as well. Your aunt's messiness upsets me enough as it is, but hers at least isn't unhealthy. With her, it's just papers scattered everywhere. Whereas those mouse droppings and flies and all that dirt... It makes me sick just to think of it! And then the nastiness with your sister. I don't mind conflict that leads to resolution. But this sort of seething hatred upsets me. The way your sister looked at me and you... I don't want to go back there."

I reassured her that tomorrow I would go alone. Upon returning to the hotel, I remained downstairs in the lobby for several hours taking notes for this journal, as Elizabeth had indicated that she wanted some time by herself.

Sex in the morning, despite Elizabeth's initial insistence that she was too drowsy. I had tried repeatedly to arouse her, but in vain, until she perked up at my suggestion that she suck my cock. "I though you didn't like that?" she said. I replied that I did enjoy it very much, but only as foreplay and that the reason I never ask to be sucked is that I don't want to hear her objections, and she has objected in the past to oral sex. I suspect that she has always wanted very much to suck me, and wants me to come in her mouth, and wants me to press her head down into my lap, except that someone told her long ago that men despise and abandon women who give in to men sexually ("whores") and marry the women who resist ("madonnas"). Though perhaps there is some truth to her fears. After all, it is Helen, who frustrates me sexually, who I love most, rather than Elizabeth, who fully satisfies me sexually.

For whatever reason, her inhibitions were somewhat suspended today. In other words, she gave me a blowjob—an inhibited blowjob, but a blowjob nonetheless—which greatly excited both of us. For her, though, the excitement wasn't enough to overcome drowsiness, with the result that I came but she didn't. Then I dressed and drove back out to my father's property, leaving her behind, to spend the day touring the town.

My father was again sitting on the swinging sofa when I arrived. He invited me into his house and we sat there in gloomy silence for the most part, listening simultaneously to the classical music radio station and the news on television. I asked again if he was content with living in filth and he just shrugged and said, "It's okay". Then I wrote down my phone number on the back of a calendar, so it will be concealed from my sister, who otherwise would notice and discard it.

My sister entered while I was still there and asked my father if he was feeling okay and then put on a show of cleaning up the kitchen. Her real objective, no doubt, was to interfere with any confidential conversation I might want to have with my father. I said nothing to her, she said nothing me. The tension in the air was almost palpable. Finally, I shook my father's hand and left.

I met Elizabeth at a restaurant where we had lunch together. Then we drove back to the city, stopping off at various historic sites on the way.

Snacks with my aunt in the evening (Elizabeth and I were both still feeling bloated from overeating and thus had no desire for a full dinner), where I became excited while discussing the events of the visit to my father and several times told Elizabeth to "shut up!" I later apologized to both her and my aunt.

Both Elizabeth and I slept late, then we had lunch with my aunt and a nephew at a restaurant. In the afternoon, we drove to various historic sites. It was an unscenic drive for the most part, past belching chemical factories and refineries and ramshackle houses and desolate fields. Near the very start of this drive, we were stopped for speeding (forty mph in a twenty mph zone, though the typical speed limit on these sorts of back roads is at least thirty-five mph). The policemen let me off without a ticket, however. According to Elizabeth, the police showed a complete change of attitude after I told them where I was staying, by giving the address of my aunt, which is in a neighborhood well-known for its wealthy and influential residents. I was too busy shuffling around with my license and the car registration papers to notice this change of attitude myself. (Incidentally, I resolved to get a new driver's license photo as soon as I returned from this trip, as my current license photo has me wearing a beard and scowling, so that I resemble a murderous lunatic—not exactly the sort of photo I want to be showing police.) We toured one historic home and drove past several others. On the way back, we crossed the river via ferry boat. We had crossed via bridge on the way out.

A light dinner at my aunt's, followed by sex in the early evening. Elizabeth had wanted to wait until later, but I pointed out that my nieces were planning to spend the night and so we would not have privacy, given that we planned to sleep on the living room floor. So we slipped upstairs while these nieces watched a movie.

It was one of the best episodes of sex of our relationship. To mask our noises from the caretaker of my senile aunt, who was in an adjacent room, we turned on the television, whose announcements enabled me to clock our time exactly—an hour from the time we started fucking to when we stopped. Elizabeth insisted we try exotic positions—standing, sitting, dog-style—but eventually we settled on tried-and-true missionary due to her back problems. In this last position we engaged in a sort of tantric sex, with me penetrating deeply and then remaining almost motionless while we tongue kissed and hugged closely. Two orgasms for her and one for me. "Don't withdraw, I want to feel you explode in me!" she cried out as we fucked, and so that is what I did. She said later that she felt numb from stimulation, but that it was a pleasant numbness.

There was a large wet spot on the bed afterwards from our activities, and so, to avoid inquires from my nieces, we told my aunt that we planned to sleep in the bed tonight and let the girls sleep on the living room floor. But then later (it was only nine pm by the time we finished cleaning up) we visited my cousin for drinks, and when we returned, the girls had already gone to sleep—in the bed. Who knows what they thought of the wet spot?

Both Elizabeth and I felt sick—headaches and nausea—on the plane, probably from overeating at the party. We took a taxi back to her apartment, for which she offered to pay, since she hadn't paid for anything else on the trip. (Not that I had asked her to pay or resented her for not paying. I am, after all, much wealthier than her.) "I certainly don't feel happy to be back," she remarked. And I had to agree that, in flying to see my relatives, it was as though we had passed through a magic door into a dream world where all was gaiety and leisure and sleeping late and dining out and great sex, and that, in flying back, we had returned to our former dismal reality. I also became aware that the conflicts between us, which had been raised on the eve of our flight but which seemed to disappear while we were on vacation, had never been properly resolved. We seemed tense in one another's presence.

The next morning, I awoke about nine, then exercised and bathed while Elizabeth continued to sleep, then crawled into bed with her for a bout of sex. She sucked me as foreplay, then asked that I don a condom. The first time she has ever done so. Did she sense that I was highly aroused and might come too soon without one? Or has she decided, based on experiences during our vacation, that she definitely doesn't want to have children by me? Does she feel on the verge of ovulation? If so, she might still get pregnant from residual sperm from two days ago. I tried to repeat our tantric experience from then, but the energy wasn't there—partly because my senses were dulled by the condom, partly because Elizabeth was insufficiently aroused, perhaps there were other factors to blame. She brought me to a powerful orgasm by caressing my thighs with her hands while we fucked, but didn't come herself. We lay in bed for a half-hour afterwards, then had tea together, then I took the bus home.