[start of age 39]

Karen sent me an email for my birthday: "You will be pleased to know that your brainchild is being taught in training classes and we are using it all over the country at [corporation where she works]. After it was free, of course." She was referring to the computer program I used to sell and which I later gave away when I decided to terminate the business. I replied as follows: "The reason I never called you a month ago is that I had met someone else (who I'm still seeing) and I was worried where things might go if I spent an evening with you. I suppose I should have simply told you this then, but my approach to life has always been to just bury my head in the sand and pretend something doesn't exist when I don't want to deal with it. Which is sort of what happened to my software business. One day, I got tired of hearing the phone ring so much and figured that if I didn't charge money for the programs, then I wouldn't have to deal with more phone calls. I suppose I'm more than a little crazy in some ways. I'm glad to hear from you and hope you are doing well in life. Regardless of my flaky behavior at times, I am genuinely fond of you." I'm not sure about this last sentence. I don't really know how I feel about Karen, other than occasionally having the desire to grind my cock and balls into her face and then fuck her cunt hard so that she comes ten times. "I am genuinely fond of you" doesn't seem to capture this sexual aspect of my feelings for Karen.

Helen called and suggested we have lunch. But then we had an argument over where to eat. She wanted to go to an expensive restaurant while I wanted to go to our usual cafe. The final decision was to call the lunch off entirely. I asked about her love life and job situation and Helen replied that both were "the same as ever" and that she is currently sick. I said I'd call her when I got back from Mexico and then we hung up.

A few hours later, she stopped by my apartment. She explained that she had decided to take the afternoon off from work due to feeling ill. We walked to the cafe and had lunch there. Paul's relatives were very impressed by her appearance at the wedding. They thought she was ten years younger than her true age of thirty-eight and several of them encouraged Paul to marry her soon. Perhaps because of this, Paul has been considerate to her during her various "illnesses" of the past few weeks: flu-like symptoms, bladder infections, more flu, more bladder infections. Also, he has given her ample "breathing room" with regards to sex, for which she is thankful, though she suspects it won't be long before he resumes demanding "visitation rights". "I get bored with a man after I get to know him," was Helen's explanation for her failure to reciprocate Paul's desires. "You weren't bored with me back at the beginning of last month," I noted. "That's because I hadn't seen you for a while," she replied.

Helen then talked of possibly having a child by Paul but not marrying him. In particular, she is worried about mixing her finances with his. Paul has taken to leaving work at noon each day, even though he only arrives at work at about nine in the morning, so that he effectively works no more than three hours a day. And when he describes his day to Helen, it is clear that he is doing absolutely nothing, so that she is amazed that he hasn't already been fired. She also talked vaguely of placing a personals ad for "men who are impotent or have very low libido."

We agreed to have lunch together less frequently in the future, on the grounds that one cause of our bitter falling out last month might simply have been that we were seeing each other too often. I then asked Helen to pay half the cost of today's lunch. "That will make these lunches more a meeting of friends, without the romantic connotations of me always picking up the tab," I argued. Helen grudgingly consented to this request.

Yet another vacation begins with an illness. I felt the onset of a headache halfway through the flight to Mexico and then, by the time we'd landed, I was suffering from a full-blown migraine. Since Marianne's flight wasn't to arrive for another six hours, I considered taking a taxi into town and checking into the hotel for a nap, but then it occurred to me that I might oversleep and end up missing Marianne, which would be a very bad start for our vacation, and so I decided to lie down on the floor of airport, which was almost empty, and take a nap there. As soon as my body was horizontal, I felt overcome by nausea and had to scramble to my feet and hurry to the restroom. At first I walked and then, as vomit began rising in my throat, I ran. Just as I reached the toilet, I exploded. After emptying my stomach, I sat down and emptied my bowels, and then I cleaned up and went to buy bottled water. This tasted heavenly going down, but a few minutes afterwards the nausea returned and I had to vomit again. Finally, after four iterations of drinking water and almost immediately vomiting it back up, my stomach settled down and I was able to take a nap. Upon awakening, I performed some yoga shoulderstands, which made me feel much better, then I called the hotel where we had reservations to announce that we might be arriving later than expected, since Marianne's flight was delayed, then I lay back down and alternated between reading and listening to music. Marianne didn't finally arrive until one in the morning, or ten hours after I had arrived. We took a taxi to the hotel, where I showered up and brushed my teeth to get rid of the vomit taste, and then we climbed into bed, where I was utterly uninterested in sex. I told Marianne not to worry about this and that I would be recovered tomorrow.

In the morning, I felt tremors in my cock at the thought of burying my face between Marianne's thighs, and so at about seven I started kissing her neck and then turned her over and we commenced to fuck. I noticed that Marianne's cunt was much tighter than Sarah's, and probably tighter than any cunt I've ever fucked, and was no looser after ten minutes of fucking than when we started. Last year, when we first had sex, I thought her dryness and tightness was simply the way her body was constructed, but now I'm not so sure. I get the impression that, like Helen, she gets tense during sex and never relaxes (vaginismus). I used heavy amounts of lubricant and tried various techniques to bring her to orgasm, which she seemed to resist. When I directed the head of my cock against her g spot, she twisted away. When I touched her clitoris with my finger, she pushed my hand away. Finally, she said I should probably come before she got sore. I sped up my movements and banged her hard, but deliberately delayed my orgasm so that this banging went on for several minutes, during which her cunt finally seemed to come alive. Immediately after I ejaculated, Marianne began grinding her pelvis against mine and continued doing so for about a minute and then finally collapsed, as if she had just had an orgasm. I couldn't be sure about whether she had come because I didn't feel the sudden relaxation of the vaginal muscles that I normally feel when a woman comes. When I asked, Marianne confirmed that she had come. "I never come until the man comes. I need that feeling that he has ejaculated in me and that's when I become excited," she explained.

After breakfast, we walked to the beach and sat in the sun, then had lunch, then walked back to our hotel and swam there in the pool, with another bout of sex upon returning to our room. I tried to get Marianne to slow down and fuck more slowly. She, meanwhile, urged me to speed up and fuck faster. Compared with the timeless sex I've been enjoying with Sarah this past month, this "slam-bam-thank you ma'am" style of fucking that Marianne wanted brought to mind the phrase "junk sex". "Why do you want to rush? Don't you like having me inside you and our being close together?" I asked. "It turns me on when you fuck me hard and fast. If we slow down, I lose interest," Marianne replied.

Over dinner, Marianne talked about some of ex-lovers. "Once I met this guy in a bar and we started talking about books. I was really surprised at how well-read he was, because he didn't look like a bookish person. Later, he told me he had spent seven years in prison and reading was how he passed the time. Once I complained to him about some trouble I was having with my boss at work, and he told me something very interesting. For $300 I can fix your problem, he said. Your boss won't get hurt, but he'll be so scared afterwards that he'll leave you alone for the rest of your life. Of course, I didn't accept this offer. And then he said, okay, if you don't want that option, then I don't want to ever hear you complain again. If you stop complaining, the problem won't bother you anymore. And he was right, when I stopped complaining, the trouble with my boss stopped bothering me. I broke up with this guy eventually because of incompatibility. He never caused me any trouble, but I decided after that experience never to meet men in bars again.

"I've had some other short-term affairs, but I've never been married and I've never had a real boyfriend. I've always been a mistress and never a wife. The man I was with the longest was married to some woman who wouldn't let him have sex with her, but he didn't want to divorce her because then she'd get half his money, he said. Why do men marry women like that, is what I always wonder? And if a woman is going to be a prostitute, why not do it openly? He would call me up each Monday and ask if he could come over and see me. He was about my age and the sex was very good and got better and better as time went on. We saw each other for seven years. Meanwhile, I had met another man who is very prominent in the government. He was much older and wanted to marry me, but the sex with him was terrible. He wanted me to slap him in order to get him aroused and that just turned me off. It really made me dread the idea of sex with him. And then if I didn't slap him, he was impotent. And yet he wanted to marry me! The worst thing was that as long as I was dating him, I couldn't meet other men, because other men knew I was his lover and because he was so prominent in the government, they were afraid to approach me. So I ended up spending most of my time alone because he was always busy. Except for when the man who visited me on Mondays came over. And then finally I couldn't tolerate the situation any more. Here I am, having sex with a man who's married and meanwhile not having sex with the man who wanted to marry me. So I told each of them about the other. And you know what? They didn't care! I thought they'd both be jealous, but they really didn't care! The one who was married said I should marry this other man and we'd continue being lovers. And the one who wanted to marry me was happy that I was seeing this other man for sex, because that way I wasn't complaining about not getting sex from him. I asked my friends what I should do and they all told me to marry the guy who was the prominent politician and continue seeing the other guy. But I couldn't continue to split myself between two men that way. So then I asked these friends, if I have to choose, which should I take? And they all said take the man who wanted to marry me. But that was the man who did nothing for me sexually. It was a choice between sex versus marriage. I chose sex, there was never a moment of doubt in my mind. So I stopped seeing that guy who wanted to marry me and continued seeing the other guy for sex, until about two years ago. He came over one Monday and stayed all week and then on Friday he packed up, because he was going home to his wife and kids. I told him, make a decision—either them or me—and he wouldn't decide and so I told him I wasn't interested in seeing him any more.

"I don't know, I really haven't been that anxious about sex for these past two years. I've sort of given it up. When I was younger, most of my lovers were much older, and I thought that was normal. That men were only interested in younger women. Then when I started traveling alone, all these very young guys would approach me. I thought they were kidding. I'm old enough to be your mother, I would tell them. But they weren't kidding. So now I don't pay so much attention to a man's age. I still prefer men who are at least in their thirties, though. Something about very young men turns me off. Of course, so many of the men I've met over the years are impotent. I don't know why. Maybe I intimidate them. I'm not lesbian, that I know. I have some lesbian friends and they've made offers to me but I'm just not interested. I like real men. Men who take charge sexually so that I don't have to make any decisions. That's what I liked about the way you danced. I didn't have to think any more. I could just close my eyes and let you hold me close and walk me around the room. It made me feel like a real woman. I'll tell you something funny. I was there that first night at the tango club with my roommate, and he was very critical of your dancing. That guy's not doing real tango, he's dancing like a sex maniac, he said. And that's when I became interested in you, when he called you a sex maniac. It's true, you were holding all the women very close that night. I like my roommate very much, but I can't see us having sex. He's much younger than me, just twenty-three, and dependent on me in some ways. I don't think even he knows whether he's straight or gay."

We spent most of the next day lying on the beach under umbrellas, drinking beer, eating peanuts, reading. An argument about sex when we returned to the hotel. I wanted to eat Marianne's cunt but she adamantly refused to let me do so: "It really turns me off, okay?" I was annoyed by this refusal and began to wish that I had never come on this vacation. I rolled to the other side of the bed and lay on my back and stared at the ceiling. Marianne tugged on my cock, which was soft by this time, and suggested (probably jokingly) that suntan lotion might make a good lubricant. "No," I replied, "and I mean that. Okay? I don't have to give a reason why not. I know enough about lubrication to know that's a bad idea. I don't really care what you think. The answer is no." And then I thought to myself, how in God's name am I going to be able to stand a whole week with this woman?

We lay quietly in bed for a while, then Marianne said she was going to take a shower. While crawling over me, she bent down and kissed my cock, which caused me to suddenly become aroused. I threw her back on the bed, then grabbed the bottle of lubricant and applied some to my cock, which was stiff by now. "Naughty boy! Naughty boy!" cried Marianne. I penetrated without waiting for her to loosen, so that she grunted with pain, and then I fucked her hard for two minutes or so and then ejaculated. If lousy sex is what she wants, then lousy sex is what she'll get, was my thinking. Immediately after I came, Marianne began grinding her pelvis against mine, and continued doing so for about a minute. This was her orgasm. Sex had dissipated most of the tension between us, but I remained greatly disappointed that she preferred this sort of hurried sex, with none of the sense of timelessness that I used to achieve with Elizabeth.

"Don't you like me being inside you? It's like you can't wait to get it over with," I said to her later.

"If we don't go fast, then I get bored and then there's no lubrication and then I get sore. And if I come before you do, then I'll definitely get sore. After I come, I want to stop. I always wait for the man to come and that turns me on so that I come," she replied.

The next day, we took a bus to a nearby village, whose Church of Miracles a guide had recommended to us. I bought a photo there of a martyred saint, with the face covered with wounds and dripping with blood, which I plan to send to Mark. Marianne and I get along well in many respects. We find plenty to talk about, we smile and laugh naturally, there is little tension between us outside of bed. It is too bad that she won't accompany me to the places I want to go sexually. "You've got to teach the girl," she admonished me. But what if the girl doesn't want to be taught?

While lying in bed back at the hotel, after returning from our visit to the village, I got an erection, which Marianne kissed through my underpants. I pulled these down and had her suck me for a while and then we fucked slowly. At first she resisted and kept urging me to hurry up and come. I resisted and eventually she relented and let me set the pace. This went on for about an hour, then I decided we'd had enough and so proceeded to bang her with evenly measured strokes. After about seventy of these, I came, then she did her usual thing of grinding into my pelvis in order to get her orgasm. Then we lay quietly in bed for a few minutes and then Marianne got up to shower. I would have preferred we remain in bed longer. "That was the sort of sex I like," I told her on the way to dinner. "It was okay," she replied, "But I got sore towards the end."

We sat around the pool after dinner, drinking beer and talking to the hotel manager. My Spanish is really becoming very good.

In the morning, we changed hotels. The place we'd stayed the last three nights was $35/night whereas the new hotel was only $8/night. (However, the room at this new hotel was much smaller and there was no swimming pool.) Then we took a ferry to a nearby island and spent the day there lying on the beach and drinking beer and eating peanuts and joking about tying each other up. "I'm going to force you to enjoy slow sex," I warned. "And maybe I'll force you to enjoy fast sex," she replied. An undercurrent of tension to this banter, as if we were each resentful that the other wasn't happy with the sex. And then when we got back to the hotel, Marianne was inhibited by the lack of privacy (our room was on the ground floor and the window opened onto a busy street, so that we could hear the footsteps and every word uttered by pedestrians passing by, and presumably they could hear every sound we made as well) and didn't want to have sex at all. We went to bed early.

The next day, we took the bus to the city five hours away, where we rented a spacious room with balcony for only $17 for the two of us, on the top floor of a hotel on a hilltop, from which we had a marvelous view. After showering, Marianne sucked my cock some and then we had a bout of wonderful sex, not as long lasting as that of two days ago, but nevertheless excellent. I finally feel like I'm in touch with her rhythms and that she is not rushing things. We watched a magnificent sunset—the rose-colored sun slowly falling into the ocean—and then enjoyed the spectacle of the divers who jump into the ocean from a cliff (not as impressive as I'd imagined), then had a lousy dinner (everywhere we've eaten here in Mexico, the food has been second-rate), and then sat until midnight on the balcony, drinking beer and talking.

I asked about Marianne's uterus operation. "I knew I never wanted to have children," she replied. "I went to a doctor when I was twenty-three because I was having these problems, and he said he didn't want to remove my uterus because I was too young and wasn't ready to make a final decision not to have children. Can you imagine that? He's deciding what's right for me. Then I went back at twenty-nine and there was a tumor and so they finally removed it. I might have died because of that doctor." Was she saying that she knew she had a tumor long before the doctors knew? Or did she always want to get rid of her uterus in order not to have children, and this desire to get rid of the uterus caused the tumor? She has a doctorate in experimental psychology, but lost interest in the field long ago. "They're not making any progress and I didn't just want to spend my life stagnating." She later worked as a marketing manager and now she works as a computer consultant.

"It is so incredible that I'm here with you in Mexico right now. Out of the blue, I meet you in North Metropolis and now I'm spending a week with you in Mexico. What does this mean, I wonder?" Marianne exclaimed at one point. I asked what she did after losing interest in sex with men two years ago. Did she masturbate? She replied that masturbation had never interested her. "I think that's true for many women. Women are much more dependent on men for sex than men are on women. I need the man inside of me and for him to come in me for me to get interested. No, it isn't just the feeling of something inside me and yes, I've tried dildos. That politician who wanted to marry me—remember I was telling you about him?—he gave me a dildo so I could satisfy myself since he was impotent with me. I tell you, it just did nothing for me. Nothing whatsoever. It wasn't a vibrator, but I doubt that would make any difference." Then she asked if I had ever been married and about my love life. I told her I was single and then I somehow got to babbling about Helen and how she both did and did not want sex, and how everyone had mixed feelings about many topics. A certain percentage of our mind says yes, a certain percentage says no, if the percentages are equal (fifty-fifty), then we experience extreme inner stress.

"And what percentage married are you?" asked Marianne, who evidently detected that I wasn't telling the truth about my personal situation.

"Maybe ten percent," I replied, without thinking. Perhaps that's the extent to which I feel married to Sarah or Helen or both. No sooner had I spoken than I realized that my answer was absurd, and so I hurriedly added, "Of course, even though I do have these strong feelings towards Helen, she is living with another man. So I'm not really married. What do you mean?"

"Are you married or not?" Marianne wiped some tears from her eyes. I couldn't help remembering her comment, "I've never been a wife or girlfriend. I've always been a mistress." Perhaps a part of her resents never having been married.

"I'm single. Why do you think I invited you here?"

"I don't know why you invited me here. You tell me why you invited me here."

"I wanted to see you. I'm glad you came, too."

"It's all so strange. This man, who I meet one night tango dancing in North Metropolis, suddenly invites me to spend a week in Mexico. It's like being invited on a date. Very strange."

"Are you happy you came?"

"Yes, I'm happy I came. And you?"

"I'm also happy to be here."

Then we got onto the topic of why people get married, about which Marianne said: "I think a lot of women do it for the money. It's like legalized prostitution. But the man gets a very bad deal, because once he's married, the woman can stop having sex and then he can't divorce her without giving her a lot of money. That's what happened to that man I was seeing for those seven years. I never wanted money. I can earn my own money. I've always lived for pleasure."

The next day, Marianne lost her temper in the bus station, allegedly because I was always walking ahead: "Okay, you want to go off by yourself, fine. Give me my ticket and then we split the money and then we find our own way back." (I should note here something about our financial arrangements. We each put the same amount of money into a pot, which I then keep and use to pay all bills. Marianne likes the idea of the man paying, but she also wants costs to be split evenly, so that I'm not subsidizing her. I accepted this system because I didn't want to argue about the subject, though I'm not too keen about it—it seems contrived and unnatural.) I managed to calm her down and we were on good terms the remainder of the day. In fact, this small spat was our only quarrel of the week. "I usually have a good temper, but after I asked you several times not to walk so fast and you kept doing it, I just got angry," she explained.

The ride back was in a luxury bus. Air-conditioning, heavy curtains blocking the sun from entering the windows, small video screens showing a dubbed American movie, complimentary snack of crumbling cookies wrapped in cellophane and a canned soda, with an overall sensation of being in an hermetically-sealed spaceship. Marianne and I much preferred the second-class bus we had taken yesterday, as being more like the "real Mexico" and therefore more interesting to us. Of course, the natives probably held the opposite view. To them, the luxury bus is more interesting, because it gives a taste of what the United States is like.

It occurred to me, during this bus ride, that Helen might have her mail forwarded to Paul's apartment and that he might therefore read a postcard I had mailed her yesterday, on which I wrote: "Marianne kindly offered to introduce you to some impotent men, after I told her you wanted your next boyfriend to be either impotent or have a very low libido." In particular, I anticipated that Paul might be furious to learn that Helen was telling me details of their sex life. So I wrote her an email today (from an internet cafe) warning her of this postcard, so that she can try to intercept it.

I had an explosion of diarrhea when we reached the hotel. (The rate, incidentally, had been reduced to $22/night from $35. I think the owner had gouged us originally and felt guilty.) The queasiness had started shortly after breakfast, but I had managed to keep it under control during the bus ride. After emptying my bowels, I felt fine. This was nothing like the nausea I experienced the first day of this trip, nor like the illness I had in Guatemala. (My major health problem during this trip has been an outbreak of pimples on my face. Even though I grew up in a hot and humid climate, the skin on my face has never adapted well to such an environment.)

We took a swim in the pool, and then showered and then Marianne sucked me some and then she insisted we fuck without lubricant: "I want it to be natural." Perhaps because I was weakened from my illness, I couldn't come, though my erection (like all my erections on this trip) was stiff as a bone. I went to bed early, as my whole body felt weak, and lay quietly on my back while Marianne sat up and read. Other than my weakness, I felt fine. In particular, I had no headache. However, Marianne insisted on giving me aspirin, after noticing that my forehead and stomach were both hot to the touch.

I felt completely recovered in the morning from yesterday's mild fever. Before going to breakfast we had one last bout of sex. Marianne wanted to fuck without lubricant, until it became evident that this wouldn't work. We were in something of a rush, so I reverted to the sort of sex she says she prefers—hard and fast. Unlike yesterday evening, I had no problems ejaculating this morning. I'm not sure whether Marianne had an orgasm, though she clearly tried (grinding her pelvis against mine after I came).

After breakfast, we sat drinking beers at a cafe on the beach for several hours, talking about various topics and laughing over some pornographic Mexican comic books that we bought at a newsstand. Marianne asked some musicians to play a song she had long wanted to hear, and recorded this on tape as a souvenir of our trip. The musicians played about five minutes, and then I handed over the equivalent of $1, but the musician indicated that the price was $3, and so I handed over another $2 and felt like a cheapskate for paying only $1 initially. What a nuisance haggling and tipping can be!

About midday, we kissed goodbye for the last time, and then I took a taxi to the airport. Marianne stayed behind in the town, as her plane didn't leave until much later.

The apartment smelled pleasant for a change, which I believe is related to a repair the property manager made, just before I left for Mexico, for a drip under the kitchen sink. This was causing the wood there to decay and smell badly, and also provided a source of water for roaches. I found the kitchen floor littered with dead roaches when I arrived, so that I had to carefully walk about with a box of tissue papers, smashing those roaches which were not yet dead but rather in a daze, and then gathering up the carcasses and depositing them in the trash. This is the price one pays for living in the skid-row district.

Sarah picked me up on her way home from work. I carried with me a spare pair of casual pants and some boots, which I plan to leave at her house henceforth, in case we want to go hiking in the park or I otherwise have a need for clothes I don't mind getting dirty. I also brought along and gave to her a statuette of the Virgin Mary in a frame made of sea-shells, which I had bought in Mexico. "That is really the definition of kitsch! But I like it," she said.

We drove to her house and began kissing and soon enough were engaged in sex. Missionary position fucking, with no foreplay other than some kissing and fondling with our clothes on, since Sarah was very excited and anxious to have my cock inside. I had been worried that, what with my fever a few days ago and my daily orgasms with Marianne, up to and including yesterday, I might not be very sexually charged for Sarah, but this proved not to be the case. On the contrary, my erection was as rock-solid as ever and also extraordinarily sensitive, so that our sex today was the best we've yet achieved. Sarah came with a muffled scream and then flopped about beneath me for almost a minute, tossing her head back and forth and waving her arms about as if possessed and even seeming to burst out in tears at one point. As our orgasms began almost simultaneously, I had to somewhat restrain mine, in order to ensure hers would go to completion, but nevertheless I came much more strongly than I had done at any time with Marianne. As for the minutes of fucking that preceded orgasm—where we achieve the sense of timelessness that Marianne seemed not to understand or desire—these were as good as anything I've ever experienced, including with Elizabeth.

When I think of Marianne and Karen and the other aficionados of "slam-bam-thank-you-ma'am" sex, to speak nothing of the various frigid and semi-frigid women I've known over the years, it becomes clear that, regardless of the twenty year age difference between myself and Sarah, the opportunity that I've been waiting for so long has finally appeared. To wit, the chance to finally get my fill of fully satisfying sex. I should plan to spend the next several years with Sarah, if I have any sense whatsoever. I don't now and probably never will love Sarah the way I love Helen, but then love means little to me at this point. I want good sex more than love.

After dinner, Sarah and I talked some and then listened to the radio and then climbed into bed early, since she was tired from work. More emotional tiredness than anything, since there have been rumors that the business she works for might fail, which would mean she would lose her job, and she dreads having to look for another since she experienced so much age discrimination during her last job search. I was drained from my orgasm this afternoon and planned to go to sleep without further sex, but then Sarah began fondling me and since my cock cooperated by stiffening, I decided to do what I could to satisfy her. First, I took the opportunity to get in some cunnilingus. After a week of being tempted by but denied Marianne's cunt, I was anxious to get my face into Sarah's. Though Sarah clearly enjoyed this foreplay, she was also horny for more fucking and so soon enough pulled me up. Alas, neither of us was sufficiently charged to achieve the same energy level as during our earlier bout. Also, Sarah began to get sore, and so we rolled over and tried with her on top, and then side by side, and then I pushed her off and told her to kneel and then entered her from behind. Our first time fucking dog-style. Normally, unless the woman indicates that she wants something else, missionary position is all she gets from me, since that position is what I prefer. Sarah had never mentioned that she liked being fucked from the rear, and so I was surprised at how much she enjoyed it. From the moment I entered her she began whimpering and trembling as if uncontrollably and then reached back and pulled on my buttocks to make me fuck harder or deeper or faster or perhaps all three at once, and then when I resisted slightly in order to tease her, she massaged my balls and pulled on those. All this excitement of hers excited me in turn, and my excitement then added to her excitement, but despite all this excitement, neither of us could come. Sarah finally grew sore and so I pulled out and we rested some. I would have preferred to stop here, but Sarah started tugging at my cock and then bent down and sucked on it, so I decided to accommodate her desire to see me come by engaging in some mutual oral sex. Myself lying on my back, Sarah straddling me so that my face was buried in and smelling and licking her cunt, while she sucked the head of my cock and pulled on the shaft with her hands. When this failed to get me off, I grabbed hold of my cock and poured on the lubricant and jerked myself wildly while pressing my nose and tongue as closely against Sarah's cunt as possible, but it was all to no avail. Probably, I was still exhausted from my recent illness. So at last I gave up and we collapsed and kissed and hugged for a while and then went to sleep.

Another bout of sex with Sarah after breakfast, even better than the encounter yesterday afternoon, since this time I delayed my own orgasm until I was sure hers was fully underway and thus I could abandon myself completely when I did finally come. Sarah even put her hand over my mouth so as to mute my bellowing. Then I left for the day in order to give her a chance to run errands, and also because I was getting bored by her company and wanted some time alone. Before I left, we talked about the tax regulations for sole proprietorships. Sarah worries that she won't be able to get employment much longer, given her age, and she doesn't have enough savings to retire, which is why she is interested in starting her own business, though she isn't sure what kind of business yet. It occurred to me again that I probably ought to give her some money, say $500 a month, if for no other reason than to compensate for all the food I eat at her house. But how to do this tactfully? When I paid the $15 yearly charge for an email forwarding service that I had recommended she subscribe to, she wanted to pay me back and I had to insist that this was not necessary. (Of course, it's nice to know that it isn't my money she wants.)

After a week in the company of Marianne and then yesterday with Sarah, I was anxious for some time alone. Also, I had come this morning and had no further desire for sex this evening. The result was that I felt bored and tense when I returned to her apartment in the evening. First, I paced about restlessly, then I went off on a rant about television, which she was watching at the time, then I ranted about how poorly designed most computers were. Finally, I denounced a book lying on her coffee table, as being "fatuous tripe", because the book's emphasis on karma and reincarnation makes hatha yoga seem more like a cult religion than a methodical and scientific system for achieving physical and mental health, which is how I regard it. "What else are you angry about?" asked Sarah during a break in my ranting.

I suppose Sarah detected that I didn't really want to be around her, which led to further tension, and to her becoming prickly and making all sorts of complaints about my behavior. For example, while sitting with her on the sofa and eating cheese and bread, I stroked her leg. My touch was affectionate but Sarah nevertheless shrank away and scolded: "So, now that you've touched the cheese, you're going to wipe your hands on my pants?" Then she complained about my forgetting to turn the shower off completely (the faucets need new washers and hence have to be turned very tightly in order to prevent dripping) and then while I was trimming the tops off of strawberries, she interrupted and exclaimed: "Don't cut so much off!" (Several weeks ago, she complained I was cutting too much off the tops of radishes.) Then later, when we returned to the sofa, she became agitated about my foot, which was resting on the coffee table: "You're going to knock over that tea cup!" In fact, I was perfectly aware of the position of the tea cup relative to my foot, and the former was not in any danger of being knocked over by the latter.

All this scolding didn't upset me, I should note. Indeed, I find it relaxing to be around someone who is so much more rigid and easily discomfited than myself. Usually (as with Helen, for example), it is the other way around and I'm the one who is constantly scolding. Nor is this the first time that Sarah has been in a testy mood about my supposedly uncouth habits. Several weeks ago she complained that my clothes were shabby. "If I dress nicely and the man doesn't, then I feel out of place, and so then I stop dressing nicely and then the man gets tired of me", which was part of why I'm trying to dress more elegantly now. Another time she complained that I wasn't using a coaster for my tea cup, even though the coffee table surface is glass and thus not subject to damage from liquids. Then she cautioned me to be careful not to spill chocolate crumbs on her sofa (we were eating the chocolate she had given me as a Christmas present) since they would melt and then be hard to clean off, even though it was she who was spilling the most crumbs. (I ate with my mouth over the box precisely to prevent spilling onto the sofa.) Several times she complained about me leaving my coat in a heap by the door, instead of hanging it properly in the closet, and then when I did take to using the closet, she instructed me to be sure to completely close the closet door afterwards, as she doesn't like closet doors being left partially open. A similar complaint about me not properly closing the doors of the kitchen cupboards. Then there was some problem with me kicking the tassels on the end of the rug as I walked past, so that they were no longer neatly lined up but rather piled on top of one another or even flipped back onto the rug itself. Then she instructed me to be sure to use a towel during my morning exercises: "Those mats at the yoga studios stink from people sweating on them and I don't want that happening to my rugs." Of course, the rug in question is right next to the front door, where people walk with their dirty shoes, so it is difficult to imagine how I could make this much dirtier or smellier than it already is. And then one evening, I wandered into the kitchen to get some water after sex, while still naked, and Sarah became positively frantic: "The neighbors might see you without your clothes on and I don't like that!" Also, several times she has put on a panicky expression and tried to cover my mouth with her hand because I was saying something controversial.

Another bout of superb sex in the morning, then we walked in the park, where I lectured about Aleister Crowley, whose ideas and life I've been studying with growing fascination for the past few weeks, and who Sarah has already decided she detests, though all she knows of him is what I've told her. My interpretation of magic is that, among other things, it can be a way of breaking through inhibitions. Demons and angels appealed to in a magical ceremony represent aspects of the unconscious, including repressed desires. Almost always, sex is the most significant repressed desire, with female sexuality being repressed especially severely. Women who show strong desire for and enjoyment of sex are shunned and persecuted and eventually internalize the view that sex is dirty and that women who enjoy sex are bad and abnormal. The sexual revolution has only achieved liberation at the conscious level, whereas at the subconscious level, the taboos against sex are still strong, especially in women. Magic is a way of bypassing these taboos. Behavior that would be taboo under ordinary circumstances might be permissible when performed as part of a magical ceremony. "It's difficult to overemphasize the importance of sex for us humans. Show me someone babbling about spiritual dissatisfaction and hungering for the meaning of life and I'll show you someone who's out of touch with their animal nature, especially the sexual aspect of that animal nature. We may yearn to be spiritual creatures and leave the body behind, but that is a yearning only. Our animal self is much more important to our happiness than our spiritual self. Essentially, we humans are nothing more than hairless chimpanzees who can walk on two legs. We are a little bit smarter than chimpanzees, and a lot more sex-obsessed, but otherwise we are not much different from them."

Sarah nodded during this lecture, but didn't seem too impressed by it. After the walk in the park, we had beers at a cafe, where an attractive woman in her late thirties, accompanied by a man about the same age, kept staring at us. Sarah later jokingly asked me, "Why was she staring at us, I wonder? Was it because I'm so fantastic looking or because I'm with a man so much younger than me?" Dinner at a restaurant, where Sarah insisting on picking up the tab, for some reason. Then we returned to Sarah's house, where she busied herself with paperwork while I lay on the sofa and read. At one point, I began reciting, over and over, Crowley's slogan of "do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law—love is the law, love under will", and then I ranted like a southern Baptist preacher about hellfire and damnation until Sarah finally exploded:

"If you say that once more, I've had it! Out you go. I won't put up with just anything. I mean it. It really turns me off when you talk like that. It's stupid sounding, that slogan you keep repeating. I think you've got the germs of fanaticism and I don't like that. I've never liked cults and I don't want to hear anything more about Crowley or his ideas. I don't even want to hear his name again."

I couldn't resist quoting Crowley again in the morning ("do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law!"), which led to another outburst by Sarah similar to that of yesterday. Eventually, this led to a discussion of one of my sex theories. To wit, the sex act has three parts. A beginning, or foreplay, a middle, and an end, or orgasm. Foreplay and orgasm are necessary. The former in order to get the body warmed up, the latter in order to let the body relax. But neither is as important or enjoyable as the middle part, which is where the sense of timelessness and loss of ego is achieved.

"You should feel that you have entered into another world, and we are no longer __ and Sarah, but rather archetypal Man and Woman, engaged in never-ending coitus, and that there is no past and no future but just the timeless present, with no feeling of wanting to hurry up and reach orgasm, and especially no feeling of being pressured to reach orgasm by your partner. This is the sort of sex I'm having with you and what I hope you're having with me."

"I do feel that with you, though I wish you weren't so coldly logical about it. I wish you felt more instead of thinking so much."

"Sex is like dancing. The woman only has to feel, but the man must think as well as feel. A man who feels but doesn't think during sex is like a man who goes out dancing and does what comes naturally, instead of thinking about what he and his partner are doing. He ends up kicking the woman in the shins."

"I've known men like that. Both as dance partners and as lovers, and I hate it. You are a fantastic lover and I love having sex with you but I just hate hearing about that Crowley."

"One of the reasons I'm a good lover is precisely because I think about sex so much and because I read all these books about sex, such as these books by Crowley about sex magic. Of course, I'm not sure that sex magic works, but the concept at least is interesting. This isn't to say that our sex life needs any spicing up. As far as I'm concerned the sex between us is great. Sex was also great with my former lover [this would be Elizabeth], even though she had a lot of guilt about sexual pleasure. The problem between us was that, other than as a sex partner, I didn't really like her and she didn't really like me. With you, on the other hand, the sex is great and I enjoy your company and I'm fond of you."

Sarah then said that she was glad we had this talk since it made her feel better about my Crowley obsession. I promised to call her in a few days and then we kissed good-bye.

Lunch with Helen, after a long argument about when and where to eat, so that we almost ended up canceling. It bothers me to be spending money on lunch with Helen when I almost never spend money on Sarah, and so I wanted to go someplace cheap, whereas Helen was insisting on a more expensive restaurant. I finally agreed to go to the more expensive restaurant, on condition that Helen discuss her sex life. As it turns out, there wasn't much to discuss. It seems that Paul hasn't been wanting sex much of late. Instead, he is constantly wanting to hug Helen. "Early in the morning, I can feel him stirring and then I'm thinking, Oh, God! Here it comes! A big hug when he first wakes up and then another hug before he gets out of bed and then another on the way to the bathroom and then another before breakfast and another afterwards and then more hugs before we leave for work. He's very affectionate, I must say that. And he's been much nicer to me recently. Perhaps it's because I've been seeing less of you, and thus am no longer so subject to your malignant influence. That would explain a lot of things. Because I'm seeing less of you, I'm returning to my natural personality as opposed to letting my personality be influenced by yours. I'm a nicer person, in other words, and because I'm nice to Paul, he is being nice to me. Another, more cynical reason—which probably wouldn't have occurred to me if I hadn't been sitting here with you—is that he's feeling worried about being fired from his job."

Last night Paul invited a co-worker and his wife over for dinner, where they talked about rumored layoffs. "As for myself," said the co-worker, "I feel secure, because I'm slightly underpaid and because I'm doing work that has to be done but that no one else wants to do. If they got rid of me, they'd have to hire someone else to do the work and pay them more than they pay me, so they'd end up losing money." In Helen's estimation, Paul's situation is the exact opposite of the co-worker's. Paul is overpaid and does nothing that really needs to be done.

I mentioned my plan to possibly give Sarah $500 a month to compensate for never spending any money on her. Helen cautioned that Sarah might be offended by such cash gifts. Of course, Helen was never offended when I gave her cash gifts.

I spent much of the day masturbating, with an orgasm just before going to sleep at night. So much for my New Year's resolution to no longer come while masturbating. In the afternoon, I felt very tired and had to take a nap. Afterwards, while walking to the cafe, I practiced breathing techniques and immediately felt tremendously energetic again. I think my earlier tiredness might have been the result of forcing myself to sit on the floor while reading instead of lying on the sofa. The problem is that my New Year's resolution about developing the ability to sit on the floor comfortably doesn't reflect my true desire, so that practicing this posture requires the constant expenditure of willpower, which eventually leaves me feeling mentally and physically exhausted. By contrast, I am not exhausted by my morning exercises (not even the handstands I've been practicing of late), since I do have a deep desire to perform these.

I called Sarah in the evening, though without much enthusiasm, as I had nothing to say to her, since she doesn't want to hear about Aleister Crowley and that was who I was reading about today. Since she had little to say to me as well, we ended up exchanging banalities ("the weather was very nice out today") and then I promised to call her again later this week to plan our weekend together. "It was very nice of you to call," was her parting comment. This is the advantage of having a lover who is so much older than me. We both realize that we will split up eventually and thus there isn't any anxiety about how the "relationship isn't working" because we don't have anything to say to one another, the way there used to be with Elizabeth, and thus we don't get into fights and thus we don't break up after all.

Marianne has sent two emails since our trip. In the second email, she mentioned that she got sick upon returning home and even went to see a doctor, and then she urged me to "please take a few minutes to email me". I finally replied this morning: "Even more so than our meeting in North Metropolis, this trip to Mexico seems unreal now that I'm back in West Metropolis. When I woke up after my first night back, the whole week before seemed like something I had dreamed. A pleasant dream, of course. I've never had a long-distance relationship like this before, but I like it very much." Then I gave some excuse about how I was swamped with work and couldn't relax enough to write a decent email previously, which is why I had delayed so long in replying. How embarrassing to be telling such an obvious lie! While I don't have an immediate desire to see Marianne again (especially not when the sex is so much better with Sarah), it seems wise to keep my options open. Both she and I signed our emails "love".

Sarah called from work and suggested we go to a movie tonight. Perhaps she is feeling anxious to mend fences after our disputing about Crowley this past weekend. We started the evening with a round of excellent sex. Over an hour of missionary and dog-style fucking, which ended when Sarah indicated that she didn't think she could come, despite having greatly enjoyed the fucking, and that I should come alone. At first, I had been worried that yesterday's masturbation orgasm might have left me sexually weakened, but that proved not to be the case. On the contrary, my erection was rock-solid from start to finish. Dessert after the movie, which Sarah insisted on paying for, since I had paid for the movie. "You should let me treat whenever we go out, because I eat your food all the time and then you have the expense of a car," I argued sheepishly, but Sarah waved my objection aside, and then there was a moment of awkwardness. Perhaps Helen is right and Sarah will be offended if I try to give her $500 a month to compensate for eating so much of her food. She dropped me off on her way home.

I took the bus to Sarah's, we ate a dinner of black bean soup that she had fixed, then I licked her cunt, and then I fucked her missionary position to an easy orgasm for both of us.

Sex in the dog-style position after breakfast, which greatly excited Sarah, followed by missionary position, with powerful orgasms for both of us. We spent the afternoon sitting in a cafe, window-shopping and browsing in a bookstore, where I became excited about Tarot cards. Sarah informed me that she had a deck of these cards at her house, and also some books about Tarot, so we returned there and I read these books while she prepared dinner. She tried to engage me in conversation, but I was too excited by the Tarot and found her constant questions bothersome. I continued reading about the Tarot after dinner, while she busied herself with paperwork. I think she was annoyed that we weren't doing anything exciting on a Saturday night. I wasn't particularly interested in sex and was preparing to go to sleep when Sarah tugged on my cock, which immediately stiffened. I rolled over and kissed her on the mouth, then licked at her cunt, then applied lubrication before penetrating in missionary position. I tried various techniques, but none seemed to be able to make her come. When she indicated she was getting sore and that I should come, I decided to try something new, which brought me to an extraordinarily intense orgasm. While still in missionary position and with my cock in Sarah's cunt and my weight supported on my elbows and knees, I stopped moving. Sarah then began gyrating her hips and flexing her vaginal muscles and continued until I came. Our roles were reversed, in other words. I was passive and she was active.

The next day, it rained non-stop. I resumed study of the Tarot after breakfast, then Sarah came and sat next to me on the living room floor, where I had the Tarot cards spread out, and we began kissing and then she leaned down and kissed the fly of my pants. I unzipped and pulled my cock and balls out and Sarah sucked me some and then we got into bed and had a long session of sex. At least two hours and probably more. I deliberately dragged things out since I knew we didn't have anything else to do. We started with some mutual oral sex. My face buried in Sarah's cunt while she licked my balls and played with my cock with her hands. Then I fucked her from behind, toying with her breasts and clitoris now and then with my hands, until her back gave out. (I had arranged for her to kneel on a pillow on the floor and rest her torso on the bed, precisely in order to make being fucked from behind less strenuous on her. Her back is either weak or she was arching it too much.) Then more fucking in missionary position, until Sarah grew sore and indicated that she didn't think she could come. A short rest and then I had her lie on top of me—her cunt on top of my face and her head near my cock—as I attempted to jerk myself off. This was unsuccessful, however, as I was so sticky from dried-out lubricant that masturbation was impossible. Another rest and then I resumed eating her cunt. Poking my tongue deep into her vagina, nibbling her thighs, dragging my tongue slowly along her cunt lips and now and then flicking at her anus, tickling her anus with one finger and her g spot with another while licking her clitoris, and numerous other cunnilingus variations, all of which excited her tremendously, except not to orgasm. Then more fucking in missionary position and more resting and then I banged her hard until my legs and crotch were numb and my balls sore from pounding and then finally I let myself come.

The rest of the afternoon I lay on the sofa, reading Crowley on Yoga, while Sarah sewed two skirts using scrap material she had been given at work. For lunch, I ate an entire chocolate cake, which made me feel sick afterwards.

I became increasingly tired of Sarah's company as the day dragged on. She and her house together seemed to be sapping me of energy. I had thought of taking the bus home after we finished with sex, but then, for whatever reason, I lost my nerve. "You have to come up with an idea for tonight's entertainment!" Sarah announced as I lay stuporously on the sofa, wishing I were back at my own apartment, free from her constant interruptions. I suggested we visit a pub and people watch. A beer for each of us, with popcorn and pizza as snacks. "Talk to me!" said Sarah, smiling and staring at me and leaning forwards over the table. I slumped in my seat and looked down and replied that I had nothing to say. Which was true, as I was thoroughly bored by her and her conversation at this point. It's beginning to dawn on me that the trip to Europe we've been talking again of taking together, might not be such a good idea. Two or more weeks together, without a break, plus the visits to various old friends. It sounds like the recipe for a disaster.

I masturbated three times to images of performing mutual oral sex (me licking her cunt while she licks my balls or I fuck her mouth) on a brunette. Any good looking brunette. I think I'm tired of the smell of blondes like Sarah and Marianne and want to lick a brunette's cunt for a change. I feel asleep on the sofa after this orgy and slept most of the afternoon and then went to bed early in order to get still more sleep. My whole body feels sick.

I woke up feeling sluggish and then couldn't get out of bed until after masturbating to orgasm to images of mutual oral sex with Sonya (the Russian girl I dated briefly two years ago). Then I wrenched my neck during yoga. I felt simultaneously full of nervous energy and yet unable to get moving, so that I didn't finally leave the apartment until near noon. Then I felt psychologically uncomfortable in the clothes I was wearing and had to return and change these immediately after stepping out into the street. (The pants were dress pants, but not the pinstripe pants that I'm so fond of).

At the post office, I learned that a large amount of mail had been accumulating ever since I went on the trip to Mexico. Among other items was a Christmas card from Elizabeth. What does that mean, I wonder? Perhaps I can convince her to testify on my behalf in the will contest suit after all?

I masturbated upon returning to my apartment, to lewd images of Elizabeth sucking my cock and then me fucking her dog style. I tried to hold back from orgasm, since it is clear that I'm depleting myself with this constant ejaculation, but to no avail. It's as though my willpower has completely vanished and I've been reduced to some blubbering ninny who can do nothing but sleep and daydream and eat and masturbate and lie all day on the sofa in a listless stupor. Part of my problem may be that I poisoned myself on chocolate cake this weekend. After fasting most of today, I took a huge crap in the evening and afterwards felt much better. What I think I really need is a week-long retreat from the world, with fasting and complete sexual abstinence, including abstinence from masturbation and even from thoughts and images of sex.

Helen called in the afternoon to invite me to a reception for alumni of one of the private schools she attended as a girl. A dismal affair this was. A half-dozen employees of the school and twice this number of former students, and various men quizzing me as to what I do, meaning how I make a living, so that I had to tell some confused tale of working part-time as a computer programmer out of my apartment for the large corporation where I once used to work full-time. Immediately after I finishing telling this "cover story", Helen walked up and announced to the person I had just told it to that I was a co-worker of hers, and had once run my own business, so I had to modify my story, and ended up sounding thoroughly unbelievable. I was disgusted by Helen afterwards and told her to "shut up in the future and let me do the talking when someone asked how I made a living". She had asked me to attend the reception instead of Paul because she and Paul had some sort of dispute two days ago. But then as we parted ways after the reception, she told me she was returning to Paul's apartment tonight since she couldn't sleep in her own apartment. I was glad to see her go, as she was getting on my nerves. My last words to her were: "Thank God it's him who has to deal with you on a daily basis and not me." And then she said something equally hostile to me, which I've since forgotten.

I had bought a set of Crowley's Tarot cards earlier today, and tonight, after returning from the reception with Helen, I took my first reading, which I interpreted as follows. "In both my work and love life, I've reached dead ends. I've achieved victory and am currently satisfied and living in the lap of luxury. But without change, the future holds disappointment. An alternative path would involve disciplined dedication to matters of the spirit, leading to dramatic upheaval in my life. What will follow this dramatic upheaval isn't clear."

Again I woke up feeling sluggish, and took another huge crap. No wonder I've been feeling ill these past few days. I was being poisoned by toxic sludge in my lower intestine! I fasted today, after having eaten little yesterday. The afternoon and evening I spent studying Tarot.

Email from Marianne: "[...] My house mate is still taking sewing lessons. He had tried to make a night gown for me while I was in Mexico with you...black! It doesn't fit me nor is the color right. I think of you a lot, we had very nice moments. That sunset...hum! (signed) Love Marianne."

Tango dancing with Sarah. I did well, despite lacking enthusiasm. My dance technique is designed to establish a sexual energy connection between myself and my partner. If the connection is bad, then we don't dance in the future. If the connection is good, then we consider the possibility of sex. If the connection is good but we can't have sex, for whatever reason, then the dancing is a substitute for sex. One reason for sex to be ruled out is that one or both of us might already be involved a sexual relationship with someone else. In this case, dancing is a way of obtaining sexual variety, without the problems associated with having multiple partners. At present I have little desire for sexual variety, whether real or substitute, and consequently dancing seems pointless. Also, I noticed that most of the women at this club seem frigid, bitchy, unattractive and unfeminine compared to Sarah. Women in their forties and beyond, who've cut their hair short and resigned themselves to being neuters, except their bodies rebel, which is why they persist in dancing. So that even if I did want sexual variety, I wouldn't go looking for it here. As for what Sarah gets from dancing (going out tonight was her idea), I'm not sure. She alleges that she likes the exercise.

Excellent sex afterwards. Cunnilingus, missionary position, dog-style with Sarah kneeling on the floor and resting her torso on the sofa, return to missionary position, orgasms for both of us. I wasn't particularly interested in either sex or coming, but my performance was fine regardless. My erection was rock-solid, sensitive and under perfect control.

Another bout of sex in the morning, again initiated by Sarah. For the first time, I brought her to orgasm while fucking dog-style. The secret is that this simply takes more time than while fucking missionary position. In both missionary and from-behind positions, the head of my cock thrusts against Sarah's g-spot. In missionary position, the angle is oblique, while in from-behind positions, it is direct. In all positions, I use my finger to rub her clitoris. In missionary position this is easy to do, while from behind I tend to miss the sensitive spots or else stumble due to the movements of Sarah's and my bodies and thereby lose my rhythm, which is probably why bringing her off while fucking from behind takes so much longer. We returned to missionary position after Sarah's orgasm was complete. I fucked her hard and then realized that I had no desire to come, and so concluded with a sort of semi-orgasmic peak, without ejaculation.

In response to my inquiry, Sarah replied that she had slept very well, and that the reason she complained about her bones aching when she slept on my rug earlier this month was that she was sick then, and that there was no need therefore to buy a futon for her sake.

We passed the morning in the cafe, watching the passersby and talking about various topics. I made up some story about being swamped with work and needing to be available for telephone consulting and possible travel for the company for which I allegedly work, in order to explain canceling out of our proposed trip together in the spring. The truth is I just can't see Sarah and myself spending two full weeks together without a break without my going crazy. We agreed to possibly plan another trip later this year. I also lied about needing to work this evening and possibly part of tomorrow. The truth is that I wanted to be alone. Also, I was anxious to avoid a repeat of last weekend, when I grew so tired of Sarah's company after three days. What an all-purpose excuse work can be! Another reason never to tell people I'm financially independent and retired.

I bought myself a new watch, since my old watch was the one remaining cheap-looking element in my current dress scheme. This new watch has no alarm, so I added an old plastic digital watch to the pocket in my shoulder bag where I carry all sorts of miscellaneous items, for times when I need an alarm function.

While masturbating in the morning, I lost control and had an orgasm, with the result that when I arrived at Sarah's house, I was less than fully aroused and had problems keeping a solid erection during sex. Neither of us came. Afterwards, we talked about money. Sarah revealed that her savings amount to less than three months worth of living expenses (she also has about $150,000 in equity in her house), and that she has been laid off numerous times in the past few years and may well be laid off again in the future. She asked for advice and so I repeated the old mantra about "reducing infrastructure". Unfortunately, in her case this will be difficult. Even an inexpensive studio apartment will have rent greater than her monthly mortgage payment, and commuting by public transportation would be more expensive than driving her car. The only way to significantly reduce infrastructure would be to move to an apartment within walking distance of her job. She has considered renting out her spare room, but is reluctant to do so, as she has always hated having roommates in the past. I told her to count me out as a possible roommate as I would "spiritually die" living in the suburbs. She replied that she already knew I wasn't a candidate. I advised her to reconsider the idea of teaching at a university. She has done this in the past and has excellent credentials. Sarah agreed that this seemed like a good idea, even though she never enjoyed teaching. "Maybe two students in a class had talent, the rest were hopeless, I felt like I was wasting my time". I continue to tell Sarah lies about my own financial situation, incidentally, with this pretense I maintain of working as a contract computer programmer.

Excellent sex in the morning. The deficit I ran up yesterday was recovered and today my erection was rock-solid. I tried but was unable to bring Sarah off fucking from behind, as her back gave out after about twenty minutes. We finished up in missionary position, with orgasms for both of us. Regarding foreplay, I cannot emphasize strongly enough what a delight Sarah is to go down on. Never have I not enjoying licking her and never has she tried pushing me away. After sex, we lay about reading and talking, then walked to the cafe (about forty minutes away) and read there and then stopped at another cafe on the way back for dessert. Another bout of sex before going to sleep, similar to that of last week—missionary position with a passive orgasm for me and none for her. There is no question that the typical passive (female) orgasm is much more intense than the active orgasm.

I had an interesting dream last night. I was standing on a high tower, which I had climbed by means of a ladder. A man was helping me and the other people atop this tower put on tiny backpacks which would allow us to float slowly to the ground after jumping, instead of plummeting to our death. The two men in front of me jumped and I could see that they did, indeed, float slowly down. The man handing out the backpacks warned me to get rid of a tattered old suitcase I was carrying, as it might weigh me down and counteract the effects of the backpack, so that I might crash if I insisted on carrying it with me. For some reason, however, I was reluctant to abandon this suitcase. So then the man suggested I open it, to see what was inside. I did so, and inside were some dull-colored old shirts, of the sort I would have long ago have given to charity. I took some of these shirts out and threw them in the trash. I wasn't yet willing to abandon the suitcase entirely, however, even though I knew that taking it with me would increase my risk. While still debating whether to jump with the suitcase, or jump without it, or give up the idea of jumping altogether and instead climb back down via the ladder, I woke up.

So it would seem I'm contemplating some great jump, which shouldn't be dangerous, providing I'm willing to abandon excess baggage from the past. What is this jump? What is this excess baggage from the past?

Lunch with Helen. She complain of slowly dying in her "soul-killing" job. I advised her to get her cost of living down, which would allow her to accept lower-paying jobs. Not only might the working environment be more relaxed in a lower-paid job (research librarian, for example) but there would also be none of the stress of worrying about never being able to find another job at the same salary in the event of losing the current job (this is the cause of Sarah's worries), since low-paid jobs are easy to find. "If you want to be a writer, which is what you say you want, then you need to take a vow of material poverty. Your life will be spiritually rich instead." Helen dismissed my suggestions as being stupid and unrealistic and insulting to boot, coming as they did from someone as materially rich as me.

Latest news from my lawyer is that he spoke to my sister's lawyer yesterday and she is carefully considering my settlement proposal. My lawyer interprets this as meaning she is getting desperate due to lack of funds and wants to settle soon. I'm now realizing that I made a mistake in having this case handled on a contingency fee basis, which will cause my fees to be perhaps $100,000 more than what I would have paid on a straight hourly basis. On the bright side, the contingency fee arrangement has allowed me to avoid fretting too much over this suit, though such peace of mind certainly wasn't worth $100,000.

Then again, I might have easily earned an additional $100,000 by running my software business for another half-year or so. The real moral to the story is that my mind behaves peculiarly with regards to money. I seem to have a desire to underachieve, which would also explain why my investment performance is always mediocre. I can't fight my desire to underachieve, since it comes from someplace deep in my unconscious. Instead, I must work around it. I must placate the desire to underachieve by failing in a small way in the superficial aspects of life, while allowing myself to succeed when it comes to truly important matters, whatever those may be.

I told Sarah that I will probably be able to accompany her to Europe this spring, but that I couldn't plan on much longer than a week of travel, due to work considerations. The truth is that I'm not sure I want to spend more than a week in her company. Other than talking about this trip, we had little to say to one another and the conversation soon lapsed into awkward silence. Sarah might have to work every day this week (instead of taking her usual Friday off) and so we won't see each other until the weekend. It's only Sarah's conversation that bores me, I should point out. Sexually I'm as attracted to her as ever. Also, I'm fond of her and would feel bad if she weren't happy in areas of her life other than sex. I feel a sort of protectiveness towards her. But I just can't tolerate the idea of spending too much time with her.

I continue my study of the tarot, astrology, dreams and similar subjects. Last night I dreamt an old high-school friend visited me. He was dressed to the nines, and talked of working at a company which paid starting investment analysts six million dollars a year, and that these salaries put those at other companies to shame, and how there was nothing in this world like being rich. His talk failed to impress me, perhaps because I'm already financially independent and don't care about having more money, whereupon he became agitated and said, "You'll never be really rich", and then he walked off in a huff. Perhaps this dream provoked or is otherwise related to the thoughts which follow.

Everyone possesses reserves of time and mental and physical energy which could easily be put to use obtaining whatever it is they want in life. Most people say they want more money. So why not use excess time and energy to work two jobs or learn a new career or excel in their current career? There is nothing in our biological nature that says leisure is preferable to most types of work. For example, there is little difference, from a biological point of view, between playing computer games versus computer programming, and yet one of these activities is highly-paid while the other is unpaid. One way or the other, the time passes, so why not do something profitable with the time? Perhaps the answer is that money is not what most people really want. Perhaps they are reluctant to follow their true desires because this might result in social disapproval or ostracism. So they substitute for these true desires the socially approved desire for money.

"We all have untapped powers which, if utilized, would allow us to obtain whatever it is we truly want, but first we must know what we truly want" is now added to my pantheon of important ideas. Never underestimate the power of compound interest. Accomplish something small each day and by the end of several years you'll have accomplished something large. Make sure to distinguish discretionary from infrastructure spending and then minimize the latter. Financial independence occurs when capital times rate of return is greater than living expenses, with the last of these quantities being the easiest to change. The human condition is that 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 and restlessness. We are animals, similar to chimpanzees except slightly more intelligent and much more sex-obsessed. Changing the material world is much more difficult than changing how we internally react to the material world. Dualities such as free will versus determinism or universe versus creator of universe are illusions, resulting from the feebleness of our minds. We can never understand the universe because we can never understand eternity and infinity. The secret to happiness is learning to be content with one's current situation, whatever it might be.

Sarah stopped by after work. I was in good form sexually, from not having masturbated for several days, but nevertheless couldn't bring her off. I think she was overly tense from conflicts with her boss at work. I ended up coming by myself after banging hard for twenty minutes or so, with my cock digging around deep inside her cunt and her whole body shaking with each thrust, which she seemed to enjoy even if it didn't bring her to orgasm. After dinner at a restaurant, we tried again, as Sarah was still aroused, but with the same lack of success as before. Eventually, I lost my erection and we had to stop without either of us having come this second time.

I was more bored this evening than usual by Sarah's company, though I don't know why exactly. "I've got so many things to do and this woman is wasting my time"—such was my thinking. Of course, in reality I have nothing to do, other than read books of astrology and tarot and magic. Meanwhile, I'm having more and more misgivings about this trip to Europe. How do I get out of this?

Our conversation drifted onto various topics: the use of magic to delve into the unconscious and overcome inhibitions; Aleister Crowley; history taught in schools as a distorted view of real history; sado-masochism and other types of sexual role-playing. Sarah knew nothing about this last topic, nor do I think she would enjoy role-playing, at least as I understand it. The roles we currently take—me active and dominant, Sarah passive and submissive—come naturally and seem to reflect our true desires. Since I'm so much bigger and stronger than Sarah and since she already lets me do whatever I want to her body, tying her up would seem pointless. As for her tying me up, that doesn't interest me in the least, and I suspect it wouldn't interest Sarah either.

Sarah left early in order to run errands, while I spent much of the day napping, as I had slept badly last night, perhaps due to feeling unrelieved sexual tension, either my own or Sarah's by empathy. I later reflected that our sex has slipped of late. Instead of lingering in the feeling of timelessness, we have become goal-oriented, with both of us struggling mightily to bring Sarah to orgasm. When we succeed, the sex is second-rate, while when we fail, it's thoroughly unsatisfying. It occurred to me that my manual manipulation of Sarah's clitoris might be part of the problem, and that being able to bring the woman off with my cock alone is more natural. But then tonight the sex with Sarah returned to the superb level we had achieved a few weeks back. Both of us were highly aroused and Sarah was no longer tense from work, so that it was easy to bring her to state of extreme excitement. Whenever I detected her approaching orgasm, I would pause in my manipulations, and then resume once her body dropped to a lower arousal level. This teasing went on for fifteen minutes or so, with Sarah thrashing about and moaning the whole time and breaking out in a sweat towards the end. We concluded with a powerful orgasm for her followed immediately by one for myself, with me continuing to vigorously manipulate her clitoris until I was finished coming, which left Sarah tingling and exhausted from overstimulation.

Another round of sex after breakfast, as good as that of last night. This time I brought Sarah off in dog-style position. After she collapsed forwards onto the bed, I lowered myself down and pumped away at her from behind until I came, and then I collapsed at her side. As yesterday, I didn't stop manipulating her clitoris until I was finished coming, so that her pelvis must have been left aching. We lay for a while where we had collapsed, cuddling and saying nothing, and then showered up and drove to a nearby park, where we sat on some rocks overlooking the city, talking about various subjects, and then we stopped off at two cafes on the way home, for beer at one and dessert at the other, and then in the evening I read on the sofa in the living room while Sarah did paperwork in the study. Now and then she would take a break from her paperwork to sit beside me on the sofa and ask if I wanted some tea or wine or anything else. "Get lost and leave me alone!" was what I felt like saying, as her constant presence was beginning to feel oppressive to me by this time. I controlled myself by reflecting that I was a guest in her house and that I didn't want to lose her as a sex partner.

To bed early, after a light dinner of tortillas and melted cheese. Sarah seemed to be hoping for more sex, but I wasn't in the mood. I wanted solitude at this point and not closeness to her or anyone else. I made some crack about how I didn't think I could tolerate raising children. Perhaps I was thinking that Sarah was like a child. She replied, "I don't think it bothers men not to have children. Women are different. All the women I've known who didn't have children seemed to regret it. But I've never heard a man say he regrets not having children. I'm certainly glad I had children. It makes me feel complete."

I masturbated as soon as I got home, as a way of cleansing myself from the stuporousness induced in me by two days with Sarah, with Bernelli's assessment of women meanwhile resounding in my head: "All women do is steal men's energy."

My resolution about no longer coming during masturbation was a mistake, I've now decided, whereas the resolution concerning developing the ability to sit on the floor for long periods of time without pain was a good one. That is, the former of these two resolutions does not reflect my true desires while the latter does. Also, I've discovered that the notion of deliberately silencing the mind during meditation is all wrong, at least during the initial stages. On the contrary, I encourage my mind to be even more active than usual. In particular, I encourage a non-stop internal monologue like the following: "There is nothing else to do but sit here. If you don't sit here, what will you do? You will do nothing but putter about the apartment, which will lead to a feeling of dissipation and wasted time. As for the bodily aches and pains, these will disappear as soon as this meditation session ends. Why rush the relief? If you move now, you will lose the benefit of having sat here quietly for some time. If you then sit another lengthy period of time, you'll be assailed by some other ache. So you might as well endure whatever is currently bothering you. It isn't a severe pain, after all, and will disappear when you finally stand up. The highest happiness to be obtained is from simply sitting here. There is nothing else to do but sit here. Daydream all you want, if that's what you want. Just don't move. There's no reason to move after all." Eventually, I tire of this monologue and it dies out and my mind becomes very quiet and I am withdrawn from the world. Whenever I get antsy and start to want to move about or stand up and go somewhere, I resume the monologue.

An interesting idea from one of the books I've been reading. The true value of a group is the psychic influence of the personalities of the members of the group on one another. It is very important to be part of the "right" group, of course, since otherwise the influence will be a malignant one. I wonder if I should join some type of group?

Lunch with Helen. She and Paul visited her sister's family this weekend for dinner. Six people in all at the small kitchen table, including her sister's newborn baby and six year old daughter.

"All of them crowded in this tiny house with the baby crib in the living room and the desk in the bedroom, which was small to begin with, and mess everywhere. The baby started crying every time my sister stopped feeding her peas and then her older daughter was wailing because she bit her finger. I was absolutely appalled at the noise and squalor. I don't see how I could ever raise even one child under these conditions. I'd need a big house and a wet nurse and a maid to help me out," said Helen.

"Now you see why I recommended giving children up for adoption by the Mormons," I said.

"But I don't think you can get visitation rights with adoption. And then the child might grow up a stranger."

"It might grow up a stranger regardless. Look at me and you and our parents."

"I'm not a stranger to my parents. I represent the repressed side of them."

Helen is once again contemplating giving up her own apartment and moving in permanently with Paul. This move is at Paul's urging, though Helen agrees that it makes sense, assuming she and Paul are determined to stick together. And even if they break up and Helen has to move out again, it wouldn't be to her current apartment, which she hates, but to another apartment. So it makes sense to relinquish her current apartment now and split Paul's rent instead of paying her own. Helen is worried, however, that Paul will lose his job in the near future and then she would have to pay the entire rent on his apartment ($1250/month versus $750 at her current apartment). Paul recently depleted his savings to pay off $10,000 in overdue credit card debt, so that now he has nothing in the bank. "It was a wakeup call," remarked Paul regarding this overdue debt.

"Hello? Like his debt problems haven't been obvious before? I'm going to need some sort of assurance that I don't get stuck paying the whole rent. And then when I ask him for this assurance, he'll say things obviously aren't working between us and we'll end up breaking up again," said Helen.

"You seem to have become more realistic lately," I said.

"I've always been realistic."

"Then why are you moving in with Paul, given that you two break up at least once a month?"

"I don't know."

"Make sure you get a post office box so he can't read your mail and find out how much money you have."

"There you go again, poisoning my mind against him. This is why we can't meet for lunch more than once a week and even that's too often. Good-bye."

Sarah called in the evening. I behaved in a bored and uncommunicative manner, but then we concluded the conversation amicably. "Well, that's what I called to say," she says in her usual cheerful voice. "I'm glad to hear from you. Sleep well," I reply kindly. Though she gets on my nerves at times with her childishness (despite being some twenty years older than me), I'm also very fond of her, and so I don't want to be too unpleasant and thereby drive her off. Regarding our proposed trip together to Europe, I'm now thinking I should go through with this after all, but spend some time there before and after by myself. Some time alone might make me feel less oppressed and sapped of energy, which is how I'm sure I will feel after a week with Sarah and her friends.

Upon reading the case of a woman opera singer who had been psychically cursed so that she lost her voice and had to stop singing, I devised the following sex magic treatment. The woman is fucked by a male sex magic practitioner. Both man and woman have orgasms. The man then withdraws his wand (cock) from the woman's chalice (cunt). The woman licks the wand clean of "elixir of life" (mixture of semen and vaginal fluids) and then gargles and swallows. This should eliminate most of the curse from her vocal cords. A crystal of some sort is then dipped into the woman's cunt and thoroughly coated with elixir of life. The woman will thereafter wear this crystal about her neck to protect from a return of the curse. In order to guarantee a complete cure, the man might also want to ejaculate into the woman's mouth (the woman must be sure to gargle the semen so that it coats her vocal cords and also to swallow so that she can absorb all the power from the sperm) and then again up her ass. Ritual fasting and cleansing should precede the sex magic operation, for both man and woman. I envision the woman in this fantasy—the opera singer—as being fat, floppy breasted and sexually insatiable (an elephant woman, in Kama Sutra terminology). Perhaps sex-magic is what was meant by my tarot card reading last month, about dedicating myself to matters of the spirit in the future, leading to great upheaval in my life?

My lawyer called, with current figures for projected value of the estate after taxes and accounting and executor fees. He seems much more anxious to settle than me. If anything, I'm almost hoping this case drags on for several more years, in order to avoid having to make any decisions about it soon. Apparently, as a result of our contingency fee arrangement, the pressure has been transferred from me to him. I suggested he avoid appearing anxious to my sister's lawyer, and that he send a letter to my sister showing how it is strongly in her interest to settle rather than fight, since if we win, her expected inheritance will be much less than what she stands to receive from a settlement.

I called Sarah and we arranged to get together tomorrow evening. Once again, little to say to one another. She asked if I had bought my ticket for the trip to Europe. I replied that I would buy it in a week or so, as I had to consult first with "people from work". These lies about this alleged job of mine trip quite easily off my tongue these days. With Valentine's day coming up, I thought again of giving Sarah a gift of money, then reconsidered. Who knows what the eventual psychological ramifications of a gift of money might be? "Let sleeping dogs lie" seems the best counsel.

While sitting in the cafe, I made a vow to take a six months spiritual retreat later this year. Initially, I considered returning to Guatemala and living in a hotel there by night and spending my days meditating in a remote hut atop a desolate hill. Then I reflected that, at least for the first part of the retreat, it would be just as effective to live in my apartment here in the city and meditate during the day at a local cafe, which would allow me to continue seeing Sarah on weekends. The purpose of this retreat is to develop willpower. Instead of letting my desires control me—pulling me first this way and then that way so that in the end nothing gets accomplished and I'm left thoroughly unsatisfied—I want to be able to sort my desires from highest to lowest priority and then coordinate my thoughts and actions so as to satisfy the highest priority desires first and only then worry about lower priority desires. For example, suppose I want to masturbate but I know that Sarah will be visiting later in the day. Then I should be able to suppress my desire to masturbate. If I'm not intending to see Sarah or some other woman later in the day, on the other hand, then there is no reason to deny myself the pleasure of masturbating. A pleasure should be denied only when such denial contributes to the enjoyment of a greater pleasure, otherwise the pleasure should be indulged.

Sarah stopped by my apartment on her way home from work, for a bout of excellent sex. First she came, in the woman on top position, so that I was easily able to manipulate her clitoris while fucking upwards. Then we rested, then I licked her cunt until it was gushing with wetness, then I plowed away in missionary position, with no worry about bringing her off since she had already come. Another rest period after my orgasm. "Four hours of love-making. Not bad!" exclaimed Sarah as we finally got up off the floor. After a snack of yogurt and strawberries, I walked her to her car. She wanted to return to her house for the night, in order to get up early to run errands tomorrow.

The next day, I took the bus to Sarah's house, and arrived there in the early evening. We had dinner, then I took some books from my shoulder bag and proceeded to read these, as I wasn't particularly interested in conversation. We got into bed early, where Sarah initiated sex. I tried to repeat the wonderful encounter of last night, with her in the woman on top position, but everything seemed go wrong. First, there was the ambiance of her bedroom, which strikes me as lifeless and bland. White sheets, white comforter, white walls, light brown furniture, a few bland paintings, a small bookshelf, everything in its place and a place for every thing, the silence of suburbia outside. A complete contrast to my studio, where everything is vibrant color—dark blues and reds and greens and yellows—and coming in through the windows are the energetic sounds of skid row. Then her bed is completely different from my non-bed of a sheet laid on top of the rug. In particular, her bed is soft, so that when I'm lying on my back all I can think of is going to sleep. Finally, there was the fact that Sarah was highly aroused and wouldn't remain still, but insisted on bouncing up and down on my cock, which left me feeling bored, so that eventually my erection faded. "Here, let me get up," I said in a sharp tone. "What's wrong?" Sarah asked. "Just kneel there," I ordered. Then I tried fucking her dog-style, but again she insisted on moving, so that again I got bored and lost my erection. Finally we gave up trying to have sex, and just lay in each other's arms quietly for a while before rolling over and going to sleep.

"What am I doing here?" I thought. "If Sarah wants to do all the work, then why does she need me? Why not use a dildo? If she wants to be active, then I'll be passive, which means the focus is on my pleasure, and if I choose to lose my erection, that's not a problem. Being sucked while soft feels just as good as being sucked while hard. Passive men don't have to worry about erections."

In the morning, I was still in a foul mood from the previous night's bad sex and ended up coming before Sarah did, which left her frustrated since she was very much aroused. I suppose I was subconsciously trying to punish her. She might have detected this because later, while I was lying on the sofa reading, she came and sat beside me.

"I'm just wondering. That was so nice the other night, wasn't it?" she said.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You know what I mean!"

"Oh, the sex. Yes, it was very good. Sorry about this morning."

"There's no need to apologize. But I was just now thinking, that maybe when I left afterwards, that I somehow broke the spell."

"No, no, that was no problem. My biorhythms are off. Sorry about this morning."

"That's okay. It can't always be perfect. I just don't want you to be upset about me leaving like that afterwards."

"No, not at all."

This attempt to ease the tension had little effect, because my thoughts were still along the lines of: "If she wants me to lie there passively, then that's what I'll do. And I'll come whenever I want instead of waiting for her to come. She can jack off against my leg if she wants an orgasm. All this neediness. Wanting me to read to her, wanting me to talk to her—I'm feeling suffocated! I should never have come out here. I ought to go home right now." I realized I had to get away from Sarah for a while and so told her I planned to spend the afternoon reading in a nearby cafe.

"Can I come with you?" she asked.

"I suppose so, if you really want to," I replied, scowling.

"It sounds like you don't want me to go with you."

I grunted in reply, so then Sarah asked when I planned to be back and I said in several hours and then I left. On the way home I bought a six-pack of beer. I drank four bottles to Sarah's one. As bedtime approached, I pretended to be exhausted and tipsy in order to avoid the possibility of sex.

Another attempt at sex immediately upon awaking, and this time we reverted to our old pattern. Unfortunately, Sarah was tensed up from the recent fiascoes and couldn't come. In order to allow another attempt later, I held off from coming myself. The sex had lasted for over an hour and her lower back was sore afterwards, so I showed her how to tilt her pelvis in order to avoid lower back pain and warned that she should keep it thus tilted for the rest of her life, including during sex. This will require her to develop stronger stomach muscles, of course.

We ate breakfast and then I lay down on the sofa and began reading a book. Sarah came and sat with me and asked what I wanted to do the rest of the day. Did I want to see a movie? No, I dislike movies, I replied, and then I went off on something of a rant: "Even the best conventional movies are at the level of middle-brow novels, which is why I find them so boring. As for so-called art movies, they're silly and pretentious for the most part."

"Fine, we won't go to a movie. But I want to do something with you today," said Sarah. I replied that I didn't really like doing anything in life other than sitting in the cafe. Finally, we decided to go out to eat at a restaurant. Sarah then leaned forward and brushed her face against the crotch of my pants. I pulled her forwards so that we could kiss and then I stood up and carried her to the bedroom, where we engaged in a long session of mutual oral sex, followed by missionary position fucking, concluding with an orgasm for Sarah and then one for me immediately thereafter.

I said something about it being nice to be able to look out at the water from indoors when it was raining outside (it was raining all day) and so we ended up eating at the yacht club. A miserably tacky place with incompetent service: the waiter brought Sarah the wrong dish and then tried to charge extra for it, until I raised a fuss. We were in a good mood from the sex earlier, however, and so neither the ambiance nor service bothered us. After lunch we returned to Sarah's house and lay there on the twin sofas reading until dinner, then went to bed early. I read aloud a chapter from Dracula, in accordance with Sarah's incessant requests that I read to her before we go to sleep.

I felt absolutely exhausted upon returning to my apartment. Partly this might be from waking up at five am, which is when Sarah wakes up in order to get to work on time. Mostly, however, I believe it is that Sarah and her suburban house together sap my energy. She called me in the morning to tell me about a radio show about astrology, which I'm currently studying. I was polite during this conversation, but made a point of terminating it as soon as possible. I don't dislike Sarah's company nor do I feel uncomfortable in her presence, and I am genuinely fond of her and the sex is typically excellent. I just can't be around her (or any other woman) for more than a few days at a time without feeling suffocated.

Lunch with Helen, who called and said she needed some "cheering up" after a weekend of "absolute hell". The idea of her giving up her own apartment and moving in with Paul is now out of the question, both she and Paul agreed. They had been getting along fine until Saturday morning, when Paul woke up early, feeling alert and amorous. Helen, on the other hands, woke up feeling groggy and wanted to postpone any sex until after breakfast and a shower. Without directly refusing his advances, she hurried out of bed and put on pants (Paul had suggested she put on a skirt, which he could lift up as he pretended to ravish her) and then went into the living room, where she pulled open the curtains, which Paul had pulled shut just a few minutes earlier.

"Why don't you just go back to your own apartment? I can see things aren't working between us," said Paul, in a peeved tone.

"All I did was pull open the curtains. They're always open. Why did you shut them?" asked Helen.

"Why don't you just get out of my life!" yelled Paul.

Helen started sobbing and a while later apologized to Paul and begged him to forgive her. Paul's mood instantly changed to one of happiness.

"I like it when you're submissive like that. Am I your master? Will you do everything I say?" he asked.

Helen then let Paul "do his little thing" (anal sex, that is), but afterwards she felt even more angry and resentful towards him than before. The rest of the day alternated between petty squabbling and tense silence. Helen brought up the subject of moving in with Paul and asked what would happen if he lost his job and couldn't pay the rent. Paul replied: "Great, that'll be one way to get rid of you. I'll have to move out and leave you here." They patched up their differences sufficiently to allow going out to dinner at a restaurant, for which they had made reservations the day before. As might be expected, the meal was a dismal one: "We had nothing to say and so all we did was stare at our food the whole time."

While doing his taxes the next day, Paul discovered that he owed the government $4000, which caused him to become agitated until, after some "creative accounting", he managed to convert this $4000 of taxes due into a $2000 refund owed by the government to him. ("I guess he doesn't worry about being audited" is Helen's take on the "creative accounting".) His cleverness in fixing his tax problem brightened Paul's mood temporarily, but then later he relapsed into brooding. Helen was likewise in a dark humor and so when Paul corrected her for not putting the dishes up properly, she burst out in tears again. "Maybe you should go back to your own apartment," snapped Paul. "No! I'm leaving, all right, but I'm leaving on my terms!" Helen shouted in reply. Eventually, they came to an agreement that Helen will spent the weekends in her own apartment, looking for another apartment to rent, since she hates her current apartment so much, and the rest of the week with Paul in his apartment. Paul doesn't want her to use his car to apartment search, since he doesn't want her driving it up and down steep hills and possibly damaging the transmission. While watching a movie that night, in which the heroine commits suicide by drinking arsenic, Helen said, "I think I'd use sleeping pills instead." Paul laughed and quipped, "Maybe I'll get you some for a Valentine's day present."

"I just grew up too sheltered. I had no idea of how much evil there is in this world, by people like you and Paul. My father wasn't evil like this. Now I'm sick and can't do my job properly. Four more months and then I'll be vested in the pension plan and can quit this job and live a life of leisure." I'm not sure what Helen is thinking with regards to this pension plan. She won't be able to collect anything for another seventeen years at the minimum (starting at age fifty-five, in other words) and probably won't be able to collect for another twenty-seven years (starting at age sixty-five) and even then her benefit will be small in nominal terms, since she has only worked for five years at this job, and in real terms it will be even smaller, since it almost certainly won't be adjusted for inflation. I didn't bother explaining all this to Helen, however.

"We could make a good pair, now that you're dressing nicely. Why couldn't I ever get you to wear nice clothes? All you'd have to do is set me up in a nice apartment where I could be alone with books and music and a cat. Of course, I'd want a cat, fool! I know what you're thinking. You used to hate it when I was going to graduate school and had the whole day free and you had to go off to work in the morning, and you've been plotting your revenge ever since. But you've got your revenge. I've been working for almost five years now while you've been doing nothing. All I'm asking is a couple hundred thousand bucks to set me up in a nice place with a view where I can live alone and be happy." Then she became upset upon reading this month's journal entries. "What a horrible person you are! The things you say about this Sarah... And you're like this with all women! It makes me ill to think of it. This is why we can't get along. I remember when we were first going out together. I listened to those voice diaries of yours and I was appalled at what sort of monster you are. If only I'd had the strength to stay away from you..." The conversation finally degenerated to squabbling as we walked back to Helen's place of work.

"You can't live alone is your problem, Helen. You've never been able to live alone. And yet I don't see why you want men, since you don't want sex," I said.

"I invited you to lunch because I wanted cheering up and you've ended up doing the opposite. I feel worse than I did before. Good-bye."

I woke at three-thirty am, feeling fully alert, after having gone to sleep about ten pm. Foolishly, though, I neglected to take advantage of this opportunity to rise early, but instead lay back down and slept another five hours, with the result that when I finally rose at eight, I was groggy from too much sleep and so ended up skipping my morning exercises for the first time in several weeks, and then, as a consequence of not exercising, I felt uncomfortable in my body the whole day. Henceforth, whenever I wake up early, I must use my willpower to remain awake. Incidentally, I think this early waking (which also occurred last night and then several times the week before) is related to the meditation I've been practicing for the past week or so, which somehow reduces my need for sleep.

Helen stopped by the cafe in the evening while I was there and had dinner at my table. She and Paul "patched things up" last night. Supposedly, Paul was as emotionally exhausted as Helen by this weekend's fighting. According to her, the reason Paul constantly yells at her to get out of his apartment is precisely because his deepest fear is that she will leave him someday. She is spending the night at her own apartment, cleaning it up in preparation for a friend of hers from out of town, who will be staying there this coming weekend. Regarding her job, Helen complained that a co-worker there is screwing things up completely, so that she can't spend any time learning computer skills. Apropos of this remark, I asked how she did on the computer class she was taking at the university this past fall. She replied that she had failed this class, on account of never taking the final exam and that the reason she didn't take the exam was that she was so traumatized by an unpleasant encounter with me the week before. "You've brought shame upon us all!" I exclaimed, whereupon Helen began laughing uncontrollably. Her mother used to similarly chide Helen for "bringing nothing but shame upon us" whenever Helen failed to live up to her mother's expectations. For example, there was the time her mother found out that Helen was dating (and presumably having sex with) an immigrant from North Africa who worked nights as a dishwasher in a restaurant. As Helen's parents and other relatives were all members of the upper middle class American establishment, her mother naturally expected Helen to be dating young men from this same social class. Helen was twenty-five at the time.

I'm making great progress towards mastering the handstand, which proves, once again, that persistence can conquer any obstacle. On good days, like today, I remain up for thirty seconds before falling over. Also, when I do fall over backwards, I land first on my feet and then roll gently onto my back, instead of banging my head and back. Most of the day I spent studying astrology. As for meditation, I'm being consistent in doing that for at least a half-hour daily, and usually more.

Marianne sent me a computerized greeting card by email. A picture of herself in a bathing suit, and music in the background, and a caption that pops up: "Wouldn't you like to go swimming? Just to say hello. I think about you often. Love, Marianne." What am I supposed to do about her, I wonder, now that I'm involved with Sarah?

I called Sarah and we talked about my flight plans to Europe. I pretended to be unsure about my exact schedule so as to prevent her from changing her flight plans in order to accompany me.

I overslept again, after yesterday managing to wake up at three-thirty in the morning, then I skipped my morning exercises in disgust and then I didn't have a chance to meditate before Sarah arrived in the late afternoon. I felt disgusted by my lack of self-discipline and willpower.

The sex with Sarah lasted about two hours and was excellent, even though she didn't come at all and I only came partially (I was trying to avoid coming but then lost control). Towards the end, I got bored and fantasized about a woman I had seen in the cafe today. In her late forties I would imagine, elegantly dressed, large rump and large breasts with the nipples clearly showing through her bra. We've made eye contact before and today the sexual tension was especially strong. Not that anything will come of this, as she wears a wedding band and I don't want to risk losing Sarah. After Sarah left, I masturbated to images of this other woman, using some left-over sexual energy from my incomplete orgasm with Sarah.

I rose at six and completed exercises, breakfast and shower before eight. Up and about early for a change! During my exercises, I managed to remain in a handstand for between fifteen and twenty seconds on four separate attempts, and only fell onto my back once, and that fall was without hurting myself in any way.

I took the bus to Sarah's house in the late afternoon. Lousy sex, with neither of us coming, Sarah because she couldn't and I because I didn't want to. "I kept feeling just on the verge of coming and then you would stop," Sarah complained. I replied that I was trying to move in sync to her breathing and so, whenever she held her breath, I stopped moving. There was some truth in this, but the real problem with the sex was that I was feeling bored and tense and angry and thus unable to make love properly.

Decent sex at five in the morning, with orgasms for both of us. Sarah then got up, whereas I remained in bed, in a sort of semi-conscious dream state. I felt terribly groggy when I finally got up at nine. "You seem distant," Sarah remarked. In fact, I was being deliberately distant. The truth is that Sarah's company bores and annoys me. Why does she get to leave my apartment after stopping by for sex while I have to spend the whole weekend with her and if I try to leave she asks me why I don't enjoy her company? What a drag she is! We drove to a nearby park and sat there and had a tedious conversation about how we got started on our careers, a topic we've long since exhausted. Then we talked about astrology, a topic about which neither of us knows much, so that we just end up boring one another and feeling at a loss for words to explain what we don't understand to begin with. On the way home, we bought beer and cookies. After eating these, I felt the onset of a migraine and lay down on the floor. Sarah gave me a neck and head massage, but this did little to relieve the horrible aching behind my eyes. Finally, as the headache turned to nausea, I stood up and staggered to the bathroom and vomited there. A horrible smelling fermented combination of everything I had eaten since yesterday evening. Whether my illness was due to bacteria or merely the result of tension from being around Sarah, I can't say. "This was certainly a roundabout way of getting out of reading to me," laughed Sarah as I crawled into bed after my third bout of vomiting and prepared to go to sleep early. I grunted in reply and thought to myself: "What is it with this read to me bullshit? She acts like some fucking little girl. I drag her down, she drags me down, we both fall into a pit of lethargy in each other's presence. I can't wait until I go home to my own apartment tomorrow."

I woke up at about five, feeling recovered from my illness of last night, and at six-thirty I finally mustered the willpower to get out of bed. After exercising and showering, Sarah and I had sex. It started wonderfully, but then I came too soon and felt like a thorough incompetent. I left shortly after the sex concluded. Sarah made no complaint and even seemed pleased to see me go, which is hardly surprising, given how uncommunicative I was being.

In the evening, Sarah came by my apartment, so I could do her taxes on my computer. Afterwards, she wanted to take me out to dinner and I think she was also hoping for more sex. I declined the dinner invitation on the grounds that I wasn't feeling good and then shooed her out of my apartment by saying that I wanted to go read in the cafe. I'm too genuinely fond of Sarah to enjoy being unpleasant with her, but I desperately needed some time alone.

While finishing up my book of astrology at the cafe, I reflected on one possibly reason why this superstition fascinates me so. Namely, because it is such a different way of looking at the world from my own. Instead of the petty details of existence which I so relish, we get abstract and (in my opinion) meaningless adjectives. "Gluttonous" instead of "he ate three helpings of mashed potatoes", "lazy" instead of "he spends ten hours a day in bed", "fond of luxury" instead of the dollar amount of his apartment rent, and so on. "Life robbed of its richness" is the phrase that normally springs to mind whenever I encounter a profusion of adjectives, and yet with astrology this profusion of adjectives seems appropriate.

I went to sleep at about ten, and then woke at three-thirty, feeling alert but also unrested, so that I couldn't bear the thought of getting up. Instead, I lay back down on the rug that I call my bed and remained there until nine, dreaming and masturbating (I had an orgasm at about eight-thirty). I would have expected myself to feel disgusted by this oversleeping. In fact, it doesn't particularly bother me, perhaps because I wasn't really sleeping those five and a half extra hours between three-thirty and nine, but rather was semi-conscious most of the time. I'm beginning to get a glimpse of my destiny in life. More consciousness, but less action, which is another way of saying I'm going to be spending the rest of my life meditating, which seems the only way of passing time that doesn't leave me feeling afterwards that yet another day has been wasted. Of course, I'll probably continue seeing Sarah (or some other older woman) on weekends, in order to keep from being plagued by sexual desires, and I might now and then travel, in order to avoid being plagued by restlessness, and I'll certainly spend much of my time reading. However the focus of my life will be on meditation.

As for my resolution to master the handstand—why bother? Given that various of the other exercises I do each morning (headstand, shoulderstand, backbend, crow, peacock) keep my shoulders and arms strong, the only reason for mastering the handstand is to be able to show off and impress people, which is insufficient motivation for working at something which causes lower back pain when I do it incorrectly. For me at least, happiness is achieved by doing nothing but what is absolutely necessary to avoid pain, which certainly doesn't include showing off by doing handstands. (And if I do want to show off, I can use the sideways crow or peacock, which I can already do perfectly, so why bother with the handstand?)

Mark called. The old woman for whom he worked as caretaker died yesterday. He plans to take a few months off, doing nothing, and then to look into opening a used furniture store. This worries me, since my opinion is that Mark lacks the self-discipline to run a business, and I don't want to have him pestering me for loans if he starts to experience difficulties. He might be paying me a visit later this year. "Now you don't mind if I smoke, do you? You know I have those vile habits. Ha! Ha! Maybe you can stay at your girlfriend's house while I'm there. At least for a few days." I shuddered inside at the thought of his cigarettes stinking up my apartment, and then grudgingly agreed to let him smoke if and when he visits. Given that he put me up for several nights in his spare apartment, I can't exactly refuse to reciprocate the hospitality, though I'm certainly not anxious for him to visit.

I took a Tarot card reading in the evening, to get some insight into the situation with Sarah and whether or not to accompany her to Europe. "Thus far, my relationship with Sarah has give me great pleasure. However, unless things change, the future looks bleak, as I seem to be developing destructive tendencies. An alternative future would involve a change to our relationship, leading to a sense of light-heartedness on my part in lieu of this rampaging destructiveness. The whole situation is an explosive one, with tremendous energies at play."

Awake at six, after having gone to sleep at about ten-thirty the evening before. Out of bed at eight-thirty, after masturbating to various lewd fantasies. I skipped handstands, but otherwise had a fine morning workout. I am thus failing miserably at my three New Year's resolutions concerning bodily discipline: to get up by six, to no longer come while masturbating, to master the handstand. But then given that my only underlying desire in life is happiness, what is the point of such discipline? In the case of the handstands, as I already noted, there is no point, and so as of now, I am ceasing my efforts in that direction. Regarding the other two resolutions, consider again my motivation for making these, which ran something like: "I feel bad when I spend too much time in bed or when I masturbate to the point of sexual exhaustion." The real question is, why do I feel bad? If behavior leads to physical pain, then by all means change the behavior. But if behavior leads to physical pleasure and the pain is purely mental, then wouldn't it be wiser to change the mind rather than the behavior? In other words, what I really need to do is rid myself of this guilt about frittering my life away in bed.

Lunch with Helen, who was exhausted from spending a weekend in the company of her friend Michelle. Upon being picked up at the airport, Michelle informed Helen that she expected the two of them to have a wild time together, and rattled off a list of proposed activities—horseback riding, skydiving, windsurfing, ice-skating, billiards, bowling—and then announced that, before they did anything else, she wanted to be taken to whichever cafe served the best cheesecake in town, in order that she might compare with the cheesecakes of New York. Helen had hoped this visit of Michelle's might be a refreshing diversion from her usual routine of working days and then spending evenings and weekends with Paul. Instead, Michelle was already getting on Helen's nerves before they had spent even an hour together.

In Michelle's opinion, the best cheesecake of West Metropolis is not as good as what can be obtained in New York, though it isn't bad. The food at the Chinese restaurant where they ate later, however, was a different matter. Michelle looked in disgust at the plates of food brought out by the waiter and then demanded that he bring something else, as everything she had been served so far looked inedible. The waiter fetched the manager, who explained that he had no intention of replacing the food with something different. Michelle put on a sulking expression and ate nothing. Helen was mortified by Michelle's behavior.

Another disagreeable scene at breakfast the next morning. Michelle at first made various complaints about the food, such as that her waffles came with fruit, which she didn't want, and then she complained about the slowness of the waiter to respond to her demands, and finally she opined: "They're giving me bad service because I'm black." Helen left the usual fifteen percent tip, but Michelle snatched up half of this: "No! They gave bad service, so why should we tip them so much?" The cafe where they were eating was one that Helen frequently patronizes, so that she was very uncomfortable leaving a substandard tip.

As for the various "activities" Michelle had earlier proposed, none of these came to pass. In fact, she and Helen spent most of the weekend lying on the bed in Helen's apartment, watching rental videos. During one of these movies, Michelle began thinking aloud about what she would do if she were able to get revenge on people she disliked without suffering any consequences. Helen found this line of thought disturbing. Later, Helen mentioned her problems with Paul, whereupon Michelle jumped in with all sorts of advice about men. Michelle then complained that she is able to get boyfriends easily, but can never keep them for more than a month and then she joked about planning to tell people she is bisexual.

When my name popped up in the conversation, Michelle "guffawed", as if in derision. Michelle comes from a poor black family of the rural south, is probably the first person in her family to ever go to college, and has a deep-seated sense of inferiority and insecurity about who she is. We only met once, and then briefly, but that was sufficient to realize our mutual dislike. I despised her falseness, while she took an instant hatred towards me for seeing so easily through her pretenses.

By the end of the weekend, Helen couldn't wait to see Michelle off: "I'm seeing Paul in a whole new light after this weekend. True, he won't ever be able to support me, but otherwise he isn't so bad. I realize that now. No wonder Michelle can't keep a boyfriend more than a month! That's exactly what I felt like when I was with her. Like a man who's having to put up with an immature, complaining woman just so he can get sex. Except I don't find her sexually attractive, which is why I couldn't deal with her. One thing I have learned from this visit, though. I am never, ever going to pay her a visit. I don't know why she thought I was supposed to entertain her all weekend with activities. That was really an imposition on her part. I work all week, my weekends are for relaxing."

The conversation then changed to Helen's job, where she recently applied for an opening in another department, doing work that is even more boring than what she is currently doing, but with a five percent salary increase. After her interview yesterday, the manager of the new department indicated that Helen would probably be offered the job. Helen is now debating with herself whether to accept this offer. The main reason she applied for this transfer was to get away from an incompetent co-worker whose screw-ups are making Helen miserable. Helen has to either repair the screw-ups or else risk being blamed for them herself.

After lunch, I meditated for an hour in one of the local Catholic churches. Perhaps the first time in my life that I've entered a church for a serious purpose. (As a child I was dragged to church unwillingly and as an adult I've only entered as a tourist or else for weddings or funerals.) The dark and quiet atmosphere was most conducive to meditation, I found. The reading I've been doing lately, on magic and tarot and the Cabala, caused me see the crucifixes and statues of saints in a completely different light from how I've regarded these in the past.

I overslept and then masturbated furiously all morning, without feeling particularly guilty about this orgy of dissipation. Though the oversleeping gave me something of a headache and I did worry later about the excessive masturbation causing difficulties if I get together with Sarah tomorrow. I sat stiffly in the cafe for several hours in the afternoon, to give my back some exercise after spending so much time of late lying in bed.

As for the vow two days ago to make meditation the focus of my life henceforth—what nonsense that was! Don't I understand anything about myself yet? In fact, as of today I'm giving up meditation entirely, as I'm beginning to get bored sitting on the floor doing nothing. The real focus of my life henceforth is going to be exactly the same as what it's always been. Namely, masturbating and reading and sleeping and eating and exercising.

I finally bought a ticket for the trip to Europe, with total travel time of five weeks. I felt much more enthusiastic about this trip after buying the ticket than before.

Helen called, wanting to "crash" at my apartment during her lunch break. "What about our agreement to meet only once a week?" I asked. Helen hemmed and hawed in reply and then retracted the proposal, as it was obvious that there wouldn't be time to get to my apartment and then eat lunch and then take a nap and then get back to her job, all within a one-hour lunch break. She declined the job transfer she was recently offered, after her current manager agreed to do something about her problems with her incompetent co-worker.

While reading a book about C. G. Jung and how he and his ideas form the basis of a sort of cult religion, I suddenly realized that much of my bad mood with Sarah these past few weeks is due to my reading material of late. Namely, books of magic and astrology and similar nonsense of the sort for which I've always felt an instinctive aversion. My analysis of the situation is as follows. Each of us has a choice between accepting or rebelling against the society we live in. In particular, of accepting or rebelling against society's sexual repression. Assuming we rebel, there are two ways of doing so. Either use logic and reason to determine which parts of society to reject and which to accept, or else abandon ourselves to irrational emotion. The advantage of using logic and reason is the same as elsewhere in life. We can maximize benefits while minimizing risks and costs. For some people, however, logic and reason are insufficient. In some cases, repressions are buried deep in the subconscious and protected by censoring mechanisms. For these people, the only way to indulge deep-seated desires is by letting themselves be swept away on a tide of irrational emotion. For example, suppose someone of a compatible astrological sign proposes sex during a Jungian sex magic ceremony. What happens is that the atmosphere of irrational mumbo-jumbo acts as a sort of background noise, so that the usual subconscious voice that says no to sex can't be heard. In my case, logic and reason were all it took to overcome repressions, and hence I never had a need for irrational emotion. Meanwhile, I've always sensed in myself a tendency towards mania, and I knew that I needed to shield myself from irrational emotion lest I lose my head and do something crazy that would land me in prison or the loony bin or homeless in the gutter. In other words, I've always clung to logic and reason like a life-preserver, and feared irrational emotion in the same way that duller and more repressed people cling to irrational emotion and shrink from logic and reason. By reading all these books on magic and astrology lately, and trying to convince myself that there is some truth in this latter superstition, I've awakened these old fears of going on an insane rampage, and this is why I've been tense lately. (A counter-argument to the above would be that the reason I reacted so strongly to the books on astrology and magic is precisely because these books were uncovering aspects of my unconscious that I want to keep repressed. In other words, that I'm not less but rather more repressed than average.)

Not long after writing up the above analysis of how a belief in astrology is related to deep-seated sexual repression, who should call but Helen, wanting to get the web site for a computer astrology chart generator that I had previously told her about.

Sarah came by in the evening. I initially thought I might have arousal problems as a consequence of yesterday's masturbation orgy, and so decided to try sexual kung fu again—with spectacular results! At least ten orgasms for me before I finally settled down and brought Sarah off. After some of my orgasms, I went soft and lost all interest in further sex, but this loss of interest lasted only fifteen minutes or so, after which my erection swelled up again as hard as ever. I think the reason I thought the sexual kung fu wasn't working last year was that the book on Taoist sex secrets didn't mention this phenomenon of sometimes temporarily losing the erection after a non-ejaculatory orgasm. Or perhaps this temporary loss of erection is because I'm doing something wrong? In all, we fucked for about two hours. Afterwards, we had dinner at a restaurant, where Sarah insisted on paying ($40) in exchange for my doing her taxes.

I masturbated to orgasm, but repressed ejaculation. I'm back on the sexual kung fu kick big-time. If only I can develop the ability to masturbate all day plus have sex with a lover at night—what joy that will bring to my life!

Another sexual kung-fu fuckfest with Sarah after I took the bus to her house in the evening. Cunnilingus for foreplay, then thirty minutes of missionary position fucking, with three orgasms for me and one for her.

Sex again in the morning, with two orgasms for me and one for Sarah, then I dawdled in bed until nine while she did paperwork in the study. In the afternoon, Sarah ran errands, then we stopped off together at a cafe, then we returned to Sarah's house and had a merry time there in the evening. She showed me various clothes she had made for herself over the years, then we tried on hats and laughed at one another.

Another bout of sex before going to sleep, with one orgasm for her and three for me. Now that I've finally got it working, this sexual kung-fu is absolutely amazing. I should note that, though I'm no longer limited to one orgasm, this doesn't mean I can have an unlimited number of orgasms. My desire significantly diminishes with each orgasm until eventually I lose all interest in further sex, even if I can continue to get solid erections.

Another round of sex after waking up, with two dry orgasms for me (with a rest interval between) and one orgasm for Sarah. After exercises, breakfast and shower, I indicated that I planned to go back to my apartment today. Sarah seemed surprised at this, but not disappointed. As I was putting on my shoes in preparation for leaving, Sarah sat down beside me on the sofa and we started kissing, which got me aroused, so that I pulled her up and led her towards the bedroom. She protested weakly: "Again? I have so many things to do today. And then I'll have to shower again and I just finished doing my hair." So instead of sex, we just lay on the bed with our clothes on and kissed and hugged. Sarah asked me to explain what sexual kung-fu was, which I did, in a half-baked sounding way, which led to the subject of multiple orgasms in women. I mentioned that one of my former lovers (this would be Karen) had been capable of ten or more orgasms in a single session of sex. Sarah asked whether such responsiveness in a woman turned me on. I replied (truthfully) that it was the duration of sex that was most important to me, and not the number of orgasms—one orgasm and an hour of sex was preferable to ten orgasms but only ten minutes of sex—though it was frustrating (for me as well as for the woman) when the woman wanted an orgasm but couldn't achieve one.

All this talk of sex and orgasms apparently got Sarah aroused, for after I finished speaking, she bent down and unzipped my pants and started sucking me. Meanwhile, I had slipped my hand down the back of her pants and was fingering her cunt from behind. Once my cock was hard, we undressed and fucked. I plowed away for about ten minutes or so, with Sarah's arms pinned down over her head, and her mouth open, and her eyes bulging, and her body shaking with each thrust, and concluded with a powerful dry orgasm for myself. Soon afterwards, Sarah sprang out of bed, as she was anxious to get started on her errands. In seeing me off, she was very cheerful: "This was a wonderful weekend. It was like a vacation. When can I see you again?" We arranged for her to come by my apartment during the week after work.

I masturbated like a maniac back at my apartment. Six or more full-body dry orgasms. My purpose was to verify whether sexual kung-fu works or not. In other words, can I, by not ejaculating during orgasm, indulge in unlimited amounts of sex and masturbation? The answer seems to be yes. On the downside, my sexual interest disappears almost completely after the first of these dry orgasms, so that I have to force myself to get subsequent erections. However, once I do manage to get another erection, it is always rock-solid.

I spent over three hours in the morning masturbating, with two dry orgasms and then a third where I lost control and a small amount of semen dribbled out. My error was in not pressing my thighs together tightly during orgasm, but instead leaving them spread (I was imagining myself as the woman being fucked), which prevented me from clamping shut the pelvic muscles. It was after two in the afternoon when I finally made my way out down to the cafe. For want of anything better to do, I meditated in the evening, while listening to music. In my attitudes towards meditation, I am, as is usual with me, swinging from one extreme to another—vowing first to do nothing but meditate the rest of my life and then vowing to never meditate again—instead of hewing to a course of moderation. I must learn to regard meditation as a pleasant way to spend time when I have nothing else to do, and never as something I am obligated to do each day. If I'm bored meditating and would rather do something else, then by all means I should do something else. Meditation, it must be emphasized again, is only for when there is nothing else to do.

I called Helen with a lunch invitation, but we couldn't agree on the time or place, and then we had some argument about astrology. The conversation concluded with her abruptly hanging up.

Marianne sent another email today, noting that she just received the postcard I mailed to her from Mexico back in two months ago (Sarah and Helen also just received their postcards—the Mexican postal system is apparently extremely slow) and complaining that I had yet to respond to her email of two weeks ago: "You must be very busy and happy or else do not wish to write to me anymore...? Because I have no replies to my emails since that last message from you sometime in mid-January... Love, Marianne."

In my reply, I lied about having been out of town for the past two weeks for work-related reasons to explain my slowness to respond, and then wrote that I'd like to see her again sometime, and that I would be in Europe in the spring and busy with work all summer, and then I babbled on about how I was reading about Aleister Crowley and then, since I had nothing else to write about, I discussed the weather situation in North Metropolis. Maybe I'll get rid of her by being boring? Like Marianne, I signed my email "love". I'm not particularly anxious to see Marianne again, and yet I don't want to burn my bridges with her either.

This business of carrying on a clandestine long-distance love affair with one woman (Marianne) while spending every weekend with another (Sarah) and still being in love with a third (Helen) is becoming a strain on my nerves. Let any man with fantasies about harems learn from my experience as to just how stressful the reality can be.

My sister's lawyer finally presented a written settlement offer, with a nominal value of $475,000, except with so many obnoxious conditions attached to this offer that the true value is probably more like $425,000. I told my lawyer to decline the offer and proceed with preparations for trial. Given that I stand to receive about $975,000 if I win the will contest suit (based on the current value of the estate) and that my likelihood of winning is high, I think my sister should be offering to settle for somewhere in the range of at least $600,000.

Lunch with Helen. She received a five percent salary increase, to match the salary of the job transfer offer she recently declined, but this increase is contingent on her remaining in her current job for another six months and training someone else to take over her computer programming tasks. Despite accepting these conditions, she continues to apply for other jobs in the company. I warned her to avoid making promises she doesn't intend to keep. She downloaded the astrology program she had asked me about last week and used it to print Paul's birth chart. His Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury and Uranus are all in the sign of Cancer and his ascendant is Scorpio. "That explains everything, he's all water," she said, while shaking her head. Paul shares my skepticism towards astrology, and laughs whenever Helen mentions the subject. I told Helen my view that astrology and other new age ideas can be a way for repressed people to get in touch with their unconscious desires, but that mentally unstable people should never dabble in such irrationality, lest they go crazy. One of Helen's former boyfriends (she and he lived together for several years on an essentially platonic basis, as he had little sex drive and she didn't find him sexually attractive) fit this description of mentally unstable. Sure enough, after eking out a living for some time as a free-lance writer for an astrology magazine, he had to be sent away to a lunatic asylum. (He has since been released. According to his family, he blames Helen for making him go crazy.)

Sarah came by my apartment in the evening. We began by kissing on the sofa, then we fucked for a blissful hour, during which I had perfect control. Neither of us came, however. For whatever reason, I wasn't able to repeat the burst of orgasms that I had last week from using sexual kung fu. Eventually, Sarah grew sore and so we stopped and rested while listening to music. I then put some lentils, rice and potatoes in a pot and we kissed for twenty-five minutes while these cooked, then I added chopped broccoli, tomatoes, jalapeños and ginger to the mix, and for the ten minutes it took for these to cook, Sarah sucked my cock while I licked at her cunt. I then turned off the stove and we resumed fucking, concluding with a dry orgasm for me. Sarah was tense and tired from work and thus not in a mood for an orgasm for herself. In all, including foreplay and rest breaks, the sex lasted three hours. After eating the stew, we lay back down, then I read to Sarah for a while and then we went to sleep. Perhaps due to the lack of orgasm for Sarah, we both slept fitfully.

Email from Marianne: "Thank you for the answer. I wish I could be with you in Europe. It will be Easter then and everything will be closed here, so I could go but I have to think about it. I also want to keep my costs low in order to spend more when I go to Asia. Love, Marianne."

Elizabeth called: "I knew you wouldn't bother picking up the phone and calling me and so I decided to call you." After some small talk about her job, which she plans to quit in the near future, I mentioned that I had met another lover. Upon hearing that Sarah was at least in her late fifties, Elizabeth said: "That must be quite a coup for her, to have a man so much younger than she is." I replied nothing, but made a point of remembering this remark, as it seems to perfectly capture what I despise most about Elizabeth and her attitudes towards men and sex and life. "If she's that old, she definitely won't want children," Elizabeth continued. Then she said she thought she and I could be friends.

"How can we be friends when there's so much sexual tension between us?" I asked.

"Maybe all the sexual tension is with you and not me."

"Things might get out of control if we were ever alone in one another's apartment."

"Then we don't have to meet in each other's apartment."

She asked about my will contest lawsuit. I responded: "The legal system moves slowly, as we all know. But while we're on this subject, have you changed your mind about being willing to give a deposition?" Elizabeth replied that she might, provided she won't be badgered at this deposition. I promised to call her next week to arrange getting together for lunch sometime.

Over dinner, Sarah mentioned possibly delaying her return from Europe, so as to be able to spend more time there with me. I didn't say anything, because I'm not too sure this will be a good idea. As it is, we will be spending a whole week together, which is more time than we've ever spent in one another's company. I had been telling her for some time a tale of traveling for business reasons next week, when in fact I'm planning a two day trip to Basin City. Tonight, she asked for my flight number, in case there is an accident with my plane. Was she serious, I wondered, or does she suspect that I'm not really traveling for business reasons? Sex with orgasms for both of us before going to sleep. I tried using sexual kung fu, but without success, and instead reverted to the tried and trusted technique of simply holding back from orgasm until the woman comes.

Several hours and a great deal of struggling to bring Sarah to orgasm, with eventual success. My left arm was aching with exhaustion afterwards, from the effort of holding myself up on just that arm so as to free my right hand to manipulate Sarah's clitoris. I had three orgasms in all. A partial dry orgasm, a complete dry orgasm, another complete orgasm, which I tried to keep dry though I think in the end I lost control and some semen dribbled out. "Do I really turn you on, or are you always turned on like this?" asked Sarah later, so evidently she was pleased by my efforts.

We walked to the cafe in the afternoon and read there for several hours. This was our only outside activity of the day. Back at her house in the evening, I imitated the preachers I used to watch on television:

"Money's like a river. You've got to let it flow. The more you give, the more you get. I quote the good book: ye, verily, give up all thou hast, and much more shalt thou receive! You can't let the money just pool up and stagnate. You've got to release some of that money so that more money can flow in. I know some of you out there are facing financial difficulties. Maybe you've lost your job, maybe you're deep in debt, maybe you're even looking at the loss of your home or eviction from your apartment. These are the very times when you need God more than ever. And God wants to help you. But you've got to open up and make a commitment first. You've got to plant a seed of faith before you can reap the harvest thereof. I want you to make a big stack of all the bills you owe and then I want you to put God on the top of that stack. Put God at the head of the line! Pay God before you pay anybody else. I want ten people out there to make $500 vows within the next thirty minutes. I want you to give to God so God can give to you! Abalabalooba-loobalabalee! I can feel the power, I'm speaking in tongues! Who's going to give first? Somebody out there, please, make a $500 vow now. You got to give to God so God can give to you! Please! Won't you let God help you?"

"Stop that, will you!" exclaimed Sarah at last. "That religious talk just makes me ill. Also, you do it so well that it makes me worry that you're not just pretending. I really think there a preacher in you waiting to burst out."

I was aroused upon waking, and so when Sarah leaned over to kiss me, I responded passionately and soon enough we were engaged in another bout of sex. As Sarah's arousal was only partial, on account of her being half-asleep and still drained from the exhausting sex of yesterday morning, I didn't bother trying to bring her off, but instead plowed away at her cunt in pursuit of my own orgasm only. I tried to restrain myself, but some semen nevertheless dribbled out, and then afterwards I felt a kung fu backlash. My whole body became filled with throbbing energy, and then I tumbled into a stuporous half-sleep and remained in bed until nine, at which time Sarah admonished: "You need to get up if you plan to leave early, since it's already late!" I did an abbreviated set of exercises, then took the bus back to my apartment. I spent the afternoon reading in the cafe.

The bus arrived in Basin City in the early afternoon. I felt slightly sick, as is typical during my first day of traveling, regardless of where I go. The temperature was much cooler than during my previous trip to Basin City, so that I had to bundle up in a jacket and put on a wool hat to keep warm. Despite this being a weekday, the town seemed utterly deserted, even the commercial district. I wandered around the streets for several hours, then returned to my hotel room in the late afternoon, where I immediately climbed into bed. I remained in bed until eight the following morning. Fourteen hours in bed in all, with part of the time spent sleeping and the remainder daydreaming. I had brought books, but didn't open these even once, nor did I have any desire to listen to the music I had brought along. Instead, I just luxuriated in the feeling of being far away from West Metropolis, in a barren but comfortable hotel room, imagining what it would be like to live for the rest of my life in hotel rooms, with all my belongings fitting into a single suitcase. Life stripped down to its bare essentials.

I masturbated, but without much enthusiasm. Something about this city takes away all my desire for sex. Perhaps I'm afraid of somehow becoming involved with a woman like the one I had seen earlier in a pawn shop, pleading with the clerk to offer more money for her jewelry and cigarette lighter and then storming out in a huff when he indicated that this was impossible: "I'd like to help, but I have to follow the store policy, and we really can't offer more than $3 for a ring like this. We're overstocked as it is and no one is buying." The clerk didn't seem to be exaggerating, as the display cases were stuffed with cheap jewelry and the customers were mostly trying to get loans rather than browsing the items for sale.

The tour package includes a six hour stopover at a casino in the middle of nowhere. After cashing in my $10 of playing credit and eating a half-price breakfast, I wandered around the blue-collar suburbs that surround this casino, down desolately empty streets, with a view of the snow-covered mountains in the distance. For two hours I lingered in a park, and then resumed walking when I became cold from lack of activity, with several stops in my walking to buy junk food. I felt as completely out of place as I had when living in various suburban wastelands like this while working for a large corporation in my twenties and early thirties. And yet there was also something deeply comforting about being here. It helps me to accept that all lives are truly meaningless and that I shouldn't worry or feel guilty about doing nothing with mine. Enjoy the pleasures of eating and masturbation, live alone, think only of the present and the immediate future, never dwell on the past, never worry about the distant future. This visit to Basin City helps reinforce my long-standing opinion that this is my path to happiness.

I was extraordinarily listless this morning. I stayed in bed until nine, then puttered around for several hours, and didn't finish my exercises until almost noon. I am experiencing the same problems with the sexual kung fu as last year. Namely, my sex drive disappears completely after a single masturbatory dry orgasm. The book says this is a temporary phenomenon. Perhaps I should masturbate less until the phenomenon disappears? I definitely need to wait a few months this time before passing judgement as to the merits of sexual kung fu.

Mark called and left a message. I was in my apartment when he called, but didn't feel like picking up the phone. He wants me to create some business cards for his used furniture business, which he intends to conduct on a "mobile" basis, at least initially. I suppose this means he plans to limit himself to conducting yard sales, with his merchandise stored in his or his brother's apartment, or his sister's house, or the apartments of his friends, or any other storage locations he can think of.

I called Elizabeth and we had a long conversation. She has been feuding with her mother ever since visiting at Christmas. She and her mother spent several days in the house together, then they got on each others nerves and start calling one another names, and finally her mother threw her out. Elizabeth now has two cats, a male kitten plus the older female she had previously. "I'm starting to become an old cat lady." At the beginning of our conversation, Elizabeth maintained that she had lost interest in men and sex, but then later she said she is thinking of using an online dating service. We agreed to meet next week for dinner. I didn't bring up the issue of the deposition I'd like her to make for my will contest suit.

Lunch with Helen. She recently discovered a way to automate certain tasks at her job. She suspects the reason this automation wasn't done before is that one of the supervisors was afraid that it might reduce the workload such that the staffing level under him would be reduced. Although the programming for this automation is already almost finished, Helen plans to drag out the implementation for several months, in order to make her accomplishment seem more impressive and also to justify her continued existence in the department.

Although things are going well for Helen at work, her personal life is a different matter. She insists that she wants a child soon, and that she can't live with any man other than Paul due to her inability to have normal sex. With Paul, at least, there is the "viable alternative of doing it the other way". At the same time, she is worried about how Paul spends money extravagantly and then constantly is on the verge of losing or quitting his job. In particular, she dreads the idea of having a baby while Paul is unemployed, since she anticipates unemployment will cause him to feel insecure and to use her as an outlet for his frustration, to speak nothing of the financial stress of such a situation. She suspects Paul would "hit the roof" if he ever discovered that she has over $100,000 in savings which she has been "hiding" from him these past three years. He would have to know about these savings if they get married, however. As for demanding separate checking accounts and other financial protections in the event of marriage, this would likely cause to Paul to call the marriage off entirely.

Paul's current job problems are related to an impending transfer of his current supervisor. Paul wanted to be promoted to replace this supervisor, but instead of politely requesting that he be considered for the opening, he barged into the office of the vice-president (the supervisor of his current supervisor) and threw down an ultimatum. "If I don't get promoted and I have to work under someone else, I'm looking around for another job", or something to that effect. The vice-president nodded and replied that he hoped Paul would at least stick around for a few months, as if to imply that Paul won't be getting the promotion he wants. Several times Paul has overheard his current supervisor on the phone, interviewing candidates to replace him, which caused to Paul to become so enraged that he left work early and returned to his apartment and then called Helen at her job to tell her that he planned to submit his resignation the next day. It was then up to Helen to talk Paul out of such rashness. Even if Paul doesn't quit, there is a strong likelihood that he will be fired eventually. His current supervisor hired Paul and likes him enough to tolerate his bad work habits. Things might be different with another supervisor.

Meanwhile, Paul's extravagant spending continues unabated. For example, he recently purchased a $50 "ergonomic" pen, which can be twisted into various shapes in order to reduce stress on the hand and wrist. "How much writing does he do anyway?" scoffed Helen. Then this past weekend he invited a married couple to dinner at a very expensive restaurant, with the idea that they would pay half the bill. A completely unrealistic assumption, since it was his invitation and his choice of restaurant and therefore his responsibility to pay. This couple, incidentally, is the one he calls whenever he and Helen have a particularly acrimonious dispute (such as the two times the police were called in to mediate), in order to tell them the seamy details. This couple also once let Paul live at their house for six months when he was breaking up with a previous lover. As best Helen could understand, the reason for this dinner was to show these old friends that Paul's life is going well now. The dinner ended up costing $400 (including tip), which Paul paid since the guest couple made no offer to split the tab. Much of the expense was due to a bottle of wine Paul ordered by name, without looking at the menu or asking the price. "If that couple only knew how desperate Paul's finances were, they would feel terrible about this meal," said Helen, shaking her head. She later reimbursed Paul $50 to cover her portion of the dinner (which didn't include wine, since she doesn't drink).

During the dinner, Paul had gotten tipsy from the bottle of wine he ordered, and which he drank entirely by himself, and ended up telling what seemed an interminable joke, interrupted by so many digressions that by the time he was done the story was completely incomprehensible. Helen looked down at her dessert plate in embarrassment as Paul rambled on, stirring her food with a fork while anxiously waiting for him to finish. The next afternoon (Paul slept in the whole morning), she mentioned to him that he had appeared affected by the wine he drank and might have bored his friends. Paul began trembling with emotion and blurted out defensively: "I don't believe you! I'm going to call my friends and tell them that you said I was behaving like a drunk and telling boring jokes and ask if that's true. I trust them and I don't trust you!" Helen also became emotional and replied: "If you call them and tell them what I told you just now, then I'm breaking up with you. What I told you just now, I told you for your own good. It was meant to be confidential. It's a complete breach of trust to be relaying what I told you to your friends." Paul went ahead and called his friends, and apologized for being tipsy the night before. Helen stood with her arms crossed during the entire phone conversation, listening for whether Paul mentioned her. He didn't and so the incident blew over, though Helen continues to be bothered by the idea that she and Paul can't exchange confidences, and that she has to be careful of whatever she says to him.

Sarah came by in the evening. An excellent bout of sex, with the foreplay of kissing and fondling prolonged as much as we could stand, and followed by some excellent fucking. Too bad Sarah doesn't allow the sense of timelessness to last longer, but instead gets impatient and requests me to use my finger on her clitoris so as to bring her to orgasm. As it was, my manipulations failed to make her come, and eventually she got sore and so I just came by myself (a kung-fu valley orgasm, though a tiny amount of semen might have dribbled out). Dinner at the cafe, where we had little to say to one another. I told some lies about my pretended business trip earlier this week, and then we talked about our trip to Europe in two weeks and what we would bring and where we would meet at the airport. What a contrast between the boredom I experience with Sarah (aside from sex) and the excitement I feel in the company of Helen! Another round of sex after we returned to my apartment and climbed into bed. Sarah hugged me, we tongue kissed, I asked if she was still sore, she replied no, I licked her cunt until she was moaning, then we fucked for twenty minutes or so. She was too sore to let me touch her clitoris, and so instead I let myself have another orgasm, much more powerful than before and also long-lasting. I managed to prolong the orgasm for several minutes. I wonder if prolonging the orgasm, which I long ago learned to do during masturbation, is the real secret of sexual kung fu?

I sent Marianne a package of chocolates for her birthday, with a note: "Happy birthday! I hope the American postal system is faster than that of Mexico. Love, A__." I was referring to the six weeks it took my postcard from Mexico to reach her.

I took the bus to Sarah's house in the evening, where we had dinner, and talked in a lively way about our trip to Europe, about which I'm finally becoming enthusiastic. I showed a list of tango dancing nightclubs, which I had obtained from the internet. Sarah was interested in this at first, then said sadly: "But then you'll be going tango dancing by yourself," to which I replied nothing. I suppose she is worried that I'll hook up with another woman in Europe after she returns. Later, while we were sitting quietly on the sofa, I suddenly burst out laughing. Sarah asked me to explain what I was thinking that was so funny. I resisted at first and finally replied that I was thinking about something I had told Helen. It is difficult to mask the depth of my feelings for Helen, and so Sarah naturally became suspicious and probed further.

"What did you tell her? Did you tell her about me? What did you tell her about me?" she said.

"Various things," I replied.

"Like what?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary. There's nothing bad about you to tell."

"Tell me what you told her!"

"I told her you were strict and disciplined, but not in a bad way. That you got upset when I didn't use a coaster for my wine glass, or when I leave the closet door open partway, or when I don't hang my towel straight in the bathroom, or when I throw my clothes on the floor instead of folding them neatly before going to bed. And other things like that." Sarah laughed at first, and then she became pensive, and finally she became angry.

"This makes me feel very strange that you are telling her all these things. I'm not comfortable with you talking about me like that."

"You have foibles, Sarah, but no serious faults. In particular, you have no moral faults, which is what really counts. Basically, you're a good person, who happens to be tidy and disciplined. Which I like. Of course, what some people call tidy and disciplined other people might call rigid and anal-retentive."

"I still don't like it. I'm thinking, what is going on here? You talk about her as though you were still in love with her, even though you aren't intimate with her any more. Or at least that's what you say. I have no way of knowing for sure what goes on between you and her."

Eventually, I managed to calm Sarah down, and we retired to bed. I read to her for a while and then we had a bout of excellent sex, with orgasms for both of us.

"What are you thinking?" asked Sarah, immediately upon waking the next morning. Evidently, she was still upset by our conversation from the evening before.

"Nothing," I replied.

"I feel very strange. Don't you care about me at all?"

"Of course."

"But then I don't understand how you could laugh about me with Helen. It's like I'm some big joke. Ha! Ha! Ha!"

"That's not the way it is, Sarah. I tell you things about Helen, so why shouldn't I tell her things about you? I've never said anything bad about you, because there isn't anything bad to say. At worst, I exaggerate slightly for comic effect, but then she knows to discount this. And what do you say about me? Suppose someone asks about me—what do you tell them? Well, he's nice, but a little odd. For example, he doesn't have a bed, he sleeps right on the floor. And he doesn't have a car and he lives in the skid-row district. Oh, my goodness, Sarah, weren't you afraid? Also, he was somewhat uncouth at first, though I've managed to get him trained since then. For example, he used to just throw his clothes down on the floor instead of hanging them up. And then he didn't know how to cut the tops off of radishes and strawberries so I had to teach him. You know what I mean, instead of taking just a little off, he whacked away like he was chopping weeds with a machete and made a big waste. And then he walked around the house naked. You know I don't want my neighbors seeing that. And then the way he leaves all the closet and cupboard doors open. It's like a tornado blew through when he's finished. And then he used to dress like a homeless person, though thank goodness, I've got him doing better in that respect now. Why, Sarah, I'm surprised you put up with a barbarian like that! Oh, well, he's got his good points too."

These imitations of mine amused and mollified Sarah, and also seemed to leave her highly aroused, so that the sex that followed our talk was absolutely superb. My control was perfect, my touch was sensitive, I kept Sarah hovering on the verge of orgasm for twenty minutes or so, and then finally pushed her over. We rested, then resumed. More cunnilingus, more fucking, an orgasm for me. I made a half-hearted effort to keep my orgasm dry (sexual kung-fu), but this effort was without success.

After breakfast, we drove to the cafe and sat there in the sun. Sarah pointed to a father who was loudly reprimanding his young son for spilling his drink. "That's how they make screwed up kids. Don't you ever think about having children? I think you would make a good father." Here I launched into a long discussion of my fears of being trapped in a suburban lifestyle, and becoming miserable as a consequence. Then I discussed the arrangement I had once proposed to Helen, whereby I would pay her $20,000 a year for six years and then $10,000 a year thereafter to raise a child, and how I don't mind the idea of being involved with Helen for the rest of my life, but that I can't see us living together. "As regards sex between myself and Helen, it's a disaster", I concluded. Sarah seemed comforted by this discussion, which is not surprising, as it explains why I'm involved with a woman so much older than myself.

I took the bus home about noon, to give Sarah a chance to run errands. When I returned, we had more lively talk about our upcoming trip, followed by another excellent bout of sex. I'm no longer bothering with sexual kung fu, but rather have reverted to my old technique of simply holding off on my orgasm until the woman comes. The only thing sexual kung fu seems to offer is multiple orgasms for the man, and I have no real desire for multiple orgasms at this point. Incidentally, my cock is under perfect control these days, so that holding off on my orgasm is not difficult.

Dinner with Elizabeth. I put out my hand to shake hers, but she pushed past and hugged me instead. I responded lukewarmly to this hug. How unappealing she strikes me, now that I've experienced pleasant women like Marianne and Sarah! She was in a bitter mood throughout our meal: "I'm not happy. Do I look like a happy person? I'm tired of not enjoying life. I want to create. I can't create children, so I want to create something else. And instead I'm just the person who doles out the money and counts it up. I'm tired of being the money person at work. I'm sick of it. All my friends are married and have kids, and so I don't have anything to say to them anymore. And everyone else is making boatloads of money and I'm going nowhere. My boss thinks nothing about paying all these men high salaries and what about me? I'm the chief financial officer and I'm only paid in the middle percentile! It isn't just me. It's all women. My boss doesn't think women deserve to make a lot of money." What Elizabeth fails to recognize is that she lacks the highly sought after technical skills of the other (mostly male) employees, and that accounting (her job) contributes little to company profits compared to production and sales, and that she only works four eight-hour days a week rather than sixty hours or more a week like the highly-paid workers, and that a woman (who has since quit) was the highest-paid employee the company ever had and the only employee with whom the boss shared company ownership. "I have all this energy and I don't know what to do with it. I can't go through life aimlessly the way you do, existing from day to day and living for pleasure. I have to have goals. It isn't sex that I want, either. I don't care what you think. Sex just makes me unhappy. People make me unhappy. People who don't appreciate me for what I am and who won't give me the sort of relationship I want."

When the waiter brought the bill, Elizabeth pulled out her wallet, as if intending to pay half. I brushed her gesture aside and picked up the entire tab myself. Afterwards, she gave me a ride home. On the way, I asked if she was still willing to testify at a deposition. She replied yes. Outside my building, she handed me the shaving gear I had left at her apartment, so I ran upstairs to fetch the cosmetics she had left at my apartment, and also a book I'd read earlier this month about southern women. "If you don't like the book, just toss it in the trash. But it made me think of you when I read it," I told her.

I have little desire to be sexually involved again with Elizabeth. As for the deposition, I don't trust her. Though she is unlikely to lie, she might be unhelpful in her answers.

Lunch with Helen. She took off sick from work yesterday, due to exhaustion from lack of sleep all weekend. Last night, however, she slept well, which she credits to having drunk a cup of "kava" tea. Some sort of herbal concoction which a friend of her sister had recommended. The weekend's insomnia she blames on anxiety about being in a "state of limbo". She is sure she wants a child, but she isn't sure whether with Paul or some other man as the father. I remarked that I had no desire to be involved with unstable women like Elizabeth and Karen anymore, now that I had experienced good sex with "nice" women like Sarah and Marianne. Helen responded: "Maybe I'm making a mistake by limiting myself to Paul. Maybe I could find someone better, too, like you did when you broke up with Elizabeth. Of course, there's that problem of mine. Paul is using that against me, by the way. He said no other master would ever accept me the way I am. He's really into that master thing." ("Problem of mine" refers to Helen's inability to enjoy vaginal sex.) If she has a child with Paul but things don't work out, her plan is to move into her family's mountain vacation house, where she wouldn't have to pay rent. I doubt this plan is realistic, as I think Helen would soon go crazy living alone in the mountains with a new born baby. I didn't tell her this, however, as I didn't want to start an argument.

I woke at four-thirty, and then meditated from five to six before doing my exercises. By seven-thirty, breakfast and showering were done. This is the second day in a row that I've gotten up early (yesterday morning I woke at three). In addition to making progress with meditation, it seems I'm finally making progress with my sleep schedule!

I woke at five-thirty, but then got bored after only fifteen minutes of meditating and so lay back down and masturbated and then collapsed into a post-orgasmic stupor and fell asleep again and then didn't finally get up until after seven. I was so disheartened by this relapse, after two days of getting up early, that I lacked the energy to do my exercises. I redeemed myself to some extent later in the day, when I managed to meditate without boredom for two hours in the cafe. Then in the evening, I meditated for an hour sitting on the floor. My biggest problem currently with sitting on the floor is that my left foot goes to sleep after about thirty minutes.

Marianne sent a thank you email for the chocolate I sent her: "You make me smile even when on the other side of the planet! ;-))) Thank you a thousand times for having thought of my birthday. No sex but lots of chocolate...they're very good...I will have to exercise after eating them or else... I will try to reach you by phone this weekend. Love, Marianne."

Sarah came by in the evening. We ate a dinner of vegetable stew that I had prepared, then engaged in a bout of excellent sex. The tensing I've been doing during meditation seems to have either strengthened or sensitized my pelvic muscles, so that I had no difficulty tonight in holding back on my orgasm, despite being highly aroused, until such time as Sarah indicated that she was unable to come and was getting sore and that I should therefore come without her. I tried to make my orgasm non-ejaculatory, but without success. Repression of ejaculation is the aspect of sexual kung-fu which I think most worth pursuing at present. In particular, I think it possible that repression of ejaculation during orgasm might allow a man to have more frequent sex than if ejaculation were not repressed. Unfortunately, I can't seem to get this repression of ejaculation to work.

Helen stopped by the cafe in the late afternoon and sat for a while at my table, where we shared a smoothie. She was in a maudlin mood: "That kava tea is useless, I've decided. I haven't been able to get to sleep since Monday. I'm probably going to die. It really is a miracle I haven't dropped dead while walking down the street. I'm serious. I'll probably faint at the minimum and possibly die while walking to the bus stop. I almost fainted at the post office. Which way is downhill to the bus stop? If I have to go uphill, even slightly uphill, I'll faint for sure. This is no joke. I am very, very, very ill... Do my teeth look hideous to you? My boss at work the other day asked if I had done something to my teeth because they looked different. They weren't different, but he knows that my teeth are ugly. I'm surprised you and Paul don't criticize that part of my body, seeing that you complain about everything else. And I must say, neither of you is perfect, certainly not compared to my first boyfriend. He was of the purest Brahmin caste, taller than you and almost as tall as Paul, and his teeth were brilliant white, and his skin was light chocolate brown and smooth as satin. And his cock—mmm!—so delicious looking... You could solve my problems you know, if you'd just marry me. If only I didn't have to go to work in the morning, I could spend my time recuperating and maybe, just possibly, there would hope of my recovering. As it is, I'm going to die for sure." I shudder to think that I did indeed almost marry Helen two years ago. Imagine being legally tied to such a hypochondriac!

I arrived at Sarah's house about seven, but both of us were tired and so we went to bed early, without dinner or sex. Then next morning, I had trouble keeping myself under control, and so had to pause several times, which caused Sarah to become tense with frustration so that her orgasm, when it finally occurred, was incomplete. I don't know why my control was so poor, especially when it was so perfect the last time we got together. Afterwards, I lay on the bed in a stupor. "You're always napping, you never want to talk to me," Sarah complained, with some justice. I don't know why her company leaves me so sapped of energy and bored. It's not her cheerfulness that is to blame, since I felt the same exhaustion around Elizabeth and Karen, who were both bitter. Perhaps all women exhaust me.

I spent the afternoon sitting in the cafe while Sarah ran errands. When I returned, we took a brief nap together, and then at night we went Cajun dancing to live music. The first time either of us had been dancing in months. I enjoyed myself because Sarah was having a good time, though I didn't much care for either the music or the dance style or the crowd. Or perhaps I simply don't enjoy dancing anymore, now that I have Sarah as a regular sex partner. The slow waltzes we did very nicely together, while for the two-steps I substituted a modified salsa basic (slow-quick-quick) since I didn't know the Cajun basic and this seemed to work fairly well. Both of us were wet with perspiration after just an hour. Sarah's ex-lover stopped by to say hello, but I didn't have a chance to see the woman he replaced Sarah with.

Excellent sex after breakfast, with orgasms for both of us (in fact, three orgasms for me), though the fucking lasted only about twenty minutes. I left at noon, in order to give Sarah a chance to run errands.

I believe I am now in a position to give a final evaluation of sexual kung fu, which I had working completely today (my first two orgasms today were valley orgasms, while the third was a full-body orgasm without ejaculation, and with the microcosmic orbit activated). With sexual kung fu, the man lets himself have a valley orgasm whenever he is on the verge of coming, but he holds off on final orgasm until the woman comes. My previous technique was for the man to tense all his muscles until the desire for orgasm abates. During a valley orgasm, the man "rides out" his desire to come. He continues to fuck, in other words, instead of abruptly stopping. The main problem with abrupt stopping is that it can interfere with the woman's orgasm. This is what happened between me and Sarah yesterday, for example. Also, abrupt stopping is less pleasurable for the man than a valley orgasm. Sexual kung fu is by no means a panacea for sexual ills, however. If the man and woman aren't already having good sex and orgasms, sexual kung fu won't change the situation.

I felt extraordinarily exhausted when I returned to my apartment in the afternoon, and spent several hours lying prostrate on my sofa. I'm not sure whether this tiredness was from spending time with Sarah, or from dietary changes. I've been cutting back on chocolate and sweets, eating lots of sunflower seeds, and generally not getting enough calories for almost a week now. I finally got up at nine in the evening to buy a brownie and chocolate bar at the corner store. After consuming these, I felt much more energetic than before (the cool night air might also have helped revive me).

I talked to my lawyer about my will contest suit. The judge is pushing for settlement. Whether this is good or bad for us, my lawyer isn't sure. We will communicate via email during my trip to Europe.

Lunch with Helen, who was feeling much better than when we last met. She has decided to concentrate on the good aspects of her relationship with Paul. "When the shoe finally falls and he gets fired, then I'll worry about that. In the meantime, I'm trying to make the best of things and enjoy what I can of my life." I gave her the key to my apartment, in case there is some emergency and I need her to enter while I'm away.

I haven't meditated for several days now. What's the point, anyway? My mind is never going to be calm, that should be clear by now. As for using meditation as a pleasant way to kill time, it's time I faced the reality that this will never work.

I'm feeling very energetic this evening, which I believe is due to all the chocolate I ate today. A piece of chocolate chip/walnut cake at the cafe, then a brownie and a candy bar of dark chocolate, and finally another brownie and candy bar. Walking home after buying this second brownie, and while consuming the same, my legs felt light as a feather. What a contrast with the lethargy I'd been experiencing the previous few days!

I slept only two hours on the plane to Europe and had a mild headache towards the end of the flight, but otherwise the journey was not unpleasant. The weather was delightful, and so I spent the day wandering about the city, enjoying the fresh air and sunshine and the various flowering trees which were just now blooming.

While sitting in a park, a woman walking past caught my eye, stopped, turned around and came and sat on the bench next to mine, as if waiting for me to introduce myself. I toyed with the fantasy of going to her apartment and fucking her brains out and spending the night with her, and then tomorrow getting together with Sarah, but course this was absurd. Instead, I looked away and a few minutes later she walked off.

I feel asleep early at the hostel, then was woken several times by my roommates, and finally woke for good at about two in the morning, and spent the next two hours masturbating. Silently, naturally, since I wasn't alone in the room. I let myself have an orgasm, as I felt so aroused that I was worried that otherwise I might not be able to control myself with Sarah.

After getting up about five in the morning, I exercised in the fire escape stairwell, then ate breakfast in the hostel cafeteria, then walked about the city some more, then took the subway back to the airport, to rendezvous with Sarah and the friends with whom she and I will be staying. Then a long wait at the airport ticket desk, trying to see if Sarah could change her flight plans so as to spend more time with me here, but all flights were full and so a change was impossible without paying some exorbitant fee. I was glad to learn this (though of course I didn't say so), as I anticipate I will be tired of Sarah after a week with her here. Then everyone piled into the car of our hosts and off we went on a rushed visit to what I thought an ordinary-looking church, but which Sarah's friends insisted was a "must-see" on account of the stained glass windows. Then more frantic rushing about looking for water, as both Sarah and I were dehydrated. The husband of the host couple seemed to misunderstand and ended up treating everyone to a round of mineral water in the basement of the department store. But the bottles were too small to properly satisfy our thirst and the water was carbonated besides, which neither Sarah nor I wanted. Afterwards, we rushed off to a restaurant for a late lunch. In response to my request for water, the waiter brought a small bottle of carbonated mineral water, like the one I had just had at the department store. I ended up taking my glass to the restroom and drinking my fill from the tap there. The host paid the bill while I was away. I was glad to see he was paying and not me, as I found this whole restaurant experience unpleasant, and I dislike paying to be made miserable. I would have much preferred we all sit outside and eat ice cream cones.

After lunch, the hosts drove Sarah and me to their house. An immaculate and spanking new three-story affair this was, surrounded by equally immaculate houses in the same style, with a small, immaculate garden in back and a lovely view of rolling vineyards stretching to the horizon. The host gave us a tour of every room in the house, even opening the closets for our inspection. The furnishings all looked as though they had been bought yesterday. White carpets. White satin sofa. Imitation Louis Quatorze dining room furniture in a white color scheme. Pastel prints on the walls. No books other than some neatly arranged art books on the glass coffee table. A modest collection of music disks—trashy American popular hits for the most part. One bookshelf given over to rows of sparkling crystal glassware. Another with neatly spaced pewter farm animals (ducks, chickens, pigs, cows). Another with knickknacks of some other variety. All the windows and mirrors and floors polished and gleaming. Not a speck of dust anywhere. I was reminded of one of those professionally decorated and maintained "model homes". Though it would drive me crazy to live in a place like this, our hosts seemed right in their element. Both of them were neatly groomed and dressed. The hostess in a white suit, with a double strand of heavy white pearls about her neck, and the host in a turtleneck shirt under a sport jacket. Before getting into his car, he had removed and carefully folded this jacket and then placed it in the trunk, so as to avoid wrinkles. He suggested I do likewise, but I shook my head. Though I try to dress well these days, taking excessive pains with my clothing makes me feel like a fool. Both the hosts smiled constantly, as if unable to contain their glee at being at last able to afford the "good things in life".

They sleep in separate bedrooms, incidentally, which hardly surprised me, as their relationship, though apparently a mindlessly happy one, appeared devoid of sexual content. The woman's hair, as it typical with couples like this, is cut very short, shorter even than the man's.

In showing off the laundry room (complete with a gadget for professionally pressing sheets and tablecloths) and a workshop filled with all sorts of tools, the husband boasted: "These are my rooms." Later, as we lay in bed discussing our hosts and their house, Sarah quipped: "He's like her valet. Valet plus handyman plus chauffeur plus husband, all wrapped into one. And of course everything is immaculate. They've got nothing else to do with their time but clean all day." It seems our hosts began life poor, never had children, worked as bureaucrats for large corporations all their lives, and are now retired. They both receive pensions and hence have more money than they know what to do with. Part of their excess money they pour into the house and it's furnishings, part goes towards packaged vacations.

A round of sex before dinner, during which I had numerous kung-fu valley orgasms, then another session before going to bed. More valley orgasms and one peak (ejaculatory) orgasm for me during this second session, whereas Sarah had been awake for almost forty-eight hours (she had trouble sleeping both the night before her flight and during the flight itself) and hence was too tired to come, though she did enjoy the sex greatly.

I slept well, about six hours, and rose to do exercises just after dawn, while Sarah remained in bed. She later told me that she only fell asleep about the time I got up, and altogether slept little last night, which she blamed on nervousness more than jet lag. After finishing my exercises, I sat in the garden and wrote up this journal. A beautiful setting. Spring flowers blooming, the grass a perfect green, a view of the rolling vineyards and villages in the distance, a small artificial waterfall tumbling into a tiny pond with goldfish (the host indicated yesterday that he had built this waterfall and pond himself), no sounds other than this waterfall, a bumblebee and some farm equipment far in the distance. The silence was very noticeable to me, since it contrasts so sharply with the non-stop background noise of my apartment in West Metropolis.

A sumptuous breakfast once Sarah finally roused herself. Ten varieties of cheese, four types of bread, coffee, tea, orange juice, hard-boiled eggs, ham, various jams, and so on. Then Sarah and I took a walk around countryside. When we returned, our hosts had prepared a sumptuous lunch and so we stuffed ourselves some more. I was amazed at the quantity of food, especially sweets, devoured by the host, who is not much bigger than me. Perhaps he burns off the calories with his hyperactiveness. "I like all sweets. I have a sweet tooth," he laughed, as his wife pushed another piece of cake onto his plate. "He has the soul of a child," she laughed, smiling benevolently at him.

I asked the host why his hand was bandaged. "It wouldn't open and so we had to have it operated on," his wife replied for him, speaking as if the hand were something she and her husband owned in common. While discussing the house and garden and how much work it must be to keep them so immaculate, the hostess exclaimed: "We do it all together. I stand here and tell him what to do and then he does it." When Sarah remarked that her knife was very sharp, the hostess replied: "Yes, it's new. After a while they wear out and then we buy new ones." Sarah was incredulous: "Wear out? How can silverware wear out? I thought it lasted forever." The hostess shook her head: "Oh, no! It gets scratches on it and then the knives get dull and the forks get bent and so we need new ones. But we don't thrown the old ones away. We give them to needy people who can't afford new ones like us."

After lunch, we all gathered in the living room, wondering what to do with ourselves. The host asked if I played sports and I truthfully replied no, and then he asked if I liked playing cards or chess or other board games and again I replied no. Then he went off and busied himself cleaning glassware in the kitchen, as if utterly stumped as to what to do with me. Sarah was meanwhile talking to the hostess. "What do we now?" asked Sarah. "Now? Now we wait around until we're hungry again," replied the hostess, echoing my perception of how she and her husband typically pass the time.

Sarah had slept poorly last night, and thus was pushing on four days of sleeplessness, and so we retired to our guest room in the basement to take a nap. An excellent bout of sex beforehand, in the course of which Sarah had her first orgasm since this trip began. One might have expected this to relax her sufficiently to permit some sleep, but that was not the case. Only I slept during the two hours we lay in bed. After rising, we took another long walk about the countryside, stopping off at an old church and a playground on the way, and then on the way back wandering through the cemetery just across the fence from our host's garden. "A cemetery is the best neighbor there is. They don't make any noise," the host had joked earlier.

The dining room table was covered with all sorts of desserts and other snacks when Sarah and I returned from our walk. We grudgingly nibbled at these, despite not being in the least bit hungry. Dinner a few hours later at a restaurant ($50 for the four of us). Because the hosts were her friends rather than mine, Sarah wanted to pick up the tab, but I was reluctant to allow this, as I didn't want the hosts to be able to gossip later about how poor Sarah was not merely having to work hard to support herself, but was also supporting a free-loading gigolo, especially since the host had been looking at me strangely during lunch, as if wondering how the relationship between me and Sarah compared with that between him and the hostess. Was I Sarah's valet, perhaps? Of course, I wasn't able to explain my reasoning at the table, and so it took a while before Sarah finally got the message that I was determined to pay the restaurant tab by myself. We later agreed to split the tab, along with all our hotel bills. After dinner, everyone got slightly drunk on champagne (made from grapes from the nearby vineyards) and engaged in noisy and silly conversation in our hosts' living room. Another round of sex before going to sleep. I had a valley orgasm, Sarah didn't come at all.

Over the course of the day, Sarah had become increasingly acerbic in discussing our hosts and their house. Some of her comments follow: "They'll probably be buried in that cemetery next door. Maybe they've even bought their graves already. Everything picked out in advance and now they're just waiting around to die, they way they wait around until they get hungry again, already planning the next meal while they're still chewing the one before... And then that talk about buying new silverware when the old wears out! They like to think I'm so poor and pitiful, like some sort of charity case. Poor Sarah, she has so little. She can't afford new silverware like us. Sarah has to use old, worn-out silverware. And then she has to work so hard, poor thing. She works in one of those awful American sweatshops where they never give vacations and they make everyone work so hard. She'll never be able to retire with a nice fat pension like us. Isn't it nice of us to invite Sarah and her young friend here, so they can get a taste of the good life that rich people like us lead? Sarah can't afford to take packaged vacations like us. She has to rely on the charity of friends when she goes on trips... And then the way she puts on airs and makes those gestures with her hands—it's enough to make a person sick... And she doesn't completely fool that husband of hers, either, you know. The first day we were here, when we were walking to the restaurant, he pointed out a beauty salon to me and said, That's where my wife goes to get pressed. I said, What do you mean by pressed? And he said, Well, that's were she goes to get her wrinkles removed. Oh, no, she hasn't fooled him completely."

Another sumptuous breakfast with our hosts, then they tried to force us to pack sandwiches, so we would have something to eat during our train trip: "You might get hungry along the way!" When we explained that we planned to skip lunch, in order to give our stomachs a chance to rest, they acted shocked: "No one ever fasts around here anymore. It just isn't done." I should note that, for all their mania for eating, neither of our hosts was significantly overweight. They seem to know exactly how much they can consume without gaining weight, and then they adhere to this limit, and not one calorie more or less.

After breakfast, our hosts drove us to the train station. As soon as they departed, Sarah exclaimed, "Thank God, they're gone! I think I would have exploded if I had spent another minute in their company." We then both burst out laughing uncontrollably, and continued laughing and joking about our hosts and their house during the train trip. "Someone should make a movie about those two. I'll never forget those pewter farm animals. And those other knickknacks. Nothing but kitsch piled upon kitsch! And the way when I asked what we do next, she said, Now we wait until we're hungry again. And then she looked at me like I was from another planet for asking such a stupid question. That's really how they live. They eat one meal and then they wait around until they've digested that and then they eat some more." At one point, I had qualms about our gossiping: "After all, they were pretty nice to us. And sometimes all we do with our days is wait around for the next meal." Sarah dismissed these objections: "Don't worry, they're gossiping about us as much as we're gossiping about them. Of course, we do have to write them a thank-you note when we get home."

Sarah's ex-lover, with whom we had originally planned to stay the night, had an emergency doctor's appointment and hence couldn't pick us up, and so we rented a hotel room instead. After dropping off our luggage, we walked about in the drizzle and cold, with Sarah showing me where she used to live and where she and her ex-lover used to run a business when she was attending design school. Dinner at a noisy restaurant. No sex, as we were both exhausted from lack of sleep.

We ate a delicious breakfast at the hotel, then Sarah's ex-lover picked us up in his car and drove us to his house. I was astonished at the resemblances between him and my father. Partly, these resemblances were physical, stemming from similar head injuries (a war wound in the case of my father, a stroke in the case of Sarah's ex-lover), which left one side of the body paralyzed and caused an identical clumsy gait while walking and similar speech impediments. The most astonishing resemblances, however, were in behavior (such as an affinity for calmly squeezing through narrow gaps in high-speed traffic) and personality. Gruff exterior, high energy level, naturally cheerful and optimistic, aggressive, strong-willed, controlling, an occasional streak of cruelty, a tendency to workaholism, sometimes magnanimous and good-natured, sometimes deliberately insulting for no apparent reason. Both he and my father were very handsome when young. Neither of them thought it decent for women to have a strong desire for sex. "You must excuse my silence. It doesn't mean I'm not friendly. I just can't speak fluently since my stroke," the host said to me on the drive to his house.

The fact that our host is Sarah's ex-lover and I am her current lover gave a special twist to our visit, of course. According to Sarah, her relationship with this ex-lover had been excellent except in two respects. First, he frequently insulted her, including in public, without provocation. Second, he did nothing for her in bed: "It was as if that whole part of life didn't exist. And so I left. And then the man I ended up marrying had even less interest in sex. At least with me." Given that Sarah is currently very sexually attractive, she must also have been sexually attractive when young, and so the fact that the men she chose as lovers then made no attempt to please her in bed, says as much about Sarah's mindset as a young women as it does about these men. I picked up the vibe that Sarah was trying to score points with her ex-lover by showing me off: "See, you didn't value me for sex when you had me and so look what I've got now." They broke up about forty years ago, and since then he calls Sarah about every ten years, to suggest that she pay him a visit. He married after breaking up with Sarah, and had two daughters. When his first wife suddenly died, he remarried a woman twenty years his junior, who helped him raise his daughters. This second wife never had any children of her own, and since she is currently in her forties, she probably never will have children of her own. His stroke occurred about eight years ago. For a while, he was confined to a wheelchair, but he has since regained the ability to walk and drive, though he continues to have difficulty speaking and writing and drawing, which he finds very frustrating. "I have so many ideas, but I can't express them," he complained as we were sitting in the living room. The same frustration my father used to express.

Sarah and I gave our host a box of chocolates as a house-warming present. He then rose and beckoned to Sarah to follow him to the basement. "You stay," he ordered, when I rose to accompany them. They returned a few minutes later, carrying a bottle of champagne and three glasses. We drank the champagne and ate some of the chocolates and then Sarah and the host talked about old times. Before long, the conversation withered, and so the host decided to take us to lunch at a restaurant. When I hesitated in placing my order, the host pointed to the rump steak on the menu, which was what he was ordering. Sarah nodded at me and so that's what I ordered, though I really wasn't in the mood for more meat. We ate in silence. I made an offer to pay when the bill arrived, which caused Sarah to shake her head vigorously, as if to say, "Don't even think of arguing with him about who is going to pay." And so the host paid. I noticed he tipped generously. We then drove back to the host's house and sat back down in the living room.

"What do we do now?" asked Sarah. "Now we just stare at one another," replied our host. He and Sarah were sitting together on the sofa, while I was in a chair opposite them. After a few minutes of awkward silence, the host turned on the television and we spent much of the rest of the afternoon watching this. At one point, the host and I both passed out and napped for about an hour. (The host and I were drowsy because of the huge slabs of meat we had downed for lunch. Sarah, on the other hand, had wisely ordered a salad.)

I got the impression that the host thought me some sort of gigolo or other good-for-nothing. When I tried rearranging the logs in the fireplace, because they weren't burning properly, he yelled out: "Leave that alone! That shows a man who doesn't work for a living." And then he restored the logs to how they had been before, though it was clear that my arrangement worked better. Later, when the television was discussing child prostitutes, he nodded first at me and then at Sarah and muttered, "And he is yours." Sarah was busy watching the television and didn't hear this comment. When Sarah went to the bathroom, the host stared at me in a funny way, as if not knowing what to think. Then he said, "She is so small." (He is about my size, and we are both much bigger than Sarah.) And then he became wistful and said, "I'm just an old man." Then he looked at me again and shook his head as if in disbelief, and then we both burst out laughing.

We finally got bored with television and so our host showed us around an addition to the house, which is currently under construction. He and his wife plan to live in this new addition and rent out the current living space, to provide extra retirement income. As the host had to sell his business after his stroke, he is currently somewhat strapped for money ("I can't afford to build this addition, but I'm doing it anyway"), though his wife continues to bring home a salary from her office job. The most impressive feature of the new addition was a sort of greenhouse tower. The host indicated that he plans to spend his days sitting there, surrounded by tropical plants even in the depth of winter, watching television and looking out through the windows at the forest, which starts where his back yard ends. The tower can only be reached by stairs. Sarah speculates that the host wants to provide himself with an incentive for staying out of a wheelchair.

We met the hostess in the early evening, when she returned from her job in the city. She struck me as the sort of woman who achieves happiness by doing her duty and sacrificing for the sake of loved ones. Utterly devoted to her husband. Physically attractive, with thick, shoulder-length brown hair, pretty face, medium breasts, womanly figure. And clearly capable of satisfying a man with a strong sex drive, but also clearly capable of repressing her own sexuality. (A good thing that she can live without sex, too, since her husband is likely incapable of sex now, due to his stroke, and never was particularly concerned about sexually pleasing women, at least according to Sarah.) A tremendous need to be needed by someone else. Prefers older men because they remind her of her father and she feels more needed and less likely to be abandoned that way. An older man who is a partial invalid is even better. He will definitely never leave her. Likes to be kept busy working. Sarah and I had left our shoes by the door after they got dirty during our tour of the addition to the house. We noticed later that the hostess had placed brushes and shoe polish beside them for our use, without being asked to do so. We didn't speak with the hostess long, as she set to work in the kitchen almost immediately after getting home. Nor did she want us helping her in any way. Instead, we sat with the host to the living room waiting until she was done.

The host was in an aggressive mood at dinner. First, he said something sharp to his wife. I was eating when this happened and so wasn't sure at first who he was talking to. I glanced at Sarah for an explanation. "He wasn't talking to us. It's a little lover's quarrel they're having," she said. "No! There is no quarrel. We are talking, not quarreling," said the wife, in an adamant tone of voice. I suppose she is used to being publicly rebuked. Then the host turned on me.

"Eat some more, so you become some one," he ordered. I was puzzled by this statement and looked at Sarah for an explanation. She explained that this is a traditional saying in that region. I accepted this explanation, which might well be partly true, though I had the distinct impression that there was at least some underlying malice in the host's words. He seemed to be insinuating that I currently amount to nothing. Then the host pointed at me and asked: "Why doesn't he ever speak?"

"Say something," said Sarah.

"I will say something, just as soon as something pops into my head to say," I replied. The host snorted in derision at this.

"That's the problem, nothing pops into your head," he said.

"That's true, my head is usually empty," I replied. Everyone laughed at this except the hostess.

"You look crushed," the host then said.

"I'm not sure that the expression I would use. Though I will agree that I often have a blank expression on my face. But that's just the way I am. I only smile when I have something to smile about. Otherwise, my face is blank. It's more relaxing that way," I said.

"Still waters run deep," said Sarah, as if trying to explain that I'm not some species of idiot.

"That's exactly what they always said about me when I was growing up," I said.

"That's because you never say anything!" said the host.

The host went to bed immediately after dinner was finished. Sarah and I offered to help clear the table, but the hostess shooed us away, and so we retired to the living room to wait for her to finish cleaning up and join us for drinks and more conversation. While waiting, I told Sarah my impression of what the host thought of me. In particular, I noted his comment "What do you expect from a man who doesn't work for a living?" when I rearranged the fireplace, and the comment "And he is yours" during the television show about child prostitutes.

"He thinks I'm your gigolo," I said.

"No! He would never think that. He doesn't think that way," protested Sarah.

"He's not an innocent fool, Sarah."

"I didn't say he was."

"Didn't you hear him, when we were watching the show about child prostitutes and he said, And he is yours."

"You must have misunderstood."

"He said, 'and he is yours'."

"You must have taken it out of context."

"No, that's what he said. Right in the middle of the show about child prostitutes. And the way he nodded first at me and then at you made it unmistakable what he was suggesting."

"I don't believe you. I'm going to ask him," said Sarah. I leapt from my chair at this and pointed my finger at her.

"Don't you dare! And I mean it!" I exclaimed.

"All right, all right, I won't ask him. Though if he does think that about us, it certainly isn't a compliment to me," said Sarah, frowning.

"No, it isn't," I agreed.

"Anyway, he knows I don't have any money. How can I be supporting you? I would have expected him to think you were supporting me. I think these are delusions of yours. You're projecting your own fantasies and seeing things that aren't there."

Excellent sex before going to sleep. The usual cunnilingus as foreplay, then some vigorous missionary position fucking, which resulted in my having a dry orgasm and temporarily losing my erection. Then I grew hard again and brought Sarah off, using the same technique I've been using much of this trip. That is, I use either my index or middle finger of my right hand to pull up on my cock while fucking, so that the head presses extra firmly against the g spot, and then I flick the other of these two fingers against the clitoris (which, as usual, must be lubricated first with Astroglide). Now and then, I release the finger which is pulling up on my cock and use it to rub the side and bottom of the vaginal opening and thereby provide additional stimulation.

Perhaps adding some extra zest to tonight's sex for Sarah was the fact that her ex-lover was in the bedroom next door, and thus possibly able to overhear us. "Sounds travel far in houses like this," Sarah explained, in requesting me to whisper and otherwise avoid making noise. We were sleeping in the hostess's bedroom, while she slept in the basement. "You should make us sleep in the basement," Sarah had argued, but the hostess would hear nothing of the sort.

Sarah's ex-lover seemed to have a better opinion of me this morning, perhaps because Sarah told him at breakfast, while I was still upstairs dressing and packing, that I'm a computer programmer, which makes it clear that I'm capable of supporting myself. He asked for assistance getting his computer hooked to the Internet, but I couldn't help. He uses equipment with which I'm not familiar and I had no idea as to the local procedures for getting hooked to the Internet. I did, however, write down descriptions of his current configuration and the configuration he wants, which he can take the local computer store to ask for further assistance. As he can't speak well due to his stroke, and knows next to nothing about computers, it would be frustrating for him to obtain proper assistance without such written configuration descriptions. I further suggested that even better and cheaper than going to a computer store would be for him to get help from a computer literate friend who is already connected to the Internet. He immediately called a young student friend, who promised to help as soon as he gets some free time.

After breakfast, our host drove us to the train station. We stored our luggage in the train station lockers, then walked about the city for several hours, until Sarah's feet grew tired. The remainder of the afternoon we spent in a cafe, eating lunch followed by several rounds of dessert, and reminiscing over the events of our trip, and continuing to maliciously gossip and laugh about the couple who had been our initial hosts. Back at the train station restaurant in the evening, we shared a beer and amused ourselves taking photos of one another. Finally, we changed into casual clothes, using the train station rest room, in preparation for our train trips. Myself to the city and Sarah to the airport for her flight back to the West Metropolis.

I slept poorly on the train, due to being awakened every hour for ticket checks. These checks finally stopped at three in the morning, but by that time I was wide awake and unable to return to sleep. Upon arriving in the city, I walked to my hostel, stowed my luggage in the basement, then spent the day walking around the city. It was cold and drizzling out. I returned to the hostel in the late afternoon for a shower and nap.

Tango dancing in the evening. I arrived early and was appalled to find only two women present versus twenty men. This imbalance between the sexes lessened as the evening progressed, but never entirely disappeared. A number of groups of women stepped into the club briefly to look things over, then left without ever having taken their coats off. Either they weren't impressed by the men or they got the impression that tango dancing requires much study to do properly. Whereas the truth is that I have often able to get a women dancing either tango or salsa in a less than a minute, assuming she has good posture and a good sense of rhythm. (The situation with beginner men is a different matter entirely. Men do need instruction and then lots of practice.) But my view that women don't need much instruction is not a popular one. Women who have taken lessons resent that other women will escape this ordeal, men who are used to dancing with trained women and who have therefore let their basic dance skills deteriorate, resent being judged on these basic skills rather than on their ability to perform complicated steps, and of course dance instructors resent the loss of income if women don't take lessons.

There were a few beginner women present, and the men who danced with these seemed determined to impress upon them just how incompetent they were, by leading them into molinetes and other advanced patterns, so that the women inevitably stumbled about, and probably felt even more clumsy than they looked, and went away thinking that dancing was a hard and unpleasant chore, whose purpose is to allow the man to simultaneously humiliate the woman and demonstrate his own superiority. One beginner had caught my eye several times and was acting like an adult (not giggling), and so I decided to show her what dancing was really about. She melted against me within ten steps and we continued dancing close together and in perfect unison until the end of the song, at which time she became anxious that we were too close and so she pushed me away and the second dance ended up being a jerky and much less enjoyable affair. When we finished, she ran back to her male companion, who had earlier been dragging her about in an atrociously clumsy way.

I had similar experiences of being pushed away by most of the younger women I danced with, whether or not they were beginners. The instant they felt themselves melting, they became frantic and the dancing turned into a sort of wrestling match. I was surprised by this, as for some reason I was expecting women here to be more relaxed about sex than in America. But no, it was the same old story of sexual repression as everywhere. "Why should the man buy a cow if he can get milk for free?" With the underlying understanding that only men enjoy sex, and therefore the offer of sex in exchange for sex is absurd. The old belief systems persist long past the time when they cease to make any sense.

Despite the general climate of uptightness, I did have a few good dance experiences. First, a petite, delicate-featured brunette in her forties. Light as a feather, willing to press closely against me, and able to follow perfectly. For whatever reason, I told her thank you after two dances, though she appeared interested in dancing more. Later, I saw her dance twenty or so times with another man, about my age and height, and then still later I saw the two of them sitting at table, leaning forwards and looking deep into each other's eyes. They left the club together. I have no idea why this woman had failed to excite me.

Another enjoyable dance was with a petite blonde in her fifties. Pretty, husky-voiced, full lips, bursting with energy. At first she was confused by my dancing, then she caught my intention and pressed herself close so that we could zoom across the dance floor and put on a display of what good erotic tango looks like. "Have we met before?" she laughed after our first song, evidently surprised at being held closely. When I explained that I visiting, she resumed, "In that case, we almost certainly haven't met. Are you a musician, perhaps? No? I asked because you dance so closely to the music. Very few people do that. You're sure you don't play an instrument?" We danced twice more and then parted with sincere thank yous.

Then I recognized a woman from the tango and salsa clubs of West Metropolis with whom I had danced a few times in the past. I thought it only polite to make an exception to my general rule of never talking to anyone at nightclubs, and so I went over to her table and introduced myself. She pretended at first not to recognize me, though I am sure that she not only recognized me, but also remembered having seen me and Sarah entering a club together in West Metropolis one night. I made a point of mentioning that I had accompanied Sarah on a visit to her relatives, but that I would be traveling in Europe alone for another month. Perhaps I wanted her to know that I had a lover back in West Metropolis, but as long as we were in Europe, I was available for an affair. Though even now, several months later as I sit writing this journal based on my notes of the time, my true intentions remain unclear. The sexual energy between us has always been strong and mutual and instantaneous. And yet I've always scrupulously avoided talking to her back in West Metropolis. She is intelligent, educated, nicely dressed, well-groomed, physically attractive, a superb dancer, in her thirties, and presumably single. Probably she gives off intense vibes of wanting to get married and have children and that is why she scares me off. In any case, we exchanged names (hers is Laura) and then danced twice. Magical sexual energy started flowing immediately between us and she even began gently humming, so that by the end of the second song I was beginning to get nervous and to make mistakes and couldn't wait to get away from her. I sat by myself much of the remainder of the night. For whatever reason, Laura also sat alone, since few of the other men would ask her to dance. Perhaps they were as frightened of her as me. She ended up asking various older men to dance, and these seemed delighted at the request. Later, she stood for an embarrassingly long while without being asked to dance by anyone, and so I decided I had to do something, especially as she had obviously been trying to catch my eye. But then when I did approach, she refused my invitation: "I'm worn out. I'm taking the rest of the evening off." But if she was tired, why not sit down? I suppose she was angry at my delaying so long. She asked me if I went dancing in West Metropolis anymore, and I replied: "I haven't been tango or salsa dancing much lately. I do whatever Sarah wants and right now she's into Cajun dancing." I asked if she was interested in having lunch this weekend. She shook her head emphatically and said she was expecting her "Argentine boyfriend" to arrive tomorrow. More small talk of this sort, and then one of the older men with whom Laura had danced earlier approached, and she accepted his invitation to dance without hesitation. I went back to sitting by myself. Laura flashed me a penetrating look as she glided by later. She and the older man danced beautifully together, using the same simplified style I use.

The free breakfast served at the hostel was worthless (tasteless white bread and coffee, which I don't drink) and so I bought some supplies at a nearby grocery store and ate in the park instead. I spent the rest of the day wandering around the city. Though the rain had stopped, the temperature was still cool, so that I couldn't sit for long without beginning to feel chilled.

Tango dancing in the evening. Many more women than last night, and many of these were cooperative. The taller women in particular, perhaps because most of the men present were comparatively short and they were glad to at last have someone their own height to dance with. I started with four dances with an auburn-haired woman in her mid-thirties who pressed closely against me the whole time. The first three songs were lovely soft waltzes and we danced these together superbly, then the music changed back to standard tango. I had some difficulty adjusting, as the rhythm of the waltzes was still echoing in my head, and hence we danced much less well to this last song. I exchanged glances with this woman later, but for whatever reason didn't feel like asking her to dance a second time.

Then I danced four songs with a tall blonde in her thirties, also very attractive, who had been sitting for almost an hour without being asked to dance by anyone else. She was something of a beginner, but this never bothers me, unless the woman has bad posture or insists on remaining at such a distance that she can't possibly follow my syncopations. In fact, I prefer beginners over more experienced women, as the beginners tend to have the same views as myself about social dancing. Such as that the mark of a good leader is that he makes the woman feel graceful and sexually attractive, and that dancing should be easy for women, and that complicated steps are completely unnecessary. Whereas women who have taken lessons often think that what matters is whether the man dances according to the "rules". Beginners are also appreciative that I don't dish out instructions and criticism while dancing, like some men. Granted, beginners often request such instruction, however, the man should have the tact to ignore these requests. This blonde was sniffing at me the whole time we danced, as if starved for the smell of men's bodies. At the conclusion of our four songs together, she appeared to be in a daze, and thanked me several times: "Thank you, thank you very much, thank you."

Another enjoyable experience was with a black-haired woman in her thirties, named Caroline, who humped my leg the whole time we were dancing. Though I enjoyed our dance, and talked with her briefly between songs, I didn't bother to approach her later. Then a shorter blonde asked me to dance, which surprised me, as she was an excellent follower and had no shortage of men wanting to dance with her. I found her to be pretty and pleasant, but hardly comparable in physical attractiveness to my earlier partners. Besides, she was frumpily dressed, in loose pants with cargo pockets, which is something of a turn-off for me, at least in a tango nightclub setting. After both the fourth and fifth songs, I said thank you, but she insisted on continuing. Finally, after the sixth song, she said thank you. Laura, the woman from West Metropolis who I had talked to yesterday, was in attendance with her Argentine boyfriend. I smiled and waved at her but didn't talk with her any.

A few of the women who had pushed me away last night tried to catch my eye tonight, and one was even blatant in soliciting another invitation to dance. First she sat next to me, then she reached across my body to use an ashtray, and even pressed against me while doing so, even though there was already an ashtray on her table. I ignored these women since I wasn't sure that they had really changed their attitude, and I had no desire to pollute the wonderful experiences of tonight with more wrestling matches.

Though the evening was mostly pleasant, there was one nasty encounter: "Don't you know how to dance tango?" asked one sarcastic young woman. I pretended not to understand so that she had to repeat the question twice before I finally replied, "Yes, I like to dance tango." I learned later that this woman is a single mother, which hardly surprised me. Though she was good-looking and thus shouldn't find it difficult to get pregnant, I can't imagine a man wanting to stay married to such a bitch.

I slept about five hours, then got in a good exercise session in the hostel stairwell, then wandered about the city. This was less enjoyable than it had been yesterday, as it was drizzling once again. I returned to the hostel in the late afternoon for a long nap.

More tango dancing in the evening, where I had too many wonderful experiences to note them all here. As last night, I exchanged smiles and hellos with Laura (the woman from West Metropolis) but we didn't dance or talk together. The younger women seemed to no longer object to melting against me. Perhaps they understand now that I won't follow up by being pesky. As for Caroline, she went wild humping my leg for the four songs we danced together, after which we talked briefly, then exchanged thank yous, then went to sit down. At first we sat separately, then Caroline walked over to where I was sitting and sat down beside me and we talked some more. I told her of my plans to stay in Europe for another three weeks, while she informed me that she will be taking a two week vacation in the country starting the day after tomorrow. Then I asked her to dance again, which invitation she accepted. As before, she humped my leg vigorously the whole time, but then after four dances she said thank you, which left me confused, as I had expected we would continue dancing. Once again we sat separately and this time she didn't come over to my table. She was sitting with a group of other men, but I couldn't determine her relationship with these. In particular, I couldn't determine if any of these men was a current lover. When I saw her preparing to leave, I walked over and asked about other tango clubs and then I asked if she wanted to have lunch. She pointed out that she was leaving on vacation soon, to which I replied that we could have lunch tomorrow. She agreed and so I followed her downstairs to the lobby, where she gave me her phone number and we set a time and place for getting together.

After Caroline left, I went back upstairs and continued dancing until the club closed at two. Then I wandered for a while about the city, parts of which were bursting with life at this time on a Saturday night, and finally I returned to my hostel at about three.

I walked to the location where Caroline and I had agreed to meet and then called from a pay phone to confirm our date. An hour later she arrived and we walked together to a nearby dance club, which served food during the day. The food was lousy—the establishment obviously caters primarily to tourists. Why Caroline picked such a place, I don't know.

There had been strong sexual energy between us while dancing and there continued to be strong energy throughout our conversation today, but for some reason I no longer felt much interest in pursuing Caroline. Probably she detected this lack of interest, because she began to simultaneously complain about men taking too little sexual initiative and taking too much.

"Things are different between men and women in America than they are here, I think. Because in America, men are so afraid of lawsuits. For example, if a man touches a woman like this" [here she caressed my arm] "then the woman can sue him and he will lose his job and maybe even go to jail. Here all the politicians and other powerful men have mistresses as well as wives and no one says anything. The man must take a risk in any case when he approaches a woman, but if he risks a lawsuit as well, that's too much. Don't you think so?" she asked.

"You think that American men are timid?" I replied.

"Yes, because of these lawsuits for sexual harassment. I like it when men and women are together, you see. I like variety—whites and blacks, men and women—everyone mixed up, and not where the men are in one room and the women in another."

"I like some diversity too."

"Do you like this place?"

"The food's so-so, but the music is excellent." I was referring to a live band playing latin jazz.

"I came here a few times for salsa dancing. But I don't like the atmosphere at salsa clubs. It's too hot. Everything is hot, hot, hot. My girlfriends and I, we call the men at these clubs the sticky men. You know what I mean?"

"You mean sticky from perspiration?" I asked. Caroline laughed.

"Yes, that too! Sticky from perspiration because the temperature is hot, and also sticky in other ways."

"Like when you dance once and then the guy never leaves you alone for the rest of the night?"

"Exactly. I don't like that sort of atmosphere."

"Some of the salsa clubs in the United States are like that, but not the ones I go to. But I know the sort of atmosphere you are talking about. Discos are like that. I've never felt comfortable in those sorts of places."

"Me, either. You see, there is this stereotype of how different nations are supposed to act. Women here are supposed to be very easy. But I think there should be some challenge. I don't want everything on the first night. I want a little mystery and a little pursuit."

"I see."

"I think another difference is that you Americans have such a large country that you don't need to negotiate so much. You can make faster decisions than us."

"Faster decisions?"

"Yes. You see, here there are so many countries and so first you must get approval from this one and then that one and so on. We are not used to making fast decisions like you."

"Perhaps that's true. But getting back to the business of sticky men, as you call them. I am far from being a sticky man myself. Normally, once the dance is over, I say thank you and walk away from the women, no matter how passionately we danced together. But yet with you, I acted differently. I don't know why." We both laughed at this.

"Maybe it's because you Americans are such fast decision makers!"

The above fragment is representative of our entire conversation. Why was she single? I wondered, given that she was young, pretty, intelligent, educated, witty and gave off an aura of extreme sexual tension. Perhaps she simultaneously cultivates and represses her sex drive, until she begins to glow with bottled up sexual energy, and yet she can't do anything with this energy, nor with the men who are attracted by it, due to her fears of getting sucked into some horrible marriage in suburbia. A female version of me, in other words.

Caroline had to get back to her apartment in order to prepare for her train trip early tomorrow morning, and so after about two hours of talking we departed the club. I picked up the $30 tab. On the way to the nearby metro stop, we talked about Caroline's job as a designer of children's clothing and her various interests. She has long enjoyed "rock and roll" dancing and recently started tango dancing, which she enjoys greatly. She is also a great lover of sports. When she was a teenager, she was a fanatic for gymnastics and once traveled to the United States for gymnastics camp. She still has the body of a gymnast, incidentally. I knew this from holding her tight while dancing. I promised to call her in two weeks, when she returns from her vacation, and then we touched cheeks and parted. Why did I promise to call her in two weeks? Why not say "maybe I'll call" and thus spare myself guilt feelings if I should change my mind later and decide not to call?

Tango dancing in the evening, at a different club from the one I've been patronizing these past three nights. The crowd was older, thirties through fifties, rather than mostly twenties and thirties, and the women looked plainer and "working class". My dance style seemed to evoke no controversy here. Lots of magic, with many women melting against me and one even curtsying afterwards. In all, I danced about fifty times with twenty different women. One dance was particularly notable, to a jagged-rhythm modern tango song with a very skillful young Argentine woman as my partner. She sensed immediately what I was trying to accomplish and drew closer and from then on we moved in perfect synchrony. Even though the floor was crowded, we were able to move without difficulty and without bumping other couples. Whenever I needed space, so as to make our movements correspond to the music, space miraculously opened.

I visited a museum today which Caroline had recommended. Immediately upon entering, I felt as if I were suffocating. The atmosphere was stuffy not merely in the figurative sense, but also literally, due to poor air circulation. For about an hour, I gazed at and otherwise paid homage to what the powers that be deem significant, important, beautiful and/or great, until I could take no more and had to flee to the fresh air outdoors.

I'd been feeling tired all day, and so returned to my hostel in the late afternoon to take a nap. But then I realized that my tiredness wasn't for lack of sleep. Rather, I'm feeling frazzled by so much novelty in every aspect of my life this past half-week. I listened to music for a while on my portable player (what a wonderful idea it was to bring that along!), then masturbated for the first time in several days. Fantasy object was a blonde woman in her early forties who I had danced with last night, with an uncanny resemblance to Marianne in size and shape, but with a more pouting expression on her face. She melted against me during our first dance together, then thanked me sincerely after the third song.

I've decided not to seriously pursue any other women than Caroline, as it would be much too agitating to my nerves to be pursuing two or more women at once. Certainly, I won't find anyone more attractive than Caroline to pursue, so why bother looking around? Or am I simply looking for excuses not to pursue anyone? After all, Caroline will be out of town for two weeks, so why am I putting myself on hold? I spent part of today thinking of how to convey to Caroline that, should we decide to have sex, our debut should be in the afternoon and not late at night, so that I will be in my best form. Am I worried about impotence? Perhaps I don't really want an adventure with Caroline, and this is why I have impotence on my mind.

Several emails from Sarah. I realize now how very fond I am of her, even if she does bore me at times with her perpetual cheerfulness and her rules about this, that and the other thing. She is certainly my best sex best partner ever. For once, I'm getting as much good sex as I want, without any arguments or nastiness or guilt trips. Though I can't live with Sarah and though she will always bore me to some degree, I can easily envision our relationship continuing indefinitely.

I finally roused myself from bed at nine in the evening, and wandered around in the drizzle to a nearby restaurant, where I had a delicious dinner, with the terrace all to myself. On account of the cold, no one else wanted to sit outside, even though there was warmth from gas torches. As I drink so seldom in the United Status, I'm not accustomed to alcohol, and thus the half-liter of wine that I had with dinner was enough to get me tipsy.

I stayed in bed until nine, then skipped my usual workout due to feeling sluggish from last night's wine, then breakfasted in the park, then wandered about the city the rest of the day. The rain has finally stopped, and the sun has finally come out and warmed things up, and the result was the first really beautiful spring day since I arrived. I felt the onset of a cold towards the end of the day and so took to my bed early, and remained there almost twelve hours.

I felt miserably congested this morning. I hope this isn't the flu I'm coming down with. An excellent exercise session. As usual, illness has little effect on my ability to perform calisthenics and yoga. Later, it occurred to me that my "illness" might actually be an allergy. Perhaps a return of the hayfever I used to have while working for the large corporation in East Metropolis, which disappeared after I quit that job and moved to West Metropolis. I stopped by a pharmacy and bought some anti-allergy medicine there. This helped with the congestion and sneezing somewhat.

The weather has returned to being cold and drizzly and altogether miserable, especially for someone with cold symptoms. I wandered about for several hours and then finally took refuge in a cafe, where they serve the same brand of tea as my favorite cafe in West Metropolis. Later, I ate a bad restaurant meal that made me feel ill afterwards, until I washed the taste away with a barrage of pastries and other desserts. It would probably have been wiser to give my stomach a rest, and conserve my energy for fighting my illness, but I was bored and eating was the only way I could think of to pass time. Very early to bed again.

I woke up feeling much better than yesterday. Less sneezing and coughing and bleariness in my eyes, but I remain congested and with my throat full of mucus. Also, I'm feeling aches and pains in my joints, which would indicate that I have either a bad cold or the flu, as opposed to an allergy.

It occurs to me that, based on how I sometimes feel "stuck" with Sarah and Marianne, I should be careful about how I proceed with this Caroline. Regardless of my lust for sticking in my face in a brown-haired instead of blonde cunt for a change. She is about my age, beautiful, healthy, intelligent, educated, compatible with me in personality and interests. It is hard to see how I can escape with just a one-night or one-weekend "adventure". Really, why do I bother with sex at all? This is the same conclusion I've come to before in this journal. Dancing with women and then going home to masturbate leads to greater happiness, all things considered, than getting more deeply involved. My desire for sex is less than my desire for freedom.

On the other hand, I can't very well not pursue Caroline, given how she came on to me as we danced, and given that I've promised to call her back next weekend. Perhaps the best thing would be to go slowly. Ask her how her trip went, discuss my own experiences as a tourist, ask if she is going dancing, dance with her and also with other women. In other words, drag things out so that she gets bored and nothing happens and I am left with pleasant memories and no obligations. This is the problem with getting involved with people of any sort. One has "obligations" afterwards. Even talking with women at these dances is a mistake, as it means I have to talk to them again in the future, or at least say hello.

A live tango concert in a nightclub in the evening. A mix of tango and cuban rhythms. Very enjoyable, other than for the thick cigarette smoke. I was lucky to get a seat, as the club was jam-packed, so that late-comers had to stand. Listening to the music made me anxious to resume dancing, but that I can't do until my coughing and sneezing stops.

I appear to be at last recovering from my cold. In particular, the sneezing and coughing has stopped. However, I'm still feeling somewhat weak and under the weather.

Tango dancing in the evening. Perhaps as a result of my recent illness, I found initially that my sense of rhythm had completely disappeared. A horrible sensation! My dance technique uses few moves, but instead relies on playing with the rhythm in order to generate complexity ("dancer's syncopation"). When my sense of rhythm is off, I end up looking and feeling to my partners like the rankest beginner. Finally, the deejay put on two salsa songs. I danced these, broke a sweat, then suddenly everything was back to normal. Several good tango dances after this, concluding with at least thirty minutes of pure bliss with a black-haired woman in her late twenties. Fleshy, full-sized breasts, very pretty now, but with the sort of face and body which will probably collapse into a doughy mess by the time she reaches her forties. Even during the breaks, she held me close. When we finally separated, we were both dripping with sweat from being pressed together so long. I had said "thank you" after the fourth dance, but she didn't want to stop until the music finally stopped at two in the morning. I told her I would be at this club again tomorrow night. She replied that she might be back as well, but that she wasn't sure. Both of us were smiling broadly and laughing with happiness as we exchanged these words. I wonder if she expected more in the way of conversation? Though I certainly enjoyed our dance together, there was little I wanted to say to her afterwards.

While sitting in the park eating lunch, I played eye games with a young woman on the bench across from mine. We stared at one another, then one of us would look away, then we would resume staring. This continued for perhaps twenty minutes, then the woman slowly walked off, looking backwards at me now and then over her shoulder. Extraordinary sexual energy between us. I could sense exactly what parts of her body she wanted touched, and when to go fast and when to go slow, and when to be rough and when to be gentle. She was in her young twenties, or perhaps even late teens, short, full-breasted, and thoroughly appetizing-looking in a tight sweater and tight pants. Her most striking feature was her beautifully shaped eyes, which resembled those of a girl who had a crush on me in high school but who never interested me then, for whatever reason.

Time stopped while we were flirting. Whereas the minute she slipped out of sight, it was as if a spell had been broken, and I felt panged by a sense of loss. What should I do in cases like this? If I do nothing, I feel agitated. If I approach, a pleasant fantasy gets replaced by dreary reality, and I feel even more agitated than if I had done nothing. Dancing is so much simpler and satisfying. No hassles, no obligations, no entanglements, no guilt. Perhaps I should treat flirting the way I do dancing. I never expect a dance to lead anywhere. Why do I feel differently about flirting? Why not just calmly enjoy the experience and then use the woman in my masturbation fantasies later, the way I do with dancing?

In doing my laundry later, it occurred to me how comfortable I am living out of a suitcase. The only thing I really miss is my computer. But that lack could easily be repaired, by simply buying a portable computer.

Tango dancing in the evening. Though not as bad as last night, my rhythm continues to be somewhat off. Luckily, I got in enough practice with other women to be warmed up and ready for the black-haired girl from yesterday. We danced five songs together tonight, superbly I think, and then she ran off to join some friends and I didn't see any more of her. Even though I recognize that it is for the best not to get too involved with dance partners, I nevertheless sometimes feel a tinge of regret that we couldn't have done more than dance. It's so tempting to imagine going back to her apartment and banging her solid hips there so that her tits jiggle with every thrust.

Later, I began to have problems getting women to accept my invitations to dance. A woman who I had danced with earlier noticed this, and said to me:

"You don't like to learn to dance Argentine tango?"

"What do you mean?" I said.

"You don't dance true Argentine tango. You don't lead the steps of Argentine tango." She is referring to ochos and all the patterns built around ochos. In reality, even simple walking steps are Argentine tango steps—the forward step ("el paseo"), the chase step ("la caza"), the side step ("un paso al lado"), the backwards step ("el paseo hacia atrás"), the pause step ("una pausa"), the rock step ("la cunita"), and so forth. The so-called "Argentine tango basic" is merely a sequence of these simple walking steps, together with outside partner walking and the follower's cross ("la cruzada"). The purpose of this "basic" is merely to give beginner students practice moving in all the different directions. Furthermore, the famous follower's cross, if looked at with an open mind, is really just a slightly more elegant posture for standing than having the feet side by side. Anything a follower can do from the cross, she can also, and more easily, do from an uncrossed stance with weight on the left foot. My view is that the essence of Argentine tango dance style is the posture (leaning forwards and touching the man's right ribcage to the woman's left ribcage) and that good Argentine tango dancing, like good dancing of any style, occurs when the dancers move in unison with one another and the music so as to generate sexual energy, and everything else is inessential adornment. (Though I detest crosses and ochos, I don't eschew all adornments. I'm especially fond of toe taps ("golpes"), sole taps ("golpecitos"), shakes of my partner ("zarandeos") while changing direction or pausing—these shakes are effectively abbreviated ochos, incidentally—and I even draw an occasional small circle with my foot ("ronde") before commencing my walk.) An opposing view is that the fancier the foot steps, the better the dancing.

"I lead a few steps. I occasionally lead a forward ocho, for example, though I don't really like to do so. What interests me is the energy between the two partners. If this energy exists and it is a good energy, then the dancing is good, otherwise not. I watch men leading complicated steps and I'm not impressed. They don't seem to be generating much energy."

"People come here to dance true Argentine tango, though. That is why none of the women will dance with you."

"I learned salsa first. Then, when I came to learn tango, I took the lessons I had learned in salsa, about energy, and applied them. This is why I don't bother with complicated steps in tango. I can dance all the complicated steps in salsa, and yet this means nothing, because these steps are a distraction from what is really important, which is the music and the connection between the man and woman. In fact, when I dance salsa now, my preference is to do nothing but the basic. This is not because I don't know how to do complicated steps, but because I don't think they are important. As for tango, I once had a male dance instructor lead me in an ocho, to see what it was like to be a follower, and you know what it felt like to me? It made me feel like a dog that some trainer was commanding to do things. That is what I think whenever I see a man leading a woman in a complicated pattern. Hey dog, I'm ordering you to jump through this hoop!"

"Bah! That's not it at all. You don't understand."

"Dancing is similar to sex. To be a good lover, the man must understand what is going on in the woman's mind. He must know what she wants and then give it to her. I understand how to give a woman great pleasure by playing with the rhythm and I can generate great energy between myself and a woman in doing so. The reason for this is simple. If I were a follower, that is what I would want the leader to do with me. But I don't understand how it gives a woman pleasure to be led into ochos, and since I can't understand the pleasure of an ocho, I can't generate energy when I lead ochos. It seems like a nuisance, to be honest. My goal is to bring the woman pleasure. If the woman doesn't enjoy dancing with me, then she can always refuse my invitation, like these women over there. I don't come here to molest people. If women don't enjoy how I dance, then they shouldn't dance with me."

She nodded absently and then walked off to talk to some other women, leaving me feeling thoroughly disgusted. I couldn't help thinking the following thoughts after she left. If I'm such a bad dancer, why do so many woman melt in my arms while dancing? And why do some curtsy and kiss my hand afterwards and tell me "thank you, thank you very much" when a simple "thank you" would have sufficed? And why do some of the most effusive expressions of gratitude come from young and beautiful women who are frequently asked to dance and who are therefore in a position to compare my dancing with that of other men? The answer to all these questions is the same. Many women, especially those without hang-ups about men and sex, prefer the way I dance, because it makes them feel beautiful and sexually alive.

Upon stepping back and looking more closely around the room, I realized the real reason women were refusing my invitations to dance tonight. This was a nest of sex and man-haters, just like so many similar places I've been to over the years in the United States. Why were these women in this nightclub late on a Saturday night? Because they have no lover. And why do they have no lover? Because they hate or are terrified of men and sex. The preference for complicated steps is easy to explain. Complicated steps force the partners to open up a distance between one another, thus making it much less likely that they will feel strong sexual energy for one another than if the dancing were conducted primarily in the close hold.

Over in a corner, a young woman stood for two hours without being asked to dance even once. I didn't ask her myself because I had danced with her before at another club and she held me at such a distance then that I felt no desire for a repeat encounter tonight. I suspect the other men felt the same way. An average looking face, slender, and wearing a dress. Reasonably attractive, in other words, had she not cut her hair very short. A crew-cut, believe it or not! I picked up no lesbian vibes, however. Probably, she is just very sensitive, to the point of being terrified of sex and men. The sort of woman who falls in love with homosexuals. Why does she come to these dances? Perhaps because she still has some remaining desire for sex, which she wants to crush. She does so by allowing herself to be humiliated week after week, until she hates everything associated with sex and men, and thereby becomes resigned to her spinster's existence.

I spent much of the day sitting in a cafe. My sinuses continue to be congested, but otherwise I seem to have fully recovered from my cold of last week.

Tango dancing in the evening, at a club I hadn't been to before. After paying my admission, the doorman instructed me to announce my name into a loudspeaker and then step through a hole in a curtain that was hung between the entrance and the inside of the room. I thought this rigmarole absurd, like something from nursery school, but nevertheless did as I was told. The club was almost deserted and I immediately picked up some very peculiar vibes. I decided to settle into a dark corner for a while, to wait and see what was going on. Gradually more people arrived. I noticed that many of them didn't bother with announcing their name into the loudspeaker and that they walked around the curtain instead of stepping through the hole in it.

Eventually there were enough people in attendance and enough couples on the dance floor that I thought it time to join the action myself. A large surplus of women, so I had no problems getting partners, but they all stiff-armed me, so that I was forced to stay as far away as possible. Then I looked around and saw that the other couples were also dancing with as much distance as possible between partners. There were also several women dancing with other women. Presumably, this was due to a shortage of men, since I didn't pick up any lesbian vibrations when I danced later with these same women myself. A few couples did dance closely together, but they also danced exclusively with one another and then left early. Probably, they were as appalled by the atmosphere as me.

"You don't know how to dance Argentine tango, then?" asked one woman, as we began to dance. She was evidently unnerved that I didn't start with the so-called tango basic, in which the man steps backwards and then proceeds to lead the woman into a cross. Instead, I simply positioned her weight onto the left foot and then began walking forwards. "No, I don't know how to dance tango. Thank you," I replied brusquely, dropping my arms and walking away. Things went from bad to worse after this dance. I dropped my arm tension and scowled and ignored the music and otherwise deliberately danced poorly. After all, this is what these women wanted, isn't it? They wanted confirmation of men's brutality and their own unattractiveness, right?

Though they all held me at a distance, not all of the women were hostile. A few were even pathetically humble. "You want to dance with me?" said one plain but not bad-looking woman in her forties, smiling meekly at me, as if astonished that a man was finally asking her to dance. One would assume that she would be happy to be held at last in a man's arms, but no, she stiff-armed me. Several women like this in succession appeared not to comprehend why I was so miffed at being pushed away, and so I finally relented and led the ochos they seem to think so essential. With my partners so far away, I found leading patterns much easier than with the woman closely pressed against me, which is how I usually dance. This strengthened my conviction that a preference for complicated patterns is in reality a preference for avoiding closeness to the opposite sex. Complex patterns are invented by homosexual dance instructors and then eagerly embraced (so to speak) by frigid women.

I finally left after having danced with almost every woman in attendance, without having had even a single good experience, and walked to a nearby salsa club. There I danced wonderfully with my first partner, a juicy young blonde, who sighed loudly in disappointment when I said thank you and walked off instead of sticking around to dance with her again. The atmosphere was too crowded and rambunctious for me to really enjoy dancing with anyone, much less someone like her who couldn't follow the beat properly, nor did I see how I could engage her in a conversation, given the noise level, and even if it had been possible to talk, she was in her young twenties and I never can figure out what to say to younger women. Regardless, it was refreshing to dance with a normal woman for a change.

I tried to dance a few more times after leaving the juicy blonde, but my partners got worse and worse. Indeed, my final partner almost collapsed from drunkenness, so that I had to walk off in the middle of our dance together. Finally I gave up and left. Not a total waste, though. The thirty minutes or so I spent in the salsa club had washed away the bad taste left in my mouth from the tango dancing earlier.

I woke up this morning feeling so disgusted at last night's tango debacle that I decided to flee the city for a while and take a day trip to one of the nearby small towns and do some sightseeing. Then when I arrived, I became depressed by the gloomy atmosphere. Narrow, cobble-stoned streets, whitewashed buildings dating from the middle ages, everything scrubbed clean and quiet, not even a whisper of anarchy.

While sitting in a park, waiting for the next train back to the city, I reflected on my reasons for this whole trip. Mostly, I was restless. And now I'm anxious to get back home. But as soon as I do return to West Metropolis, I'll be anxious to travel again, of that I'm sure. Also, though I currently miss the sex with Sarah, as soon as we get back together, I'll be anxious to get away from her. The only constant sources of happiness in my life are masturbation and morning exercises.

I made a big mistake yesterday, by the way. I talked at length in Spanish with one of my roommates at the hostel, who is from Venezuela. So now he'll think I'm "simpatico" and want to talk with me more and my solitude will have been invaded. I should have been surly and cold, the way I usually am with my roommates at the hostel, precisely to avoid unwanted familiarity. Perhaps that is why these women at the tango clubs don't like dancing closely. They are similarly alert to invasions of their solitude.

I retired to bed early for a nap and then had a difficult time getting an erection with which to masturbate. Then I decided not to bother with going to a cafe later, as I had originally planned, and ended up spending the entire evening in bed. So add sex and cafes to the list of things for which I'm losing enthusiasm.

Six hours walking through the park, where a variety of sagging and otherwise unattractive whores tried to tempt me to take a little detour into the bushes. Dinner at the same lovely restaurant with terrace where I ate a week ago. This time I only ordered a quarter liter of wine, in order not to get tipsy, and then skipped the main dish, since I'm realizing that all I really enjoy eating at restaurants is soup and dessert. It was drizzling out, but this didn't bother me, as I was snugly sheltered under the awning and warmed by gas torches. The rain even seemed to add charm to the atmosphere.

One of my roommates tonight was a stereotypical Japanese in his forties. Big bucktoothed smile on his face, laughing constantly, anxious to talk about trivialities, encumbered with all sorts of electronics gear and camera equipment. He slept in his clothes. Towards midnight, a young couple arrived. The man threw his belongings onto the bunk below, then climbed into the top bunk and joined the woman under the covers there. This is the fourth mixed-sex couple I've had as roommates at this hostel, but the first to sleep together in the same bunk.

I thought of Elizabeth today, for some reason, and how wonderful the sex was between us, even though I never liked her. I also reflected that it appears that what I really want in life is one or more older women to fuck, without the burden of pretending to be other than their sextoy. For whatever reason, I find it vaguely shameful to admit this desire. I feel that what I should want is a harem of younger women. So then I imagine myself in this latter situation. And guess what happens? I want to run away, that's what.

The Japanese roommate was in the room when I arrived for my afternoon nap, and so I couldn't masturbate. Not that it really matters, since I feel so little sex drive these days. Later, I saw him cutting an apple with the most enormous Swiss-army style knife that I've ever seen outside a store window. I always thought those sixty bladed gizmos were jokes. Never would have I imagined that anyone would actually buy and try to use such a thing. I suppose everyone reverts to national stereotype while on vacation. With me being the insular American, who gets upset that the whole world isn't just like home.

Tango dancing in the evening. I sat the whole time next to the dance floor without asking anyone to dance. My behavior was conspicuous and provocatively rude, given the number of women who were waiting to be asked to dance. The older blonde with whom I had danced so well last week (she inquired then if I was a musician because of the way I dance) was prompted to ask me what was going on, and we had an awkward conversation. With anyone else, I might have been belligerent in my replies, but towards her I have too much genuine fondness to be hostile. The sound of her voice instantly reduced me to sheepishness.

"Did you dance tonight?" she asked.

"No," I mumbled.

"Why not?"

"I'm not sure."

"Maybe you didn't want to dance tonight. Yes? Maybe good things or bad things, right? I danced with you before so I know you can dance. Maybe next time."

Many of the women in attendance had also been at the club where I thought all the women were frigid. The wretched women who no one wants and who are doomed to wander from nightclub to nightclub, wallowing in humiliation until at last they lose all desire for men and sex. I noticed that when another man asked one of these women to dance, she gripped him a vise-like practice hold (by the upper arm, that is), which makes it easier to push the man away. This was the only invitation to dance that she received all evening. Towards the end, an attractive woman who I didn't recall having seen before kept casting inviting glances my way, without showing even a trace of contempt, hostility, defiance, annoyance or disapproval. But I had lost all interest in dancing by then. Besides, I didn't want to weaken the impact of having sulked all night. I wanted everyone at this club to remember me as a jerk.

I sent emails to Sarah and Helen, in which I denounced the city as being a place of perpetual cold drizzle and bureaucrats and frigidity and rigidity and mindless adherence to rules and regulations and tradition, and so on. These blasts of biliousness were only partly due to my being in a foul mood from the tango dancing fiasco. The other issue was that I find it annoying to receive email that is not related to business, because I dislike feeling obligated to reply. I tempered the email to Sarah by a closing remark to the effect that "being here makes me appreciate better how much joy and beauty there is in our relationship." This remark was made in all sincerity, since I really do feel that way.

For much of the afternoon, I lingered in a cafe which reminded me of my favorite cafe in West Metropolis. From my seat in a second story window, I was able to observe the following amusing incident. Some workers had blocked a delivery zone with bricks and metal rods, in order to reserve it for their own use. When a truck tried to park in this space, the driver wasn't able to see the bricks and rods under his front bumper. As his truck began to stall, he gunned the accelerator, with the result that the metal rods became jammed underneath. The driver got out to examine the situation, then climbed back in the truck and backed up slightly, then he got out again and proceeded, in a very dramatic manner, to toss the bricks and rods into the middle of the street. Of course, the civilized thing to do would have been to neatly stack the bricks and rods on the sidewalk. A small crowd gathered, but instead of laughing and pointing, they merely stood solemnly and watched. Once the delivery space was cleared, the driver climbed back in his truck and surged forwards with a roar, then turned off his motor and went about his errands. The line of cars that had formed behind the truck then began to move forward, with the first few cars sputtering as they climbed over the pile of bricks, then gradually the bricks were crushed into powder and the pile diminished in size. Meanwhile, the metal rods went flying backwards with a noisy clatter each time they rolled under a car's tires. The final result was a huge mess of crumbled bricks and metal rods scattered everywhere. The truck eventually left, whereupon the workers who had originally blocked the delivery space came out and cleaned things up. I was laughing hysterically the whole twenty minutes or so it took for this spectacle to take place.

Later, in this same cafe, I overheard a foreign journalist quizzing a local about the local attitudes towards personal ads. She was carrying a newspaper filled with such ads, and had initiated the conversation by asking for help translating some cryptic abbreviations. My own impression is that the situation with regards to personal ads, as well as to male/female relations in general, is essentially the same in all developed countries. The journalist, however, had found otherwise: "Women here are more free to be women, isn't that so?" Everyone sees the world through tinted glasses. We see what we want to see, we find what we want to find. This journalist reminded me of a women's prison guard, both in clothing and general bodily appearance, and clearly has problems with femininity and with meeting and relating to men. But instead of looking for the cause of these problems in herself, she blames her native country's culture, and she is determined to find things different elsewhere. As for me, perhaps the reason I find Europe to be "rigid and frigid" is because I wanted to find it that way. Because I'm rigid and frigid myself and because I don't like warmth and friendliness (especially not in young women).

I spent the evening reading and getting drunk in a cafe. I'm recovered from my disgust with tango dancing. Among other correspondences between dancing and sex is that they are both as much work for the man as pleasure. Really, why should I bother trying to give women pleasure if they don't want it? It's a lot easier for me to do nothing.

My walk today was through immigrant neighborhoods, where I was witness to several displays of bad manners. For example, one uncouth man shoved me brutally out of his way and then another threw a coffee cup into the gutter instead of depositing it in the nearby trash can. My reaction, strangely enough, was to want to shout for joy: "Thank God there's a few hot-blooded people in this fucking uptight city!"

Helen sent me a scolding email, in reply to the email I sent her yesterday. I can't say I blame her for not wanting to hear complaints.

Back at my hostel in the evening, my Mexican roommate invited me to go bar-hopping. He was dressed in enormous boots and a black sombrero with silver bells on the brim, as if wanting to appear more like a stereotypical Mexican, in order to annoy people at the bars he will be visiting. When I declined his invitation, he said: "I don't understand. You are on vacation, but all you want to do is sleep. You took a nap in the afternoon and now you want to go to bed early." I shrugged and smiled weakly, at which he shook his head and quit bothering with me. Now I understand why these Orientals always act like grinning, giggling nincompoops. It's the easiest way to get rid of people. Though there are also other effective tactics. For example, another roommate responded to the Mexican's bar-hopping invitation in a heavy Irish brogue, which even I found difficult to penetrate and which was utterly incomprehensible to the Mexican, so that eventually he gave up trying to communicate and went off to the bars by himself.

I think there is something about the weather here, this constant cold gray drizzle, that brings out the nastiness in some people.

I called Caroline about noon, per my promise of two weeks ago. She asked if I had been dancing since we last saw one another. I replied that I was tired of being rebuked at the tango clubs for not dancing properly, while as for the salsa clubs, I was too old for all their noise and smoke and crowding. "If you're an old man, then you must have a cane, but you didn't show it to me last week!" laughed Caroline. I paused while trying to figure out what she meant by this remark. The obvious interpretation is that cane means penis, but this doesn't make sense, because only old men have canes while all men have penises. But if cane doesn't mean penis, then what does it mean? Perhaps Caroline was implying that I'm impotent and hence needed an implant (a cane) to make my penis stiff. But why would a man be expected to show off his impotence? Perhaps "old man" meant only that I was past puberty, and "showing my cane" meant showing sexual initiative. This interpretation works, sort of, but it still makes for a very feeble joke. I asked Caroline to explain. "It's a joke. Just a joke, okay?" she replied. I mumbled in assent and then asked if she would like to have lunch this afternoon. She replied that she was busy unpacking and suggested I call again later. I agreed to do so, though I got the impression that she was trying to brush me off. I suppose she figures I'm some sort of bumbling fool who doesn't know the first thing about women or how to use his penis/cane. I should note that I felt excited to be talking to Caroline, but without much physical arousal.

I suppose she expects me to be displaying more sexual aggressiveness. But how can I, when the truth is that I don't really crave sex or relationships like other men? Maybe other men also don't really crave sex and relationships, and the only reason they pursue them is to avoid being accused by society of being pathetic losers for being single and masturbating instead of fucking real women. In other words, perhaps the pursuit of sex is more the pursuit of social status than the pursuit of physical pleasure. For various reasons, I'm usually immune to the pressure to achieve high social status. This is why I can masturbate and live in the skid row district and take the bus instead of driving a car and otherwise act like a loser and do so without feeling even a tinge of shame, whereas other men aren't so lucky. Though occasionally, my immunity to the pressure to achieve high social status lapses, and then I force myself to pursue women, so as to conform to what society teaches is the "right" behavior for men. The usual result is an increase in unhappiness. I figured most of this out long ago. Alas, mere understanding at the conscious level isn't always enough. Some lessons in life we have to learn over and over again the hard way before they finally sink down into the subconscious.

Or maybe the problem is that I simply have a low sex drive. For as long as I can remember, my first reaction to a woman throwing herself at me is a feeling of triumph. "Score one for me!" Followed almost immediately by a feeling of annoyance. "Now what the hell am I supposed to do? You mean I have to spend time with this woman and give up masturbating because of her?" Or else outright panic. "Oh my God! I've got to escape before I get married!" All of my more successful sexual relationships have been with older women, whose desire for me was greater than my desire for them. Younger women tend to have problems accepting that the man might just as soon masturbate as have sex. Or who knows what the explanation for my behavior is. I really have very little insight into myself on the subject of sex.

I called Caroline again at four in the afternoon, but got her answering machine, and so called again at six. Caroline explained that she was too tired to go out tonight, but that she could spare an hour to have tea with me this evening, though it might be better if we waited until tomorrow, as she was tired from her trip. I asked her to give me a time to call tomorrow. "When do you want to call?" she asked, as if giving me one last chance to demonstrate assertiveness and strong sexual desire. "I have all the time in the world," I replied. "You're the one who has to work next week. You pick the time and place. We'll meet at your convenience, Caroline. I want to see you, that is what I want. The time is not important. Only that I can see you again." These last statements seemed to satisfy her and she gave me a time to call and then thanked me, in a tone of sincerity.

I called Caroline in the morning and invited her to lunch. She replied that she was then in the midst of helping her sister unpack, but that she might be able to spare some time to see me later in the day. Then she asked for my telephone number, to which I replied crossly: "I'm a tourist staying in hotels and I don't have a mobile phone. You understand? I don't have a telephone. I have to call you. You can't call me." After some further discussion, we agreed that I would call again in the late afternoon. I was gruff with my words and tone of voice, as if deliberately trying to drive her off by appearing like an angry brute. Caroline, on the other hand, took on a meek and sweet-sounding tone of voice, but this didn't appease me in the least, however. When I called later, she didn't answer, and so I left a message on her answering machine: "I'm calling you back like I promised. Maybe we'll see each other around in the future. Good-bye."

Having a woman to pursue makes everything seem exciting, even walking down the street is exciting when I'm in love, but when the woman gives me this sort of run-around, the excitement hardly seems worthwhile. And what if I don't merely pursue, but eventually catch Caroline? This whole episode is an example of what happens when a person doesn't listen to their true feelings. In looking back, I realize I never had a strong desire for an affair here, especially not with a younger woman like this Caroline. My behavior seems driven by vanity. The desire to "score" so I can gloat about my successes in this journal and then titillate Helen with stories of my conquests. I thought I'd left such stupidity behind long ago, but apparently not.

While sitting in the park later, a woman walked directly towards me and asked if she could share my bench, even though there were many other benches with no one sitting on them. She appeared to be about age sixty, had short hair and was dressed slovenly, almost like a street person, with the exception of a beautiful silk shawl and some fine leather lace-up boots. Her teeth were terrible. Several missing, the rest crooked and stained dark yellow or brown, perhaps from the stinking mini-cigars that she smoked. I guessed that she was a lesbian and she confirmed this later. She spoke rapidly (despite my requests to slow down) and in a strong accent, so that I had to pay very close attention to catch what she was saying. I answered her questions, but otherwise she did most of the talking.

"I'm a singer. I sing. I also play the violin. I took my baccalaureate in mathematics and philosophy. Many artists live around here, you know. I love paintings. Have you been to the museum? What! You must go. What do you mean? Claustrophobia. The museums make you feel claustrophobic and out of breath. Oh, well, too bad... I love this city. When I travel, I get homesick. The weather here isn't so great, of course. But it is such an historic city. Where you live, everything is new, there is no history like there is here. I've lived here all my life. My family has been here since the middle ages. They were aristocrats. Yes, we were aristocrats. But now that's all gone. There are no more kings. It's too bad. Things were better when there were aristocrats. There's going to be a revolt soon. In the slums. An uprising in the slums. This democracy is no good. I'm going to Switzerland when the revolution occurs. It's neutral and very safe. All the rich people put their money there. What do you like most about the city? You like walking. It's very good for that. I've been to America, you know. I was with the movie industry. I wanted to go to America when I was eighteen, but the law said I needed my father's permission until I was twenty-one and he said no. I could have been a star. You know, a star like in the sky... That's a nice ring. Where did you get that? North Metropolis! I've been there! Great city. Oh yes, I forgot about the snow. Horrible! I forgot about that. I went in the summer, you see... Look, it's starting to rain. See what I bought? It's a chinese fish. I have three already and this makes four. And I got these postcards. Very pretty, don't you think? America is liberal towards lesbians, but not here. It's all forbidden. Too bad you aren't staying longer, I could show you around. You like tango dancing? Very good. I dance tango myself, but not Argentine tango. I dance only the standard tango. Yes, the standard tango. You know, the tango without all the fancy moves. In the Argentine tango, you do fancy moves, but not in the standard tango."

The rain then began to increase and she prepared to leave. I gave her my card and told her to look me up if she ever visited West Metropolis. "I will keep this card and treasure it. I might visit there this summer, I don't know, I've been there before but I plan to go back someday. And when I come, you can help show me around." After she left, I regretted not arranging to see her again, or else following her home, or perhaps inviting her to have tea in a cafe. She was the first really interesting person I'd met here.

Tango dancing in the evening. As usual, most of the couples (other than some Argentineans) danced a full meter apart, as if terrified of sexual energy. "Homosexuals dancing with frigid woman" is the expression that pops to mind. Even men with their wives or girlfriends danced this way. Far apart, no grace in their movements, a bad sense of rhythm and huge sexless smiles on their faces.

I did manage a few good dances. Notably, with the older blonde who had asked me at the other club why I wasn't dancing. Though she appears to be in her late fifties or even sixties, she has the body of a gymnast. The only other women I've danced with here who even approached her level of firmness were some young Argentineans. We danced three times together and worked together very well, though at first I was nervous about what she must think of me, after having seen me sulking last week. Afterwards, she gripped my hand and said "thank you, thank you very much, thank you". So evidently I pleased her as much as she pleased me. I thought of telling her "dancing well is such a nice memory to have of a city, and you've given me that", but then I reflected that it was better to say nothing. Dancing is about not talking. The same as with sex. Communication should be through the body rather than through words.

Another excellent experience with an older woman who told me "thank you" in Spanish after our four dances together. I don't know whether she was from Spain or Latin America, however. In any case, she clearly wasn't used to the sort of passionate dancing I engage in, though she also clearly enjoyed our dancing. One good experience with a younger Argentinean. I could sense she was an expert the minute I touched her. She followed well, but also insisted on our staying slightly separated, and consequently I think she missed some of the subtlety of my movements. I would have liked to have danced with some of the other Argentineans, but they all declined my invitation. After seeing me stumble about with the locals, they probably thought I was completely incompetent and sexless myself.

Consider my experience with one of these locals early in the evening. She was about thirty, she caught my eye before I invited her to dance, as if soliciting that invitation, there was strong sexual energy between us, and I had seen her dancing well with other men. Everything seemed to promise a superb dance. But because she insisted holding herself at a distance, she was utterly unable to follow my movements and so I was forced to simplify until the dance became boring. Two people walking around in a circle. I told her "thank you" after one song, which seemed to shock her. Later, after seeing me dance beautifully with the older blonde (in a close hold) she positioned herself next to me several times, as if wanting a second chance, but I was so disgusted by how she had ruined things earlier that I refused to even look in her direction.

Though my dancing may appear simple, it can be devilishly hard to follow unless the woman holds herself close, due to how I am constantly slipping on and off the rhythm. An expert dancer can follow me at a distance, if she wants to work hard, but beginners stumble horribly no matter how hard they try, especially when they have poor posture. Shoulders go one way, caboose goes the other, foot hits the floor before the upper body has finished moving. I feel like I'm dancing with a big cow with a spring in the middle. Why don't these instructors teach the women proper posture, which is the only thing a follower really needs to dance well?

As part of the evening's entertainment, we were treated to a fantasy tango performance, which everyone applauded with the wild enthusiasm of people who understand nothing of dancing as I understand it. I couldn't help but recall the lesbian in the park earlier, and her distinction between "standard tango", by which she meant tango without adornments, and "Argentine tango", meaning tango made as flashy as possible. Is this really what they teach here? My understanding of Argentine tango is that it is a walking dance with forward leaning posture and the ability to pause at any time and otherwise play with the rhythm, instead of being required to slavishly step exactly on the beat. By comparison, so-called American and International tango use backward-leaning posture and strict adherence to the beat. Argentine tango can be subdivided into three styles. "Fantasy" tango is what is typically shown in Hollywood movies or as part of theatrical performances. This is choreographed tango, performed by professional dancers, and made to look as ostentatiously impressive as possible, with no sexual energy between the participants. "Salon" style uses a somewhat open hold with lots of fancy patterns built around ochos. This style is preferred by middle-aged married couples who long ago lost interest in sex, and by couples of any age or marital status who are anxious about raising sexual energy while dancing. This style is also preferred by instructors, since patterns are one of the few aspects of social dancing that is easy to teach/learn. Teaching/learning proper posture and a sense of rhythm, by contrast, can be extremely frustrating. Alternatively, the student already has a naturally good posture and sense of rhythm, in which case there is nothing to teach and hence no need for the instructor. Finally, "milonguero" or "nightclub" style uses a very close hold, with few fancy patterns and adornments. This style is preferred by people such as myself, who have no qualms about raising sexual energy while dancing.

The essence of both good sex and good dancing is stillness, which explains why milonguero style tango raises more sexual energy than any other dance style, including the other styles of tango dancing. Milonguero style tango is saturated with moments of stillness. Those who understand nothing of sex and dancing, of course, don't appreciate stillness. Pornography, for example, is filled with scenes of men furiously pumping away and the woman screaming out as she has one orgasm after another. Compare with my experiences with Elizabeth. Lying pressed together in missionary position, almost motionless and experiencing a sense of timelessness. I'm sure this would have looked completely unimpressive to spectators, had there been any. The situation is similar with dancing. Good dancing is a quiet and private act between the two participants, with spectators never knowing what is really happening, whether the dancers are in heaven or not, that is, except, perhaps, from expressions on the dancers' faces.

I was unable to prolong my stay at the hostel, and so looked about for alternate lodging. Without much difficulty, I found a place in a small hotel in the far eastern part of the city. $30/night for a room with double bed, small table, private bath with shower and toilet, and charming view of old rooftops and courtyards. (There was also a color television, but I have no intention of using this.) For a couple, this hotel (or the many others in the same price range that I noticed later) would have been no more expensive than the hostel. Considering how inferior the accommodations were at the hostel, why did so many couples stay at the hostel, I wonder? Even for me, a single person, the hostel was a foolish attempt to save money, I now realize. I could easily make up the $15/night additional that the hotel room costs by economizing elsewhere. In particular, I could easily save $15/day by eating less sumptuously.

I spent the day wandering about or sitting in cafes, then returned to the hotel in the evening, where I listened to music and engaged in a leisurely masturbation session and otherwise enjoyed the sense of finally having some privacy.

I woke to the sound of birds singing, and the feeling of a fresh breeze through the partially opened window, and the sight of sunlight streaming through lace curtains. What a delightful hotel room this is! And what a contrast to the hostel, where one wakes to the sound of snoring, and the smells of bad breath and unwashed feet and underarms and dirty socks drying over the radiator! The weather has finally turned sunny and pleasant, and so I spent much of the day sitting in a park. Dinner at a restaurant, then I returned to the hotel about midnight.

Several hours of delightful masturbation in the morning. I suspect the main cause of my renewed sex drive over the past few days is that I now have a hotel room to myself instead of having to share a room at the hostel. Why did I ever stay at that hostel, I wonder? At most, I saved $200. Which is really nothing, given that I'm a millionaire. Why do I continue to economize now that I'm rich?

I spent the day walking about the eastern part of the city. Parks, working class residential neighborhoods, and suburbs just outside the city limits. In thinking of Sarah, it occurred to me that she is by far my best lover ever. She may at times be boring, but otherwise she has brought me nothing but joy, uncorrupted by the unpleasantness I normally associate with women.

More masturbation this morning, though at last my horniness seems to be diminishing. Which is hardly surprising, given the orgies I've been indulging in lately. Another day spent walking around the eastern parts of the city. Despite all this walking and the fact that I routinely skip lunch, I seem to be gaining weight, perhaps because of all the desserts (cream cheese brownies, in particular) and quiches I'm eating.

I overslept and then felt stiff and sluggish in the morning. Everything was back to normal, however, after masturbation, exercises and cold shower. Then another long walk across the city to a sector I hadn't yet visited, taking whichever streets seemed most interesting, and stopping off at parks and pastry shops along the way.

I masturbated furiously this morning to all sorts of lurid fantasies. Burying my face in some woman's cunt and playing with her breasts while she sucks me off and then fucking her dog-style and grinding my pelvis against her buttocks while pulling back on her hair or else reaching under and playing with her breasts and clitoris, etc. I don't know why I was so horny. It was drizzling and cold out, but I nevertheless wandered around for five hours. The evening I spent reading in a cafe.

One last masturbation session in the morning. A four hour orgy to fantasies of cunnilingus and fellatio and mutual oral sex and who knows what else, culminating in what I intend to be my last orgasm of this trip, since I want to be hot and horny for Sarah when I return. It was cold and raining outside, and so I stayed in the hotel until past noon, then wandered around several hours until my feet were soaking wet. In the evening, I read and drank wine and people-watched at a sidewalk cafe, sheltered from the rain by an awning and from the cold by gas torches. It occurs to me that walking several hours a day, even when it's raining and cold out, makes me feel very good afterwards, both physically and mentally. I should walk more in West Metropolis, but not planned walks, which bore me. Instead, I should do as I do here, walk more or less at random, at each intersection taking whichever street looks most interesting, and finally head for a cafe when I begin to feel tired.

Flight back to West Metropolis. I began to miss Europe almost immediately upon leaving, despite how little effort I put into making my visit there interesting and exciting. All I seem to care about these days is sex, and that interest I couldn't actively pursue in Europe because of Sarah and Helen waiting for me back home, to speak nothing of Marianne in North Metropolis. It seems absurd that I spent an entire month in Europe and did nothing but walk the streets all day, and then read by myself in cafes in the evening. Never went to any of the tourist attractions, hardly spoke to anyone. The fact is, when I follow my desires, I end up doing very little, because there is very little I want to do, other than masturbate and eat and possibly read, assuming I have something interesting to read. Speaking of eating, the food was one thing I did enjoy in Europe. Though even there, the tale I have to tell sounds pathetic: breakfasting in the park on lentil soup from a can and raw broccoli and fruit and other ready-to-eat foods from the grocery store, as if I were some sort of homeless person who couldn't afford a sit-down restaurant, then endless pastries and chocolates and other junk food, with a quiche now and then for protein. The proper thing would seem to have been to eat at fine restaurants every meal. But when I did eat at restaurants, I always felt mildly sick afterwards, partially from overeating and partially from more meat than I'm accustomed to. And so eventually I reverted to the diet I prefer.

I spent the morning cleaning my apartment, especially the kitchen, whose floor was littered with dead roaches. When is this roach problem going to end?

There was a phone message from Lisa on my answering machine, dating from when I was in Europe and inviting me to a vegetarian dinner of some sort. I had no desire to speak to or see Lisa and so decided to postpone responding to this message.

Lunch with Helen. The big news is that Paul finally lost his job. Several times over the past few months, he had composed emails while working at home, in which he complained about the work that he was being asked to do. On one occasion, for example, he complained that his work amounted to "nothing but bells and whistles which will have no positive impact on the company's bottom line". In his discussions with Helen, Paul used blunter language. "Menial" and "beneath me" was how he described his work. The true source of Paul's dissatisfaction with his job has never been completely clear. Perhaps he feels himself to be a failure in his career, for not having achieved what he thinks he should have achieved, given his intelligence and education. During conversations with Helen, he has often said that he doesn't understand why he is working for his supervisor and not vice-versa, given that he is older and has more impressive credentials than his supervisor. Related to, and perhaps underlying, Paul's sense of failure in his career might be a sense of failure in his personal life. In particular, Paul has never been able to have children, despite supposedly wanting children, due to his inability to maintain a stable long-term relationship with a woman, which in turn is largely due to his inability to hold down a steady job.

In any case, until recently, Paul had never sent any of these emails full of complaints, because Helen always intervened first. The typical sequence of events was as follows. Helen would notice Paul banging on the computer keyboard—an indication that he was upset. She would ask him what was on his mind. Paul would then show Helen the email he was composing, whereupon Helen would do her best to calm Paul down and convince him delete the email. This last time, however, Paul's determination to self-destruct won out, and off an email went. The supervisor, naturally, was offended and called Paul into his office for a discussion. Paul might have gotten off with no more than a reprimand had he simply apologized at this point, but his pride made this impossible. "The situation had gone too far. There was no possibility of turning back," he explained to Helen later. The discussion concluded with the supervisor saying something along the lines of, "In that case, maybe you should look around for another job," whereupon Paul handed in his resignation.

Paul is now anxiously looking for a new job. Most likely, whatever job he finds will pay less than the $105,000/year he was making at the job he quit and also will require him to relocate. Unlike at the start of his previous bout of unemployment, Paul has no savings this time, other than a small amount of money from his retirement plan. On the contrary, he substantial credit card debt, plus $20,000 due on the loan for the sports car he bought last year (which he is now trying to sell).

Prior to Paul's being fired, Helen had partially moved back to her own apartment, on account of problems getting a good night's sleep when at Paul's apartment. The arrangement she worked out was that she would spend weekdays at her apartment and weekends with Paul. Last week, however, Paul declared that this arrangement was unacceptable and he laid down an "ultimatum". Either Helen moves back entirely to her own apartment and they cease to be a couple, or else she spends all her time at his apartment. Helen isn't sure what she plans to do.

"I feel bad about abandoning Paul in his time of need, even if he did cause his own downfall and even if I have to quit my job and relocate to be with him. I should stick by my man. And I do want children and I don't want to live alone and Paul is willing to accept my sexual problems whereas other men wouldn't. Thought then again, I can also see that the situation with Paul will never be stable. I wouldn't mind supporting him, but then we would have to have spending limits, since I don't have unlimited amounts of money, and he won't accept that. I might try the personal ads again. I talked to a woman at work and told her I wished I could find a nice boyfriend who was impotent or had a low libido and she said if that's what I want then I should place an ad saying so."

Sarah picked me after work and we then drove to her house. I gave her a wrapped present of the airline knife-fork-spoon set which she had asked me to steal (the cutlery is imprinted with the airline logo, which is what makes it special), while she showed me the developed photos from our trip. We then began kissing and soon enough were undressed and fucking away in bed. My control was initially perfect, so that I was able to have three kung-fu valley orgasms over the course of an hour or so, without ever losing or suffering a softening of my erection. Sarah, however, was tense from work, and hence unable to come at all, despite being highly aroused. Finally, I decided to stop. My erection and desire were both undiminished, but I was concerned that Sarah might get sore if we didn't rest. We lay in bed for another hour, then had dinner, then talked some more on the sofa, then returned to bed. Another two kung-fu valley orgasms for me but continued difficulty for Sarah. Eventually, I resorted to fucking hard and fast and deep, as if only concerned about myself, which after about five minutes brought Sarah to tottering on the verge of orgasm—moaning and quivering and whatnot—and then her excitement in turn excited me so much that I lost control and ejaculated. As it turns out, my loss of control wasn't a problem, since Sarah's orgasm began just a second or two after mine. Indeed, I suspect it was precisely the feeling of my semen squirting into her cunt which finally pushed her over the edge.

Despite some rough edges at first—tenseness on the part of Sarah, reduced sensitivity for myself due to lack of practice—overall our sex tonight was superb. Several times I felt as though time had stopped, which to me is the defining quality of the very best sex. Sarah is certainly difficult to satisfy in bed. She never comes from cunnilingus or manual manipulation and it sometimes takes an hour or more to get her to come from intercourse, and even then she needs her clitoris to be stroked with my finger while my cock massages her from the inside. But this difficulty isn't necessarily a problem. Given that I am capable of satisfying her, it might even be a good thing. It causes the sex to last longer (and what better way to pass time than having sex?) and Sarah appreciates me more, for being able to do for her what most other men can't.

I called Mark and left a message indicating that I'd be calling again in the near future. Though, to be honest, I really have nothing to say to him and don't particularly want to have him visit me. Still, he was friendly enough to put me up for a few days last year, so I suppose I ought to repay the favor, assuming he wants to visit West Metropolis.

I took the bus to Sarah's house in the evening. A light dinner and then we sat on the sofa and talked. Somehow we got onto the topic of cosmetic surgery, with both of us agreeing that it was absurd, other than for people with birth defects or victims of severe accidents. I mentioned that one of my former girlfriends (this would be Karen) had gotten her breasts enlarged. Sarah was fascinated by my description of how these enlarged breasts were hard, "like overinflated tires" was my description, even though the enlargement was done with saline solution. (I suspect Karen had demanded the doctor fill the sac with more than the recommended amount of solution, in order to make her breasts as large as possible.) Sarah remarked that she had often thought of getting breast reduction surgery. I was shocked, since her breasts are not sagging or otherwise grotesquely overlarge, though she is most definitely well-endowed.

"I just don't like the way people stare at me. I can never wear tight sweaters or tee-shirts without everyone staring at me. I still remember when I was about twenty years old and some fifteen year old boy ran up and grabbed me by the breasts. Isn't that incredible? I was traumatized for years after that. I was very sheltered from the world back then."

To bed early, as both Sarah and I were very tired. She from lack of sleep last night and me from jet lag. A half-hour or so of sex, with several valley orgasms for me, but then Sarah indicated that she was getting sore, and so we desisted and immediately fell sound asleep.

Sex again in the early morning, with me lying on my back and Sarah lying on her back on top of me, so that I was fucking upwards and from behind. With a heavier woman, such an arrangement of bodies would surely have been uncomfortable, but Sarah is small enough that I hardly noticed her weight. The position has the advantage of allowing the man to simultaneously stimulate the woman in all manner of ways—grinding against her buttocks, massaging her g spot with the head of his cock, manipulating her clitoris with one hand and her right breast with the other, sucking her left breast. Several valley orgasms for me during the half-hour or so we fucked this way, whereas Sarah wasn't able to come at all, despite being highly excited. The problem was that she needs rapid, lubricated rubbing of her clitoris to come, and this I was unable to provide, on account of her clitoris drying out quickly due to being fully exposed to the air, so that each time she approached orgasm, I would have to pause and apply more lubricant. Finally, we reverted to missionary position and then I had no difficulty bringing her off. Powerful orgasms for both of us, with mine starting immediately after Sarah's began. I left afterwards, to give Sarah a chance to run errands.

I took the bus to Sarah's house in the evening. My body has yet to fully adjust for the nine hour time difference between here and Europe, and so by ten I was exhausted and in no mood for sex. But I did want to kiss Sarah and one thing led to another and soon enough I was hard. Despite my tiredness, my erection was rock-solid and my level of sensitivity and sense of rhythm were excellent. It was as though I was on auto-pilot, everything worked so perfectly. I was able to reduce Sarah to trembling and shaking in almost no time, by precisely adjusting the pressure and timing with which I touched various parts of her body. It didn't hurt that I was so bored by the sex that I didn't have to worry about losing control and thus could focus all my attention on Sarah. After she came, I pounded away and came myself. Not that I really wanted to come, but I was concerned that if I didn't come, I might be aroused all night and consequently unable to sleep well, and I definitely wanted a good night's sleep.

For several days now, I've felt a sort of prickling energy throughout my body. At first, I thought this was due to jet lag. Then I thought it might be due to the hip loosening stretches I've been doing lately, which seem to have freed up blocked energy in my pelvic region. And then it occurred to me that these valley orgasms I've been having during sex might have filled my body with some sort of energy to which I'm not yet accustomed. At first, this energy felt good, like the feeling I get after certain intense yoga stretches. Today, however, it felt uncomfortable. Though I'm not sure that the energy is to blame for my discomfort. It might equally be due to constipation (my gut always tightens when I spend more than a few hours at Sarah's house in the suburbs) or from soreness in my muscles, due to my long walk yesterday plus sleeping too long last night, or sleeping on a bed that is softer than I would prefer and then being forced to scoot to the side because of the way Sarah rolls to my side of the bed and hugs me at night. In any case, I wasn't in the best of moods and this put something of a damper on the day.

While walking in a nearby wilderness park, Sarah complained that I was being "negative". What happened was that, upon seeing some bike riders, I mentioned that I had considered buying a bike myself several years ago, so as to be prepared when the next crisis hits and the oil supply gets disrupted, and that I also considered buying a handgun for portable self-defense and a shotgun for medium-range self-defense and a high-powered rifle for long-distance self-defense, plus ten thousand rounds of ammunition, since ammo was a valuable commodity during times of crisis. Sarah was upset by all this talk of guns and crisis. Of course, calling me "negative" is about as good a way as any to thoroughly piss me off. If Sarah weren't so gentle and cheerful, I would have lashed out and said something terribly nasty. Luckily, however, I managed to bite my tongue.

Lunch at small cafe near the wilderness park, where I ate little, as I'm planning to begin a three-day fast tomorrow, in hopes of restoring my energy level to normal. Then a visit to the shopping mall. I sat on a bench and read while Sarah ran around to various stores. And then back to her house, where she worked on bills while I lay on the sofa and read. Sarah insisted on repaying $180 from the $250 I had loaned her in Europe (since the money machine there wouldn't accept her bank card), which was a little less than what she really owed me (part of the $250 went for hotel bills that we had agreed to share). I would have preferred that Sarah keep the entire $250, to partially compensate for all the various expenses she incurs as a result of my spending more time at her house than she spends at my apartment, but she absolutely refused to consider this. I was again very sleepy as nine o'clock rolled around, and so retired to bed early, while Sarah pored over the study book for the driver's license test (she is paranoid about failing). I was asleep when she came in later and so we didn't have sex, which is just as well. Whatever Sarah's mood may have been, I was far too tired for sex.

I masturbated like a maniac as soon as I got back to my apartment this morning and came twice. For whatever reason, for several days now I've been wanting masturbation more than sex with Sarah. These orgasms, together with a huge shit and the fact that I'm currently fasting, seems to have dissipated much of the uncomfortable internal energy I was feeling yesterday.

My fasting continues, with little difficulty. By simply not thinking about food, I feel no hunger. A wonderful feeling of lightness and flexibility this morning while doing my yoga exercises. I am clearly eliminating some poisons from my system with this fasting.

Sarah spent the night at my apartment. As we fucked in missionary position, Sarah reached under her leg and massaged my balls with her hand, which greatly excited me, so that I was constantly having to pause to collect myself and keep from coming prematurely. Meanwhile, Sarah wasn't able to concentrate on her orgasm, due to being busy playing with my balls. Finally, she suggested I go ahead and come, even though she hadn't come yet. I refused at first, but eventually gave in to her request. As soon as I began to come, Sarah became excited and changed her mind about not wanting to come herself. Unfortunately, my cock softened immediately after I came and so we couldn't continue fucking. Sarah briefly tried grinding against my pelvis in an attempt to bring herself off, but to no avail. We usually avoid talking after sex. Instead, even when we don't both come, we usually lie quietly in each other's arms, so as to savor the sense of having shared something and become very close, but there was none of that feeling tonight. Quite the contrary, the sex seemed to have pushed us apart. Sarah spoke first:

"You shouldn't have held off so long. I was about to come so many times and then you would stop."

"Sex is not symmetric. When the man comes, he loses his erection and everything stops. By contrast, if the woman comes first, it is no problem for the man to come afterwards. What you want is for my orgasm to trigger yours, which doesn't always work, and sex which is only sometimes good leads to frustration. You begin to dread the sex because you never know whether it is going to be good or not."

"It was still very nice tonight."

"Anyway, there is no reason to rush things. We can always pause and take a break and then resume later. We have the whole night, after all."

All in all, Sarah is my best sex partner ever. The best for cunnilingus and the second best for intercourse. (I still don't hit the tantric heights with her that I did with Elizabeth). I hate to give her up, but I also dread the idea of being dragged into a gutter world of "slam-bam-thank-you-mam" junk sex, with the man pounding away and coming as soon as he can and the woman getting off on such crudeness. Which is sort of what she seemed to be wanting tonight, what with this idea of my coming first and then my orgasm triggering hers. This is the sort of sex that Marianne asked for, and which turned me off so. I'd rather masturbate than have sex like that again.

I broke my fast yesterday at lunch and ever since have been gorging myself. Exactly what my yoga book warns against. However, I'm not sure the advice in this yoga book is appropriate for everyone. The goal of yoga is to reduce pain, including such purely mental forms of pain as boredom. For yogis, moderation may indeed reduce pain, but that's because yogis tend to have a different native temperament from everyone else. In particular, they don't suffer greatly from boredom when doing nothing but sitting still and breathing all day long. For most people, moderation leads to boredom, which is among the worst pains there is. Even to the extent that moderation leads to better health, that isn't necessarily a good thing, since good health can itself be a source of boredom, and occasional illness can be a good thing to the extent that it tends to spice things up in life. So perhaps my gorging of today and yesterday isn't so bad, regardless of what my yoga book says.

Lunch with Helen. As of two weeks ago, she had agreed to move back into Paul's apartment full time. This was in response to Paul's ultimatum: "Either move back in with me or we break up for good." Then this past Saturday, Helen called Paul from her apartment to announce that she was working on her computer, and so would be late for dinner.

"So, you want to continue working on your computer?" said Paul.

"Actually, yes," replied Helen.

"Maybe you should just stay at your apartment this whole weekend."

Helen realized that Paul was upset about her missing dinner, and so she called him later to apologize, but he was out. Then she called again the next day, in response to which Paul came by to pick her up and help move her things back to his apartment, where she has spent the past three days. But then just this morning, after having slept poorly for several nights in a row, she announced that she was moving back to her own apartment, at least during the week, since she was unable to sleep soundly when at Paul's apartment. "Make sure you leave the keys," said Paul. "Gladly," replied Helen. And that is how matters stand now.

Helen's sleep problems may be related to other problems with her relationship with Paul. Paul has been making noises about not being satisfied with anal sex: "If you think I'm going to put up with that forever, you're wrong. And I know the only reason you stay with me is that no other man would put up with that." Also, Paul is now unemployed, and deeply in debt, and looking at bankruptcy unless he finds a job soon. Assuming they continue to be lovers, Helen will probably feel obligated to help Paul out financially, by tapping her savings and perhaps giving up her apartment in order to share the rent on his.

According to Helen, the only time she really wants to be with Paul or any other man, is on weekends, when she gets lonely. Otherwise, she wants to be left alone to "decompress" after a stressful day at work. She is thinking of getting back with Eddie, the man her cousin introduced her to back in July of last year. He sent her an email recently to check how she was doing. "That invention he patented is related to menstrual cramps, which means he's concerned about women's health problems, such as my bladder infections. Bingo number one. And, he spent two years taking care of his dying mother. Bingo number two. Quite a contrast between him versus you and Paul, I must say. The only downside is that he seems to have a high libido. He's always slipping these references to sex into his conversations and emails. Though I'm not sure what that means..." Eddie recommended that Helen have sex with a complete stranger in order to help forget Paul.

Sarah and I took a long walk in the wilderness park, complete with boat ride to the island and picnic on top of the mountain. For whatever reason, I became nasty on the way home, in response to a question of hers regarding a recently passed law: "Good for who? For me? For you? For rich people? For poor people? For the universe as a whole? Is this good or not?. This is just the sort of stupid meaningless pap question that I detest. The sort of thing they talk about on television to keep the people stupid. The workers! Since when did anyone care about the workers? The voters, now that's a different story. Politicians care about the voters. They may not care about what's good for the voters, but they do care about what the voters think. A subtle difference, which stupid people don't often recognize. But nobody gives two shits and a fuck about the workers." As soon as we arrived at Sarah's house, I took off my clothes and showered. When I emerged from the bathroom, Sarah was lying curled up on the bed and facing the wall.

"I'm sorry about being so nasty in the car," I said.

"You ought to be sorry," she replied.

"So now you've seen what my bad side is like."

"I always suspected you had that in you."

"Are you going to forgive me?"

"Maybe."

Then we began kissing and soon enough were engaged in sex. Neither of us came, though I had several valley orgasms. We stopped when Sarah began to get sore.

Another bout of sex in the morning, immediately after waking. We started with mutual oral sex, then proceeded to intercourse. Two valley orgasms for me, then both of us approached peak orgasm. My normal reaction would be to hold off on my peak orgasm until the woman comes, but given what Sarah had said the last time we were together about how this caused problems for her, I decided to do what I have spent most of my life training myself not to do. Namely, as soon as Sarah and I were both on the verge of orgasm, I let myself go. The result was just what I expected, in that my orgasm was insufficient to bring Sarah over the edge and she was left stranded.

"You didn't come, did you?" I asked as soon as my body stopped shaking.

"I came partially," replied Sarah.

"From now on, I wait until you come, okay? I've got plenty of experience with women in general and with you in particular and I know what works and what doesn't. The man coming first doesn't work. If the man is about to come and you haven't come, then you have to let the man pause."

"Okay, we'll try it that way next time. It was nice anyway."

I left for my apartment soon afterwards, allegedly to do some work, but in reality because I wanted some time alone.

Helen called while I was at my apartment. We talked for a while about getting together this afternoon, either at the cafe or else her or my apartment, but then she detected that I didn't really want to see her and so we cancelled these plans. After all day yesterday in Sarah's company, I had a need to be alone.

I returned to Sarah's house in the evening, where we discussed relationships between men and woman.

"I hope you didn't mean it when you said our relationship was just about sex," said Sarah. She was referring to a conversation from a week ago.

"I did indeed mean it. We may get more than sex from one another. However, without sex, our relationship would quickly wither," I replied.

"I suppose that's true of most relationships."

"It most certainly is not true. In fact, sex is a minor issue in most long-lasting and strong relationships. Take your ex-lover and his wife, for example. Not much sex there, I'm sure. But they do have a strong relationship, based on satisfying real needs in the other person. He needed help raising his daughters, and now he needs help due to his stroke. Also, that salary his wife brings in is quite useful. As for her, she can't live without a man who she can admire and look up to. She would fall to pieces if she were living alone. Oh, and one other thing he gets from her. He also needs someone to boss around and use as an outlet for his aggressiveness."

"You've certainly got a bad opinion of him."

"You're the one who told me he used to bully you in public and that's one of the main reasons you left him. Anyway, another relationship not based on sex is that of your other friends who we stayed with in Europe. They don't have sex, I don't think, and they don't need each other for money, since they both have sizeable pensions. My impression is that theirs is what might be called a soulmate relationship. You know that word soulmate, don't you? A soulmate is someone whose mind works almost exactly like your own, except they are of the opposite sex. Everyone dreams of meeting their soulmate. Now these friends of yours might not be suitable as soulmates for me or you..."

"I should say not!"

"...but they are for one another."

During tonight's sex, we returned to our tried-and-tested missionary position methods, with me running things and none of this foolishness of Sarah trying to get me more excited than I already was. The result was that everything was once again without problems. Sarah came without difficulty and my orgasm started immediately after hers was fully in progress.

A new sexual variation this morning, which excited us both. We began with our usual position for mutual oral sex—namely, lying on our sides—but then switched so that Sarah was flat on her back and I was above her, supported on my knees and elbows, rubbing my cock and balls against her face while licking her clitoris and holding one finger inside her cunt and against her g spot. Sarah came in this position, then I turned around and fucked her for ten minutes of so, hovering on the edge of orgasm the whole while, so that it seemed like a continuous valley orgasm, before finally letting myself go.

I left in the afternoon, after telling Sarah that I would be traveling this coming week for work reasons. In truth, I just wanted an excuse to get away from her for a while. Also, this talk of traveling now and then helps to make my work cover story more plausible. It seems too unbelievable that I always work from my apartment. In order to give at least some truth to this tale of traveling this week, I decided to take another overnight trip to Basin City, similar to the one I took earlier this year.

Strange how perfectly at home I felt among the other retirees crowding the bus to Basin City. These geezers eking out a living on Social Security and traveling to the casinos every few months in order to blow their savings on the quarter slot machines and pig out at the all-you-can-eat buffet. None of us worries about earning money anymore, we're only concerned with spending money. What a difference in outlook that makes! Being retired puts a barrier between me and almost everyone else my age. Only with other retirees can I reveal that I don't work for a living, without worrying about arousing jealousy.

Not that I particularly wanted to reveal anything or otherwise relate to the other passengers on today's bus. My seat mate was a typical specimen. His skin blotchy and flaking as if from disease, one eye swollen shut by a lump, his whole body (but especially his mouth) stinking of rot and decay, his clothes filthy and rumpled. I couldn't help but imagine what it must be like to have sex with such a man. The idea of a desperate prostitute sucking his cock, for example. It fairly makes my head spin! He babbled almost nonstop to the man in the seat behind us, as if terrified of silence: "Hey, Bob, look, I got the game on the radio. Oh, dang it, I can't hear anymore. Oh, boy oh boy! Williams on second, Hamilton at the plate, he hits it, foul ball! Oh, boy, I can't believe it! If we can just hold out, we'll win. Oh, man, I wish I could get better reception... Hey, Bob, we're going to take a rest stop. Remember the last time, they stopped for fifteen minutes. Don't you remember? Yeah, they stopped for fifteen minutes and then we all could get out except I didn't want to get out... Hey, Bob, you know what? I'm going to play ten spot on the Keno. I played that last time and I nearly won. And then two years ago, I got seven of eight and won $1500..."

Not only did I feel at home among the retirees, I also felt at home in Basin City. There is something extraordinarily soothing to my nerves here, with the barren hills in view just east of the city, marking the beginning of the desert, and the blazing sun, and the howling wind and dryness in the air, and the glitzy casinos downtown, and residential neighborhoods of low-slung houses surrounded by neatly tended yards, and cheap motels offering weekly rentals, and the apparent absence of anyone else here with my education or interests. Everything conspires to make me feel far, far away from the noise of civilization. I have no intention of giving up my apartment in West Metropolis anytime soon, but henceforth I'll consider Basin City my true spiritual home.

I spent the evening studying a Portuguese grammar, which was the only reading matter I had brought along. During a break, I listened through the wall to a slurring drunk loudly berating his wife or girlfriend: "I don't care what you might have done. I want to know what you did. I don't care how much you lose. You lose $30, $100, $1000. It doesn't matter. But I have to know how much. Now how much are you going to bet tonight? I told you, I don't care about that! All you ever do is tell me what you were going to bet last night but didn't because you didn't have enough money. I already told you. I don't care. I don't need to know that and so I don't care. I have too many things to worry about without you telling me what you might have done but didn't do. You understand? Now, how much money do you need for tonight? $35? Just that? All right, then, $37. Any amount is okay, but I have to know the exact amount. So you want $37? Okay, then. I don't have $37 exactly, so take $40 and then just bet the extra $3 and that'll be that, okay?"

Towards the end of the bus ride back to West Metropolis, I changed places, so as to have a double seat to myself. As soon as I moved, my former seat mate loudly denounced me to his friend: "Man, that guy was something! Twice I tried to talk to him and he didn't even bother to reply. I mean I'm sorry if I did something wrong? Did I do something wrong, Bob? I asked him if we were stopping for fifteen minutes or not and he just doesn't say anything. And then he gets up and moves. Gee, I am really sorry!" Of course, the reason I was rude is that I wanted to avoid being trapped in conversation with this overly talkative fool.

Helen had left a message on my answering machine yesterday, and so I called her when I got back to my apartment. Not even a week living by herself and already she is feeling lonely: "I got a little neurotic last night and that's why I called, but I'm feeling okay today. I took the day off from work." After she wrote some computer programs to greatly reduce the other employees' workload, they joked that they planned to hire a bodyguard for her, since she is now too valuable to lose. She continues to hate her job, however, regardless of these compliments.

Lunch with Helen. In addition to calling me during her fit of loneliness, she also called Paul, but he was out as well: "Two boyfriends and neither of them home in my time of need." She became worried that he might be with another woman and so called him yesterday to check. One thing led to another and now they have agreed to get together this weekend, though Helen still isn't sure of what her long-term plans are with respect to Paul. He told her he has changed his mind about selling his sports car, even though he barely has enough money to live on, much less pay the interest on the $20,000 he still owes for that car. As for getting a job, he says the situation looks grim, largely on account of his spotty work history.

"I just can't give him up that easily," said Helen. "He's cast a spell over me... Though I don't know why I'm so worried about him getting another woman. He's broke and unemployed. Who wants that?"

"Someone who can't live alone and who wants the security of knowing her boyfriend will never leave and who has a good job so she can afford to support a stay-at-home boyfriend. Someone like you, in other words."

"Obviously, this conversation is going nowhere and it's time I got back to work."

"You told me yourself once that Paul had the makings of a gigolo. He's handsome, intelligent, educated, has good taste, dresses well, he's an excellent cook, and he doesn't mind being supported by a woman. I think there are plenty of women who want that, though they may not admit it."

"But he's not aggressive. I approached him first. And his ex-wife was the one who suggested marriage, not him."

"That was the woman who supported him for three years, wasn't it? Anyway, my little pumpkin, you just make sure that rascal doesn't get his hands on your savings."

"It's either him or it gets lost in the stock market."

This last statement was in reference to an earlier discussion, in which Helen complained of having lost money in stocks over the past year.

I took the bus to Sarah's house, where we had dinner, followed by conversation, followed by an excellent bout of sex. The instant my cock first touched bottom in her cunt, I began to experience a valley orgasm, which lasted ten minutes or so, after which I turned my attention to Sarah's pleasure. Little trouble tonight bringing her off. In fact, I deliberately delayed her orgasm as otherwise she would have come too soon. The usual peak orgasm for me starting right after Sarah's orgasm was completely underway. Once again, our bodies are working together like finely tuned machines.

The next day I felt listless. A mild stomach ache when I woke up, then I didn't want to do anything all morning, then I lay in bed napping all afternoon, following a bout of sex at noon. I believe the cause of this listlessness is that I am increasingly bored by Sarah's company. All I could think of all day was traveling somewhere, and adventures with other women, even though I know that I would anxious to escape these other women as soon as I met them.

The sex was similar to that of last week. Mutual oral sex for starters, with me on top, resting on my elbows and knees, rubbing my cock and balls against Sarah's face, moving my finger in and out of her cunt, pressing upwards against her g spot all the while, and alternating between licking her clitoris and rubbing it with my thumb. As she became increasingly excited, Sarah arched her back and pushed at me to make me lick faster and then she pulled my cock into her mouth and grabbed at my buttocks as if urging me to penetrate fully. But I knew this would cause her to gag and so I held back and only made her swallow about half of my cock. When she began to come, I rolled onto my side and let her close her legs, but kept my face firmly pressed against her cunt until her body ceased shuddering. We then turned around and fucked missionary position for fifteen minutes or so, during which I had several valley orgasms and then a final peak orgasm. My erection was rock-solid the whole time, as is almost always the case with Sarah. However bored I am by her company, sexually I find her as attractive as ever.

I took to ranting in the evening, after downing several beers. Sarah alleges that she enjoys listening to my rants/lectures/sermons and eggs me on to talk more. My own preference would be to read my book and say nothing, but she is annoyed when I do that. I began with the thesis that a primary cause of the widespread sense of dissatisfaction in modern society is the belief in free will. Instead of accepting that they are "cursed" or "unlucky" or otherwise helpless victims of a hostile universe, people in modern society blame themselves for their situation and thereby greatly increase their misery. If free will did exist, then people who are unhappy should be able to simply will themselves into being happy. In reality, of course, it is impossible to will such internal changes. To the extent that our personality does change, it does so as a result of factors beyond our control. We become more serene with age, for example, but this change is forced upon us by the process of aging and is not something we will into existence. I then rose to my feet and made a sweeping gesture towards Sarah's bookshelves and began fulminating about how her "New Age" and popular psychology books (with titles like "Women who love too much", "The courage to be rich", "A woman's guide to men and loving", and so on) had poisoned the spiritual atmosphere of her house with the hateful notion of free will. "It's a good thing you don't believe in religion. I hate to imagine the sort of preacher you would have become," laughed Sarah.

Later, we had an interesting discussion about the lottery, which we agreed can be an excellent deal, even though the odds are terrible. The idea is that the bettor gets a week's worth of excitement and dreams of wealth just by buying a single one-dollar ticket. It is when one buys more than one ticket that the lottery becomes a bad deal, since multiple tickets don't provide significantly more excitement or dreams than a single ticket.

I masturbated twice immediately upon returning to my apartment, in an effort to relieve the tension and exhaustion that I'd been suffering from ever since arriving at Sarah's house. It isn't really Sarah who is at fault, since all my lovers prior to her affected me similarly. Nor is the problem one of loss of semen, as the Taoists sex books suggest, since no one exhausts me more than Helen, with whom loss of semen is not an issue. My theory is that there is some sort of misdirected energy in my relationships with women. With Helen, the problem is clearly one of frustrated sexual desire. With other women, the exhaustion results from having to maintain a facade of lies. In particular, the lie that our relationship is about something other than sex. This fundamental lie in turn leads to other lies and before long I'm spinning preposterous tall tales, like that story of traveling last week for work reasons. (Sarah told me, incidentally, that she had a dream last week wherein I was sitting in a cafe studying Portuguese. I hope she didn't drive by my favorite cafe in West Metropolis this past week and see me there doing just that.) If Sarah accepted me for what I really am—namely, a guy who she sees several times a week for sex—it wouldn't matter what I did for a living, nor would we even discuss our work. In fact, we wouldn't talk about much of anything, other than to engage in essential communication with regards to sex. I like it when you do that, it hurts when you do that, and so forth.

It isn't so much that I actively dislike talking to Sarah, or helping her out when I can—fixing her plumbing, moving furniture, helping with her computer and whatnot. It's just that we shouldn't be pretending that our relationship is deeper than it really is. Unfortunately, if I confront Sarah with the truth about our relationship, the situation will likely only get worse. Instead of merely being bored and exhausted and tense from spending time in her company, I'll have to put up with tears and bitterness and attempts to make me feel guilty and so on and so forth, to speak nothing of the possibility that we break up, so that I have to look for a replacement lover, who may well be less satisfactory than Sarah, all things considered.

I've done very little since returning from Europe, other than spend time with Sarah and Helen, and masturbate, and read novels, and study Portuguese and Italian, and write in this journal. But what difference does it make? What else is there for me to do?

I called Helen, and she agreed to meet me for lunch, though she complained of not feeling well: "These plans are based on the assumption that I make it to lunch. There's a good chance I'll die before then. Everything is denied me. A little cognac in the evening to help me relax, a shot of coffee in the morning to help me wake up, a little in and out action with my love partner. Everything is denied me because of this horrible disease. No wonder I'm always so wound up and tense all the time." The horrible disease is her "bladder infections". When I asked which hole she was using for the in and out, she became testy: "The usual...though what difference does it make to you? I'm tired of answering your questions about my personal life." Then she complained that "things just don't seem to be progressing" in her life with Paul, but failed to give specifics.

When she arrived at the cafe, Helen was upset over an incident that had just occurred at her workplace. It seems her supervisor had called a meeting, in which she asked for ideas whereby the department could justify hiring two new employees. When it became Helen's turn to speak, instead of offering ideas for why there was more work, Helen blurted out that the computer program she had recently written, and for which she was being praised last week, had actually reduced work. In fact, it had reduced forty-one tasks to five. "But that's just what I'm not looking for," replied the manager. Helen had to leave the meeting early, to meet me for lunch. On her way out, a co-worker, who used to cause Helen grief by making a mess of all the work they did jointly until Helen complained and demanded that she and this co-worker no longer be forced to work together, laughed and called out: "Bye-bye, troublemaker!" This same co-worker had earlier cited "all the computer problems we've been having" as her idea for why the department needed two new employees. This was an indirect attack on Helen, who is responsible for the department's computer programming.

"All my life, the minute I do something good, I get shot down. I beat my brother in board games and so what happens? He hits me over the head with the board, that's what. I race him to the bus and win, and guess what? He waits until we get off the bus, and then, as soon as we turn the corner, he punches me in the face. I've been taught that every time I do anything good, I'll get punished. No wonder I'm hanging out with these losers. I've been brainwashed into thinking that's where I belong." I pointed out that Helen deserved to be rebuked, since she was not cooperating with her manager's desire to hire more employees: "Everyone else is being helpful and then you come along and toss a grenade over the fence. A regular bomb-thrower is what you are." Then Helen fretted that her supervisor may try to get revenge on her now. I reassured her that the company did appreciate her intelligence, and that the last thing they wanted was to have nothing but incompetents like Helen's former co-worker working for them, because then the supervisors would have to do all the work. "But you've got to learn to be a team player and avoid blowing your own horn so loudly. You've got a cushy job where you can slack off all day. Just don't go off and threaten someone else's cushy job, that's the important thing," I explained.

Aside from sending me an email while I was in Europe, to which I never responded, Marianne had also telephoned while I was away and left a message on my answering machine. Today she sent another email, regarding her travel plans (she will be away until August), which concluded: "It will make me happy to hear from you even when I am away. ;-))." I feel bad about not replying, but then I also don't what to say.

I took the bus to Sarah's house in the evening. A good bout of missionary position sex, at least for me, but with Sarah unable to come. She didn't indicate why, though I sensed that she was feeling slightly depressed.

Sex in the morning at my prompting, though I wasn't very aroused. Sarah hadn't come during sex since last weekend, which means she probably hadn't come at all since then, since I don't think she masturbates, and I was concerned that if she didn't come soon, her energy might get blocked up and we wouldn't have any good sex this weekend. Mutual oral sex for starters, concluding with a mild orgasm for her, then some missionary position fucking, concluding with a mild peak orgasm for me. I reflected later that I should have contented myself with a valley orgasm, and thus saved myself for some blow-out sex tomorrow morning. However, it is always difficult to explain to a woman that I don't want to come. They tend to take it as an insult.

I spent the afternoon reading in a nearby cafe, while Sarah ran errands. In the evening, we went tango dancing at a club which Sarah had frequented in the past, but which she had avoided for almost a year, on the grounds that "people there are unfriendly." In particular, Sarah had the notion that the manager hates her for being small and pretty, whereas the manager is tall and fat and shows her age much more than Sarah. There may be some truth in this, though the manager greeted Sarah warmly, smiling and saying: "How have you been? It's been ages since I last saw you here!" Sarah and I danced about twenty times together, in our usual close hold, with breaks every four dances or so. Though I enjoyed watching Sarah dance with other men, I had little desire to dance with anyone else myself, other than several women who I've always found sexually attractive and with whom I've always danced well in the past. However, given that I was accompanied by Sarah, I didn't think it appropriate to be awakening strong sexual feelings with these other women, and so I avoided them tonight. In order to appear to be enjoying myself, I did dance once with another woman. In her thirties, good-looking but not sexually attractive to me. She held me at a distance and then was unable to follow and then apologized several times as we were dancing. Altogether, an unpleasant experience. Laura, the woman who I had danced with in Europe, was in attendance. We smiled and said hello but didn't talk or dance together. While resting, Sarah and I discussed our past experiences with the other people in the room. I've danced at one time or another with most of the other women, and Sarah has danced with most of the other men. On our way home, I noted that no one had appeared to act unfriendly towards Sarah. Sarah replied that it felt different when she went to this club as part of a couple rather than alone.

Another round of sex in the morning. Mutual oral sex for starters, but Sarah was unable to come in this position, despite all the standard indications of high arousal—mucus membranes slippery and engorged with blood, muscles tightening about my finger, g spot more prominent, outer lips loosening. So after about twenty minutes, we switched to missionary position, in which I had little difficulty in bringing her off, by rubbing her clitoris while massaging her g spot with my cock. I had a valley orgasm right after Sarah came, then resumed fucking and finished up a few minutes later with an extraordinarily satisfying peak orgasm, that left me utterly prostrated for an hour or more. There is little question but that mutual oral sex with man on top is my favorite position for foreplay. Unlike with cunnilingus, there is no problem with the woman getting bored—she has my cock in her mouth and my balls hanging over her nose to keep her occupied—and thus I get to bury my face in her cunt for as long as I want. Meanwhile, there is the thrill of dominating and even frightening the woman slightly with my cock poised as if to impale her throat. Mutual oral sex with man on top can be a strenuous workout for the man's stomach and chest muscles, since he has to keep himself supported on elbows and extended knees the whole time. Conveniently, though, I never feel exhaustion during sex. Immediately after final orgasm, on the other hand, I'm often suddenly overwhelmed with fatigue.

A picnic in the park in the afternoon, then we returned to Sarah's house in the evening, where we engaged in another bout of mutual oral sex, which we had to interrupt, however, in order for me to shave again, in order not to irritate Sarah with my stubble. When I returned from the bathroom, neither of us was in the mood to continue, and so we talked instead.

"My ex-boyfriend used to tell me about all the woman who had broken his heart. Tell me about your love tragedies," said Sarah.

"There are none. There's no tragedy whatsoever in my life. The whole thing is a stupid comedy. Also, the idea of being hurt in love is absurd to me," I replied.

"Is it that you try to avoid feeling deeply so as to avoid getting hurt?"

"I'm not sure. The idea that the loss of another person would cause me pain is not something I can readily conceive. By contrast, I can easily imagine feeling pain from the loss of money or the loss of a favorite piece of furniture. Even when I was a young child, I remember wishing my parents and sister would just disappear and leave me with the keys to the house and enough money to buy groceries. I have been in love, so I do know what the word means. In particular, I was and still am in love with Helen. By love, I mean feeling so close to another person that it is as if they were a part of yourself. But having experienced love doesn't mean I'm about to sing its praises. On the contrary, my tendency is to group love in the same category as hatred and envy and guilt and worry. It's just an emotion. I don't try to avoid love, the way I try to avoid emotions like hatred and envy, but I don't seek it out either, and if the truth be told, I sort of dread it. I suppose you could say I'm something of a cold-blooded monster."

"Do you think you'll ever marry Helen?"

"I really don't know. If we do marry, we can't live together, that's for sure. And we probably can't have sex together. As for having children together, the idea terrifies me. A two-year old child I can deal with. But a two-year old child from a mother who acts even less mature, now that is scary. Meanwhile, Helen's been living with another man for over three years. Does this bother me? Not in the least. In fact, I'm relieved that someone else is taking care of her. Taking care of her emotionally, that is, since he's unemployed and broke and thus certainly can't take care of her financially. In any case, when all is said and done, I tend to think that Helen and I are just very close friends."

"My ex-boyfriend once asked me if I knew what I bridge relationship was. I think that sounds like me, I told him and he said yes. What an asshole he was!"

"I've never been unhappy alone. However, I'm somewhat dissatisfied with masturbation and that's why I seek out lovers. But I'm equally dissatisfied when I have a lover. I'm always dissatisfied. But that's just my nature."

"Are you dissatisfied with me?"

"I get along better with you than any other woman I've ever known, and that's the truth, Sarah."

"I enjoy you, too. Though I sometimes think you deserve a kick in the pants."

I fell asleep early. I was still tired from last night and also bored by Sarah's company, so that my dreams seem more interesting than reality. Dreams about mutual oral sex with a teenage girl (about thirteen years old, pretty face, perfect skin, silky blonde hair), who I had seen earlier in the day, while stopping off for ice cream with Sarah. The girl had been accompanied by a troop of boys, who were chanting: "I love it, love it, love it, when Crystal sucks my pistol!"

Despite sleeping over ten hours last night, I was exhausted when I returned to my apartment this morning, and fell into a stuporous half-sleep after masturbating, during which I dreamt of angry men and women accusing me of having exposed myself in public. I'm convinced now that it's these seemingly endless weekends I spend with Sarah—these picnics and visits to the park and all this hanging around her house in the suburbs—that leaves me feeling so drained on Mondays. I wonder if it would be different if I could simply meet Sarah or some other women for sex several times a week, and then be allowed to slip away afterwards? A prostitute is out of the question for this purpose, since I'm much too sensitive not to notice that she's doing it for money, nor do I enjoy consorting anymore with the sort of callous and screwed-up women who become prostitutes. But surely there must be women out there who want sex without this business of spending so much time together acting like a couple. I should note that the tango dancing with Sarah this past weekend was not an energy drain. That activity actually left me feeling more energized, even though I only danced with Sarah.

Lunch with Helen. Now that he is unemployed and having difficulties finding another job, and may even be facing bankruptcy in the near future, Paul is suddenly interested in getting Helen pregnant again. "It's time you became a productive member of society by having some children," he told her one night. Meanwhile, they are continuing to squabble, with the latest conflict concerning Helen's desire to visit her parents' mountain vacation house this summer. Paul wanted to wait until fall, when the temperature will be cooler and the leaves will be changing color and he will hopefully have found another job. Helen proposed that they go together in the fall but also that she go by herself in the summer, for two reasons. First, she is anxious to take a break from work soon, rather than waiting four months until fall. Second, she wants to see her parents, who will be at the vacation house all summer but not in the fall. Paul became upset at this idea of Helen taking a vacation by herself and made an implied threat to break up if she did so: "If you want to visit that vacation house by yourself, then maybe you should go live there by yourself permanently!"

All in all, Helen has mixed feelings about her situation with Paul. On the one hand, she is having sleep problems again, from worrying over Paul's inability to get and keep a steady job, and over his repeated threats to break up over trivialities, and wonders if there is any purpose is staying with him: "Maybe it would be for the best if he got a job in another city and I remained here. The only thing good about him is that he cooks good meals and he's a good cuddler. He was always a good cook, but I taught him how to cuddle." On the other hand, she is thinking of accepting Paul's proposal that she get pregnant again: "My time is running out. If I don't do it now, I'll probably never have children." Though I didn't mention being the father of her children myself, she somehow guessed that I was thinking of this possibility and said: "I've given you plenty of chances and you weren't interested. You don't want to bother with raising a child."

When I told her I had resumed my study of the Tarot, Helen said: "It's eerie how you've managed to completely exchange my life for yours. There I was, this slacker who studied Tarot and had dreams of being a writer, and you were this boring computer programmer who went to a job each day. And now you're the slacker, and even more of a slacker than me, since at least I went to graduate school, and I've become the computer programmer. I've become you and you've become me. You've completely stolen my energy away, that's what's happened. I was so happy in graduate school. I may be returning, too. I would need a patron, of course, someone who was financially independent and could afford to support me." Then she gave me a story she had written about a road trip with an ex-boyfriend.

Sarah came by in the evening and we had sex. Neither of us came, however. She was unable to, while I contented myself with a valley orgasm in case she wanted to try again later. Dinner at a restaurant afterwards, then she returned home since she has to work tomorrow.

I read through Helen's story, and found it to be dismal stuff. Especially annoying was the overuse of literary devices. Flashbacks, strained metaphors ("reflections of buildings like omelets on the melting tar") and plays on words ("he hurt his arm, armed to the teeth, teeth like an armory"). The only parts I thought well-written were excerpts from Helen's journal of that period of her life. These were crazy-sounding, but at least there wasn't so much pretentiousness. One thing I did get from Helen's story is a new-found appreciation for just how messed-up she was ten years ago.

Great progress with my personal habits, on a number of fronts. First, I am now successfully managing to fall asleep while lying on my back, which has many advantages as a sleep posture, provided the head is kept propped up to allow breathing freely. In the past, I found that lying on my back tends to make me more alert. What I've discovered is that, if I can only stop myself from moving, other than movements related to breathing, the alertness and desire to fidget eventually peaks, and then I become very relaxed, the same effect as from meditating, and then I drift off into sleep.

Also, I have resumed my study of the Tarot, using the Aleister Crowley Thoth deck. I'm no longer worrying about divination or meanings or correspondences between the Tarot cards and the Kabbala. Instead, I simply contemplate the cards one by one or in groups, which I find has a calming effect.

My New Year's resolution to be able to sit comfortably on the floor for hours at a time is now on the verge of being accomplished. I had given up on this resolution, but then recently I experimented with sitting on the floor again, and—lo and behold!—something has changed so that I am no longer having problems with my feet falling asleep.

Finally, I have decided to drastically reduce the amount of flour and sugar and other high-glycemic index foods from my diet. I've tried this before, but never successfully, but something tells me that this time will be different. I'm also experimenting with eating a tablespoon of flax seeds each morning and evening, to help balance my intake of Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids.

Missionary position sex with Sarah. She came without difficulty, with my orgasm starting immediately after hers was fully underway. The problem we had earlier this week, when she visited my apartment after work and then returned since she had to work the next day, was simply that work was stressing her out and she can't come when she's tense and stressed. Now that it's the weekend, she can relax.

Sarah initiated sex in the morning, but I was tired, and though I eventually managed to get hard, my erection faded once we began fucking and it became evident that Sarah wasn't going to come easily. After breakfast, we drove to the wilderness park and walked to the top of mountain and then lingered there for several hours, picnicking and reading, then walked back and returned to her house. Another round of sex after we showered. We started with mutual oral sex with me on top. Sarah became wildly excited when I began fucking gently with my cock buried deep in her mouth, so that she gagged with each thrust, and she came easily. Then fifteen minutes of missionary position fucking, with me undergoing one valley orgasm after another—I counted at least ten—before a final peak ejaculatory orgasm. This bout of sex left me utterly exhausted, so that immediately after rolling off Sarah, I collapsed face down on the bed and passed out, even though it was only about eight in the evening.

I woke up about four in the morning, and spent the next four hours idly dreaming about the blonde with whom I had danced my first night in Europe. Sarah, meanwhile, got out of bed at about five to check her stock portfolio (she told me later that she dreamt it had fallen in value again) and tidy up around the house.

We spent the day reading in a cafe and browsing in a bookstore, then feasted back at Sarah's house on wine and cheese and fruit until we were stuffed, then went to bed early. I had no interest in sex until we began kissing, and then suddenly I sprang a rock-solid hard-on. I had perfect control and could have continued fucking for hours if that's what Sarah wanted. But she quickly realized that she wasn't going to come again and so prompted me to come alone by squeezing my balls and tickling my anus.

As soon as I got home, I masturbated twice to images of oral sex with the blonde from Europe. It is so curious that, good as my self-life is with Sarah, I still have this taste for masturbation.

When I left my apartment in the afternoon, an Arab store owner was arguing with a young white man just outside my building's front door. "Don't fucking hit me again! I've had a hard enough life as it is without you hitting on me! Leave me alone!" yelled the white man. "Don't you ever come in my store again!" yelled the Arab, striking the white man over the head with a heavy belt. "Don't fuck with me! Don't you fuck with me! I'm hungry and I just wanted something to eat, fuck you!" yelled the white man. "Drop the knife you were carrying!" yelled the Arab. Eventually the white man threw a kitchen steak knife into the street and then walked off. The Arab then ran back to his store and grabbed a telephone, presumably to summon the police. I saw the white man walking around the neighborhood later, muttering angrily to himself, so evidently the police didn't arrest him. The Arab's boldness was impressive, as the white man was much larger and might easily have severely injured or killed the Arab had he lunged at him with the knife.

I felt energized upon leaving the scene of this incident, which thrilled me with excitement. The white man cowering as the belt buckle slapped his back, his screams of childish rage, the humiliation of being beaten in public.

Lunch with Helen. I returned the printout of the story which she had given me last week and expressed my negative opinion of the same. Helen appeared to take my harsh criticism in stride, especially after I qualified that I thought her capable of writing much better. She is very intelligent and often has flashes of common-sense, skepticism and clear understanding of reality that would do even a hardened cynic like myself proud. Her weakest point is her tendency to pretentiousness. I recommended she stick to the journal format in the future.

Her work and home situations remain more or less the same as ever. She continues to have sleep problems. The conflict with Paul over the issue of her taking a vacation alone this summer has been made moot. The vacation house is currently being renovated and won't be ready until fall and hence a visit this summer is impossible.

While walking through the downtown area, I reflected on how little interest I have in beautiful young women these days. My experience with Sarah has convinced me that older women are definitely the way to go for me, given how little tolerance I have for sexual nay-saying and coquetry and all the other troublesomeness associated with younger women. Other men are forced to pursue younger women because they find wrinkles and other signs of age to be sexually unattractive. For whatever reason, I'm different in this respect. I certainly won't say I prefer old bodies to young ones. However, old bodies don't particularly turn me off either. Perhaps this is because I've always thought of myself as being very old, even though I look younger than I really am.

I also reflected on how the ambiance of West Metropolis sickens me, other than in the skid row neighborhood where I spend most of my time. I longed to be back in Europe, sleeping in hotel rooms and living from a suitcase and with neither computer nor telephone. Maybe I should take another trip to Basin City soon?

Sarah came by in the afternoon. Excellent sex, starting with a long session of cunnilingus as foreplay, followed by missionary position fucking, with two valley orgasms for me before Sarah indicated that she was ready for her orgasm. She had problems coming, however, and eventually my finger began to tire of twiddling her clitoris, so I pulled out and turned around so as to engage in man-on-top mutual oral sex. At first, Sarah was reluctant to suck me, perhaps because my cock was covered with vaginal secretions, though once she became aroused, she acquiesced. Towards the end, she even patted at my buttocks, as if encouraging me to penetrate deeper and otherwise fuck her mouth more vigorously. This I did and soon enough she was over the edge and writhing from an exceptionally intense orgasm. We rested afterwards, with Sarah lying on top of me and shuddering now and then with aftershocks. I hadn't had a peak orgasm myself, and my initial plan was to wait until Sarah was rested and then resume fucking, but then I changed my mind and decided to experiment with not ejaculating and see what that feels like.

After washing up from sex, Sarah and I went tango dancing. The crowd was thin, supposedly because there had been a big tango party somewhere else last night and the people who had gone there were too tired to go out again tonight. I danced a total of fifteen times with Sarah, but not well, as she seemed to be too weak to follow me properly. Perhaps her muscles were still relaxed from her earlier orgasm. During breaks, Sarah danced with other men while I stood alone for the most part, as I had no interest in dancing with other women. Either I found the women sexually unattractive, in which case there can never be sexual energy while dancing, or else the women resist my attempts to raise sexual energy because they know that I'm with Sarah and they don't want to get involved in a sex triangle. In either case, the lack of sexual energy makes dancing boring. It didn't bother me that I wasn't participating, however. even preferred to remain aloof. While watching Sarah dancing with other men, it struck me as how much more sexually attractive she was than the other women in the room, even women half her age. She is prettier, has a more pleasant personality, and is more or less free from sexual nay-saying. Two woman commented on my not dancing and so I danced twice with each of them. They were both poor followers. Sarah I can always hug tightly and carry to where I want her to go, in case she is having problems following, but with other women such a brute force tactic is either impossible, due to the woman being big and heavy, or else would probably give offense.

Upon returning to my neighborhood about twenty minutes past midnight, we found all the nearby parking garages to be either full or closed, and so Sarah was forced to drive around in circles looking for street parking. During the course of this search, I became aggressive and sharp in giving Sarah directions, perhaps because I was sexually frustrated from not having come earlier. And yet I had no reason to be angry at Sarah for denying me anything. The decision not to come was purely mine, and indeed she had appeared surprised that I didn't want to come.

I must say this about dancing. It certainly makes the time I spend with Sarah less boring and otherwise more bearable.

Tango dancing in the evening. I enjoyed the atmosphere of the club, but not the dancing. It seemed that all the women, even Sarah, had poor posture and hence couldn't follow me properly. Perhaps something about Saturday night makes women go limp. The women seemed content with my performance, however, regardless of their inability to follow me. One woman even came up as Sarah and I were preparing to leave and thanked me again for having danced with her earlier.

Missionary position sex afterwards, with tremendous energy between Sarah and myself, perhaps because of having danced with other men and women earlier. An initial valley orgasm for me, then I spent at least twenty minutes manipulating Sarah's clitoris before she finally began writhing about in what appeared to be her orgasm, though I couldn't be sure because it was different from her typical orgasm. In particular, it lasted longer (well over a minute) and she didn't push my finger from her clitoris as she usually does when she begins to come. I then brought myself to another long valley orgasm, but held back from peak orgasm because I wasn't yet certain about Sarah's situation. When I inquired, she replied that she had indeed come, with a very intense "whole-body" orgasm. I decided to desist at this point, without having had a peak orgasm for myself, as I sensed that Sarah would be wanting sex again tomorrow. I knew that my performance then would be mediocre if I were to have a peak orgasm tonight.

The next morning, after exercises, breakfast and shower, Sarah and I began kissing on the sofa and then I guided her to the bedroom, where we engaged in some mutual oral sex, at my instigation, concluding with an intense orgasm for her. Sarah never volunteers to perform oral sex on me, and indeed seems to resist at first when I push my cock into her face, however it is clear that sucking me greatly excites her. Cunnilingus alone gets Sarah aroused and wet, which is why I normally lick her as part of foreplay, but I can never get her to come from cunnilingus alone. By contrast, as soon as we assume the mutual oral sex position—my cock in her mouth, my balls hanging above her nose, my finger in her cunt, my tongue against her clitoris—Sarah loses all control and her orgasm is inevitable. After Sarah finished coming, I turned around and entered her in missionary position, and almost immediately had a valley orgasm, which went on for several minutes. Then I let myself relax and we fucked slowly for a while and then I let myself have a tremendously intense passive orgasm. That is, I was on top but I let Sarah's body drive the rhythm, so that the orgasm crept up on me without my really controlling it.

Several hours in the afternoon reading in a cafe, then we returned to Sarah's house and read there some more. One of the books I read was about the evils of excess carbohydrates in the diet, which caused me to be more determined than ever to stop eating desserts (other than extra-dark chocolate, which is mostly fat). Towards the end of the evening, Sarah started getting on my nerves, acting silly and then demanding that I talk to her even when I had nothing to say, until I finally got somewhat cross. In bed, after I finished reading aloud to Sarah from a book (per her squealed demand to "Read to me!"), I discussed which women I had found most attractive at the tango dancing last night. I have no idea as to my motives for choosing such a potentially explosive topic. Perhaps I was still annoyed by Sarah's earlier silliness. In any case, Sarah didn't seem particularly upset by what I said. We both had a hard time falling asleep, perhaps because of caffeine from all the chocolate we had eaten earlier. There was also a problem with ants in the bed. I believe these ants are attracted by the glycerin in the lubricant we use (Astroglide). Though they don't sting, these ants can be very distracting, especially when trying to get to sleep.

I didn't feel excessively drained of energy today, unlike how I usually feel after having spent the weekend at Sarah's house. I think this was because of the tango dancing on Saturday night. I gained as much energy there as I lost from spending Sunday with Sarah.

I fasted all of yesterday and most of today, and then broke the fast in the evening, by gorging on fruit and yogurt and chocolate and nuts and four hard-boiled eggs, so that I felt sick afterwards.

More gorging in the morning, until I finally staggered from the kitchen after having drunk a huge bowl of soup and collapsed on the sofa, clutching my stomach in agony and worrying that my innards were about to rupture and cause me to die there in my apartment. The worst of the pain disappeared after a few burps. It seems I swallowed a bunch of air along with the soup. I then lay down and spent several hours napping.

My week so far has consisted of an hour of exercises each morning, two to three hours of studying Italian each afternoon in the cafe, and the rest of the time split between sleeping, overeating (except when I was fasting), masturbating, daydreaming, and poking around on the Internet. In a nutshell, I'm living the life I dreamed of living as a boy. My only real ambitions in life, then as now, were to avoid other people and avoid having to go to work in the morning.

Sarah came by in the evening and we had sex, starting with an extended session of foreplay, with me alternating between stroking her g spot and clitoris until Sarah went limp and slid down onto the floor, her eyes half-shut and her mouth open wide in a sort of silent moan. Then she opened my zipper and reached in and tugged at my cock, as if to say that she was tired of this teasing foreplay and wanted to move on. During the missionary position fucking that followed, both of us were highly aroused and I was under perfect control, but nevertheless Sarah was unable to come, and eventually she indicated that I should go ahead without waiting for her, as she was beginning to get sore. We had been fucking by then for at least half an hour, in addition to the ten or so minutes of preceding foreplay. I had already had one valley orgasm earlier, and concluded this sex session with another. I specifically avoided a peak orgasm in order that we could possibly resume later.

As it turns out, we did resume later, after a break during which we talked of various things and ate a dinner of red wine and chocolate. This second session of sex was initiated by Sarah, who rolled over as we were preparing to go to sleep, and began kissing my lips and stroking my cock with her fingers until it was hard. I went down to lick her, but she was bored by that, so then I pulled up and we resumed fucking in missionary position. We were both sleepy and much less aroused than earlier (though interestingly, my erection was rock-solid and Sarah's cunt fully lubricated despite our lack of arousal) so that again she was unable to come and eventually began to get sore. I concluded this session with a peak orgasm for myself, of the passive variety. Though I enjoyed this orgasm, I hadn't been particularly anxious to ejaculate, and so I'm not sure why I let myself do so. After coming, I felt depleted of energy, which reminded me of the Taoist teaching that peak orgasm robs energy from the man but gives energy to the woman. Perhaps this is why both Sarah and I slept poorly. I had an orgasm that I shouldn't have had, while Sarah failed to have an orgasm that might have relieved some of her tension from work.

Lunch with Helen, who complained of sleeping poorly, and of feeling sick from a cold, for which she had taken off from work three days at the start of the week. She says she caught this cold from Paul, who in turn caught it at the state unemployment commission office, while attending a seminar on resume writing. Helen interprets Paul's attendance at these seminars as evidence that he is finally coming to his senses about jobs and money. Another good sign is Paul's expressed willingness to accept a salary of "only" $75,000 a year, versus $105,000 at the job he recently quit. Helen then discussed how she and Paul are getting along wonderfully these days: "Ever since he became unemployed, he's been very nice to me. He cooked a home-made pizza for me the other night, for example. That's the problem, though. He's too nice and that's why I can't leave him. And he keeps wanting to get me pregnant. Ever since he lost his job, he's been talking about us having a baby together. I know it's just a way to get me hooked to him, but that doesn't stop me from carefully considering the idea. My cousin had a baby recently... All of Paul's friends have abandoned him now that he's unemployed, and he's clinging to me like a life raft. You'll stick with me, won't you? he asked me one night. And I probably will. I'm the old-fashioned type. I stick by my man through thick or thin." Then she mentioned that she had discontinued her email correspondence with Eddie: "It was such a nuisance having to respond even when I had nothing to say. Though what a fool I was! Here this guy stepped into my life last year—good-looking, intelligent and about to become rich—and I just blew him off. Yes, he was good-looking. It doesn't matter what I told you before. Sure, he's not like Paul but he isn't ugly either. Anyway, Paul is looking pretty old these days. He's aged a lot in the three years we've been together... It's time I went out and met some new people, and maybe even had a wild affair. That's what I really need. An affair."

Sarah had been unable to come during sex last night, and so I held off then as well, in order to be primed for today. Unfortunately, I was somewhat too primed and hence had troubles controlling myself. Each time Sarah approached orgasm, I became excited and had to pause. Sarah became frustrated: "This is the same thing that happened yesterday. You keep stopping just as I'm about to come and then I tense up and can't come at all! Why do you keep stopping?" Her face was distorted as she spoke and she seemed on the verge of tears. "We've tried it before where I come without waiting for you and that just doesn't work. My orgasm is not a sufficient trigger for yours. Anyway, we've got the whole day to try again," I replied. Eventually, all the tensing I was doing to hold off from ejaculation caused me to lose my erection and we had to pause. Later, I tried licking Sarah, but she soon grew bored by that. Her cunt, I noticed, was extremely aroused—swollen and wet with mucus. We then tried mutual oral sex with me on top. As my cock was semi-soft, Sarah was able to swallow it entirely, which excited us both, so that I soon grew hard again inside her mouth, which excited her further, and finally she was able to come. Both of us rubbed our faces in the other's crotch as Sarah came, and for several minutes, Sarah's lower torso continued contracting strongly with aftershocks from her orgasm. When we resumed fucking, I had several valley orgasms before finishing off with a final peak orgasm.

While sitting on her patio later, Sarah informed me that her ex-lover (the one we stayed with during our trip to Europe) had suffered his stroke while undergoing a vigorous massage. The masseur had warned that such a vigorous massage might cause injury, but the ex-lover had insisted that the masseur be as forceful as possible. Sarah hypothesizes that this ex-lover was using massage as a substitute for sex (about which he has hang-ups, according to Sarah), and that the reason his ex-wife died from a brain tumor also had something to do with lack of sex. "Going without sex is not healthy," Sarah concluded. Certainly an orgasm made a big difference for her. She had been growing increasingly tense over the course of the week and was almost frantic this morning, while immediately after she came, her mood changed and she was now thoroughly relaxed.

Sarah also mentioned that her relatives haven't written to her even once since we visited them, even though they frequently wrote to her before that visit, not that this particularly bothers her. She suspects her relatives were more scandalized by the sight of her with a younger man than they initially let on.

The day seemed to fly by and I enjoyed myself more than I usually do in Sarah's company. All in all, we get along very well, provided we have some way to occupy our time other than talking to one another, which soon bores me.

My lawyer called. There will be a settlement conference next week regarding my will contest suit. The latest figure for the value of my father's net estate (after taxes and accounting, legal and other estate expenses) is approximately $1,530,000. Of this, $370,000 is the farmland, $160,000 is rental property, and $1,000,000 is stocks and other securities. Our current offer is to settle for $580,000 in cash. If my will contest suit were to prevail, I would receive about $860,000, in a mixture of farmland, rental property and securities (this assumes that in addition to my winning the will contest suit, my sister were also forced to pay back to the estate about $400,000 that she misappropriated from my father before he was placed under financial conservatorship.) In fact, I am in a mood to take any decent settlement offer, since I am tired of having this lawsuit hanging around my neck. Though I'm not sure what I mean by that term "decent". Perhaps anything that nets me $400,000 or more after my 18% attorney's fees. This would mean any offer of $487,000 or more.

I ran into Karen on the street downtown. Some pleasant if tense small talk, and then I told her that I was on my way to meet Helen for lunch. Karen laughed, then said: "Your old roommate, eh? It's nice to keep in touch like that." Perhaps a reference to the fact that I don't keep in touch with Karen. She asked if I was still dancing. "I go about once a week or so with that woman who I've been with for some time now," I replied. I was trying to indicate that I'm not currently single. As we parted, I said: "You're looking very nice, Karen." Which is true, though she did seem to be slumping more than in the past, as if she were weighed down by cares these days. Based on her conservative dress (conservative by her standards, that is), she appears to be working at a bank again, though I didn't ask. Her breasts were once again full, so she must have gotten her implants fixed, and her lips were plumper than ever (collagen injections) and covered with thick and gleaming dark red lipstick, which gave a sexually provocative look to her mouth. "Call me sometime," she said as she walked off. I reflected later that I have little desire for getting back together with Karen, regardless of how interesting and sexually attractive I continue to find her.

Lunch with Helen. She says she has become addicted to sleeping pills, like those middle-aged housewives she remembers reading about as a girl, who needed their "mother's little helpers" to get through the day. She told Paul that if he doesn't find a job by the end of the year, which is his current projection for when he will run out of money, he can move to her family's mountain vacation house and live there rent-free. Of course, that house is located on the other side of the country and in the middle of nowhere, and tends to covered with snow during the winter, so I'm not exactly sure what Helen is thinking.

Another email from Marianne: "Dear A__, I'm leaving in a few hours for China. May I hope that you are very happy. How was your last trip? Love, Marianne."

I decided it was unconscionable to continue ignoring her, and so sent the following email reply: "Dear Marianne, I'm sorry about not responding to any of your emails and phone calls lately. I've gotten involved with someone here (as was inevitable) and now I don't know what to do about you and me, and so I just keep postponing things and hoping that I'll come up with some idea of what to say tomorrow and then I never do and before long three months have passed. But I guess I should at least let you know that I'm still alive and that my feelings for you haven't changed. It's just that some other factors came into play and I became confused about what to do. Love and best wishes on your trip, A__".

Marianne sent the following follow-up: "Thank you so much for this message. I always will hope the best for you and am very happy that you are in love. Have a great summer but please let us keep in touch... I think of you a lot. Your friend, Marianne."

I had called Sarah yesterday and arranged to take the bus to her house this evening, but then immediately after hanging up, I had second thoughts about this plan, since by going to her house today, we would be spending the entire holiday weekend together, almost four days in all, and yet I tend to get bored even after a single day in Sarah's company. In any case, I did go to her house this evening and we had sex, but neither of us came. I didn't want to come because I was exhausted from masturbating yesterday, while Sarah was too tired and tense from work to come.

I got out of bed very early, in order to record my dreams in a notebook, which was in my shoulder bag in the living room. Afterwards, I returned to bed, since I wasn't yet ready to do my exercises. Sometime later, Sarah got up to fix her morning tea. I have a sneaking suspicion that while she was up but I was still in bed, she peaked into my notebook and read what I had written earlier. My notes were cryptic and I don't think they revealed anything significant about me that Sarah doesn't already know. It annoys me, however, that she would invade my privacy in this way. One more reason for me to feel tense around her.

I spent the whole day lying on the sofa in Sarah's living room, studying Italian vocabulary. Sarah, meanwhile, spent the morning house cleaning and the afternoon shopping and running errands. By the time evening rolled around, I was tense and bored and otherwise in a foul mood from having been cooped up all day. My own fault, of course. While drinking a bottle of wine, we engaged in an acrimonious and completely pointless discussion of work, for want of any better way to expend our energies. In bed, I turned away when Sarah tried fondling my cock.

"I'm feeling out of sorts," I explained.

"Is it something I said?" she asked.

"I'm just feeling de-energized," I replied.

"I'd be de-energized too, if I had spent the whole day lying on the sofa!" she retorted.

In the morning, Sarah asked me how I planned to spend the day.

"I think I'll go to the cafe," I said.

"Which cafe?"

"My usual cafe. The one near my apartment."

"So you're going home?"

"Yes."

"If that's the way you feel about it, then go." She was sitting on the kitchen counter as she said this, with a sulking expression on her face. I jumped up beside her and hugged her.

"I've been losing energy ever since I came out here," I said.

"What do you expect? I'd lose energy too if I spent the whole day lying on the sofa. The reason I ran errands yesterday is that I don't have a lot of time to waste lying on the sofa. I have to work hard all week and I only have a few days off."

"It isn't that. I always lose energy here."

"What about your other girlfriend? Do you go to her and say, My God! That Sarah is the most boring person on earth? Is that what you do?"

"I lose energy with all my girlfriends. That's why I broke up with them. With Helen I lose energy in other ways."

"What about our trip next week? Are you having second thoughts about that now?"

"We'll see when we get there. It isn't just you. I've had problems with all my previous girlfriends on trips. You and I get along fine as long as we have some external source of energy. When we're by ourselves, we get bored."

Then she rubbed her shoulder, as if it were sore and so I offered to give her a massage. Afterwards, I coaxed her into bedroom and we had sex. I licked her until she was wet, we fucked slowly until she was excited, I manipulated her clitoris and fucked fast until I started to lose control, but no problems since my timing was perfect and her orgasm began at exactly the same time as mine. A risky type of sex, since I couldn't have been certain that Sarah would come simultaneously with me, but also more thrilling than the usual "safe" method whereby I keep myself under control until the woman's orgasm is fully underway. We rested a while, then washed up, and then I kissed Sarah good-bye and left. We parted on what appeared to be good terms.

I spent the afternoon wandering about the city. It occurred to me that instead of always thinking of what I should be doing with my life, I should (there that's word again) just relax and enjoy whatever it is that I am doing with it. I've got enough more than enough money to last the rest of my life, and I take care of my health, and other than money and health, what is there to worry about in life? My only concern should (yet another "should") be to enjoy myself.

A strange dream. The scene is a nightclub, with a circular bar in the center, raised on a platform and reached by several concentric circles of carpeted steps. "Why don't men come here? See all the beautiful women," says someone. Though the women may not all be beautiful, there is certainly a surplus of them.

There is a long line of men and women waiting for the restroom, in a line just past the person collecting the cover charge. There is another restroom on the other side, but this restroom is only for people who are leaving the club for the night, a sign says. We all think the restroom is for one person at a time, then someone exiting the restroom holds the door open so we can look in, and we see that there are many stalls and urinals. So we all troop in, men and women together. I head toward the urinals in the rear and turn slightly as I unzip, so as not to expose myself to the women. A bum demands a cigarette, but everyone refuses to give him one. He then creates a disturbance and is pushed out of the club by some bouncers.

There is a group of men and women dressed in hooded purple robes, resembling monks, and seated on benches raised on platform at stage right. We all watch a video of these people chanting and marching in a line along the ramparts of an enclosed castle. The video was taken of these people sometime in the past and they are evidently here to watch the first showing. There are intimations of extreme violence. Cutting off limbs one by one, poking out eyes, other tortures. The video shows about twenty rectangular-shaped flags, which are hung on cable of some sort by the short edge. These flags are bright reddish-orange color, with a thin gold embroidered border. These colors don't match the purple robes at all. The robed people complain: "Even we didn't like all these flags. We would have preferred no flags." The video then shows a castle tower, on which is painted a black silhouetted face in profile, against a white or gray background, with a black curved geometric design below the face, resembling the design on a ring I bought in Europe. There is a name in black letters printed above the face: "___". (Books on magic that I've been reading lately emphasize the importance of names seen in dreams, especially when associated with what appear to be demons. This is why I substituted ___ for the actual name, since the actual name might be that of my guardian angel. If so, an enemy of mine who knew this name could use it do me great harm, according to the books on magic.)

Lunch with Helen. When I asked about her personal life, she replied: "I've decided to take some active steps to improve my situation, but I don't intend to tell you what they are. I see no reason to involve you in every detail of my life." I immediately guessed that she had placed another personals ad. Helen confirmed that this guess was correct, but she refused to reveal the wording of her ad. She did say that she had listed skiing and tennis as her hobbies, even though she hasn't participated in either of these sports for over ten years now. Her reasoning is that skiing and tennis are activities of the rich and well-educated, and thus hopefully the men responding to her ad will also be rich and well-educated. I suggested she try dancing as a way to meet men, but she dismissed this suggestion: "Any idiot can dance well. I'd rather talk to a man."

I've been feeling very relaxed and energetic these past few days, which may be the result of following my true desires more closely, and thereby avoiding the inner tension and loss of energy that comes from constantly fighting with myself. For example, as afternoon approaches, instead of allowing myself to assume that I'll be going to the cafe, I ask myself what it is that I truly want to do. As it turns out, I typically do end up going to the cafe. The point is that I go there only after honest consultation with myself as to my true desires. I am also making an effort to avoid feeling that some behaviors are worthwhile (such as studying Italian) and others a waste of time (such as lying on the sofa all day, idly daydreaming and masturbating). I don't really have a purpose in life and thus there is no way for me to be "unproductive". I can and should do whatever it is that I want to do with my time. Another possible cause of my having more energy is that I am eating less, and thus not wasting so much energy on digestion. Perhaps I am eating less because I am listening to myself more closely, and the real me doesn't want so much food? Another possible cause of my having more energy is that I am maintaining the uddiyana bandha whenever possible, per instructions in a yoga book I read recently. This allows me to breathe easier.

While walking past a porn shop this afternoon, and looking in at the photos in the display window of starlets bending over the better to show off their tits and ass, it occurred to me how extraordinarily attractive Sarah still is at the age of sixty-two, and how she continues to resemble a natural porn star herself. Petite and naturally slender body, long and slightly curly golden blonde hair, large and still firm breasts. Her aunt was a model, and Sarah might herself have been a model if it hadn't been for crooked teeth, which she didn't get straightened until after moving to the United States. The primary signs of age are in her face. A few wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and mouth, though she is still strikingly pretty, all things considered, especially when she smiles. Sarah is also intelligent, educated, cheerful, good-natured, tidy, self-supporting, independent, without desire for more children, and ready and willing to accommodate any and all of my sexual desires. A lady in the parlor, a whore in the bedroom, low-maintenance and otherwise everything I've always said I wanted in a woman. So why do I feel this desire to break up with her and return to being alone? I would be a fool to give up someone so perfect, and yet this is what I seem wanting to do, what with all my complaining of how she is sapping me of energy and so forth.

I took the bus to Sarah's house in the afternoon. Excellent missionary position sex, lasting only about twenty minutes, but with perfect control for me the whole time. A valley orgasm for me, then Sarah came, then I came a minute later.

We drove to the mountains, with me feeling increasingly irritated the whole way. All I could think was that I was in no mood for four days of Sarah's company and I wished I'd never come on this trip. At the first rest stop, I wandered off by myself. Sarah followed and asked if something was the matter. "Don't you know that asking someone that question just makes them more upset?" I replied sharply. Sarah shrugged and went to sit by herself. A few minutes later I went to sit with her and we made up. We said little to one another the rest of the drive.

Upon arriving at the village, we passed a "Soul Therapy Center", where I treated Sarah and myself each to a thirty minute "healing session". This consisted of our sitting in a reclining chair and listening to music through headphones while the monk who runs the center slowly passed an "etheric weaver" device over our body. The music we listened to was reminiscent of Tibetan sacred music, and consisted of English language chanting and singing by the leader of the organization which runs the soul therapy center (this leader is the reincarnation of Buddha and Jesus Christ, supposedly), accompanied by drums and singing bowls and other instruments. I found the healing session very effective at relaxing me. The secret, I believe, is that the presence of the monk forced me to sit still and concentrate. Whereas if I had been alone, I would probably have been fidgety and my mind would have wandered. This is the same explanation for why it is so much easier to reach higher planes of consciousness with certain types of sex than it is through simple meditation. Sex overwhelms the usual tendencies towards fidgeting and mental chatter. Of course, not all sex leads to higher planes of consciousness, only the slow moving "Tantric" types of sex.

As for the sex Sarah and I had tonight at the motel, this was simply lousy. I lost my erection while performing mutual oral sex, which in turn caused Sarah to lose interest, and led to nothing but dissatisfaction for both of us.

A picnic in a nearby park to start the day, then we hiked in the woods, then on the way back we bought a recording of the music at the soul therapy center. No sex because I wasn't in the mood. I was becoming increasingly sick of Sarah's company as the day wore on. All I could think was "when is this damned trip going to be over."

Another picnic, then we drove to a wilderness park and hiked around there a bit. The trees were impressive, though after a while I got bored of the sameness. Dinner at a fish and chips restaurant, then more driving to a motel in the woods. My temper was frayed and I was snapping constantly at Sarah the whole day. She tried initiating sex at night but I rebuffed her. All I could think was: "Now I understand why her husband never wanted to have sex with her. I can't wait to get back and be alone."

A long drive home. All the way I was thinking: "Why do I need women anyway? Why don't I just masturbate? That way I won't have to go on these sorts of trips. I can do what I want with my time." My spirits began to rise as we left the mountains and entered the sweltering valley. Back at last in the world of civilization. Nature tamed and conquered and made to serve the needs of humanity! "I just hate these supposedly beautiful mountains!" I exclaimed. "If you feel that way then you should admit to it," said Sarah. "Whenever I say what I think, people get on my case, and so that's why I'm always so evasive," I replied. I'm sure Sarah grasped that by "people", I meant people like her. I thought of asking Sarah to drop me off at the bus stop on the way to her house, but then reflected that this might cause her to be offended, and so said nothing. After all, one more night in her company wouldn't kill me.

Once back at Sarah's house, I felt much better. The trip was finally over! For a change, we had good sex. Three valley orgasms for me to start, then I began to grow soft, though I managed to keep pumping away long enough to bring Sarah off, then I grew hard again and had a peak orgasm for myself.

Sarah and I were both in good spirits this morning and we parted on pleasant terms, though we also agreed that we should spend some time apart this coming weekend.

While sitting in my apartment in the evening, it occurred to me that my senses have become dulled by routines and comfort and the burden of possessions and excessive concern with what other people think of my appearance and behavior, and that altogether my life is currently lacking in intensity and excitement, and that, as a remedy for this sense of ennui, I should spend some time traveling around the United States by bus and sleeping on the street in whatever city I happen to find myself in. I should try living like a homeless person, in other words. Of course, I will have to wait until my will contest lawsuit is resolved before embarking on any such adventure.

I spent the day wandering around the wilderness park, with a nap on a bench towards noon, as I was sleepy from having woken very early this morning (four am). By late afternoon, I was bored and so returned to my usual cafe for some reading, which caused me to reflect that yesterday's idea of living like a homeless person may not be the solution after all to my feeling that there is no "intensity" in my life. Living on the street would only make me more bored than I am currently. So what is the solution?

Helen sent me some more of her writings from ten and more years ago to read. Unlike the story she gave me a few weeks back, these latest writings were in a natural style and mercifully free of pretentiousness. On the other hand, these writings made it only too clear how detached Helen is from her physical body and animal desires and how deeply depressed she must be as a consequence. By process of empathy, reading her writings made me depressed.

For several days now, I have been doing yoga twice a day, instead of just in the morning. Unlike in the past, I am no longer counting or timing myself. I simply hold each posture until I feel it's time to move on. Also I'm consistently undereating, and eating well. Fruits, vegetables, nuts, a small amount of lentils and rice, yogurt, canned fish. This new diet seems to give me more energy and make my body feel much healthy. And I've been trying to maintain the yoga uddiyana bandha as much as possible.

I took the bus to Sarah's house in the afternoon. We sat on the sofa for a while talking, then began kissing, then retired to the bedroom for sex. Sarah was highly aroused and came easily. My own interest in sex was minimal, though I did manage to get hard and then both bring Sarah off and come myself afterwards. I'm not sure as to the cause of my lack of interest. Perhaps I was exhausted from masturbating heavily ever since last week's trip, perhaps I was already feeling the "de-energizing" effects of Sarah and her house. After resting and cleaning up, we spent the rest of the evening preparing and eating dinner and then went to sleep early.

Today, which was a holiday, Sarah and I passed in a leisurely way. Dawdling around her house, having tea in one cafe and lunch in another, walking to and from these cafes. All the while talking about various issues that had been raised by our trip last week. In particular, there was the issue of my feeling sapped of energy whenever I'm around Sarah for long periods of time. Sarah pointed out that she didn't really want me around for long periods of time. She has to go to her job during the week and needs time on weekends to run errands. Indeed, she would have preferred if I had taken the bus home as soon as we returned from our trip, as I thought of doing, instead of hanging around and wasting yet another day of her time off from work. I replied that I didn't want to say anything because whenever I've directly confronted these sorts of issues with women in the past, the woman gets all upset, and so I've learned to just bide my time until the woman brings the issue up herself, as indeed had happened in this case. Sarah said she would prefer if I were more open and forthright about my feelings, and that she would like me to take the initiative about discussing problems, instead of waiting for her and then meanwhile whining about being de-energized. I replied that the reason I whine and act passive-aggressive is because such tactics are effective. Sarah countered that she hated whining and passive-aggressiveness. I replied that she hates these tactics because she knows how effective they are.

Sarah then asked me what I saw in her and I replied that I had a need for "female companionship" in my life, a small need, and she was currently satisfying that need, and that if wasn't for her, there would be some other woman, and I probably wouldn't do better than her and I could easily do worse. Needless to say, Sarah wasn't overjoyed by this lukewarm statement of mine. Later, I told her that she had to choose between living with a man or having him as an active sex partner, since she couldn't have both, and the reason she and her husband never had sex was that she had sapped him of energy the same way she tended to sap me. "I noticed we never had sex during our trip. Was it something I said?" she asked. "No, it was just the fact that I was around you all the time. Lying in bed in those motel rooms, I could just sense how things must have been with your husband. There is something about our society such that when a man and a woman live together, the man eventually loses all his masculinity. In other cultures, things might be different. If the woman is treated like a slave, like in the Arab countries, for example, then it might be possible for the man to maintain his masculinity even when living with a woman. But not when the woman is allowed equal rights. Men and women in our society should live apart, or else they should resign themselves to eventually having no sex life or a bad sex life," I replied.

As if to emphasize this last point, bad sex is exactly what Sarah and I ended up having tonight. We were engaged in mutual oral sex when my erection withered away. Though I continued licking and fingering Sarah's cunt for some time afterwards, these efforts were to no avail in making her come, despite her high state of arousal. So then we rested for a while, with Sarah now and then reaching down and checking my limp cock for signs of life. Eventually, we gave up and went to sleep. Both of us slept fitfully.

A book I've been reading lately (Chidley's Confessions) has caused me to reflect that perhaps there is some truth in the old notion that masturbation causes illness and eventual insanity. Unless, that is, the man is able to awaken his "female pole" (to use Taoist terminology) and thereby have sex with himself. I think this is what I've been doing for many years now. I always imagine myself as both man and woman while masturbating. Then it occurred to me that perhaps the real danger is from sex with a woman, and this is why I feel so de-energized after these weekends with Sarah (or Elizabeth or Karen or Helen or various other women before I met Helen). I still vividly remember Bernelli's comment about women: "All they ever do is steal men's energy".

My lawyer called. The long-awaited settlement conference finally took place. My sister's lawyer was evasive, but finally said something about offering a maximum of $350,000. The judge said nothing other than that my sister's lawyer should put something in writing. I told my lawyer that I would accept $500,000, and possibly less. The truth is, I'm started to feel worried about this case and am losing my stomach for a trial. My sister and her lawyer probably suspect this, perhaps because of my own lawyer's constant talking of settlements. The best way to get a good settlement offer is to move forward with trial preparations, and make it clear that we are fully prepared to lose everything rather than settle low.

I was sitting in a seedy donut shop this afternoon when a striking-looking young woman passed. I glanced at her but didn't notice that our eyes met. Nevertheless, a few minutes later she turned and walked back and sat at the table directly in front of me, so that I was facing her back. Then she pulled out a book from her bag and began reading, without having bought anything to eat or drink. Her book was titled Memoirs of a Geisha. Does she want to be a geisha, I wondered? Later, she turned to the side, as if the bright sunlight streaming in through the window were making it hard to read. I was thus able to see her face in profile, while she was able to look at me from the corner of her eye. We exchanged a few glances. I found her strikingly attractive, nor was I alone in this opinion, since I noticed man after man turning to stare at her as they walked past the donut shop window. Long curly blonde hair, small breasts, a v-shaped ribcage that narrowed to an exceptionally slender waist, wide hips, and perfect posture. Her clothing consisted of a tight red sweater and black skirt. She had no rings on her fingers and oozed sexuality. It was obvious she wanted me to start a conversation, but what's in it for me? I certainly have no intention of ditching Sarah for someone who might easily bring me less happiness and more unpleasantness, while as for the idea of trying to maintain a harem, I've learned by experience that I have no stomach for that. When the young woman finally got tired of waiting and walked off, I felt a pang of regret. A mild pang, however.

What I find surprising is that this young woman ever bothered with me in the first place. How could she suspect that I wasn't a bum, given that I was sitting in a seedy donut shop, surrounded by derelicts and dressed like a homeless person myself? (I've given up dressing elegantly, except when around Sarah.) After all, she is hardly the sort of woman who would be expected to have problems finding suitable male partners. Perhaps she detected, in some uncanny way, with just a single sideways glance as she walked by the donut shop the first time, that I had the key to her sexuality? Certainly there was tremendous energy between us, so that I could sense exactly what it was that she wanted. Namely, to be taken from behind. I later masturbated furiously (without orgasm, however, since I have to meet Sarah tomorrow) to images of fucking this young woman from behind while tickling her asshole with my left hand and using my right hand to reach around and rub her clitoris, or else of kissing her buttocks and licking her asshole while rubbing her g-spot and clitoris with the thumb and forefinger respectively of my right hand, or else of simply fucking her from behind while leaning forwards and cupping her breasts with my hands and burying my face in her hair. Everything was from behind, in other words. There was something about her slender waist and wide hips and the way she moved that seemed to demand that she be taken that way, whether bending over or on her knees or lying on her side.

I arrived at Sarah's house in the evening, and immediately felt bored and wanting to escape. Perhaps I was angry that, because of Sarah, I had been forced to turn down the opportunity offered by the young woman from yesterday, who I had been obsessing about all day long. And yet the reasons I gave myself yesterday then for not pursuing this younger woman—namely, that she would probably demand more from me than Sarah, and altogether bring less pleasure and more pain into my life than Sarah, at least in the long-run—continue to strike me as valid, and hence there is no reason to regret not having pursued her, nor is there any reason whatsoever to be angry at Sarah for standing in the way of such pursuit. Perhaps I am simply incapable of being rational where sex is concerned. In any case, there was great tension between me and Sarah all evening. I forget the details of what we talked about, only that we seemed to be getting on one another's nerves the whole time. And then it all culminated in my being impotent when we got into bed and tried to have sex.

Another attempt at sex early the next morning, with Sarah initiating. This time my erection was rock-solid, but now it was our rhythm that was off, with the result being that I came just as Sarah was on the verge of coming, thus leaving her stranded. (She can only come from fucking, not from cunnilingus or masturbation.) After morning exercises, I told her I would be leaving early today instead of spending the night. Then I suggested we walk to the cafe together before I leave. On the way, Sarah asked if I was tired of having sex with her.

"Not at all," I replied.

"Then why don't you want to have sex with me any more? You didn't during our trip two weeks ago and you didn't last night." said Sarah.

"If you want to know the truth..."

"I do."

"When this relationship of ours started, we were lovers. And now it seems like sex has been demoted from first priority to second or third or even tenth place, behind all sorts of other things."

"What other things?"

"Trivial things. Nothing sorts of things. Sex is less important than nothing, if that makes any sense."

"The reason we do nothing is because you never want to do anything."

"That's my nature. There are few things I like to do."

"You didn't even want to go on that trip. Why did you arrange that trip if you didn't really want to go?"

"We had to do something for your birthday."

"We didn't have to do anything for my birthday! And you think that's what I wanted for my birthday. A trip where you're in a bad mood the whole time and then we break up afterwards?"

I then explained that there was no reason for us to break up, provided we were honest about the nature of our relationship and didn't try to make it into something that it wasn't. While I was vague on this last point, my thinking was that what has really been bothering me about Sarah for these last few months is that, like every other woman I've ever known, she is not really content with silence and solitude, despite all her boasting of how "independent" she is, and consequently she tends to pressure me to engage in chatter and otherwise help her pass the time, which makes me feel that my silence and solitude are being invaded, and this is why I always feel like I'm losing energy in Sarah's company and why, the longer I'm around her, the more anxious I am to get away. It would have been pointless to say all this, of course, since Sarah would merely have been offended that I didn't like being around her, without really understanding my point.

"What we need to understand is that sex is by far the most important thing between us, though it isn't the only thing," I said.

"What else is there, since you don't ever want to do anything?"

"We have a common interest in dancing and we enjoy going to the cafe together, like we're doing right now, and we act as close friends and confidantes to one another, since neither of us has many other close friends. So that's three things we have to bring us together, besides sex. But without sex, everything falls apart. And that's what's happened. We've forgotten about how important sex is and we've become distracted by trivia like this trip we took..."

"You arranged that trip!"

"In any case, we need to put our sex life back at priority one," I concluded.

"I don't have a problem with that," replied Sarah.

Later, she asked how we could make our sex life better, to which I replied that it was absolutely essential that she allow me to pause whenever I want, since otherwise I sometimes lose control and come too soon and then she can't come at all. This is what happened this morning, for example. Sarah objected that she tends to tense up if I pause just as she is on the verge of orgasm. I replied that I was aware of this tendency, but that there was no alternative to my pausing, since we couldn't be certain that she would come if I didn't pause. We had experimented with my orgasm being the trigger for hers and found that this only works sometimes. I also noted that it wasn't just my pausing that caused her to tense up, but also her trying too hard, as if she were only going to be given one chance for an orgasm and she better make sure to grab it, when the reality was that there would be plenty of opportunities for her to have an orgasm, provided we slowed things down. "Why this big hurry? Why this anxiousness to get the sex over with as soon as possible? Of course, if we drag things out, there is the problem that you might get sore. But that's easy to deal with. First, we can use more lubricant. Second, we can be more gentle in our movements, which reduces the friction. The main thing is to slow down and remember that we have the whole day ahead of us, with nothing better to do with our time than have sex."

After several hours in the cafe, talking and reading, we returned to Sarah's house for lunch, with a bout of sex afterwards. While licking Sarah's cunt during foreplay, I lifted her up and let my tongue occasionally flick at and tickle her asshole, which made her quiver and squeeze her buttocks together in excitement. This particular variation on cunnilingus has inflamed my mind ever since staring at the young woman at the donut shop yesterday. During the missionary position fucking that followed foreplay, my erection was as rock-solid as it had been this morning, but also under perfect control, so that there was no danger of my coming until Sarah's orgasm was fully underway. After washing up, I left. When I arrived back at my apartment, I noticed that I felt none of the usual loss of energy that I usually feel after a weekend with Sarah.

All things considered, I'm probably making the right choice with Sarah, as opposed to a younger women like the one from the donut shop yesterday, especially now that the major problems with my relationship with Sarah appear to have been resolved. In particular, we seem to have agreed that we won't be spending so much time in one another's company from now on. All in all, Sarah is as good a sex partner as I'm likely to get. A younger woman might be more exciting in the short-run, but this additional excitement is likely to be more than counter-balanced by the difficulties a younger woman might bring, such as wanting to see me more often than once or twice a week, and possibly wanting to get married and have children.

Cajun dancing with Sarah in the evening. During breaks, I looked around the room at the other couples and reflected on how very far removed I am from the rest of society, and how my tendency towards solitariness and eccentricity seems to be accelerating of late, and how I'll probably never again be able to tolerate the restrictiveness of a relationship with a younger woman. Or perhaps it isn't merely relationships with younger women that I can no longer tolerate, but all relationships, and the only reason I remain with Sarah is inertia. It's more trouble for us to break up than stay together.

A brief bout of sex when we returned to Sarah's house, with a valley orgasm for me and no orgasm for Sarah. The reason the sex was so brief (only ten minutes) was that it was late when we finally got into bed and we had to get up early tomorrow so Sarah could go to work. The cunnilingus during foreplay was especially enjoyable, as Sarah's cunt smelled delicious from sweating during the dancing earlier.

I felt annoyed on the way to Sarah's house in the evening. "What a pain in the ass it is to have to go all the way over there and perform sexually instead of staying at home, enjoying solitude and masturbation" was the thought going through my head. Matters came to a head as we were sitting on the sofa drinking beers. Sarah asked if I could solve a math-type puzzle, but she left out a few constraints in the problem description, so that there was an infinity of answers. I explained this and showed how I was able to make at least two sets of numbers work, but Sarah insisted that there was only one answer. I then starting ranting and throwing out the word "stupid" right and left before finally catching myself and apologizing. "You've been wanting to blow up for a long time and now you have," commented Sarah. Later, she said, "Last week you said I had too much yin energy and that's why no man would ever want to live with me. That's why I didn't fix dinner. I didn't want you to be offended because I'm some passive yin woman staying at home and fixing dinner for you." She was referring to some hocus-pocus mumbo-jumbo about yin and yang that I had thrown out during our conversation last weekend about our relationship. "I never asked or expected you to fix dinner. It's always a surprise when you do," I replied.

We eventually managed to patch things up and agreed to carry on with our original plan for tonight of tango dancing. However, when we got to the club, there were only a few people in attendance. It seems most of the usual crowd had gone to a special tango event elsewhere. Sarah didn't want to dance on an empty floor and so we left without paying the entrance fee. Then we drove around to various bars that Sarah remembered visiting in the past, but none of these looking interesting and so finally we returned to Sarah's house and had more beer. We were both feeling tense when we climbed into bed and in no mood for sex.

More sex in the morning, but I came just as Sarah was starting to come and then tried to hold back in order to finish her off, but without much success, so that the final result was that both our orgasms were partial and we were both left only semi-satisfied. Sarah had previously arranged to exchange massages with a friend at noon. I walked to a cafe and read there by myself until Sarah was finished, then we drove to another cafe together and then returned to her house in the afternoon, where she fixed a late lunch. I then fell asleep on the sofa. Upon waking from this nap, I decided to go home instead of spending the night. It was clear that Sarah and I had little to say to one another and would likely get on one another's nerves and squabble again if I hung around much longer.

As I was preparing to leave, I noticed Sarah frantically scrubbing the kitchen sink. Earlier in the day, just as I was leaving for the cafe, I had seen her busily scrubbing the bathroom. Sarah's mania for cleaning seems to get worse when she is feeling tense. Her current tension is only partly because of our relationship and sex problems. The real problem is her job. While at the cafe, she described how her boss is constantly belittling and insulting and otherwise abusing her in front of the other employees so that she hates going to work in the morning. She is reluctant to quit, however, because her current job pays two or more times as much as she would be likely to get at another job. (Her current employer pays her well because they know she works very fast and accurately and they would have to hire two or three low-skilled workers to replace her.) She can't afford a large pay cut due to having a large monthly mortgage payment on her house.

All this tension in Sarah rubs off on me, which is perhaps why I feel so exhausted after a weekend in her company. I may not have mentioned this before, but it is curious that I can never shit properly at her house. Even my guts seem to tense up when I'm around her. Elizabeth and Karen used to affect me the same way, whereas with Helen I'm much more relaxed. It is curious that all my long-term lovers since I broke up with Helen five years ago are so different from Helen in personality, but yet all resemble one another. All of them are tense, highly sensitive, older than me, blonde, meticulous housekeepers, plagued by sexual guilt (but then that's true of every woman I've ever known) but yet highly compatible with me sexually. How do all these characteristics relate to one another, I wonder? I should note that all these women had a very poor relationship with their father, who in all cases is long since dead. Karen wished her father was still alive so she could kill him for the way he used to beat and otherwise abuse her and her sisters and her mother. Elizabeth felt that her father essentially abandoned her at age two when he divorced her mother and that he never cared about her after that. Sarah resents her father for being cold, nasty and irresponsible, with a certain degree of eccentric intelligence as his only redeeming quality. He insisted on working for himself and then refused to listen to what his customers wanted, and so never had any work, with the result that the family sunk into poverty and they all would have starved had it not been for her mother. Also, he essentially kicked Sarah out of the family apartment at age fourteen so that she had to fend for herself from then on. And he was constantly telling Sarah she was so ugly she would never find a man to marry her, when the truth is that Sarah has always been extraordinarily pretty, other than for crooked teeth, which she didn't get fixed until adulthood.

I received an email from my former supervisor at the large corporation where I worked ten years ago, indicating that they would like to hire me for six months of full-time contract work. It's interesting that this proposal is essentially the same as the cover story I've been using for over a year now to explain how I support myself, and now the possibility arises of making this cover story a reality. The email was sent to the address associated with my now defunct software company and forwarded by the corporation that took over distributing that company's products. I plan to postpone answering this email for a week or so, while deciding what to do. My current inclination is to politely decline the offer. I feel like the computer programming phase of my life has come to a close and it's time to move on to something else.

I gave $2 to "Preacher", who was kneeling on the sidewalk in front of a grocery store: "Help for the homeless, sir?" His neck was covered with bleeding sores, as if he had been scratching himself there. This was the first time I'd seen him in months. He got behind me in line and bought a melon with the money I gave him. Strange this affinity I feel for him.

I spent the evening listening to a free lecture, based on theosophical-like ideas. It seems that the immortal sages of the Himalayas, who have been watching over humanity since the beginning of time and who were the guiding force behind such spiritual leaders as Buddha and Jesus Christ and the Prophet Mohammed, have finally decided to put in a personal appearance in this world. The greatest of these sages, in fact, is currently living in obscurity in the East End of London, but in the near future he will reveal himself and take charge of human affairs and fix things so that there will no longer be hunger and poverty. What was needed now was for people like us, the audience, to help prepare the world for this coming Messiah.

I don't know exactly what I expected from this lecture. My life seems empty of purpose at present. I feel that I'm searching for something "spiritual", hence my recent interest in Tarot and astrology, and that I'd like to make contact with other people like myself. Perhaps I thought I might meet such people tonight at this lecture. Superficially at least, the audience did seem composed of people like myself: intelligent, well-dressed, middle-aged, non-conformist. But I hadn't any desire to talk to any of them after the lecture ended. I couldn't say anything good, since the lecture had struck me as utter nonsense, and I didn't want to listen to myself or anyone else uttering negative and critical comments, which left silence as the only option. Though I was intensely bored during the lecture, later I felt glad that I had attended. It's refreshing now and then to get close to people whose worldview is completely different from my own.

Sarah called late in the evening and said that she had expected me to call her, but then I didn't call, and so that was why she was calling me. I replied that I planned to call her tomorrow. The truth is that I have little desire to see her, whether for sex or companionship, nor am I really interested in replacing her with another woman. All I really want anymore is solitude. Nevertheless, after some small talk, I invited her to stop by tomorrow evening after work. Under the circumstances, I didn't see how I could not invite her, without appearing unfriendly.

As it turns out, contrary to my fears, I enjoyed Sarah's company when she came by the next day, perhaps because we were at my apartment instead of her house for a change. She complained of hating her job again. In particular, she resents the way her supervisor constantly belittles her in front of the other workers. We both took Tarot cards readings regarding her situation. My reading indicated that she is upset because she realizes that she has alternatives, such as quitting and taking a lower-paid job and making up the loss in salary by renting out the extra bedroom in her house and also using up some of her savings over the next eight years while waiting to begin collecting her social security pension. Sarah's reading indicated that there will be a crisis in the near future involving her work/money situation, and that in the long run she can expect great happiness.

An excellent session of foreplay. I fingered Sarah's g spot with one hand and massaged her tailbone with the other while she meanwhile pulled on my cock with both her hands until it was rock-solid, then some cunnilingus, and after that some excellent missionary position fucking, during which I was under perfect control. Sarah said she probably couldn't come due to being tense from work, and so I went ahead and came by myself. I realized immediately afterwards that this was a mistake, and that I should have contented myself with valley orgasms only, and that Sarah would probably want to try again later. As it turns out, she did want to try again later. Namely, at about half past two in the morning, when both she and I suddenly woke together. She guided my hand to her cunt, but I was unable to oblige with an erection, both due to being sleepy and from feeling drained from my orgasm earlier. I was equally uninterested in sex when we woke again at six in the morning, though I no doubt could have gotten hard had I forced myself. Masturbation I can enjoy even when I have very little sexual desire, but for me to really want or enjoy sex with Sarah, I have to be highly aroused.

Lunch with Helen, for the first time in two weeks. There had been some tension at our last lunch and hence we had avoided one another for while. Today's lunch, by contrast, was passed in a pleasant way. Both of Helen's home and work situations remain more or less the same as ever. Earlier this month, Paul obtained a consulting job at $100/hour—the most per hour that he has ever been paid—but the initial two-week contract was not extended. It seems Paul lied about having experience with a particular brand of computer software, when in fact he knew nothing whatsoever about this software, and so naturally he wasn't able to accomplish much.

I spent the afternoon wandering about and sitting in donut shops, cafes and various parks, all the while contemplating the Tarot, which gives me great peace of mind. Whenever I feel the onset of my usual restlessness and discontent, I bring to mind the image of one of the Tarot cards and suddenly all this restlessness and discontent disappears and I am filled with serenity. The only element remaining for me to be completely happy would be if I were able to sit cross-legged for extended periods of time without developing pain in my knees. Hopefully, that ability will be coming soon.

In the evening, Sarah and I went to a going away party for one of her friends, who will be moving to the east coast next month. Sarah met this friend several years ago at a women's therapy group, and has seen her off and on since then, though they don't have much in common. I knew no one at the party, while Sarah knew only her friend, so we both felt like outsiders who didn't belong. The other guests, on the other hand, seemed to know one another very well. They call themselves "the gang" and apparently meet together frequently for parties and weekend getaways. On the way home, Sarah said the party made her feel depressed, as if she were inferior because she didn't have many friends herself. Not that she particularly wanted to be friends with the people at the party. Indeed, just the thought of seeing them all every weekend made her feel sick. Neither of us was interested in sex when we got into bed.

An excellent bout of sex in the morning. I was highly aroused but with perfect control, and so was able to bring Sarah off without difficulty, even though she took much longer than usual due to feeling tense from work. Early on during the fucking, I had felt myself approaching orgasm and so paused, then felt a few drops of semen dribble from my cock. I feared the worst, that my cock would soon soften, but as it turns out I grew even harder after this, and I had no further problems with control from then on.

We walked to the cafe in the afternoon, sat there for several hours, then walked back to Sarah's house, and talked some more about her job and what she can do to make the situation there more bearable, and we also discussed Sarah's options for quitting her job and earning income some other way, such as by renting out a room in her house or starting up her own business. Sarah complained that her supervisor is constantly taking credit for work done by Sarah, which the supervisor is supposed to be doing herself but which the supervisor is incapable of doing, since she lacks even rudimentary drawing skills, and that the only reason this supervisor is able to hold her job is that she knows how to talk and because all the real work is being done by Sarah. I pointed out that, if what Sarah said was true, then Sarah had much more power in her job than I had originally thought. As long as Sarah continues to do the supervisor's job, she should have no problem negotiating with the supervisor for what she really wants. Namely, to be left alone and not insulted in front of the other workers. It really doesn't matter that the supervisor is taking credit for Sarah's designs, since Sarah has an inexhaustible supply of new design ideas and these ideas would just go to waste if she didn't let the supervisor steal them.

I left in the late afternoon, feeling relaxed and happy for a change about my relationship with Sarah. What has changed is that we spending less time together. No more of these endless weekends together with me feeling trapped in suburbia. Instead, we spend a night and day together, followed by several days apart. I arrive at her house late Saturday afternoon and leave late Sunday afternoon, while she arrives at my apartment late Thursday afternoon and leaves Friday morning.

Elizabeth called. Several months ago, she noticed a lump in her neck. Last month she went to have it examined, and the doctor diagnosed the lump as being cancerous. Apparently, the treatment Elizabeth received for breast cancer five years ago didn't cure the cancer completely. The treatment five years ago consisted of surgery (partial mastectomy), radiation and chemotherapy. Elizabeth hasn't yet decided what treatment to undergo for the lump in her neck. She is reluctant to repeat chemotherapy, however. She had already quit her job, before learning about the reappearance of her cancer, with the intention of moving to another part of the country. "I wanted a change," she explained. Now those plans are on hold. She isn't particularly worried about money. In the short run she has savings and state disability, while after three months she will begin receiving payments from her long-term disability insurance. After telling me all this, she began complaining: "Doctors know nothing about what causes cancer. Here I am, I took good care of health. I ate right, I didn't take drugs, I didn't drink, I'm not overweight, and yet I'm the one who gets cancer and not all these people who abuse their bodies. That's what makes me so angry." My impression is that it is precisely Elizabeth's anger, along with her bitterness and sexual repression and resentment, that brought back her cancer.

We then discussed my situation. I filled Elizabeth in on the current status of my will contest lawsuit and asked again if she would be willing to give a deposition. She tentatively agreed, depending on her health (she might be undergoing cancer treatments in the next few months). I then mentioned that I was still seeing Sarah, and that most of my time now was spent studying Tarot and astrology. I offered to give her a reading in the future, but didn't set a date for calling her back. Our relationship strikes me as very awkward, so that I'm uncomfortable with the idea of seeing her again. I continue to find Elizabeth sexually attractive, but I don't dare express this because I'm sure she would make me feel guilty, given that she is currently sick and that, regardless of what happens between us, I wouldn't drop Sarah. But if I have to repress my sexuality, I just as soon not see Elizabeth at all. I don't mind her not wanting sex because of feeling sick. However, I sense that, quite the contrary, she does want sex, but is repressing this desire because of a moralizing voice in her head which says it is "disgusting" for her to be thinking about sex when she has cancer, and even if she were healthy, it would be "immoral" to have sex with a man like me who is already "taken" by another woman. I know Elizabeth well enough by now to know this is how she thinks. I also know myself and my tendency to be influenced by the people I'm around. If I meet Elizabeth in person, I'm likely to absorb and be poisoned by her guilt-ridden thinking, and therefore I should avoid seeing her in person. Maybe we can just talk by phone every few weeks.

I've been unable to stick to the diet of mostly fruits and vegetables which I started two weeks ago. Aside from getting bored, I was losing weight very rapidly. Several days ago I had a bowl of lentils and rice, then yesterday I started with the pastries, and finally tonight I gorged on a huge chunk of cheese. As for twice a day yoga business that I wrote about at the beginning of this month, that ended long ago.

Sarah came by after work. At first I had some difficulty getting an erection, even though I hadn't masturbated since two days ago. Then, once I was hard, Sarah rolled over, as if wanting to be on top and so we tried that position. I tickled her anus with one hand and fingered her clitoris with the other, which caused her to moan in pleasure, but I wasn't really able to get excited myself. Eventually, I lost my erection and couldn't get it back and so we gave up. My overall impression was that we weren't "connecting". Or perhaps I was picking up on her state of extreme tension and that's what turned me off, since it clashes with my own current mood of calmness. This tension is due to her job, which she feels is driving her to the point of a nervous breakdown. Every day this week, upon awakening, her first thought was: "I really don't want to go to work today." Yesterday, she took off early, at noon, while today she didn't arrive at work until noon.

While eating dinner at the cafe, Sarah said: "I want to do something exciting to take my mind off work. I want you to come up with ideas for something exciting to do." I can appreciate that she wants this from me. I have the whole day free, after all, and thus have plenty of time to come up with ideas. However, excitement is something I've always scrupulously avoided in my life. "Russian roulette is exciting," I suggested in jest. "No, not something dangerous. Not physically dangerous, at least. Exciting but not dangerous," she replied.

Sarah and I tried sex again in the morning. I managed to get hard after much stimulation on her part, then I entered her and fucked for a while, but without good control, and finally I lost my erection after a dry orgasm. Bad sex, in other words. Sarah left soon afterwards. I suppose I shouldn't blame myself too much. I've proven many a time that I can be an good lover when I want to be. The question is why I no longer want to be a good lover. The word that springs to mind about the situation between me and Sarah right now is "scattered", as in our sexual energy feels scattered. Another problem might be that I haven't been eating enough lately (due to my fruit and vegetables diet) and that is why my sex drive is diminished.

I've decided to abandon my fruit and vegetables diet completely and from now on eat whatever I feel like eating, which means lots of cheese and pastries and chocolate. Aside from making me weak and causing me to lose weight, I think this diet might even be partly to blame for my recent impotence problems with Sarah. What was the point of this crazy diet anyway? So I can live an extra ten years? Who cares, if I'm feeling exhausted the whole time I'm alive? My body thrives on cheese and pastries and it always has. It felt so wonderful last night eating a half-pound of cheese! I closed my eyes as I chewed and imagined my blood thickening and all the weight I lost the past few weeks returning to my bones and my body regaining its old shape instead of looking undernourished. I was just making myself sick with this denial of my bodily urges, I now realize.

This applies not just to food, but also to other aspects of my life as well. Why do I fret about doing nothing with my life? I've never had any ambition and it is false and a denial of my true nature to pretend otherwise. All I really want to do is what I've been doing naturally most of my life. Lying on the sofa whenever possible, reading and masturbating, gorging on cheese and ice cream and pastries, exercising in the morning, sleeping eight to ten hours each night. Why do I feel guilty about oversleeping? Why do I push myself to leave the apartment and "do something with myself"? Where does my guilt about doing nothing come from?

Also, I decided to return to dressing elegantly, even when not around Sarah, and to go back to patronizing the stylish cafe where I've spent much of the past five years of my life, instead of hanging out in seedy donut shops. I find it curious that, after consulting my true desires, I decided to go with elegant dress instead of the homeless look. For some reason, I expected the opposite would occur.

I took the bus to Sarah's house and we had good sex for a change. My erection was rock-solid and with no control problems whatsoever, so that I was easily able to bring Sarah to orgasm. I should note that I masturbated to orgasm last night and masturbated without orgasm this morning, which indicates that too much masturbation is clearly not the cause of my failure to get and maintain a solid erection yesterday and the day before. What is the cause, I wonder?

Tango dancing afterwards, where Sarah and I did much better than usual. I had complained after our last evening of dancing that Sarah was pulling on me. She seemed to have corrected that fault tonight, at least initially. We danced about twenty times together and then split up, so as to dance with other partners. Having just enjoyed good sex and dancing with Sarah, I was in no mood for bad experiences, and so only asked two other women to dance. The first of these was a fleshy blonde in her early thirties—broad-shouldered, thick arms and legs, almost as tall as me, probably as heavy as me. She leaned against me strongly so that I had no trouble leading her perfectly. She said she remembered dancing with me a year ago, though I had no memory of her. Her underarms smelled of heavy perspiration, which I found highly arousing. Then I danced with a black-haired woman in her late forties, who dresses in the strangest outfits—long black capes, black leather skirts, high black leather boots—and with whom I've danced many times in the past. At first, she pressed herself close and leaned backwards, as if planning to hump my leg. However, by leaning forwards strongly myself, I made it clear that I was prepared to see us topple over if she persisted in leaning backwards. She got the message and switched to the correct forwards leaning posture, and from then on we were able to work together nicely, especially since the two songs we danced to were among my favorite tango songs. She curtsied to me after we finished.

I woke to thoughts of the blonde from last night and how enjoyable it would be to have sex with a woman with some smell to her underarms, other than the smells of anti-perspirant and soap, which is all I can smell with Sarah. I can understand wanting to wash away piss and shit, and I'm grateful for that, but why this mania to scrub herself into odorlessness? Karen was the same way. And yet both of them had pleasant natural body odor, as I know from the few times I had a chance to lick their cunts after they had sweated for a while but before they had a chance to bathe. Unfortunately, it is impossible to discuss this topic with a woman. I either accept Sarah the way she is or get someone else.

Perhaps because of these thoughts about smell and Sarah's lack thereof, our sex in the morning was among our lousiest ever. At first, I couldn't get hard, and then after I did get hard, my erection faded after the first valley orgasm. Then this whole sorry sequence repeated. More impotence, more struggling to get me even semi-erect, finally Sarah managed to stuff my cock into her cunt, I stiffened briefly, then I went completely limp after another valley orgasm. Sarah was highly aroused by this time, so I tried bringing her off with my hand, to no avail. I think the only time I've ever brought Sarah to orgasm without having an erection was during our very first bout of love-making, when she came after twenty minutes of cunnilingus. Otherwise, all of her orgasms have required both direct clitoral stimulation, either with my finger or my tongue, and my hard cock inside her mouth or her cunt, and the harder my cock is, the easier it is for her to come. Impotence is thus a disaster for our sex life. Sarah didn't complain this morning's bad sex.

At the cafe in the afternoon, I dropped a dollar into the street musician's bucket, attached to which was a sign reading "Make a Wish". At first I thought about wishing for something concerning sex. Either fix my relationship with Sarah, or get another woman, or admit that I'm a homosexual, or whatever, but then I suddenly realized that sex is not that important to me. What do I really want in life, I asked myself? And then suddenly it came to me. I wished for my knees to become flexible so that I can sit cross-legged for hours without discomfort.

Upon returning to Sarah's house, we talked about her possibilities for escaping her hated job. We agreed that her best bet is to rent out her spare bedroom, so as to reduce her need for income from working, and thus allow her to contemplate quitting and taking something lower-paid if her current job becomes truly unbearable. Yesterday morning, I had done some investigation on the internet, and made print-outs of information regarding the legal ramifications of taking in a boarder. It appears that the law is very favorable towards the landlord (in the sense that the landlord can evict the boarder or raise the rent or change rules at any time) provided the landlord lives on the premises, and there is only one boarder, and the boarder shares the bath and/or kitchen with the landlord. All of which would be true in Sarah's case. Sarah's primary concern is loss of privacy, but that concern can be addressed by converting her garage, which is separate from the rest of the house, into a private study, so that she'll have somewhere to retreat to whenever she wants complete solitude. This talk about converting her garage into a study left Sarah feeling cheerful: "Now I'm not so depressed about going back to work tomorrow. That's what I needed. Something besides work to look forwards to."

Salsa dancing in the evening to live music. My first night out at a salsa club since almost a year ago, not counting the experience in Europe earlier this year. For whatever reason, I wasn't in the mood to dance and so spent most of my time standing against the wall, watching the other dancers. This lack of desire to dance didn't mean that I wanted to be rude, however, and so when a tall blonde approached and stood next to me, I issued the invitation to dance that she obviously wanted. A good experience overall, though her skills left something to be desired (she had stiff arms, out of control turns, and a shaky sense of rhythm). "That was a great dance," she said afterwards, so evidently she thought more highly of our performance than me. She approached again later, but this time, instead of waiting for me, she issued the invitation to dance. We did better than earlier but our effort was still nothing that I would call great, though she apparently felt otherwise: "Maybe we can dance one more song? I really like dancing with you." And so we danced a third time together. She was with a male escort, so I think she was being honest about enjoying dancing with me, and wasn't expecting anything beyond a dance. I'm not sure what I did to please her so. Perhaps she just liked the fact that I'm Anglo and taller than her. Most of the men at the club were short Mexicans. She was something of a looker—in the tall, slender, flat-chested model sort of way—dressed skimpily in a sequined mini-skirt and halter-top, and with a big friendly smile on her face. I suppose I should have found her sexually exciting, but I didn't. In fact, I didn't find any of the women at the club sexually exciting. They might be suitable as dance partners or masturbation fantasy objects, but the idea of talking to them or bringing them back to my apartment fills me with a combination of boredom and horror.

I talked to my lawyer this morning. My sister's lawyer hasn't yet come forth with any more written settlement proposals, but has been talking about offering no more than $350,000. I told my lawyer to proceed with trial preparations. I'm feeling very confident and enthusiastic about presenting my case before a jury. No more of this feeling of "no stomach for a fight" of a month ago.

Lunch with Helen, who complained that Paul is wanting sex too often: "He's turning into a problem again. It's because he's unemployed and has nothing else to think about. It used to be that he was nice about it. Does my little girl want some nooky-nooky? he would say. And if I said no, he'd be very sweet and not get upset. But now he wants it every night! And then he's really insistent when I say no!" Two weeks ago, while Paul was still employed at his temporary job, Helen gave in to Paul's demands, and even let him have sex with her the "normal way" (meaning vaginal instead of anal intercourse) without using birth control. "I thought, he has a job and I want a child and everything is okay and so why not? Luckily, I didn't get pregnant."

Last weekend, she met with one of her old girlfriends, who recently moved to the area and who she hadn't seen in almost ten years. Helen would have preferred to meet this friend alone, but Paul insisted on tagging along. "Now she knows how much older than me he is, and eventually I'll have to tell her that he's broke and unemployed, which means I'll eventually be supporting him. And I had already told her that I'm working in a dead-end job in a corporation. A complete loser is what I look like. I don't know what illusions she had about me, but they've either been shattered completely already or they're about to be shattered."

One of Helen's co-workers has recently been "busy as a beaver" learning computer programming, in order to serve as Helen's backup, and now Helen is worried that the comfortable niche she has created for herself might be under attack. Currently, she is the only employee in the department with significant computer expertise, and hence her supervisor has no way of evaluating her work, neither the quality nor the speed at which she performs it.

At home, she keeps herself busy with various activities—learning French, writing her journal, cooking—and she might be taking up tennis or billiards or working out at the gym in the future. "I want to meet some new men. The spark is gone between me and Paul. It's isn't just that he doesn't have a job or money, either. At first I really was attracted to him, but every since that abortion two years ago, things have been different."

I took the bus to Sarah's house in the evening. We sat on the sofa drinking beer and talking, despite having little to say to one another. Sarah complained that I smelled of garlic, though I don't recall eating any lately. Perhaps my body was deliberately creating unpleasant odors in order to drive her away. In bed, I read aloud to her some (from Dracula), then pretended to be tired in order to avoid sex. Or maybe I really was tired. Emotionally tired, due to pretending to enjoy Sarah's company when I don't.

The next morning, after finishing my morning exercises and showering, I looked into the bedroom and saw Sarah sitting there in bed, sipping tea and writing in her dream diary. I was finally feeling aroused by this time and so joined her. The usual sex routine. Kissing, fingering, cunnilingus, missionary position fucking, with manual clitoral stimulation towards the end. Several valley orgasms for me, then Sarah came, then I lost control and came myself. My intention had been to hold off from orgasm this morning in order to conserve my energy for the rest of this weekend, even though I suspect my recent lack of desire hasn't been so much due to physical exhaustion as because Sarah simply no longer arouses me, for whatever reason.

I fell into a stuporous half-sleep after coming, while Sarah got up to do her housecleaning chores. I had yesterday promised to help her with some heavy yard work this morning, but then when I finally roused myself from bed and went outside, where she was furiously scrubbing her car, she informed me that she had hired someone else to do the work, and pointed to a man working in a neighbor's yard. "You don't want me to do anything?" I said. "No, I told you I hired someone to do the work," she replied, then she resumed scrubbing her car. I went back inside the house and dressed and packed up my shoulder bag. When I came out again, Sarah acted surprised. "You're leaving?" she asked. "Yes, I'll come back tomorrow," I replied. Sarah shrugged and said: "Maybe. But let's talk by phone first." And so I promised to call her tomorrow. We kissed and parted pleasantly, though it was obvious there was tension between us. Perhaps she resents that I just show up for a few hours for sex and then leave. But then what else am I to do? I don't really enjoy her company and can't imagine spending all weekend with her. (She also has this coming Monday off, incidentally, so this is a four day weekend for her). And she wants sex with me at least as much as I want it with her, so it isn't like our relationship is one-sided in my favor in that department.

At the cafe, a pretty young woman sat at the table in front of me. A redhead with her hair cut short, not as if trying to drive men away, but more like she is too lazy to deal with long hair. She was eccentrically dressed, with orange socks matching her hair color, and lace bloomers under her dress, several inches of which she made sure to reveal as she sat down. She half-turned in my direction so as to look at me out of the corner of her eye and then slowly stroked her leg and neck and hair in a most erotic way. I couldn't resist playing along with her flirtation and staring at her in lieu of reading my book, but then when I failed to follow up on these eye games, she became exasperated and eventually walked off in a huff. My own feelings when she left the cafe were of relief. I can stare at women, I can dance with them, I can play eye games with them. But the minute we begin to speak to one another, I become anxious and unhappy and can think of nothing but wanting to run away. I don't know why I'm like this. There was a time when I felt guilty about my behavior, but now I realize that this is my nature and I have to accept myself as I am. Certainly I am repressing some of my desires, and always have been, but then everyone living in modern society represses desires, starting with the desires associated with toilet training. The question is whether I'm suppressing strong desires in order to indulge weaker desires. If so, then I am suffering more frustration than is necessary and I would be happier if I behaved differently. Otherwise, I'm doing exactly what I should be doing in order to minimize my pain and maximize my pleasure in life. And yet my behavior seems so unnatural.

There was a message on my answering machine from Helen. A few weeks back, Paul was visiting Helen's apartment and helping her to sort through books, when he came across a printout I had made for Helen of extracts from this journal related to her. Though he managed to flip through this printout briefly before Helen snatched it from his hands, he didn't recognize that it concerned Helen and himself. Helen wants to avoid such close calls in the future by getting rid of the printout, but she is reluctant to simply throw it in the trash, for fear someone might find it. Instead, she wants to stop by my apartment and use my paper shredder. My own suspicion is that she has some other reason for wanting to visit my apartment, such as planning to get pregnant by me. She hasn't visited my apartment in almost a year, I should note.

I took bus back to Sarah's house in the evening. Once again, not much to say to one another. We had originally planned to go out tango dancing, but Sarah has developed some sort of vague dislike of tonight's club, and I didn't want to go if she didn't want to go, and so instead of dancing we sat in her living room and squabbled over trivia of some sort or another. I forget the exact details. Immediately after getting into bed, I rolled over and faced the wall and pretended to go to sleep, so as to escape having sex. My thoughts were along the lines of "What a waste of time it is coming over here."

Excellent sex in the morning. Mutual oral sex as foreplay, then missionary position fucking, concluding with an orgasm for Sarah. I had no peak orgasm myself, as I wanted to conserve energy, but I did have several valley orgasms, including one in which I dribbled a small amount of semen, after which my control was perfect and I had no trouble maintaining a rock-solid erection. We spent the middle of the day sitting in a cafe, then drove around looking at open houses, then back to Sarah's house for a late lunch, and then I left. Both of us were cheerful in parting, with all the tension from yesterday evening having dissipated.

Finally, I am at the point where I can sit cross-legged on the floor for an hour at a time without feeling discomfort in my knees, as opposed to only being able to sit for about fifteen minutes before discomfort sets in. The problem was that there was a period of three weeks or so of excruciating pain and feelings of wobbliness in the knees while the tendons and ligaments were being stretched, which gave the impression that my knees were being damaged permanently by the stretching, so that the natural and sensible reaction was to give up and try something else, which is exactly what I did in the past. This time though, I stuck things out and eventually the pain and wobbliness went away, and now my knees feel back to normal, but also more flexible than before.

I attended a structured yoga class at a yoga studio for the first time in my life. Just as I had anticipated, this class was much more time-consuming than doing yoga in my own apartment. I doubt I'll be returning there in the future. The young woman instructor came on to me afterwards, perhaps because she thought I was coming on to her during the workout, due to the way I couldn't resist staring at her rear end whenever she bent over to show us newcomers how to do the poses. But though her body was attractive, her personality left me feeling stifled. She concluded the session by telling us: "Thank you for letting me teach. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share with you the knowledge that others have given to me. Namaste." And then she bowed to us with her hands together in prayer position. It all struck me as phony and pretentious. What's wrong with something simple like: "Thank you for coming and hope to see you back next time"?

A postcard from Marianne, sent from Asia, where she has been traveling: "...I hope you are happy with your new girlfriend and I do hope that you will keep in touch. I have enjoyed meeting you. You are so special. Ciao! Marianne." I hate to dismiss Marianne from my life entirely, even if the sex with her was less than spectacular. She is intelligent and pleasant, after all. Unfortunately, converting a lover into a friend isn't very easy.

Lunch with Helen. She and Paul engaged in more unprotected vaginal sex this past weekend. This was near her time of ovulation, so there is substantial chance that she might have gotten pregnant. The next day, Helen was feeling very affectionate towards Paul, but then he burst her bubble by saying something nasty, along the lines of: "Nothing has changed since we met. We've never gotten along well and we never will." Matters escalated and Helen ended up spending last night at her own apartment. Now she is thinking of breaking up with Paul again: "He makes me feel very insecure, and not just because of the money situation." Paul has given up looking for a job, supposedly because the summer is a slow time for finding work. Instead, he spends his days playing computer games and writing a detective novel. I suggested that he would make up with Helen soon, since she is his life-raft as he sinks into poverty, but Helen waved this remark away: "I don't want to hear that sort of talk from you. I listened to you in the past when you talked like that about Paul and that was part of what went wrong between us." Then she asked if I thought Paul would make a good father. "He seems to have good genes and I doubt if anything he did or didn't do would have much of an adverse affect on the child's personality. In other words, he won't wreck the child's life, I'm pretty sure of that, though he might well wreck yours," I answered. "Oh, I'm not worried about him wrecking my life," Helen replied.

I reflected later on how curious it is that I always look forward to seeing Helen and always have something to say to her, but that I am so awkward with Sarah, until after we have had sex.

Evening with Sarah. It appears I've got the sexual kung-fu working again. I had to bring my legs together whenever I came but otherwise my control was perfect. At least three valley orgasms for me, with each lasting more than a minute. Sarah was very excited by all this fucking and coming on my part, and by my new beard, which is long enough now that it doesn't scratch but merely tickles, but nevertheless she wasn't able to come, perhaps from worrying about problems with a gardener and about not having enough money to retire. If I were in her shoes, I would sell her house, sell most of her furniture, sell her car, and then either move to another city where rents are low or else move into a group house, and give up this working for a living bullshit for good. However, I didn't tell her this, since it really isn't my business and because I'm sure these ideas have occurred to her already and she has rejected them. At four am, I woke and noticed she wasn't in bed and that there was a light on in the living room. I called out and Sarah came back to bed and explained that she had woken up at two and then couldn't get back to sleep again. And I thought I was a worrier!

I spent the morning as I have many a morning of late, mindlessly playing the stupid computer games that come with my operating system (Minesweeper and FreeCell), only stopping after five hours due to a terrible headache. Then, in a sudden moment of lucidity and self-discipline, I deleted these games from the computer altogether, so as to avoid being tempted by them in the future. How I loathe myself when I waste time on the computer! Why don't I just masturbate when I have nothing else to do? I never feel guilty about time spent masturbating, provided I don't come, and surely masturbation is more pleasurable than playing a stupid computer game?

(These games I deleted can easily be reinstalled from the operating system install disk, but that would involve opening the file box where I store my install disks, then rummaging through this box to find the disk needed, then inserting this disk into the computer, and so on. I know myself well enough to know I'll never bother with all of this. The same inertia and lack of willpower that causes me to go on playing these stupid games for hours on end, also protects me from reinstalling them once deleted. Every cloud has a silver lining...)

Another evening with Sarah. It looks like I've suffered another relapse with regards to the sexual kung-fu. I had trouble getting hard to begin with, and then I lost my erection entirely after several valley orgasms, so that Sarah was unable to come. We had originally planned on Cajun dancing, but I wasn't interested and so proposed we eat at a restaurant instead. A tedious meal that gave me a sour stomach afterwards. All evening, I kept thinking: "How boring this is! What's more, I don't care if I'm a lousy lover who can't keep or sometimes even get a decent erection."

More lousy sex in the morning. This time I lost control and came just as Sarah was about to come and thus left her stranded. She seems to be having more difficulty with her orgasms than usual of late, perhaps because she detects my lack of excitement, which in turn is partly due to her inability to come, and so the cycle continues. Another attempt to get things right in the afternoon, when we returned from the cafe. This time Sarah finally had an orgasm, though it was a close call, since once again I lost control and came too soon. Luckily, I managed to bring her off before my erection faded completely. Sarah asked about Helen and so I told her that Helen might be pregnant and that I was glad I wasn't the father because that would make me beholden to Helen. Then we did a Tarot card reading. I advised Sarah to be wary of hare-brained investment schemes coming from her ex-husband.

On the way home, I reflected that it is probably largely because of regular sex with Sarah that I no longer obsess so much about sex and women. I need to remember this. Sarah might be boring, but I only have to see her twice a week and the rest of the time I am on my own. Things could be much, much worse. Without Sarah, I might easily fall into the clutches of a younger woman who wants to start a family. "But if you don't want a family yourself, then why not just ditch any younger woman who proposes such a thing?" I can already hear voices asking this and similar questions. The problem is that I lack self-control. I very easily become very strongly attached to certain types of women, including the sort who want children. Here I am, for example, unable to wrest myself free of Sarah—and yet she is twenty-two years older than me! If she were younger than me and pregnant, I would never be able to abandon her. I might be verbally abusive, and demand separate living arrangements, and have a mistress on the side, but I would never be able to break free of her. And the result would be misery for me, of that I am sure. Just look at how I can't break free of Helen, even though she's been living with another man for three years now! And look at how much trouble it was for me to get rid of Marianne, and how I keep thinking of getting back with Karen or Elizabeth or various other ex-lovers! I need to remember that Sarah is currently protecting me from myself. For this fact alone, I should be more appreciative of her.

While sitting in a cafe eating lunch, I played eye games with a petite older blonde, similar to Sarah in both age and size and shape, except not so "top-heavy". Not that either "top-heaviness" or the lack thereof has ever struck me a fault. In fact, a small-breasted woman might be a welcome change at this point. She was wearing tacky gold jewelry, including rings on most of the fingers of both hands, but conspicuously not on the wedding ring finger. An abrasive and bitchy voice while placing her order, which brought to mind the phrase "she really needs to get fucked bad". When she got up to fill her cup with water, I couldn't resist staring at her ass and fantasizing about kissing her cunt from behind while fingering her and then fucking her from behind and who knows what else. Maybe I even went so far as to lick my chops at these lewd images. Then I lifted my eyes and noticed that she was staring back at me through a mirror. For once, I might have done something, since here at last was a woman who didn't scare me, except that I had Sarah to worry about. The truth is, I'm ready for someone new. It doesn't matter that Sarah is nice and this other woman is probably a mercenary bitch. What is important is that she's different and I want variety. But how to get rid of Sarah? This is the problem with having someone nice as a lover. It's so difficult to get rid of them. From now on, I'm going to have to set a limit on my relationships. Three months and then it ends and that's that.

Sarah came by in the evening and I enacted with her some of the lewd fantasies I had been toying with ever since the episode with the blonde in the cafe earlier. In particular, I flipped her over after licking at her cunt and nibbled at her ass, which caused her to tighten her buttocks and squirm and giggle uncontrollably and complain that my beard (I started growing a beard again several weeks ago) was tickling her. Then fucking, but I lost interest as time went on and began to soften gradually and in order to keep hard, I had to imagine eating the cunt from behind of the woman in the cafe. No orgasm for Sarah, a peak orgasm for myself. I really don't know why I'm losing interest in sex like this, to the point where I can't keep a decent erection any more.

Tango dancing afterwards, where I did poorly, other than for a single good experience with a young beginner with whom I danced five times. What a relief it was to have a woman my own size leaning against me, rather than Sarah collapsing and pulling me backwards or various other women holding me at a distance. I think now that I was too hard on the women of Europe. The women here in West Metropolis can be equally incompetent and/or frigid dancers.

Sarah fell promptly asleep after we got back, whereas I remained awake until three in the morning, pondering my situation with Sarah and women in general. Why this desire for novelty? Getting a woman is a lot of work, after all, and once gotten, they tend to be a big nuisance. Thus it makes little sense to give up Sarah, since any replacement is likely to be even less satisfactory, all things considered. I need to remember that my goal is not pleasure but rather the avoidance of pain. I don't need a perfect woman. I just need someone to give me enough regular sex that I am not troubled by feelings of sexual deprivation, and Sarah fits this bill admirably. The only "pain" I'm currently suffering is the pain of boredom. But if I try to escape this boredom by seeking excitement, I may well bring down a storm of other pains upon my head. The wise and prudent course of action would seem to be to accept the boredom, at least for now. Our twenty-two year age difference makes it inevitable that Sarah and I will eventually break up. There is thus no need for me to force matters.

I'm currently two weeks behind in writing up these journal entries from note form, and I'm beginning to wonder why I even bother. Three years ago, when I started this journal, I was trying to learn something about myself. In particular, I wanted to know what had gone wrong in my life with regards to women and my software business. Now I know that nothing went wrong. My life was always meaningless and absurd and stupid and always will be. Twenty years from now, I'll be essentially where I am today, which is also essentially where I was twenty years ago. Namely, fretting about whether to pursue some women or not, living like a pauper despite having plenty of money in the bank, reading and daydreaming and masturbating and dabbling at this, that or the other hobby in order to pass the time. Is there any good reason for keeping a detailed record of such an existence?

The only strong desire I really have at this point is to be reborn a beautiful woman and be fucked by several men at once. Cocks in my mouth, ass, cunt, underarms and between my tits all at the same time, with more cocks lined up waiting to enter me whenever someone comes, and maybe even some extra cocks on the side, jacking off and spraying me with semen now and then, fucking me and fucking me and fucking me until I finally die from exhaustion. Being fucked as a man doesn't interest me, for whatever reason, while as for a sex-change operation, my body is simply too masculine looking for that to be an option. I want to be a beautiful woman, after all, and not some sort of hideous Frankenstein monster. And what about this recent desire to use my tongue to tickle the assholes of petite, older blondes like Sarah and the woman I saw in the cafe yesterday, until they scream and beg me to stop the teasing and start the fucking? Where did that perverted lust come from? I shudder to think at what the future holds in store. What if I suddenly wake up with an insane craving to rape young girls, or do something else illegal or dangerous? It has occurred to me that perhaps all this raging lust and these fears of going crazy about sex are the result of my recent near-impotence with Sarah. The weaker my abilities to carry out deeds in the real world, the more extreme my fantasies become.

I took a Tarot card reading in the evening, to see where I'm headed in life. Results are as follows. Currently, I have more or less reconciled my worldview and basic desires, and thus reduced my inner conflicts to a tolerable level as compared with the situation when I was young, though of course there remains some inner tension (as it obvious from the ranting in the paragraphs above). Looking ahead, I'll win my lawsuit, get richer than I am now, and then go about life in a listless manner, taking up and abandoning one interest after another, with little enthusiasm for anything besides wallowing in sloth and gluttony and other vices of the flesh. An alternative future would see me controlling my physical lusts, and becoming involved with education, either as a student or teacher, and somehow escaping the emptiness of my current existence. The psychological background for both current and future situations is my obsession with sex and women. My options are limited because our society, like all societies, is sexually repressive and I've internalized enough of this sexual repression that I can't abandon myself to promiscuity.

I took the bus to Sarah's house in the evening and managed to perform competently for a change. Almost forty minutes with a solid erection and good control. Alas, Sarah still couldn't come. I'm not sure what the problem was. Perhaps tension from work. My own orgasms were strictly valley variety. Afterwards, we sat around talking and then went to bed early.

In the morning, I had troubles keeping a proper erection and then came too soon. It occurs to me that what I need is another woman in my life to bring back my sex drive. I need to stop worrying about losing Sarah, and start having a few affairs on the side. I considered the possibility that I might need a younger woman. And yet why? Perhaps my body is demanding that I have sex with women of child-bearing age. But then why was I able to get so aroused by Sarah several months ago? I need to go back and carefully review this journal in order to figure out what is happening to me now and why I am losing all my desire for sex. Also, I definitely need to stop masturbating. What if no one can get me aroused any more? Impotence except during masturbation. Perhaps that is what the future has in store for me.

My studies of astrology have led me to the conclusion that this pseudo-science affects thinking in the same way as stereotypes and clichés. To wit, it narrows the mind and makes people stupid. Compare, for example, the statements "Leos are like this and Virgos like this" with "Blacks are like this and whites are like this" or "The French are like this and the Japanese are like this and both are different from Americans who are like this". Astrology is of some use in providing a springboard for discussing another person's life and personality, but any birth chart can be used for this, and not just the "correct" one. This is because astrology contains enough duplication and fuzziness that anything can be found in any chart and thus any chart can be used for anyone. Astrology is hopelessly fuzzy, in other words, and works in the same way that Rorschach inkblots work. Regardless of whether astrology has any merit or not, I continued to be fascinated by it. I once thought of reading the dictionary to pass time in case I lose interest in reading anything else, but now I think astrology books might serve this purpose better. I should note that I am in complete sympathy with the worldview underlying astrology. Namely, we are pieces of a much larger whole, and what happens to any of us happens to all of us, and free will is an illusion, and it is pointless to feel responsible about our failures, or envy towards those who are more successful, or hate towards our enemies, since everything which happens in this universe is happening exactly the way it is supposed to be happening and we should therefore accept everything as being part of a grand plan.

Helen stopped by my apartment in the afternoon, in order to use my paper shredder. We hugged, but I wasn't particularly aroused by her. She was curious to see some pictures of Sarah, and so I let her flip through my photograph album. I noticed her later staring at pictures of my relatives and of me as a boy, as if checking to see whether I am acceptable breeding stock for producing children. Incidentally, she now knows for certain (due to menstruating since) that she did not get pregnant by Paul during their last bout of sex. She has reinitiated email contact with Eddie, the man her cousin introduced her to a year ago, and whose advances she rejected several times because she didn't find him sexually attractive. Eddie wrote that he currently has two girlfriends. Helen suggested that he might want to make that three. Eddie replied that even two girlfriends was too much and that he needed time for himself, but that he appreciated her offer. Or something to this effect, Helen was a bit fuzzy about the details of their correspondence.

Mark had left two messages on my answering machine this weekend, so today I called him back. He says he's fatter than ever, which would mean that he is on the verge of needing medical treatment for obesity. "Oh, man, it's really disgusting. But I'm trying. Got me a pot of steamed vegetables for dinner tonight. And I'm trying to stay away from carbohydrates and also fat as best I can. Though, I'm telling you, if something doesn't happen soon, I'm going to have to take a shotgun to myself... You know what got me thinking about you was this incident on the bus the other day. I gave my car away to the retarded people's foundation, you see, so I've been taking the bus lately. Anyway, this old homeless guy got on and he smelled like shit. I mean, he really stank, like he'd messed in his pants. And it was a warm day, so you can imagine what it was like on that bus, with everyone packed in tight in there and wrinkling their noses like they're thinking, where's that smell coming from? That made me think of that book you gave me, the 120 Days of Sodom and how that old Curval used to get whores to shit in his pants and then he'd walk around town grossing everyone out. Ha! Ha!" Mark might be visiting me this fall, after the trial for my lawsuit, but only if he doesn't have a job by then. Currently, he is living on unemployment insurance and savings. I promised to print up and send him some business cards for his used furniture business, which he runs from his one-room apartment (which also serves as his warehouse). Though Mark has a computer himself now, he doesn't yet know how to make business cards with it.

In response to his inquiry regarding Sarah, I explained that we spent two nights and one day a week together for sex, and the rest of our time was spent separately. "The ideal arrangement!" exclaimed Mark. "Maybe, but that doesn't stop me from wanting a change...You don't know what it's like, having to listen to that prattling of hers," I said. Mark laughed uncontrollably at this.

I'm beginning to think something is seriously wrong with my sex drive. Two days ago, I couldn't get to sleep until I masturbated and then yesterday and today I had little sex drive. I talked to Sarah briefly today. Her ex-husband is staying with her, so we probably won't see each other until this weekend. I reflected that Sarah might be having sex with this ex-husband, but then didn't feel even a tinge of jealousy What does this say about my sex drive and my feelings towards Sarah? Later, I tried masturbating to images of various good-looking women I saw on the street today, without much success. I can manage to get a hard-on after a good deal of effort, but then it soon fades.

Today I managed to get an erection after my morning exercises and then lay down on my sausage-shaped sofa and masturbated for almost two hours straight, staying well away from orgasm territory, with my cock rock-solid the whole time. I think what is happening is that I am finally losing interest in orgasms. My old theory was that the orgasm was necessary in order to release the muscular tension built up during sex, but now I'm not so sure about this. Maybe the reason I'm starting to get bored by Sarah is the same reason why I'm also not really interested in sex with other women. Namely, because every woman I've ever known has been fixated on orgasms. I don't want to feel pressured to come anymore. I've tried leisurely, non-orgasm-oriented sex with Sarah but after about ten minutes she gets excited and pushes my right arm down as a sign that she wants me to touch her clitoris, and then it takes another ten minutes of stroking her before she comes, and by then I'm as wrapped up as she in this frantic attempt to have an orgasm and so we both end up coming, and the final result is that I'm starting to dread sex as something that drains me of energy.

In walking around the city tonight, I felt very excited—even euphoric—at the sense that I am on the verge of a great breakthrough with regards to sex and masturbation. If I don't ever even approach orgasm, not because I'm deliberately denying myself orgasm but rather because I no longer want orgasm, then I can spend all of my free time masturbating, and since most of my time is free time, this means I can spend virtually the entire day masturbating. I probably won't go to this extreme, but even limiting myself to several hours of masturbation each day would still probably lead to a sense that my life is nothing but one long masturbation festival. This is so extraordinary, it is like my dreams of youth are on the verge of being realized. The only problem is Sarah. We agreed that she would be coming over tomorrow, and then I'll have to see her again this weekend, and then again next week, and so forth. I want some time alone, a period of celibacy, in order to continue work on my new masturbation ideas.

I had a chance to test my new sex methodology with Sarah tonight, and it seemed to work well. My cock was rock-solid for almost an entire hour of slow and deep missionary position fucking. Towards the end, in response to Sarah's request, I reached down and stroked her clitoris with my finger. Eventually, Sarah became tired and indicated that she wanted to rest. Instead of withdrawing, however, I turned over, so that she was now on top. We resumed fucking in that posture, with Sarah especially excited by the way I simultaneously tickled her asshole and clitoris with fingers of different hands. Unfortunately, I lost control when she began moving too rapidly and came unexpectedly. Sarah might have come had I been able to hang on, but possibly not. She was very tense from work due to personality conflicts with her supervisor there.

After resting and eating a dinner of chocolate and fruit, we went out tango dancing, where I did wonderfully. Most of my dances were excellent and the women melted against me and altogether I had a great time. My problems last week were clearly due mainly to the new shoes I was wearing then. I have since repaired my old shoes (the sole had come unglued) and reverted to using these old shoes tonight. The old shoes (which I bought in North Metropolis a year ago) allow me to step very precisely, so that the woman can feel the music through my body. This is the essence of my secret to putting a woman into a sexual trance while dancing. Whereas with the new shoes, my timing is slightly off. Only by a few milliseconds perhaps, but this is enough to completely destroy the effect of my dancing. It's like the difference between a great pianist and one of average ability. An ever so tiny difference in the timing and force with which the keys are struck makes all the difference in the world in the music that is ultimately produced.

A car alarm outside blaring away the whole night long kept me from sleeping properly last night. While lying awake at three in the morning, after several hours of wakefulness, I fantasized about smashing the car's windshield, or slitting the tires, or spray-painting the car with graffiti, or simply dumping a can of paint on top and letting it drip down over the windows and doors and hood. Maybe someone else in the neighborhood will have similar fantasies, and unlike me, be reckless enough to realize them?

I spent several hours masturbating today, without coming, but yet by the time I finished, my sexual desire was as completely gone as if I had come. Perhaps I am having orgasms when I masturbate without coming, except that the orgasms last for several hours instead of several seconds or minutes?

Tango dancing in the evening by myself. I did fairly well, but couldn't get excited by any of the women, other than a petite young blonde of the ill-behaved and rule-breaking sort. Laughing coarsely, humping my leg as we danced tango so that I could barely move forwards due to colliding with her feet at each step, then flying out of control when we danced salsa, winking and smiling at me when we glanced at each other later. It is all very appealing to imagine bringing her back to my apartment and listening to her crack jokes about the furnishings—the paintings of nudes on the walls, the erotic knick-knacks, the books about the occult and sex-magic—and then laughing and carrying on wildly as I try to undress her. The problem lies in getting rid of her later. I wouldn't get bored with her immediately, of course, as she really does have the sort of playful personality I've always found appealing. But it's only too inevitable that I would want to move on after two days at most, and then what? How do I get rid of her without feeling guilty? Another young woman I danced with—also very pretty and with long curly black hair—was even more forward about humping my leg, but I found her much less attractive than the blonde. She lacked the latter's mischievousness and I also got the impression that she would likely be even harder to get rid of than the blonde.

Sarah's husband is staying with her the first part of next week and then relatives will be arriving as soon as he leaves. She expects to be busy with these guests and with errands all week, so we probably won't see each other until next weekend. I wasn't upset in the least at hearing this. Indeed, a vacation from sex with Sarah is just what I want at this point.

Lunch with Helen, who hasn't been able to get a good night's sleep for several days now, due to worries about being stuck with Paul for life if she has a child by him, as he is currently urging her to do, and then never having enough money to enjoy life, due to Paul's inability to hold down a job. Most of our conversation was about astrology. It is remarkable how discussion of that subject makes time fly. Perhaps this explains why it interests me so. At long last, astrology gives me something to talk about with other people. A real interactive conversation, I mean, as opposed to a lecture about computers or the story of my lawsuit and other monologues.

I'm having limited success with my no-orgasm masturbation policy. I manage to go for several hours with a rock-solid erection and then suddenly I lose control and come. These are dry orgasms, since I can always control ejaculation by tensing the right muscles, but nevertheless my erection and sex drive both disappear afterwards. I'm thinking now that the secret to maintaining control is to give up fantasizing and concentrate on the purely physical pleasure of masturbation. It's always some especially lurid fantasy which sends me flying over the edge before I realize what is happening.

Other than masturbating, I occupy my time in the usual way. Reading in the cafe (mostly astrology books), exercising, eating, sleeping, poking around on the internet. Sometimes I'm appalled at this hyper-sensitive, introverted and bored existence that I'm living, but on the other hand I have no desire to change. In comparison with my life of endless idleness and dreams and masturbation, every other form of existence seem impossibly pain-filled.

My lawyer sent a settlement offer from my sister, in the amount of $400,000, of which $135,000 would in the form of a piece of rental property owned by my father. This offer is about half what I would get if I win my will contest suit and then also win my suit to force my sister to pay back the $300,000 she misappropriated from my father in the year prior to the conservatorship suit. Given the strength of my case, offering me only half what I would get if I win seems too low. My feeling is that I've reconciled myself to the possibility of losing my case—a small possibility, but a possibility nonetheless—and that I'm ready to go to trial, and so that is what I should do, especially now that the trial date is only six weeks away.

When I arrived at Sarah's house in the afternoon, she was feeling sick. Probably exhausted from having houseguests all week. I joined her in bed and soon afterwards we began hugging and one thing led to another and before long we were having sex, which was excellent for a change. Cunnilingus to get her wet and myself hard, then twenty minutes of fucking with a rock-solid erection and multiple valley orgasms for me, and finally an orgasm for her (brought on by my usual manual stimulation of her clitoris). I decided to refrain from a peak orgasm for myself, in order to be fully aroused in case we engaged in more sex tomorrow morning. After cleaning up, we snacked on wine and chocolate, then returned to bed, where I read to her some.

A lazy morning at Sarah's house, then off to the cafe, where we talked about her recent houseguests, including her ex-husband and various relatives. The ex-husband suggested that Sarah should spend $20,000 to enlarge and completely remodel and even add a bathroom to her garage. I told her this sounded like a very bad idea. The whole point of fixing up the garage was to allow Sarah to make that her study, and thereby free up her spare room so it could be rented out for $600 a month or so. Fixing up the garage to be a study should cost no more than $2,000 and this amount would be recouped after four months of having a tenant. Whereas it would take about three years to recoup the investment of $20,000 to remodel and enlarge the garage. Furthermore, the city might find out about the remodeling and raise property taxes, and the added bath would likely be a source of continuing maintenance headaches and expenses. It seems my Tarot reading last month about "hare-brained" investment schemes from Sarah's ex-husband showed genuine prescience.

A snack of wine and cheese sandwiches when we returned to Sarah's house, then another bout of excellent sex. Forty minutes of fucking with countless valley orgasms for me (or maybe it was just one continuous valley orgasm) and what might well be the equivalent in pleasure for Sarah, but no peak orgasms for either of us. Then we rested and talked about life for the average person on this planet. Sarah has never visited a third-world country, whereas I spent five weeks in Guatemala last year and so have at least some first-hand knowledge about the situation in poor countries. Then dinner, and more wine, and dessert, and then back to bed for another round of sex. Mutual oral sex this time, with a rock-solid erection for me, jammed into Sarah's mouth for the twenty minutes or so it took to bring her to peak orgasm. I continued rubbing my face into her cunt until she closed her legs and pushed me away. She was still panting and shuddering now and then from aftershocks when I entered her missionary position. I pumped away furiously for about a minute before coming with a peak ejaculatory orgasm. Immediately afterwards, I regretted having come, though I suppose the damage isn't all that great. After all, I've been ejaculating daily for years now, and so what difference if I continue to ejaculate once or twice a week during sex? The main thing is to no longer ejaculate during masturbation. It was still early at this point, and so I spent another couple of hours reading to Sarah from various books I'd brought along for that purpose.

All in all, this relationship between me and Sarah appears to be back to normal. In particular, our sex life is once again a good one.

A month has passed now since I started growing a beard, and I'll probably start trimming soon to keep the hair from growing any longer. Though Sarah disagrees, I tend to think this beard significantly worsens my appearance. In particular, it makes me look threatening and scruffy. Though this may not be entirely bad. Based on the glances I'm getting these days while walking down the street, it seems that a beard makes me less attractive to younger women in search of a husband but more attractive to older women who are primarily interested in sex. Of course, given that I'm happy with Sarah, it really doesn't matter that other women find me sexually attractive. Still, it is comforting to know that there are alternatives, in case Sarah starts to bore me again.

Lunch with Helen, who confirmed that my beard makes me look like a street person. Relations between her and Paul are growing increasingly strained. I suspect Paul's lack of a job is the real problem, though Helen insists that sex is the source of most their conflicts: "He wants it every night and then he makes a fuss if he doesn't get it!" Paul mentioned to Helen that he had applied for a job which would require relocating to London, and warned Helen that she would have to learn to be more obedient and refined if he gets this job, since the British are more socially conservative and concerned about proper etiquette than Americans, and that this obedience on her part would have to extend to sexual matters. After telling me this, Helen proposed that she and I get married, and then she would move to Europe and spend a year traveling around the Mediterranean and perhaps have a baby, but that I could keep Sarah to satisfy my sexual needs. I replied that I was concerned about the issue of paternity of any of Helen's children, especially since she has yet to make a complete break with Paul, and that I couldn't make any commitments to traveling until my will contest lawsuit was resolved. Then I said that my old offer of paying her to have a child by me ($20,000 a year for six years and $10,000 a year thereafter) still stands, but Helen scoffed that these amounts were insufficient. In fact, they are insufficient to allow her to quit working, but that is intentional, since I don't want Helen having a child simply in order to get money from me.

Evening with Sarah. Numerous valley orgasms for me during bedtime sex, whereas Sarah seemed distracted and not at all interested in what we were doing. I even got the impression that she was faking an interest in order to please me and get things over with faster.

After breakfast the next morning, Sarah dragged me to a street festival, where we listened to a man bewailing our collective guilt for having killed so many whales and a woman crooning about eating raw salmon: "The rippling red flesh and the pearls of glistening wetness, the deep ocean of the wild salmon!" I got the impression that there was some sort of political message behind this latter singer's words, such as that all men are selfish assholes because we supposedly don't want to perform cunnilingus, and penetration represents the puncturing and hurting of women, and if men won't perform cunnilingus then women should become lesbians and refuse to engage in sex with men. My own experience is that sexually mature woman typically want penetration as soon as they are fully excited and it is the man who has to insist on cunnilingus as foreplay. (This rule doesn't apply to Helen, of course, since she isn't sexually mature.)

At my urging, we didn't stay long at the street festival but instead took a long walk to our usual cafe, sat there for a while, then walked back to Sarah's house, where I trimmed a tree in her front yard. She was surprised at how fast and hard I worked. She has never seen me perform physical labor before (other than morning exercises) and had the impression that all I ever did was lie on the sofa all day like a slug.

After dinner we had sex. A wonderful valley orgasm for me, but then I lost control while manipulating Sarah's clitoris and ejaculated. I tried to bring Sarah off with my hand afterwards, but she wasn't interested. Without a hard cock inside either her mouth or cunt, sex bores Sarah. Later, we somehow got onto the subject of bondage and submission. Sarah was emphatic in her disapproval: "Those people are really sick!" My own suspicion is that Sarah frequently imagines herself being raped when we're engaged in sex, and that she would go wild if tied-up in the right way. The tricky part is not doing something to trigger her inhibitions and cause her to suddenly shut down with guilt. Not that I'm planning to try anything with her. I have little experience with role-playing and thus would almost certainly bungle things.

Sarah slept poorly, due to unrelieved sexual tension, while my sleep was frequently disturbed by her fidgeting. Twice during the night, she reached over and tapped my cock. First at about two in the morning and again about five in the morning. I was awake both times but pretended to be asleep, since I knew I was too tired to fuck properly.

I think I've finally figured out why I have such difficulty controlling myself when trying to bring Sarah off by fucking her and simultaneously fingering her clitoris. To do this well, I have to open up and become more sensitive than usual, in order to sympathetically experience what Sarah is feeling in her clitoris and thereby be able to touch her exactly the way she wants. A side-effect of this openness is that I pick up all of Sarah's feelings, including any tension she is feeling. Her tension makes me tense and before long I've lost my self-control. As for the solution to this problem, I'm not sure. The correct solution would be for Sarah to learn to relax during sex and thus eliminate some of her tension. Unfortunately, the only effective way to learn such relaxation is by masturbating, and Sarah is too inhibited to masturbate.

In the morning, after completing exercises, bathing and breakfast, I hugged Sarah and guided her hand to my crotch, where she could feel my erection through my pants, but she wasn't interested: "I have so many things to do today and sex would set me back for hours. You don't mind, do you?" I replied that I didn't mind at all, which was true. The only reason I was even proposing sex was that Sarah had seemed to want it so badly last night.

After about an hour of sitting alone in a jazz bar and watching the other patrons, a man looked my way and nodded at me. I could tell he was homosexual and interested in me sexually, but I didn't feel like being unfriendly and so I nodded back. He walked over and joined me at my table and then launched into a long talk, which I found entertaining, so that I encouraged him to continue speaking, though I tried to make it clear that I wasn't interested in sex. Nevertheless, he several times tried to put his hands on me. Later, he insisted on buying me a drink, over my protests that I had to get up early tomorrow (I was lying, of course) and that I therefore didn't want to drink too much tonight. Around midnight, after we had been talking for about two hours, he said he had to go and leaned over to kiss me. I dodged away. "Just one kiss?" he pleaded. "No, no, no. I told you I was just interested in talking," I replied. Then he staggered off. Some of his speech was as follows:

"Do you know David? No? Well, David is from Indonesia and he is Mister Royal Dutch Shell. I mean let's just say David is loaded. A penthouse here in the city. A townhouse in the East 60's in New York. An apartment in Paris. You get the idea. And as for Indonesia, well he owns his own island. Oh I love it there! I mean the people are so wonderful. Anything you want, they'll do it. You so much as burp, and someone comes running. If you want your asshole licked...I mean anything you want, those boys will do it. What a wonderful place! And David, like I said, he's rich, of course, but sweet. Sweet as can be. I mean, just to give an example, suppose I were to say, David, I really need a week in Paris at the Ritz with all the fixings and trimmings. No problem. It's done. David takes care of it. Just like that. Now that is something very nice to have in your back pocket, don't you think? It's such a different world in Indonesia. The people there aren't so obsessed with money as they are here. That's what I want to do with my life. Get more involved with religion. I want to experience something spiritual. Anyway, I'm closing up shop here in West Metropolis in a few weeks and moving to New Orleans. I've got a house there. The French Quarter. The gay section. Do you by any chance know Margaret? Well, she's positively a lovely person. Loaded with money, of course. Her family was landed gentry. Land-poor and cash-rich and then someone fell in a hole and guess what they found? Oil, of course. So Margaret inherited all that and she married Tommy, who's old money and gay, but somehow they managed to have two children. I'm sure you'd love Margaret. She has the most wonderful taste! Everything in her house—I mean the house in New Orleans, since she's got dozens of houses all over the world, of course—is just beautiful. God only knows what it all costs! Look, that's Elizabeth Taylor on the video! She was at her most beautiful then. And that's Richard Burton. Have you ever met Liz? Oh, she's a wonderful person! Just simply divine. The sweetest person you'll ever meet." And so on.

What a contrast between the above flamboyance and the usual safe conventionality that prevails in our society, where everyone is terrified of saying anything that might provoke ridicule or scorn! To be sure, he was a fool, this homosexual, but at least his folly was boldly expressed. And whether he was telling the truth or merely having delusions of grandeur, in listening to him speak, I felt wonderfully free.

I took the bus to Basin City today to see again about moving there. While sitting on a bench near the river, I heard a man behind me violently throwing some papers into a metal trash can. I turned to see what all the commotion was about, just in time to see him kick the trash can over. "I had a life! You hear me you fuck-heads! I had a life!" he screamed at the trash can. Then he turned and spoke to me in a completely calm voice: "Sorry, I just lost my job." After he walked off, I glanced into the trash can and noticed a pile of papers of the sort typically given to employees on their first day of work—group life and health insurance forms, employee conduct manual—with the name of a casino printed on several of these booklets. Attached to one booklet was a label: "America—speak English or get the fuck out!" (Most of the lower level workers in the casinos, including most of the kitchen and room cleaning staff, are Spanish-speaking.) The man was young, Caucasian, tall, handsome, well-dressed and in excellent physical condition. He certainly didn't look like a loser. I suppose he has a hot temper and mouthed off to the wrong person.

7:30am. Woke up after long night of sleep.

7:30-11:30am. Masturbating with continuous valley-orgasms. Lost control towards the end and had a peak orgasm by mistake.

11:30-11:45am. Visit to bathroom.

11:45-12:45pm. Exercises.

12:45-1:15pm. Shower and dress.

1:15-1:30pm. At a convenience store, buy potato chips and apple juice for breakfast.

1:30-2:15pm. Sitting on a rock beside the river, eating the potato chips and apple juice.

2:15-5:00pm. Long walk along river. Paused for about fifteen minutes at the far end of this walk to sit on a fallen tree. Then walked back.

5:00-6:00pm. Sitting in a cafe, which was strangely reminiscent of my favorite cafe in West Metropolis, even down the types of tea they served and the dance music being played on the sound system.

6:00-6:30pm. Gorged myself at the casino buffet for $3.16 (after taking into account my $3.00 food discount coupon).

6:30-7:00pm. Lying in bed in my hotel room.

7:00-12:30am. Sleeping.

12:30-4:30am. Lying awake in bed, daydreaming and now and then masturbating, but without much interest.

4:30-7:00am. Sleeping.

This trip to Basin City has left me convinced that the secret to happiness in life is being able to masturbate for hours on end, which depends on avoiding peak orgasms, which in turn depends on being able to breathe smoothly and keep the pelvis completely relaxed at all times during sex. Why has it take me so long to discover this? My whole life would have been different if I had understood this as a boy.

The homosexual guy from earlier this week was at the jazz bar when I arrived tonight. For about an hour, we played a foolish game of pretending not to recognize one another, and then he finally left and I was at last able to turn my head and look about freely. I didn't dare break the ice with him myself, since that would perpetuate the illusion that I'm interested in him sexually. Perhaps time will solve the problem and eventually we will forget we ever spoke to one another. As for having let him engage me in conversation last time, I'm reluctant to condemn this as an error. I was in the mood to listen then and he wanted to speak and so why shouldn't we have a conversation? The fault is his, not mine, if things got carried away.

There was a message from Sarah when I returned from the jazz club, and so I called her back and we talked. I had previously told her some story about traveling for business reasons, in order to explain why I was going out of town earlier this week, and so tonight I had to tell more lies about what I did during this "business trip". A tedious conversation, like most of my recent conversations with Sarah, with me only too obviously bored and anxious to get off the phone. By contrast, I feel wonderfully excited at the idea of talking to and seeing Helen again.

Today, I shaved off my beard, which was becoming excessively scruffy-looking, and returned to my usual clean-shaven look today. That the beard was frightening off young women didn't really bother me, but resembling a street person to the point of attracting attention from the police and security guards is another story. I became self-conscious on this latter score while walking around downtown Basin City these past few days.

Lunch with Helen. We talked about astrology for the most part, which I continue to study diligently. She is sleeping poorly and having chest pains, probably from worries about her future with Paul. Her hope is that he gets the job he applied for in London, which will force a split, since she has no intention of following him there. "Otherwise, I don't see how I can break up with him. It's always hard for me to break up with someone. The only reason I left you was because you kicked me out," said Helen. "I kicked you out because you refused to have sex," I replied. In two weeks, Helen and Paul will be traveling together to visit her family's vacation house in the mountains, where they will meet with her parents and celebrate her father's birthday.

Sarah called wanting me to come by tonight, but I suggested tomorrow instead. My thinking (which I didn't tell her, of course) was that if I went to her house tonight, I would end up spending all weekend there and start to feel "de-energized". She complained of once again being stressed out from work.

At the jazz bar, I waved hello to the homosexual who tried to pick me up earlier this week. He waved back and we talked briefly and pleasantly, then I became increasingly terse in my replies to his questions and eventually the conversation faded. The fascination I initially felt for his wild tales of hobnobbing with the rich and famous has by now disappeared.

I arrived at Sarah's house in the evening. Due to not having ejaculated for several days, my erection was rock-solid, but also under perfect control, perhaps due to all my practicing with non-ejaculatory masturbation. We fucked for thirty minutes, with me struggling to get her to come but having difficulties due to her state of extreme tenseness from work, and then finally this same tenseness wore through the shield I had erected to protect myself from it and I became tense myself and lost control and came. Luckily, I was able to keep my erection long enough to bring Sarah off.

Sex after breakfast. I had some initial troubles with getting an erection, but then overcame this and managed to bring Sarah off. As soon as she came, I stopped moving, since I didn't want another peak orgasm for myself after the one of last night, lest I deplete myself. Then we walked to the cafe and sat there for a while, and then walked back to Sarah's house and drank a bottle of champagne which had been left over from when Sarah had houseguests a few weeks back, and then we lay in bed, where I initiated sex. But then I couldn't get fully hard, so that eventually we gave up and just lay quietly. It was still early evening at this time and Sarah needed to prepare for work tomorrow, so after showering up I left and took the bus back to my apartment.

I spent most of the day writing up notes for my lawyer regarding strategies for putting pressure on my sister to come up with a better settlement proposal. I still don't understand why my lawyer acts so reluctant about taking this case to trial. Perhaps because, if we do go to trial, he will have to put another lawyer (the lawyer for my father who wrote the will we are contesting) on the witness stand and attack that lawyer's honesty and credibility, and if we win at trial, that other lawyer will lose out on the executor's fee, for which we have budgeted $45,000 in all our settlement proposals. Since this is a small town, perhaps my lawyer is reluctant to attack this other lawyer and cut him out of a big fee, since this other lawyer might well be a friend of his. I realize now that my decision to use a contingency fee agreement was wise, since otherwise all these lawyers might conspire among one another and I would be essentially helpless to stop them. While talking with my lawyer, I sometimes get the impression that he regrets that contingency fee agreement, regardless of how much it might boost his ultimate fee. I don't think he likes his fee being dependant on my whims about whether or not to accept a settlement.

Due to fretting over my lawsuit, I didn't do my morning exercises and then had to masturbate twice to calm myself down, ejaculating each time, thus completely violating my vow to give up ejaculation during masturbation. Then in the evening, I got drunk on a bottle of red wine and then became ravenous and gorged on herrings and cheese and brownies, until I felt sick from overeating. What a disgraceful lack of self-discipline!

Robert, the homosexual who has propositioned me several times over the past year or so, joined me at my table in the cafe and we had a long talk about astrology and philosophy. I had previously told him my view of life, which is that I am waiting to die, but without wanting this wait to be shortened, and meanwhile am trying to avoid pain, including the pain of boredom.

"You seem very lonely," he remarked.

"That's true, but I don't see what I can do about it. I do have a few friends left, but for the most part I find that being around them doesn't make me feel less lonely. I feel least lonely when I'm alone," I replied.

"But I think that by just making a few changes in your life, you could open yourself up to tremendous happiness. Don't you agree? When I listen to you talk, I feel like I want to save you!"

"The idea that life could be better is a tempting one. It's the same idea advertisers use to convince people to buy things. But I think real happiness comes from learning to be content with what you have and ignoring this Siren song of a better life."

Later, he propositioned me yet again: "I'd really like to have sex with you. Are you sure you don't want to try?" I declined, then later wondered if perhaps I should have accepted his offer. On the one hand, it would be interesting to see the inside of his apartment and what books he has on his bookshelves and so forth. But on the other hand, there is nothing about the idea of sex with his body that interests me.

Mark called and left a message, and I called back later. He might be visiting me later this year, but isn't sure. We talked about my lawsuit a bit. Currently, Mark has two part-time jobs, but these will be ending soon. He might have another job lined up, however, as evening desk clerk at a ritzy condominium. His brother recently sold the apartment next door to Mark's apartment for $45,000. This is the apartment which Mark had inherited from the old woman for whom he used to be caretaker, and which he then sold to his brother. Just yesterday, Mark posted a letter to me containing a check for $30, to compensate for some business cards I printed up and sent to him a few weeks back. I protested at this, but he insisted that the $30 was no more than what taking me out to dinner would cost. I suppose I'll just discard the check when I get it.

The waitress at the cafe noticed my staring and seemed delighted that some man was finally flattering her with his attention. She is very young, probably a college student, with an average face but a wonderfully luscious body. She is also tall for a girl, and so her choice of partners is limited. I doubt she has a boyfriend. After her shift was over, she sat down at the table next to me to eat dinner. I immediately felt tense and buried my face in my book. About a half-hour later, I was tired of reading and so rose to leave. She was in a bad mood due to my refusal to start a conversation and scowled and pretended not to notice me when I waved goodbye. Strange that I am so attracted to young women but flee in terror as soon as they show any signs of reciprocating my feelings. And even more strange that I have no problems engaging a homosexual in flirtatious conversation, such as Robert yesterday, but can't imagine what to say to young women. And to think that before she sat down beside me, I was amusing myself with thoughts of tying her down spread-eagled to a table so I could eat her cunt at my leisure without her pushing my head away and then fucking her from behind while she kneels and arches her back so as to allow me to penetrate more deeply and so on and so forth. And yet the minute she shows any interest in me, I want to run away. Who is responsible for this accepted wisdom that men are the pursuers? Is this completely wrong? Or am I just some sort of freak?

Tango dancing with Sarah. As soon as I opened the door to her car, I picked up the smell of some vile and stinky perfume. The sort of low-quality stuff which I've always associated with women who feel so completely ashamed of their natural body odor that they'll do anything to change the way they smell, even if it means stinking like insect repellent. "Please, let this be the residue from a co-worker she gave a ride to!" I said to myself, but no, it was Sarah who was wearing this stink. I didn't say anything at the time, because it was too late to fix things and I didn't want Sarah to get all uptight and nervous and thus have a bad time dancing. But on the other hand, I was disgusted at the thought of having to dance closely with Sarah myself while she was stinking and also annoyed at what other people would think. That is, what they would think of Sarah for stinking and of me for being attracted to a stinking woman old enough to be my mother. (It has never bothered me before to be seen in the company of Sarah, even if she is twenty-two years older than me, because, up until tonight, she has always struck me as classy, so that I was proud to be seen in public with her.)

After two dances, I suggested we split up and I would rest while Sarah danced with the other men. Besides being disgusted by her perfume, I found that she was once again breaking at the waist and pulling on me, so that I had to carry her weight around. Aside from being exhausting for me, this bad posture prevents her from appreciating the subtlety of my movements, with the end result that I feel like I'm dancing alone while carrying around a huge load in my arms, which is hardly what I would call an enjoyable experience. Two other women with whom I had danced in the past insisted I dance with them tonight, and I did so and they appeared pleased afterwards, though I don't know why, since, like Sarah, they had poor posture and couldn't possibly have appreciated what I was trying to accomplish. Then I danced with a pretty young woman who I'd never seen before and who had excellent posture. Alas, she held herself at such a distance that she too couldn't follow my syncopations and had to stumble to keep up. After the first dance, I said thank you, but she wanted a second dance and then after the second dance she tried to engage me in conversation. What a wasted opportunity! Given her perfect posture and our mutual sexual attraction, what memories we could have created for one another had she only assumed the close hold. She had a foreign accent.

On the way home, Sarah mentioned that several old acquaintances of hers were asking about me afterwards, because they had seen Saran and me come into the club together: "Is it serious? Are you going to get married? How long has this been going on?" And yet this was the club where Sarah and I met almost a year ago, and to which we've returned many times since on Thursday evenings. Why haven't these people noticed me and Sarah together before?

When we arrived back at Sarah's house, I decided that the issue of the perfume had to be resolved, and so asked if was new. "Yes, did you like it?" Sarah asked. I replied that I hated it and that I much preferred the perfume she used to wear and that the new perfume was "cheap-smelling and everything you're not" and that none of my previous lovers wore cheap perfume and that I considered cheap perfume the most vulgar thing in the world and that I recommended she throw this new perfume in the trash. Sarah laughed and thanked me for the feedback and explained that the new perfume was a gift from her supervisor at work, with whom she has such conflicts and who seems to be pretentious in the extreme. For example, this supervisor boasts how she buys her clothes at expensive boutiques "where only rich people like me can afford to shop", and how she has a boyfriend in Paris and is learning French ("À demain!" she sometimes calls out to Sarah on her way out), and insists on going by the appellation "Ciela" (Italian pronunciation) as both first and last names instead of using the names she was born with. Supposedly, this supervisor can't draw and in fact has little understanding of anything to do with design, so that Sarah ends up doing most of her work for her, and the only reason this supervisor hasn't been fired is that the owner of the company is her good friend.

It was past midnight by this time and I wasn't interested in sex. I've been masturbating kung-fu style (no peak orgasms, no ejaculations) but losing control every few days since my trip to Basin City. I last lost control yesterday morning, I believe, but that shouldn't have prevented me from being aroused tonight. Perhaps I was just disgusted by the bad dancing and the stinky perfume Sarah was wearing.

While studying astrology today, I recalled that I had birth information for Sonya and Elizabeth and so I prepared their birth charts and then practiced matching their personalities (or rather, my impressions thereof) to their charts. I'm getting better and better at this. I then considered contacting them to give my analyses in person, but finally decided against doing so. These relationships are dead, and it is pointless to try resurrecting them.

Dinner with Sarah. Afterwards, while she was washing up in the bathroom, I lay in bed and tried to jerk myself hard, and discovered I was completely unable to do so. "Here comes a bout of impotence," I though, and yet when Sarah climbed into bed with me and touched my cock with her hand, it suddenly grew rock-solid and remained so all the while we were fucking. Two valley orgasms for me, then I easily brought Sarah to orgasm, and then I came myself after I was sure she was done. For perhaps the first time with Sarah, I felt that we were awakening the sorts of energies I used to feel with Elizabeth, where the sex begins to sweep us away and I feel that I'm being carried along for the ride instead of having to remain alert and conscious and direct the whole show. Sarah was so excited by the sex that she wanted an encore, but I wasn't able to oblige. Had I known Sarah would want more sex, I would not have ejaculated. Indeed, the only reason I did ejaculate was in order to participate more fully in her orgasm. I felt no urgency to come. Her high state of arousal kept Sarah awake most of the night. I also slept poorly, due to being constantly awakened by Sarah's fidgeting.

My lawyer faxed me the latest letter from my sister's lawyer, who seemed taken aback by the aggressive and non-yielding tone of my lawyer's last letter to him but who also continues to bluff: "Since there is nothing further to discuss, I see no reason for a settlement conference with the judge and I will begin trial preparations." My lawyer suggests that we propose removing our initial request for a jury trial, since he is confident the judge will be forced to rule in our favor based on evidence. Though I don't know about this. Deep down, I worry less about facing a jury of stupid, countrified blacks than about this judge (also black), who I'm afraid has me pegged as a smart-ass, big-city computer programmer with no human feelings and no need for more money. I suspect we will get a jury trial no matter what we request, since my sister (under advice from her lawyer) will probably elect for a jury trial if I decline one, based on the reasoning that my declining a jury trial means that I'm afraid of a jury.

Sarah took the day off from work and drove into the city, and I accompanied her on a shopping expedition to some nearby boutiques. She seemed in something of a manic mood. As to what is troubling her, I have no idea. I noticed also that she was stinking heavily of deodorant. Not so obnoxious a smell as the cheap perfume she had been wearing last week, but still unpleasant. I didn't say anything since I could sense that Sarah in no mood for criticism. Lunch at a restaurant, then sex back at my apartment. I lost my erection while trying to bring Sarah off, then we rested, then she wanted more sex, so I yanked myself hard, then I entered her and got rock-solid, but was still unable to bring her off. We finally stopped when she became sore. Sarah is extremely sensitive to my state of arousal. If she detects that I am bored, as was the case today, she becomes bored. After showering, I noticed Sarah applying deodorant to her underarm. Stroke after stroke, so that I scarcely believe my eyes at how heavily she was smearing the stuff on. Again, I said nothing, since immediately after sex seemed a particularly inappropriate time for criticism. Why is Sarah having all these insecurities about how she smells? Given that I shove my face into her cunt (thank God she hasn't thought to do anything to that yet, other than wash with soap and water) for at least several minutes each time we have sex, doesn't she realize that I like her natural body odor? Cheap-smelling perfumes and deodorants, underlying insecurities, a manic mood that portends depression down the road. No wonder I have no desire for sex with Sarah anymore.

I've started a masturbation/sex log, in order track my progress in avoiding orgasms during masturbation. I probably should have started this log long ago, since my journal writing for several months now has largely consisted of a log of sex with Sarah, and trying to mix a masturbation/sex log with a journal of the non-sex aspects of my life jumbles everything and makes things boring both to write about as well as to read about later. I can already feel my enthusiasm for writing, which has been waning for many months now, finally returning now that I have a special place dedicated solely to masturbation and sex.

As for my reason for wanting to avoid orgasms during masturbation, the idea is as follows. Without frequent masturbation (or sex) I suffer from the pain of sexual frustration. Frequent peak orgasms eliminates sexual frustration pain, but causes another sort of pain. Namely, the pain of boredom resulting from lack of sexual energy, since sex-related activities and thoughts of sex are the only ways I have to fill my many hours of leisure. Total pain is minimized by indulging in frequent valley orgasms, since these reduce sexual frustration almost as much as peak orgasms while avoiding the problem of boredom due to loss of sexual energy. Valley orgasms are also superior to peak orgasms when considered from a pleasure point of view. Though the pleasure of a peak orgasm is more intense, it is also much briefer and focused primarily on the genitals. By contrast, the pleasure of a series of valley orgasms, though milder initially, lasts longer (it is possible to indulge in valley orgasms for several hours at a time) and tends to affect the entire body rather than just the genitals, so that the total pleasure is greater. Frequent masturbation without peak orgasm thus appears to be the optimum strategy from both pain and pleasure perspectives.

Incidentally, if the valley orgasms extend over a long enough time, then there is a feeling afterwards, which lasts for almost an entire day, of the body vibrating and of being bathed in flames of pleasure. This feeling is very reminiscent of the descriptions of mystical experiences which I read about as a boy, which would tend to confirm my long-standing opinion that the mystical experience of bliss is nothing more than sexual energy coursing through the body.

I passed the day in the usual way—masturbating, poking around on the internet, sitting in the cafe and alternating between reading an astrology book and looking out the window at the street scene—then I went salsa dancing in the evening, where it struck me more forcibly than ever how completely I've lost interest in both the salsa dance style and in the sort of women who patronize salsa nightclubs. I stood around watching for about an hour, scowling the whole time, I'm sure, and then as soon as I stepped outside and breathed in the cool night air, my face broke into an involuntary smile. Free at last from all that noise and posturing! I don't consider this a wasted evening, even if I didn't enjoy myself, since my intuition tells me that it is primarily by means of unpleasant experiences like tonight that I'm being "propelled forwards to achieve my destiny". To wit, a life of solitude and masturbation.

Sarah came by. Almost immediately, I started an acrimonious discussion about the design business, which is Sarah's line of work, so that she became annoyed and asked me to change the subject. I concluded by accusing her of having the mind of a "bureaucrat". The truth was that I resented her company, and was angry that she was at my apartment and that I would be obliged to have sex with her instead of being left alone to continue my masturbation experiments. We tried sex, but I was utterly and totally impotent. When she reached over and fondled me, in an attempt to get me aroused, I felt like punching her. Luckily, I managed to restrain myself. She asked me to tell her what was on my mind, and so I made up some excuse about being in a mood of "existential crisis" due to my visit to the salsa club yesterday, which had convinced me that I didn't belong in this world and that it was time to go on a retreat and perhaps join a monastery, or else become an "urban monk" and treat my apartment like my monastic cell.

"Do you want me to leave?" Sarah asked.

I shrugged and replied no and then suggested we visit the jazz club, and so we walked there and spent an hour listening to the piano player and the various singers. We didn't talk much, because I was in a grim mood the whole time, though on the other hand I wasn't unpleasant. When we got into bed, I hugged Sarah then I turned away and went to sleep. I don't think she slept at all.

On her way out the door in the morning, Sarah said: "I don't want to stand in your way if there's something else you want to do with your life." I just shrugged in reply and told her I'd call her tomorrow. I think she realizes that I'm on the verge of breaking up with her. Or am I? The truth is, I don't really know what I'm doing or planning to do about Sarah.

I received a postcard today from the widow I met in Basin City two years ago. She is currently traveling in Russia. (She also sent me a postcard a few months ago from South Korea, where she was teaching English.) This postcard confirmed my feeling that I need some change in my life, and that I was becoming stagnant in my relationship with Sarah.

Lunch with Helen, who just returned from her week-long trip with Paul to her family's mountain vacation house. The trip started pleasantly enough, with everyone getting along fine and Helen's father very pleased by the binoculars Helen and Paul gave him as a birthday present.

Towards the end of the trip, Helen and Paul visited Paul's sister, who lives about two hours drive away. Paul's sister and the man she is living with are just barely able to make ends meet from their jobs at a nearby cafe. The cabin they live in is small and dilapidated, they turn on as few lights as possible in order to conserve electricity, and they still haven't turned on the heat, even though temperatures drop to near freezing at night this time of year. But given that Paul currently has no job and is living on credit card debt, it is likely that his sister is in better financial shape than he, contrary to what a superficial comparison of their respective living conditions and spending habits would suggest. By coincidence, another relative of Paul's, who has known Paul since he was a boy, was also visiting Paul's sister at this time. When this other relative learned that Paul had bought an expensive sports car last year, he burst out laughing uncontrollably, and was soon joined in his laughter by Paul and Helen and Paul's sister. "And what color is this car? Don't tell me it's red?" asked the other relative, once everyone had regained their composure. When Paul confirmed that the car was indeed red, everyone again exploded in laughter.

The next morning, Paul's sister and her boyfriend had to get up at four in the morning, in order to get to their jobs at the cafe on time. Paul got up then as well, and the three of them chatted merrily for about an hour over breakfast, while Helen remained in bed. When the sister and her boyfriend finally left, Paul returned to bed, but Helen was annoyed at having been woken up so early and so rebuffed him when he tried to touch her. Paul became furious and called Helen "bitch!" and then declared that he had finally gotten his fill of her, and that he wanted to break up, and that he would be renting a car for himself and staying at his sister's house the rest of the week.

Helen drove her parent's car back to their house and told them what happened. Helen's parents shook their heads and her father suggested that "maybe you should think about moving on". This was the first time either of her parents had ever advised Helen to break up with Paul. The next day, at a party to which her parents had previously invited the neighbors, in order that they could meet Helen and her "friend", Helen had to give evasive answers to inquires regarding why this friend wasn't present. Three days later, at the end of the vacation, Helen called Paul to arrange for him to pick up his remaining luggage, which led to a reconciliation of sorts. It was agreed that Paul would drive Helen to the airport in his rental car, instead of making her parents drive her there. She and Paul agreed to behave pleasantly with one another and to postpone further discussion of their "argument" (as Paul termed it) until after the trip was over.

Upon returning to Paul's apartment in West Metropolis, Helen announced that she wanted to break up, and packed up a suitcase with her most essential belongings and returned to her own apartment, where she is currently living. She complains of being sick, either from emotional upset or from drinking water from the mountain stream and thereby contracting giardia. When she asked what I thought about Paul's behavior, I replied that I thought she was in the wrong to get upset at him and his sister for talking loudly at four in the morning. After all, Helen and Paul were on vacation and so there would be plenty of opportunity to catch up on sleep later, whereas this was probably Paul's last chance to see his sister for at least another year, and therefore Helen should have accommodated him. On the other hand, Paul was at fault for overreacting. Helen accused me of being insensitive to her need to sleep, and then pointed out that Paul's sister only works three days a week, and therefore it would have been more convenient to visit on a day when she didn't have to get up early the next morning, which implies that Paul's sister didn't really want to see that much of Paul, regardless of how much Paul wanted to see her. (Helen had expressed this same line of reasoning to Paul, incidentally, before they arrived at his sister's house. No doubt Paul's festering resentment of Helen's insinuations—which may or may not have been valid, since his sister might well have had a reason other than not wanting to see too much of Paul for choosing the day she did for his visit—played a role in his later explosive loss of temper.)

I asked Helen what she planned to do next. She replied that she is determined to move on with both her love and work lives, meaning she is determined to stay away from Paul, and to get a new boyfriend and a new job as soon as possible, and perhaps move to another city where apartment rents are more reasonable. I urged her to think carefully about where she is heading and what she really wants from life, instead of just reacting to and running from her current situation, since otherwise she may end up going in circles and end up back where she is now in five years. She dismissed me as being a "negative influence" and warned me that she wouldn't be seeing me anymore if I persisted in "bringing negativity into her life".

I asked about Paul's financial situation, which I suspect is what is really driving Helen to break up with him. Several months ago, he had told her of his projection that he would run out of rent money by the end of the year, but she has no idea whether this projection is still valid. He still hasn't found a job, though he may be going to an interview soon for a temporary consulting position. I remarked that I found it incredible that someone who might not be able to pay the rent in two more months could justify flying across the country on vacation. Helen shrugged in reply, then ranted: "First I had a boyfriend who acted poor because he was poor. Then I had one who acted poor even though he was rich—that would be you, in case it isn't obvious. Then I had one who acted rich even though he was poor. Now it's time I get a boyfriend who both acts rich and is rich. It's time I get what I deserve from life."

I should note that when Helen and I first greeted one another today, she was affectionate, as if toying with the idea that we might get back together and marry and have children. But when I heard her rail about Paul and his sister, and how they were so inconsiderate for having the audacity to talk loudly at four in the morning as they prepared to go to work and thereby disturb Helen's precious vacation sleep, I realized how insane it would be for me and Helen to have a child together. I can just see her walking out because the baby is colicky and cries all night, and telling me to raise the child myself, and blaming everything on me for having contributed colicky-baby genes. Sex between me and Helen is a disaster, living together is a disaster, and trying to raise a child together would almost certainly also be a disaster. At best, we can be close friends.

There was another settlement conference with the judge today, regarding my will contest suit. The judge tried to act as a sort of mediator, and consulted in private with each of my lawyer, my sister's lawyer, and the lawyer who prepared the will for my father and who is currently acting as executor. The judge wanted to know "what would it take" for me to settle, and my lawyer replied that I had authorized no lower than $550,000, but that I might take $535,000, but that $515,000 (which the judge proposed) was unacceptable. Supposedly, the highest my sister's lawyer proposed is $475,000, and that was with several conditions attached. Because there was no settlement, my lawyer asked for a postponement of the trial date, since neither he nor my sister's lawyer is prepared for trial. The postponement request was granted, with the trial now set for five months from now. I may have to give a deposition between now and then. My feeling upon learning that the trial has been postponed yet again was one of disgust, as I am sick of this suit and was hoping it could finally be settled.

I called Sarah and we talked briefly, without either of us saying much of substance. "I was wondering about you. What have you been up to?" asks Sarah. "Oh, well, not much," I reply. And similar exchanges of banalities. I arranged for us to go out to dinner tomorrow. Perhaps Sarah suspects that I'm on the verge of breaking up with her and that I plan to do so at this dinner. The reality is that I don't really know what I'm planning to do.

I did my first tarot card reading with a stranger tonight! A woman in the donut shop saw me shuffling the cards and wanted to know if I could read them. And so I gave her a reading concerning her dispute with her landlord, who wants to evict her and rent to someone else for much more than she is paying. She is resisting, because she probably wouldn't be able to find a similar apartment in the area for the sort of rent she is currently able to pay. My conclusion was that she should use the qualities of Capricorn (which happened to be her sign) to deal with the problem. That is, she should be persistent and refuse to give up. It occurred to me later that there is another possible interpretation of Capricorn. Namely, Capricorn is the sign of inflexibility. Perhaps the woman isn't so keen on staying in her apartment as she says she is, and the only reason she is so determined to stay is because she doesn't like being pushed around. Perhaps she would be happier if she caved in to the landlord and moved to another city where the cost of living is lower.

I took the bus to Sarah's house. We had a pleasant conversation over wine, then ate dinner at a restaurant, then returned to her house, where we began kissing while sitting on the sofa. But when we got into bed, I was completely impotent until Sarah somehow managed to stuff my cock into her cunt, whereupon I finally got hard, but then I lost control and came before she was even close to orgasm. What's more, all the struggling to get me inserted and then hard had left Sarah sore. All in all, this was one of the worst episodes yet of sex between me and Sarah. The problem, of course, is psychological. I'm trying to detach myself from Sarah, and sex would make us closer, and therefore I used impotence to avoid sex. Sarah fell asleep soon after we quit trying, whereas I was hyped-up from drinking too much green tea with dinner (we had eaten at a Japanese restaurant) and also anxious about how to tell Sarah that I wanted to break up. She clearly senses that I'm on the verge of saying something, but she didn't prompt me. Perhaps she hopes I will change my mind. After about an hour of lying wide awake in bed, I got up and went to the living room and read an astrology book there for several hours, then returned to bed and eventually did manage to fall asleep, but it was a fitful sleep.

Another attempt at sex in the morning. A mediocre performance, with me again coming too soon, though at least this time I managed to hold on and continue fucking long enough to bring Sarah off. Her orgasm was very powerful, with her body shaking all over for about two minutes after she came. Not surprising given that she hasn't come in several weeks now. (I don't think she masturbates and so the only time she comes is from sex with me.)

"I'm so full of worries," said Sarah.

"When people worry, it's usually about money, their job, romance or health. So what are you worrying about?" I asked.

"All of those things."

Regarding health, Sarah's doctor warned her last week about the cancer risk associated with estrogen supplements, which Sarah is taking to prevent osteoporosis. We agreed, though, that overall Sarah's health is excellent and so there wasn't really much to worry about there. Regarding her job, she is wondering how long before she can no longer stand the stress and so has to quit. Regarding money, she is worried about how to pay her monthly house and car payments if she loses or quits her job.

"So that leaves romance. What are your worries there?" I asked.

"About you and me," Sarah replied.

"It's very hard to know what to say about that. I feel comfortable with you. I enjoy coming here. There's none of the usual screaming and fighting and immaturity, like there was with my previous lovers."

"Do you miss that?"

"Not at all. Which is why I say it's comfortable with you. There is nothing about you to make me upset. But I feel stagnant..."

"I knew this was coming when we first met. We are stagnant. We're not going anywhere. I want to meet someone who wants to travel around the world with me. I'm tired of doing everything alone. And meanwhile, I'm just getting older."

"Maybe we should spend a few weeks apart and think things over before we make any final decisions. When things are comfortable, it's hard to just up and do something drastic."

Then we hugged for a while, then did exercises and had breakfast, then lay on the sofa discussing Sarah's financial situation. I recommended she sell her house next spring or summer and put the money into an intermediate term bond fund, then rent a cheap apartment and continue working and building savings until she gets fired, then move to a less expensive city and live off her savings until she is seventy, at which time she can begin collecting social security. (She could collect a lower social security monthly payment at sixty-five or even a much lower payment at her current age of sixty-two, but I strongly advised her to wait until seventy, on account of her long life expectancy.)

Then I dressed and we stood together in the spare room, looking at the closet where I keep my spare sets of clothing.

"Are you going to take everything with you?" Sarah asked.

"I'll take about half and pick the rest up some other time. Is that okay?"

"I don't care what you do." I could see Sarah was starting to cry and so I walked over to her and we hugged for a while without saying anything. Then I packed up some of my spare clothes in a bag and then we hugged a few more times.

"I don't know what to say. Let's wait two weeks to think things over and then talk again," I said as I prepared to leave, then we hugged one last time.

"Take care," Sarah said as we saved goodbye. Her eyes and face were both red from tears.

"You do the same."

I felt emotionally moved on the way home, but also convinced that it was time for us to break up. If anything, we should have broken up a few months ago, when I first began to feel truly bored by Sarah. I was very happy that we parted on good terms and altogether behaved like civilized adults this last weekend together, since I would like to continue being friends with Sarah. Or, if she wants, we can be occasional lovers as well, as long as she understands that I will be possibly be pursuing other women in the future.

Helen called and suggested we spend day together. Initially, we planned to eat lunch at a cafe, then go hiking in the nearby wilderness park, but what we ended up doing was dawdling all afternoon in the cafe and canceling the hike. Helen hasn't spoken to Paul since leaving him last week, though at some point she will have to contact him in order to arrange to collect her remaining belongings from his apartment. She talked about wanting to have wild sex with younger men in their twenties, and described how she had played eyes games such a younger man just last week, after having bumped into him in the produce section of the supermarket. Upon returning to the city, we stopped off at the jazz club and spent an hour there listening to the live Sunday afternoon trio, then Helen said she was feeling tired and wanted to take a nap. I suggested I accompany her back to her apartment and "energize" her there, but she wasn't interested: "I know I talked big about wild sex with men in their twenties, but that's all it is. Talk." Then she asked why I don't settle down and get married instead of always wanting new lovers. I replied that marriage and children weren't really priorities in my life, and the reason I go from lover to lover is that, like any normal person, I get bored after a while and so move on to something new. Then I reiterated that I would be willing to pay child support if Helen really wanted to have a child by me, but as I expected, she rejected this proposal.

While sitting in the jazz bar and reflecting on my life, it occurred to me how really absurd or even insane it is that I have no goals right now other than masturbating as much as possible and avoiding peak orgasms. But what else am I to do? Like any sane and thoughtful person, my ultimate goal is happiness. And everything I understand about life tells me that to be happy I must accept myself for who I am, and do what my heart tells me to do, and to hell with what society says is right and wrong and good and bad. So I ask myself what I truly want and the answer seems to be that I want to withdraw from the world and live like a hermit and masturbate all day. And then I think, "How insane this sounds! This can't be what I really want! Surely my real desires are like those of people who talk about what they would do if they won the lottery. Traveling around the world and having sex with thousands of different women and whatnot. Surely I don't want so little from life?" But then again, is it really so little to ask for non-stop pleasure, unadulterated by pain? To be sure, the lifestyle I've laid out for myself is that of a social outcast. But so what? I've always felt like a social outcast and I always will feel that way, no matter what I do with my life.

A lurid fantasy in the morning of meeting up with a quartet of Australian blondes in their forties who are on vacation and invite me back to their hotel room for some fun and games. My erection lasts forever and everyone ends up satisfied. I felt very depressed after I suddenly lost control while masturbating to this fantasy, but then afterwards I was struck by a flash of insight. For all my talk of making masturbation the focus of my life from here on out, it is clear that I have not yet fully accepted this. Witness the attempt to get Helen to have sex with me last week. For a long time, I've been gradually making myself into a social outcast. I'm unemployed. I live in the skid-row neighborhood with all the other social outcasts, where no one knows me and nothing I am likely to do will provoke scorn. I have few friends and little contact with those I do have. I have even less contact with my relatives. I don't belong to any organizations. What prevents me currently from completing this process of withdrawal from the world is that I continue to lust after sex with women, which of course requires that I not be a social outcast, if I am to attract the kind of woman I find sexually desirable. Full-time masturbation is not just a way to pass time and give myself physical pleasure. It is an essential step in fulfilling my destiny of becoming a complete social outcast. Perhaps keeping this in mind will help me to show better self-control in the future.

In the evening, while staring out the window at the donut shop, I exchanged glances with a passing homeless woman, who I recognized from maybe three years ago, when I gave her a dollar on my way home from a disco. She thanked me profusely then, saying "Wow, you're a real pal" and held out her callused hand for me to shake. I've since seen her off and on at intervals of every few months or so. She appears to be in her forties and has beautiful long black hair, a remarkably attractive face, and lips that seem as if specially designed for sex. Perhaps she detected some of my feeling for her in my gaze tonight, because she paused and walked back to the shop after passing, and bought a coffee and then stood near the door and talked loudly, in a stupid, slow and depressed tone of voice, to a man sitting at one of the tables, who also appeared to be homeless: "I was in the hospital and they were going to give me warm meals but then some rich people came by and they kicked me out. They even took away my food. The rich people drove up and they kicked me out." I had initially planned to give her money, but for whatever reason I changed my mind after listening to her speak. Perhaps I didn't want to start a relationship that I would later regret because it intruded too much on my solitude. But then later, as I was preparing to leave the donut shop, I took a dollar from my wallet, so as to be prepared to give her something should I pass her on my way home. As it turns out, I did pass her, but she appeared to be sleeping. Huddled up and with a blanket covering her from head to toe. I didn't want to wake her and so I walked on, thinking to myself: "How pathetic, that I'm so worried about giving a measly dollar to a homeless woman!" When I got home, I masturbated to the fantasy of offering to let her visit my apartment occasionally, to use the bathroom and kitchen and store things in the closet, in exchange for letting me fuck her mouth now and then. Then it suddenly occurred to me, as I lay pondering the ramifications of this fantasy, that she would eventually get the psychological upper hand with me, no matter how powerless she might appear to be now. Women always get the upper hand with me, which may be why I fear and avoid then so. Why am I so unable to dominate, I wonder?

Helen called and asked if I was in a better mood today than when she last called a week ago. I replied that my testiness then had been caused by my anger at my inability to control myself from having peak orgasms during masturbation, but that I had since overcome this problem. We then agreed to have lunch. I asked about Paul and Helen replied that they haven't been in contact recently. The rest of our conversation consisted of pleasantly discussing politics and the state of the world.

Sarah called and we had a brief chat. When I suggested we meet at a cafe tomorrow, Sarah replied that she couldn't commit to such a meeting since she was feeling sick with what appears to be the beginnings of a cold. So then I promised to call her tomorrow morning and we'd decide then what to do. As for our possibly getting back together as lovers, we didn't discuss that, nor am I even sure of my own feelings on the subject. On the one hand, Sarah makes for pleasant company and I don't have any other woman in my life right now and so why not get back together with her? On the other hand, I'm still deeply involved in my masturbation experiments and would prefer to wait a bit before resuming with real sex. Also, Sarah's conversation continues to bore me. Tonight, for example, we had almost nothing to say to one another, despite this being the first time we had talked since agreeing to spend some time apart two weeks ago.

I called Sarah in the morning, but she was feeling even more sick than yesterday. Nevertheless, I proposed that I visit her this afternoon. At the time, I wasn't sure why I made this proposal, since I certainly didn't want conversation nor was I keen on interrupting my masturbation experiments with sex. As it turns out, sex wasn't an issue. Partly because Sarah was feeling sick and therefore not in the mood for sex, and partly because we decided to finalize our break-up tonight and Sarah was of the opinion that having sex would just lead to problems. "It might also lead to pleasure," I joked. Sarah giggled at this. Our entire discussion was amicable, with much of it conducted while the two of us were lying on the sofa and hugging. "I think I learned some things from you. At least I hope I did. And I certainly enjoyed all the sex," she said at one point. In response to her inquiry as to why I had been attracted to her in the first place, I confirmed what Sarah has probably long suspected. To wit, Sarah is old enough not to want marriage or children nor did she ever expect us to live together, and therefore she doesn't threaten me the way younger women do. "You're safe, but that doesn't mean I don't find you sexually attractive, because I do," I concluded. I hinted at the possibility of polyamory, wherein Sarah and I each date other people while continuing to see one another for sex, but Sarah wasn't interested in such an arrangement. Nor do I really think it would work, given what I know about Sarah's personality. Sarah mentioned that she had dinner with a man her own age last week, someone she knew from long ago and hasn't seen for a while, but that she wasn't sure where things were heading with him. "And your next girlfriend should be someone much younger than me," Sarah then admonished. "Women my own age are too much trouble. I'd rather have someone twenty years older or twenty years younger," I countered. "Twenty years younger. I knew it!" laughed Sarah. I suppose it would be embarrassing for Sarah to ever see me with another older woman. If this other woman were ugly, Sarah would feel ugly by association, while if the other woman were pretty, Sarah would feel that she was no longer special to me, but rather was just one of a string of older lovers of mine. We finished the evening by drinking wine, then eating dinner, then discussing Sarah's finances yet again, then I read to her from a book, and then finally I packed up my remaining belongings in a bag and left, with both of us smiling and waving good-bye as I walked off.

Lunch with Helen. I had called her yesterday, to wish her happy birthday, but she wasn't home. It appears Paul had called her this past weekend and told her how much he missed her and so they got back together. "He must be feeling horny. Either that or he's getting low on cash and looking around for a life boat," was my appraisal of the situation. Helen only stayed at Paul's apartment for the weekend and plans to spend the weekdays in her own apartment. She is feeling stressed from conflicts with an incompetent co-worker who keeps screwing up work that they are supposed to be doing jointly. I told her I was having trouble figuring out ways to occupy myself. Helen suggested a child might be what I needed. We would marry, continue to live separately, share the burden of child-rearing, and she would continue to work. I asked why marriage was necessary and she replied that she would feel like a "complete chump" if she had a child without being married. I nodded but I'm not sure I agree with her reasoning. I would prefer we think of ourselves as a divorced couple, who continue to be friends and who share the burden of raising their child, except that this child hasn't been born yet. Marriage just seems to complicate the situation. My primary concern is the legal presumption that the father of any children born to a married woman is the husband, since I can't be sure of Helen's trustworthiness in this regard, given that she continues to see Paul off and on. I'm less concerned about money matters, as all of my property would be separate, since I'm not earning a salary or running a business anymore. Indeed, Helen would be the source of all community property (in the form of savings from her salary), and thus it is she who would benefit most from a pre-nuptial agreement. What's more, all of my assets are liquid and thus could be moved out of the country at a moment's notice, should Helen try to squeeze me during a divorce.

An interesting incident. An impoverished looking man in a wheelchair tried to get my attention as I hurried past. I assumed he was asking for money and so waved my arm in refusal as I continued walking. But then I heard him saying he wanted a push, and so I turned back and did as he asked. The direction he wanted to go was an uphill grade, and hence difficult for someone in a wheelchair. "I don't usually ask for help, but my arm just gave out on me today. How far you going?" he asked. I paused while I tried to remember what the next street was, since I didn't want to tell the truth, which was that I would heading in this direction for about six more blocks, since I didn't feel like pushing him this whole distance, especially since the uphill grade ended at the next street. I have a suspicion that he was able to read my mind and guess these selfish thoughts going through my head. When we got to the end of the block, I said, "Well, I turn here." He thanked me and began pushing himself. It was downhill from here on and so not too difficult. I turned and walked a block in the cross direction, then turned again to continue in the direction I was originally going. I felt ashamed at my selfishness at not having pushed the man a few extra blocks. Though at least I didn't entirely refuse to help him out.

I saw Helen standing outside the bookstore. It turns out she was taking the day off from work. "What a life this is you lead! Every day you get to do this, then? Just wander around and do whatever you want with your time?" she said. Then she suggested I step into the bookstore and buy her a copy of The Story of O as a birthday gift. She had read this novel (about a submissive woman) many years ago, but somehow misplaced her copy and has been wanting a replacement for some time, but feels embarrassed to buy the book herself. I bought the book as she requested, then we walked to the nearby park and sat there and talked some more about the idea of having a child together.

"As I see it, the only differences between what I've been offering all along—namely, to pay you child support for any children you have by me—and your proposal, is that I would be helping to raise the child and that we would get married. The idea of sharing the effort of child-rearing is perfectly reasonable, and I would probably want to do this in any case. What I don't understand is why you want to get married. When we talked about marriage two years ago, the agreement was that we would make an effort to be lovers, and only if one of us didn't want sex would the other be allowed to look outside the marriage for a sex partner. At this point, though, I think you and I can pretty much abandon all hope of being sex partners again. We should be assuming our love will be strictly platonic from here on out, other than as necessary to get you pregnant," I said.

"I agree. That would take a lot of stress off us, I think, if I didn't have to worry about you forcing me to have sex. That's what caused problems when we tried to get married before, if you'll recall," Helen said.

"So why do you want to get married, if we're going to be acting like a divorced couple?"

"We're not divorced. We're not even married yet."

"But we won't be living together and we won't be having sex. All we'll be doing is sharing child-raising responsibilities. So what's the point of marriage? Imagine if I have to tell a woman with whom I want to be lovers that I'm married! I don't mind saying I have children or that I'm divorced, but to say I'm married seems damned peculiar."

"You can lie."

"I don't want to lie."

"Then tell them you're married but living separately. Lots of people do that."

"Why not just avoid all these problems by not getting married at all? Why do you want marriage?"

"It just seems right."

"Are you trying impress people by telling them you're married? If so, what people? You don't have any friends. You'll never succeed in impressing your sister and brother. Your parents will likely be scandalized no matter how we arrange things, so that we'll end up having to lie to them anyway. My feeling is that you're just caving in to convention, and I really don't see why, since God knows this arrangement we're proposing is about as unconventional as can be imagined."

"It's not that unconventional. Lots of people get married and live separately. What do you have against marriage?"

"The situation is this. Right now, you are living with Paul..."

"That's about to end."

"You've been saying that for years! And then every time you get lonely, you return to him. Nothing about us being married is going to change your need for someone to keep you from feeling lonely, since we're not going to be living together or seeing each other much more than we do now, at least not until we have a child together. You see, here's the bottom line. My concern is that if you're living with Paul, how can I be sure the child is mine?"

"I'm not going to deceive you! I'm tired of all this deceit!"

"In the old days, before DNA testing, if the woman had a child during marriage, the husband was always listed as the father, unless some other man stepped up and admitted to paternity. And even then, the husband might still have been considered the father. Nowadays, the law is less strict and I believe it is possible for a man to get out of child support if he can use DNA testing to prove the child isn't his, even if he was married when the child was born. Though I'll have to check on that. But regardless, it's much simpler if the man isn't married. In that case, the woman has to name the father, then he gives a blood sample, and if it matches that of the baby, then he's named as the father on the birth certificate and has to pay child support. Otherwise, the woman is in trouble. No father, no child support."

"I don't want go through with all that testing! If we don't trust one another, then we might as well forget this whole thing."

"I agree that we have to trust one another. But women have a tendency to act emotionally when it comes time to choose the father of their child. Given your age and circumstances, it's likely you'll only have one child, and thus you would probably want the very best genes you can get for that child."

"There's nothing wrong with your genes."

"Paul is taller than me."

"So what? You're tall, too!"

"But he's taller."

"Two inches taller! This is ridiculous."

"If I'm not mistaken, the last time you were at my apartment, I noticed you looking through my photos and lingering over those of my relatives, as if checking to see whether my family is good-looking or not."

"That's preposterous! What I was looking at was the photos of Sarah! Anyway, you're very good-looking. I've always said that."

"But you might think Paul is better looking."

"He's different looking from you. It would be obvious if the child weren't yours."

"I don't know about that. Paul and I both are of northwest european ancestry, and so are you. All we can guarantee is any child by you and either me or Paul would look northwest european. Even if the baby were blond, that proves nothing. After all, you were blond until about thirteen and there's even some blond genes in my family."

"So you think I would deceive you and get pregnant by Paul in order to get a blond baby?"

"When the time comes to pick the father of the child, I think you will temporarily lose your mind and behave emotionally. Maybe you think I have better genes than Paul, maybe you think the opposite. All I really know is that I don't want to pay child support for another man's baby."

"You're the most suspicious person I ever met. A typical Capricorn."

"That's my sun sign only. There's much more to my chart than that. Also, if you think Capricorns are suspicious, try hanging out with a Scorpio. But anyway, I have very strong feelings when it comes to paying child support. I don't have a sense of honor about most things. I seldom have any feelings of sexual jealousy, for example. But I know I would be torn to pieces inside if I was forced to pay child support for a child that wasn't mine. I might help support another man's child voluntarily, but I don't want to be forced to do so."

"Well, if you can't trust me, I don't see the point of all this."

"What I trust is that you have a tendency to act emotionally. Just to cite one example: for two years now, you've been saying you plan to leave Paul, and yet you keep going back to him."

"It's ending soon for sure. I didn't enjoy this weekend with him in the least. And the sex business just makes it worse. I don't want sex with him anymore."

"As I understand it, there are four major issues in your life at present. First, the issue of children. Whether you want to have them at all, and if so, when and with who as the father. Second, learning to live alone. Libras always have problems with that. Third, getting over your sex problems. Fourth, finding a satisfying job, or at least one that you can tolerate. The only issue I can help you with is that of children, assuming you want a child. The sex issue I tried to help you with, but evidently I'm not the man for the job. Who knows? Maybe some tall, dominant stranger out there can give you that sexual release you've been craving for so long... But in any case, none of the four issues I just mentioned—children, ability to live alone, sex, satisfying job—is going to be affected by marriage."

"You could help me with the job part, so that I could do something I liked instead of having to worry so much about making money."

"I could support you, yes, but I won't. It doesn't make any sense for me to support you. I don't get anything from it."

"Listen to how selfish you are!"

"Everyone is selfish. Strong relationships are based on a realistic quid pro quo. You give me something I want in exchange for which I give you something you want. Paying to support a child gives me something. Someday I might regret not having children and having one by you allows me to anticipate and prevent that regret, at a cost which I can easily afford. By contrast, supporting you gives me nothing. I'll help you out during unpaid maternity leave, but after that you'll have to work."

"That's just what I'm worried about. You telling me, get out there and work! Meanwhile, you sit around retired."

"Men do exist who will marry you and let you be a stay-at-home wife and mother. But I don't think you'll be satisfied in that role. Also, men like that are unlikely to take too kindly to your looking around for that tall, dominant stranger who'll give you that sexual release you've been craving for so long."

"If you don't want to marry me, then forget it. I'll get someone else."

"I'm not trying to drive a hard bargain. I'm being realistic and trying to reach a compromise which gives us both what we really want. But if you think you can find a man who'll offer more, who'll not only pay for the child, but will also support you so that you don't have to work, and who wants to live with you so you don't feel lonely, and who you either enjoy sex with or else he leaves you alone if you don't enjoy sex with him and he isn't jealous when you go out looking for that tall, dominant stranger who'll give you that sexual release you've been craving for so long, well, by all means go for it. The last thing I want is for you to have children with me and then feel like I've tricked you into a bad deal. Maybe you should date some other men for a while."

"I plan to. I plan to check out a lot of possibilities."

We parted more or less amicably.

While walking to the donut shop in the evening, I was witness to the following spectacle of human degradation. A filthy and overweight homeless man, lying on the sidewalk and with a shirt thrown over his head, opened his fly and pulled down his pants slightly so as to expose his genitals, then turned to the side in order to piss. Too lazy, in other words, to bother getting up and walking to the gutter to piss, or even to uncover his face so as to look around and check where he was pissing. The stream of urine flowed downhill towards another man sleeping a few feet away, and soaked into this other man's clothing. I'm not sure why I found this particular incident so shocking, since worse things happen all the time down here on skid row. Perhaps I subconsciously imagined myself someday in the place of one of these homeless men, sleeping in my own or someone else's urine. What a horrible thought that is!

Helen called in the morning, and announced herself by saying: "It's your wife calling." Then she explained that she was taking the day off from work due to sickness and needed some help with her computer, so I agreed to stop by her apartment to help her out. When I got there, I inquired about Helen's illness and she eventually admitted that it was mostly psychosomatic, due to worrying about where her life was heading. She also revealed that she had taken off two other days from work, which means she only worked two days out of five this week. I warned Helen that, at the rate she was going, she would soon be out of a job and have yet more worries in her life. She just shrugged in reply. Meanwhile, I was wondering to myself, how could I possibly be serious about having a child with such a hypochondriac? I also felt myself losing energy the whole time I was in Helen's apartment, and becoming increasingly anxious to leave, and without the slightest glimmer of sexual desire. My body seems to be telling me loud and clear to forget this idea of a child with Helen.

I brought up the subject of marriage and children and repeated much of what I had said in our last conversation, including that the only reason I was considering a child is the possibility of future regret and that I didn't have a burning desire for children right now. But I was more emphatic this time about not wanting marriage. Helen agreed that, given my lack of interest, it was difficult to argue that I should marry her. But in that case, she doesn't want to have children with me, because she would feel "mistreated" if she had children without being married to the father. "Think of me as a better alternative than a sperm bank or some no-account who can't pay child support. But I'm not better than a man with a steady job who wants to marry you," I concluded.

There is probably something perverted about telling a woman I love her and always will but that I don't want sex with her, but then Helen brought this on herself by refusing me so many times that I don't want to bother anymore. I'm not faking my lack of interest, either. If anything, such as when I tried to get her to have sex with me earlier this month, I've been faking the opposite for some time now with Helen. That is, I've been pretending to have more sexual desire for her than I really do have. Helen mentioned that she had being rereading The Story of O and enjoying it greatly. "That book should never be given to young girls, because young girls are very impressionable. That's what happened to me. I first read that book when I was eighteen, and it completely corrupted me," she said. My own opinion is that Helen's submissive fantasies are related to her fear of sex and her feeling that sex is "bad", which she picked up from her parents and society at large, and that her interest in The Story of O at the age of eighteen was a symptom of her already existing sexual guilt rather than being in any way a cause of it.

By the time I left Helen's apartment, I was feeling thoroughly exhausted and drained of energy. Even her neighborhood depresses me, I realized on the way home. There was a feeling of lonely and frightened rich people in the air, with everyone terrified of doing anything that might mark them as social outcasts and compromise their membership in the ranks of the privileged elite. A complete contrast, in other words, to the noisy anything-goes feeling that prevails down in my skid-row neighborhood.

Helen called me again in the evening, complaining that she was lonely and wanted company. I refused to visit and again advised her to "go find that tall, dominant stranger who'll give you that sexual release you've been craving for so long."

The next day, Helen called again for assistance with her computer, but I didn't bother picking up the phone, as I really didn't want to see or talk to her. I'm tired of being smothered and left de-energized by her neediness and incompetence and immaturity. And things are going to get worse in the future, since my intuition tells me that Helen's neediness will be rising to crisis proportions in the months ahead. The computer problem about which she called was one that any beginner should have been able to solve, and yet part of Helen's job is to be the computer support person for her department! But then she has always preferred to lean on me rather than stand on her own two feet. And to think that just a few days ago I was seriously considering having a child with Helen! My instincts about this being a bad idea are right. If she instead has a child by Paul, and they separate and she is then left single and impoverished and miserable, then I'll be affected by her misery to be sure, because I've always empathized with Helen's pain. But my pain would be far greater if I were the father of Helen's child and thus tied more closely to Helen. For the sake of my own happiness, I need to be brutal in breaking with her.

I called Sarah and we arranged for her to stop by my apartment later this week, in order that she can return my shaving gear (which I forget to take with me when I cleared out my other belongings from her house last weekend) and simultaneously retrieve some things she had left at my apartment. She also wants us to "talk". I have no idea what that means.

My uncle on my father's side called, and we caught up on what has happened in our lives since we last talked about a year ago. Our travels, his various bodily ailments, my will contest suit. Then he asked if I was still working on my "new computer program". I replied that I was but that it wasn't finished yet. He was referring to the cover story I've been feeding him in order to explain how I'm spending my time these days now that I'm no longer running a business. My concern with telling the truth—namely, that I'm doing nothing—is that he might be annoyed that I'm not being a productive member of society, and consequently be less than fully cooperative in helping me with my will contest suit, or with other matters in which I could use his assistance. We might meet for lunch next month, when he and his wife travel into the city for an annual shopping expedition.

Sarah came by my apartment and we talked for a while there before going out to dinner at a restaurant. She asked what's new with me and I replied that I spend most of my time these days walking about the city, and sometimes I walk at night as well. Then she discussed how things are going with the man her own age who she had mentioned when we were breaking up two weeks ago. Then we discussed her finances again and I used the computer to help her estimate her social security monthly retirement check under various scenarios. She is thinking of selling her house and perhaps retiring to southern Italy to live. At the restaurant, while talking about Helen and the crazy idea we've been kicking around about having a child together (Sarah advised me to follow my intuition and forget this idea), I said something about being unable to "work miracles" with regards to getting Helen to enjoy sex. Sarah commented: "I think you're a fantastic lover. Certainly the best I've ever known. You're considerate and patient and you definitely know what you're doing." I gestured to her to be more quiet, whereupon she continued: "Maybe I should speak louder so everyone can hear. Or maybe I'll wait until later when there's more people. It's almost empty right now." I must say it was gratifying to hear these compliments. It made all the effort I put into getting the sexual kung-fu to work this past year seem worthwhile. Sarah insisted on treating at the restaurant, in exchange for my assistance in estimating her social security check.

As a going-away present, I gave Sarah six more music disks, to complete the set of one hundred disks which I've been gradually copying for her, along with a sealed envelope containing a check for $10,000, a key to my apartment, and the following letter, which I told her to read when she got home (I had written the check and letter two weeks ago, after returning home from the final break-up with Sarah):

My expenses the past year have been lower than what they might have been, in part because you were content with the inexpensive pleasures I prefer, like eating at home and going to the cafe, instead of insisting on going out to expensive restaurants and taking trips and whatnot. Since you didn't benefit from me spending money taking you places, it seems only fair that you benefit instead from my savings, and so enclosed is a going away present. I suspect you'd protest if I gave this in person, and then I'd get confused and not know what to say, which is why I'm writing this letter.

I'm also enclosing a key to my apartment. On occasion, I've needed for Helen to visit my apartment. Helen is currently my only trustworthy acquaintance in the area (other than certain relatives who I really don't want to deal with), but her life is so tumultuous that I don't always know if I can count on her, and so I'd like to have someone else as a backup. Please keep the key in a safe place, and also notify me of any changes to your mailing address or phone number. [...here the letter discusses various technical issues regarding Sarah's computer and her continued shared use of my internet account...]

Best wishes, (signed) A__

On my walk home from the restaurant, I stopped off at a newly opened nightclub. A "swank" sort of place, with half the men dressed in suits (I had on a black jacket and dress pants myself), the floozies in skimpy dresses, and the bartenders aggressive about pushing drinks: "Hey chief, ready for a refill?" I sat and people watched for three hours, nursing my one glass of wine the whole time and ignoring the constant pestering by the bartender. When I got home, there was a message from Sarah on my answering machine: "You're really crazy. Give me a call as soon as you get in."

Later that night, I woke up feeling extremely sick—food-poisoning it felt like—and spent several hours forcing myself to vomit, and then being unable to stop the vomiting, and dry-heaving until it felt like my insides were being torn to pieces, and then finally the nausea cleared and I was able at last to fall back asleep.

The next day, Sarah called in the evening and we talked for a while.

"I was floored. I didn't know what to think and I still don't know what to do with the check," she said.

"Invest it in an intermediate term bond fund. Believe me, it won't make much of a dent in my finances," I replied.

"But you know, I enjoyed those things we did together. It didn't really matter to me that we didn't go out much. I was very happy staying home most of the time."

"So was I. But it just doesn't seem right that I spend money on floozies and not on you."

Sarah then discussed how her supervisor is treating her much more nicely these days, so that time flies and she no longer hates her job so much: "She's finally seems to understand that I know what I'm doing, so now she just points to things in the magazines and I do all the work of making up the designs. I'm really enjoying myself!" She promised to send me a letter saying some other things which were "too personal" to say over the phone.

This seems to be the season for spectacles of human degradation related to urination. First, the spectacle a few days ago of the half-asleep bum pissing on his buddy. Then tonight, on the way back from the grocery, I had the privilege of watching a ragged and barefoot old man stagger into a self-service laundry and take a piss then and there in the corner, right under the detergent vending machine. The customers in the laundry began loudly berating him. "Hey, man, this is a fucking laundry, you don't go making your mess in here!" Whereupon the bum undid and pulled down his pants, as if planning to follow up on his piss with a crap. One of the customers then shook his fist in a menacing way at the bum. The bum responded by pulling his pants back up. At this point, I burst into laughter (previously, I had been shaking my head in disgust and disbelief) and continued on my merry way, without waiting around to see what happened next.

Helen called and we had lunch together. She has been alone for the past few weeks, and has taken many sick days off from work, though not today. She has contacted several men through the internet, but hasn't met any of these yet. We agreed to forget the idea of having a child together. "I'm too sick to be having a brood to worry about," she said. On the walk back to her place of work, she wanted me to hug her and responded very affectionately when I did so and exclaimed: "That's what I've been needing these past few weeks!" When I asked why she didn't want sex, she replied: "I don't like being made to perform. You always want me to go too far and too fast." I countered that it was ridiculous for a thirty-nine year old woman to be acting as skittish as a teenage virgin about sex. Helen said: "I may have been sexually abused as a child. You never know." I replied that it was extremely unlikely that she had been sexually molested in the ordinary sense of that term, based on what I knew of her relatives and home environment, but that in my opinion she had been abused in a psychological sense. Namely, in having been taught by her parents and society that sex is evil.

I received the following letter from Sarah: "I feel very much stunned about your letter and the content, and I feel blessed to know you. But even before the check, independent from the money, I feel blessed having been with you for this time. There was so much I wanted to say to you when we last met. You have really sorted out my life for me, put all the financial aspects in line, in order, in perspective for me with your grasp and clear vision. You have helped me see myself more clearly and in a more positive way. You have stripped away all the fake, the unnecessary, the bullshit that society puts up and around everything. With your spartan lifestyle, you have shown what is essential and what is baggage. The truth that is present under all the trappings of conventional daily life. Moreover, you have taught me to do yoga every day and shown me by example how to stick with it, and have it be a natural part of my existence, and the root of my health. And indirectly you taught me meditation and that it comes in many forms, and transforms one's life. Your reading to me in your amusing and expressive and quiet way is something I shall miss dearly. And of course I will miss the wonderful sex we had together. By accepting me and my spotty irregular education, by seeing me for who I am, you have given me confidence and self-esteem. You have given me so much, it is not easy to express! I feel gratitude and love for you, (signed) Sarah."

Dancing in the evening, with swing lessons to begin with, followed by swing and tango dance parties. The swing lesson was for the upright East Coast style rather than the crouched-over Lindy Hop style which I detest so much, and so for once I enjoyed myself dancing swing. I think I'm going to get into this East Coast swing seriously in the next few months. At least three attractive women seemed interested in me, but I didn't follow up on any of these opportunities. It is clear however, that if I continue to attend these swing lessons and dance parties, then eventually I'll get involved in another relationship, regardless of my half-hearted attempts to remain single.

For several weeks now, I've been wondering what happened to my libido, because none of the women I saw while walking down the street or sitting in the cafe had aroused me in the least. I was able to appreciate their beauty in the cold way I might appreciate the beauty of a painting, but they failed utterly to excite me physically. But then tonight at the swing lesson, when I put my arm around a tall and pretty black-haired woman in her forties, who had struck me as boring when I first looked at her from a distance—lo and behold!—my cock immediately began to stiffen and my body to tingle. So it appears my sex drive isn't dead after all.

At the tango dance party, I had several good experiences with enthusiastic beginners. One of these had helped me with the East Coast swing earlier and now asked me to reciprocate in teaching her tango, which I did, and then we danced about six times together. She had never danced tango before and so was somewhat clumsy, though she did manage to more or less maintain proper close-hold posture after I showed her how. She looked to be in her twenties, with a slender body, shoulder length dirty blonde hair, and a face that would have been prettier had it been less pale and less blemished by pimples. Later, I danced with a voluptuous brunette in her thirties, dressed in a provocative skin-tight short red dress. We danced twice in an erotic close hold and then I said thank you, to which she replied with a coquettish frown: "Another?" And so we danced a third time and then she sighed and thanked me and we parted. I remembered her from almost exactly a year ago, and that she had appeared annoyed then that I didn't follow up on our dance by making an attempt at conversation and thereafter had refused all my further invitations to dance. So tonight, when I saw her standing alone after we separated, I walked over and asked her where she was from and where she lived and what she did for a living (office manager) and so forth. I got the impression that she is strikingly similar to Elizabeth in many ways. In particular, she seems as sexually compatible with me as Elizabeth. She also appears as much a "bitch from hell" as Elizabeth, of the sort who gets angry when she doesn't get what she wants, including the men she wants. She is a much better dancer than Elizabeth, on the other hand, though not an expert by any means.

Sarah called, and asked how I was doing and then we talked about how we spent yesterday and engaged in other small talk. She mentioned that she went tango dancing recently, and that people gave her peculiar looks, since the last few times she been tango dancing, she'd been accompanied by me but now she was alone. I suppose I should keep in touch in Sarah and eventually propose a polyamorous arrangement. That is, a relationship where Sarah and I continue to be occasional lovers while having other lovers as well.

The next day, I realized that I had forgotten to mention the letter Sarah sent me last week, and so I called her and lied that I hadn't visited my post office box recently and so only just received the letter. Some small talk about how we spent the day and then Sarah said she missed me and suggested we get together sometime. I agreed, but didn't set a date. The truth is, though I continue to be very fond of Sarah and to find her sexually attractive and to wish her happiness in life, I'm no longer in love with her (in fact, I ceased being in love with her many months ago), with the consequence that we have nothing to say to one another and her company bores me and I really don't want to see her anymore. It's time to call this relationship quits. And that includes the idea of polyamory, which is unlikely to work.

I'm trying once again to adhere to a split sleep schedule, whereby I sleep less than eight hours at night and make up the deficit by an afternoon or evening nap. This allows me both to stay up late, so I can go out dancing at night, but also get up in the morning no later than nine or so, which is the latest I can remain in bed without feeling disgusted with myself.

Helen called, wanting to know what was up with me, since we hadn't talked in a week: "I thought you might have gotten lost during one of your long walks. I've been sick all this past week but I guess you didn't care enough to call me. Oh, well. I know I can't count on you during my times of need. All my friends are fair-weather friends. No one wants to see me when I'm sick." I asked about Paul and she replied that she hadn't seen him recently. During lunch, I mentioned that it sometimes took almost an hour of manipulating her clitoris to bring Sarah to orgasm. "She was a real test of my skills," I said. "Maybe you should try those skills on me," said Helen. I ignored this remark. The truth is that I continue to feel love for Helen and to think her a very attractive woman for her age (thirty-nine, ten months younger than me), but her sex appeal to me has essentially vanished. I'd rather masturbate.

My lawyer sent me a long fax in which he described how he had consulted with various lawyers and non-lawyers familiar with the courts of the county where the trial will be held, and that they were all of the opinion that we should take any settlement offer over $400,000. The county where the trial will be held is among the poorest in the United States, has an almost all-black population (myself and my sister and both of our lawyers are white, the judge is black), and the juries there are notorious for handing our huge damages awards in product liability cases. According to the other lawyers, the jury will be prejudiced against me for being from out of state whereas my sister is a local resident, and also because my sister cared for my father in his later years whereas I hardly even visited him. Supposedly, many of the jury members will be black women with experience caring for an elderly parents and they will therefore sympathize with my sister. "This case has settle written all over it," opined one product liability lawyer.

My lawyer also mentioned that he checked the county records again and discovered that my sister has obtained another $25,000 bank loan, using her house as security, even though we still have a lien against that house. Furthermore, she should have little difficulty convincing the judge to let her take an advance from the estate for living expenses, since she is guaranteed to inherit at least $500,000 no matter what happens. Indeed, my lawyer is surprised that she hasn't already requested an advance. Either an advance or more bank loans will allow my sister to hold out for much longer than we could delay the case in the appeals process, assuming we lose at trial, so our implied threat of "starving" her out if she won't settle doesn't carry much weight.

I spent much of the evening thinking about what to do. My current feeling is to move forward with trial preparations and damn these fears of a prejudiced black jury. The bias in favor of the local resident might well be significant in product liability suits, but I doubt it will be much of a factor in a will contest suit. Nor am I particularly afraid of black women. All my life, I've been on good terms with black women (though I've never been much interested in them sexually), including various co-workers at the corporation where I used to work, plus various servants of my parents when I was growing up. My sister on the other hand, has always been something of a racist when it comes to blacks and the jury is likely to detect this at the intuitive level. Something in my gut says that this is the wrong time to back down, and that if I've gone this far with this conflict with my sister, I might as well go to court and to hell with the risk of losing.

Swing dancing lessons in the evening. The instructor kept insisting I bend my knees in the Lindy Hop style instead of remaining upright in the ballroom style that I prefer. I didn't stay for the dance party that followed the lesson, since there was a four to one surplus of men and almost no single women present. When I got home, I practiced both the triple-step and single-step versions of the six-count swing basic, to various tempos of swing music, in both the bent-knee and upright styles, and came to the conclusion that I will never be able to enjoy the bent-knee dance style. It seems too much like something for hyperactive and immature teenagers. Lots of acrobatics and kidding-around and zero sexuality. The upright dance style, on the other hand, is something adults can enjoy. It might not be tango or salsa, but it needn't be completely sexless either.

I called my lawyer and told him to forget all ideas of settlement and move ahead with trial preparations. "I know you think I'm selling you out, but after all, $400,000 is a hell of a lot of money," he argued. "Yes, I'm aware of that. But I'd rather lose big than accept a settlement that makes me feel insulted," I replied.

Lunch with Helen. She spoke of being determined to get another job, and of being sick of the job she is in now, and of being worried that people will peg her for an idiot for staying in a dead-end job for over five years, and so on. Then she said she was determined to have a child, but not with me: "Not after the way you wanted me to get pregnant without marrying me. Forget it!" I asked if she had been masturbating lately and at first she refused to reply: "This conversation is now over, I have to get back to work". Eventually, however, she confessed that she has been masturbating every night for the past few weeks, to fantasies of sex with anonymous strangers, and that she has been having normal orgasms during masturbation sessions, as opposed to being unable to have an orgasm at all or else having unsatisfying "stolen" orgasms. If she was telling the truth, then this marks a dramatic improvement in her ability to enjoy sex. My suspicion, however, is that she was exaggerating.

In the evening, I stopped by Helen's apartment to assist with a problem she was having with her computer. After fixing the problem, we lay together on her bed and hugged and talked for an hour or so. I maintained that women today are as sexually repressed as ever. Helen responded by putting one hand up in the air and grabbing her crotch with the other and then gyrating her pelvis like a rock star. I dismissed this gesture, saying: "This sort of violent rejection of old values is never successful. The repression just gets driven underground and then is more difficult to root out than ever. The correct way to get free from old values is to become a social outcast, not a social rebel. Alternatively, you can somehow sneak your way past the rules, such as being tied up and being forced to have sex. It wasn't my fault, you tell yourself, and then you don't have to feel guilty. Your submissive fantasies, in other words." Helen scoffed in reply. We parted on pleasant terms. For all my talk about sex this evening, I should note that I really don't feel much sexual attraction to Helen anymore. However, I would like for her to someday be able to enjoy sex with someone other than me.

Sarah had called yesterday when I was out and left a message. Tonight I returned her call and we talked for a while. She is continuing to date the older man she's been talking about for some weeks now, but they haven't had sex yet: "We're going very slow with that, but that's okay. I'm comfortable with that." She asked about my love life and I replied that there wasn't any currently. Then she asked about Helen and I gave her the status of that situation. To wit, Helen was living alone again, she and I were not having sex, and it was doubtful if we would ever have a child together. Then I gave a long rambling lecture about my theories as to the causes of Helen's sexual problems. Sarah and I agreed to possibly go dancing together sometime in the future.

My lawyer called and advised that my sister's lawyer might be preparing another settlement offer, then he tried to get me in the mood to accept this offer: "Wouldn't you like to get a nice big check for Christmas? I know my wife would. You don't have a wife. I'm not trying to sell you out, but $450,000 is nothing to scoff at." This $450,000 figure is what my lawyer is hoping for, even though in their last conversation my sister's lawyer had told him that even $400,000 was more than my sister was currently willing to offer. I refused to reply to my lawyer's question as to whether either $400,000 or $450,000 would be acceptable to me. And indeed, I don't really know the answer to that question. My plan is to let my gut make the decision, and right now my gut is silent, since the time for a decision hasn't yet come. If I do ultimately decide to reject my sister's offer, then my next step will probably be to write her a letter explaining that my reason for rejecting her offer is that I don't want to feel like a fool for accepting less than what feels "right", and warning her that her lawyer might be giving her bad advice in order to push the case to trial and thereby increase his fee.

Swing and tango dancing in the evening. A smallish crowd and a shortage of women, so I left after just two hours. Most of my dances were mediocre. Beginning partners with bad posture and a bad sense of rhythm and physically unattractive to boot. But there were also enough good experiences thrown in here and there that the evening as a whole I consider satisfying.

Salsa dancing in the evening at a ballroom dance studio. The women mostly doggy-looking short-haired sexual neuters. The dregs of the dregs. The dance instructor a raging and obviously sexually frustrated bitch. The male assistant instructor a flaming queen. The music bad, including some unbelievably wretched salsa/disco blends. (Where do they find this dreck?) I left after about a half-hour, having danced three times, with little pleasure, with unattractive and incompetent beginners as partners. I feel little inclination at present to resume dancing salsa at nightclubs. The noise, the drinking, the attitudes—just thinking about it makes me ill. But if the only alternative is these pathetic dance studio parties, then maybe the best idea is to forget about salsa altogether and stick to tango and swing from now on.

Sarah called, asking how to spell a word that she couldn't find in the dictionary. This word was related to her being diagnosed as having osteoporosis. She wasn't too worried, since that disease tends to run in her family and she has always suspected she would eventually get it. Then she suggested we get together sometime when she is in the city, and said she would call first to make sure I was at home.

Swing dancing in the evening. Most of the women were young and pretty and most appeared to be intelligent and friendly as well, but I didn't bother dancing even once. Part of the problem was that I was turned off by the sight of most of the couples doing the Lindy Hop, which I absolutely detest. Perhaps one couple in ten was dancing single-step swing, which I can just barely tolerate, and no one was dancing in close hold (foxtrot/quickstep). What is the point of all this jumping about and turning, anyway? Where does all this furious energy come from? And why not just dance alone if they're not going to hold one another close? Perhaps the other men were worried about the same thing as me. Namely, when a man holds many attractive women close in succession, eventually he encounters one with whom he wants to have sex and who feels the same way about him. And then what? He gets stuck in a relationship, that's what. And with a young woman, too, who won't give him a moment's peace. None of this seeing each other twice a week for sex like the situation I had with Sarah. Of course, the fact that I'm even attracted to these dance venues indicates that a part of me wants to find a new lover. Perhaps the right approach is to be very, very selective from now on. If I have to even slightly force myself to approach the woman, that means I don't really want her. I must learn to wait until all signals are "go", not just some signals.

Lunch with Helen, who returned to Paul's apartment this past weekend. "The first person who calls me is the one who cares about me. I'm not into this being alone on holidays shtick. You didn't call me, did you? I didn't think so," she said, in justifying herself. When she noted that Paul had found another job, I commented with admiration: "He certainly does manage to pull rabbits out of his hat." "Yeah, well, this is the last rabbit. After this, the hat is empty," replied Helen. It seems Paul's new job is with an old friend of his who is currently going through a bitter divorce. Helen suspects this friend hired Paul mainly because he wants someone to commiserate with him during his time of crisis, but once the crisis is over, he'll realize Paul is incompetent and fire him.

Helen asked me to decide soon whether I wanted children with her or not, since Paul has been making noises about wanting a baby again: "You need to get out of this rut of living alone in a tiny apartment and expand yourself with a family and a house. Then maybe when you're eighty years old you can go back to living alone." I shook my head and replied that though I loved her and wanted her to be a part of my life forever, I didn't want to live with her, nor did I really want sex with her anymore, nor did I think I could stand seeing her more than once a week or so for lunch, and thus it made little sense for us to marry or for me to father her children unless she couldn't find a better candidate, and that if she planned to stay with Paul, then she should have children with Paul.

Helen then said that Paul has been much more "accommodating" of late, due to his being "thrown for a loop" by her being away for almost two months, and cited the following examples. For once, he let Helen sleep on the inside half of the bed, as she has long desired. He let her move one of his clocks to another location, so she could use the space it formerly occupied for some of her books. He hasn't been too demanding about sex. "We tried it the normal way [vaginal sex] and now I have a bladder infection again, and so we can't do anything until that goes away. He's being nice about it for now but I'm sure in the future he'll start being demanding again. And I'm not going back to doing it that other way [anal sex]. I know you think I'm abject, but I'm not. Someday I'm going to find someone decent to marry me." She spoke to Eddie recently, but he has another girlfriend currently and so is no longer available. She has been corresponding by email with a man who answered her personals ad, but she hasn't yet met this man.

I took a private cha-cha dance lesson in the afternoon, which went very poorly. (Salsa clubs often play one or two cha-cha songs each night for variety, which I'd like to be able to dance to, but they almost never teach cha-cha dancing, which is why my skills there are still somewhat shaky.) The instructor was not really a salsa or cha-cha expert herself—in fact, she was an outright lousy follower—but she nevertheless was determined to prove that she knew more than me and so ended up sabotaging almost everything we did together. Towards the end, she began to insist that I was dancing off-beat, which led to an acrimonious discussion of both cha-cha and salsa music. First she put on a cha-cha song, and when I danced to this breaking on beat two, she insisted I was breaking on beat one, which is absurd, since it is so easy to identify beat two in a cha-cha song. Then she put on a salsa song and danced to this herself and I was completely unable to figure out what she was doing, other than that she wasn't breaking on beat two and she looked bad and without a good feel for the music. When I tried to explain something of the rhythm of cuban music, she snapped: "I've been teaching for thirty years and I really don't need any lectures on how to listen to music". And that ended the lesson. As I paid the $55 fee we had agreed on earlier, I couldn't help thinking of the expression "she needs a good fucking". Like so many of these women involved in the ballroom dance world, she is obviously sexually frustrated. On the one hand, terrified of sex, to the point of driving off any man who approaches her for that reason, and yet simultaneously desperately wanting sex, and hence attracted in the first place to a profession like ballroom dancing, which is so closely associated with sexuality.

I agreed to settle my will contest suit with my sister for $450,000 cash, with my net being $369,000 after my lawyer takes his 18% cut. So far, the only agreement we have is an oral one between the lawyers, and it is possible that my sister's lawyer will change the amount or add obnoxious conditions when it comes time to put the agreement into writing, so the suit isn't yet fully settled. My decision to accept the $450,000 was immediate and without strong feelings. Neither excitement at the prospect of finally getting an inheritance, nor regret at not holding out for more, nor even much in the way of relief. Mostly, I felt annoyance at having my morning exercises interrupted by yet another phone conversation with my lawyer. Strange that I'm so blasé about what to most people would be a huge sum of money. But then on the other hand, I'll probably never spend the money I already have saved up, so what difference does an extra $369,000 make?

Later, during my evening walk, I spotted a dime lying on the sidewalk and stooped over to pick up the same as I passed. Several people ahead of me had stepped right over this dime without appearing to even notice it. How curious that I feel pleased at finding $.10 lying on the ground and yet feel nothing but annoyance concerning a $369,000 inheritance!

Ballroom dancing in the evening. I was bored and disgusted by the whole atmosphere from the word go and didn't dance but twice, to tangos. Alas, the women insisted on leaning backwards so that I found it absolutely impossible to lead them and the dances were fiascoes. Why do women naturally lean backwards, I wonder? In all the fashion magazines read by women (and also by effeminate homosexuals who identify with women), one encounters this same grotesque posture. Vacant expression on the face, frail arms hanging lifelessly at the side, back and shoulders collapsed, knees bent, pelvis pushed forwards. This posture never occurs in pornography, so it isn't sexually attractive, at least to the average man. (A variation of the pelvis forwards posture does occur in certain types of campy pseudo-child pornography. Underdeveloped eighteen year-olds with pony-tails licking a huge lollipop, smiling shyly and otherwise acting like little girls.) Perhaps the backward lean symbolizes a woman's acceptance of her socially approved role of nincompoop, whereas standing up straight and leaning slightly forwards (the correct posture for latin dancing) would symbolize assertiveness and independent-thinking, which are socially disapproved of for women?

The real question is why I even bother with dancing, given that I've never before felt so little desire for sex versus masturbation as I feel now. I used to think I would dance in order to touch women's bodies and then go home and masturbate, but now I wonder if this touching is really necessary. Why not just watch the other dancers and listen to the music and imagine myself with a partner capable of leaning forwards, and thereby spare myself the unpleasantness of dealing with all these wretched incompetents? Which reminds me of something I noticed tonight, more clearly than ever before. Namely, that the women with the ugly faces were also ugly in every other respect. Bad posture, unattractive and poorly fitting clothes, foul breath and body odor, slipshod haircut, claw-like gripping with the hands, grating voices, evidence of an unpleasant personality. Like so many other widely-accepted ideas, this idea that beauty and ugliness are only skin-deep is at best merely partially true. In some cases, when we say someone is beautiful or ugly on the outside but the opposite within, it is because our definitions of beauty and ugliness are warped. Witness the remarks above regarding posture. More typically, surface beauty and ugliness reflect the inner situation, especially when the person is older, since it sometimes takes a while for the inner beauty or ugliness to make its full appearance on the outside. (There are exceptions to this rule, of course, victims of accidents and horrible skin diseases and whatnot.)

Tango dancing in the evening. Two wonderful dances mixed in with six or so lousy, before I gave up and went off and sat at a table by myself for the rest of the evening. The usual problem. The woman so far away that she follows the music instead of following me, but since my rhythm varies ever so slightly from that of the music, it is as if we were dancing separately instead of working as a team. In one case, the woman started dancing close but then suddenly pushed me away violently, as if I were trying to molest her. Maybe she was upset because she detected that, in reality, I didn't find her very sexually attractive and molesting her was the last thing on my mind. Later, various women made it clear that they wanted invitations to dance, but I ignored them all, as I was still annoyed by how my partners earlier had behaved. Dancing is as much work for me as pleasure, and if women don't want me bothering them, then fine, I'll go off and leave them alone. I'm already doing the equivalent with regards to sex. Masturbating, that is, in order to avoid being accused of "using" or otherwise making women miserable with my sexual desires. Of course, I doubt women really want to be left alone, though one would hardly know it from the way they so often act offended by my attempts to give them pleasure. In any case, my policy henceforth at these tango parties will be to ask women to dance until I get one good dance in, and then to stop, so that my memories of my last dance will be good. Otherwise, I'll just sit and watch. The truth is that I've always preferred passively watching and reading and idly dreaming about life to active participation. Instead of feeling guilty about this and resisting, I should accept my voyeuristic proclivities.

Another private cha-cha lesson today, at a different dance studio from the one where I had the run-in with the instructor last week. I'm not sure why I even arranged this lesson, since I'm not planning on much salsa dancing henceforth, and so it makes little difference if I can or can't dance the occasional cha-cha played at the salsa clubs. The lesson went okay, though I learned almost nothing, since the instructor insisted on interrupting me constantly with supposedly helpful advice, and consequently I didn't get the sort of practice I really wanted, which was to simply dance for thirty or so minutes straight and see for myself what works and what doesn't. I didn't object because it's only too clear to me now that only frigid women and prissy homosexuals are allowed to speak assertively in these ballrooms, while everyone else is supposed to keep their mouths shut and do as they are told. Like last week's instructor, today's insisted I was breaking on beat one, which she derided as "nightclub-style" timing, and then she showed me how ballroom dancers break on beat two. And I suddenly realized the source of the confusion. It seems ballroom dancers count beat two, which is the first stressed beat, as beat one, and thus when they say they are breaking on beat two, they are actually breaking on beat three. (This confusion about beat numbering is understandable for newcomers to cuban music, though one would expect professional dance instructors to know better.)

I called Mark, in response to an email he had sent last week, and we talked for a while. He said he would have some time off next month and might be paying me a visit, using one of the free airline passes he was given by his pilot friend. I said this would be fine, but that we couldn't make definite plans until my will contest suit with my sister was resolved, since I might have to travel for a deposition if the settlement falls through. Mark then asked whether I was going to insist on "rules" while he was here, meaning would I let him smoke while in my apartment. I grudgingly agreed to no rules, but later I wondered why I made this concession, or why I even agreed to him visiting at all. Sometimes I think Mark's company is one of great joys of my life, but underlying his joviality there has always been a streak of self-destructiveness, and self-destructiveness is something I'm becoming increasingly intolerant of these days. Overeating of unhealthy foods, a complete lack of physical exercise, smoking two or more packs of cigarettes a day, his apartment a pigsty with dirty dishes piled up from a month ago. If such an existence makes him happy then fine, but I can't have him bringing this chaos into my life. Mark suggested I could teach him yoga while he is visiting. What I plan to tell him is that he first needs to figure out why he has been trying to commit slow suicide most of his life, and why he has chosen death and disease instead of life and health, and then once he gets his head straightened out, maybe yoga can do him some good, but otherwise it is likely to be useless. In any case, even if Mark's smoking weren't an issue, his company is still likely to get on my nerves after a few days. Why can't he just stay at the youth hostel for $20 a night?

Swing dancing in the evening. I sat in the balcony the whole time, so as not to be conspicuous for not dancing. The music and the atmosphere I like, but the dance style is just so completely inferior to tango that I simply can't imagine ever enjoying it. By the way, it is perfectly possible to dance tango style to swing music. In fact, I suspect the original foxtrot was something like tango (forward-leaning posture), and only later was desexualized (backward-leaning posture) by the ballroom people.

Lunch with Helen. She broke up with Paul this weekend and is back to living in her own apartment. Yesterday and the day before, she stayed home sick from work. She wouldn't tell me why she and Paul broke up, other than something about the accommodating attitude he had shown last week being nothing but a pretense under which lurked "simmering resentment". She is determined to hold out and not call him, but rather wait for him to call her.

Sarah called and we talked for a while. I asked about her love affair. She lowered her voice and replied: "It's okay, I think it will work out, I hope so..." Then she became cheerful again: "...because he's very interesting." I don't know whether she was reluctant to speak due to modesty or because of sexual problems they are having. She is having a much easier time at work. She might stop by sometime when she is in the city.

Helen called, wanting me to stop by her apartment to help with some computer problems. I gave her a deck of tarot cards as a Christmas present, and advised her to take up yoga in order to get blood flowing into her pelvis and otherwise loosen up her body, then study sexual kung fu in order to mobilize her internal energy, and finally study the tarot in order to figure out why she has such problems with sexual repression. As usual, she scoffed at my advice. Later, over dinner at the cafe, she brought up the subject of children: "If you won't give me a child, then I'll have to get someone else." I replied that I currently had no interest whatsoever in getting back together with her, neither as husband nor as lover, and that even if she began taking care of her health and fixed her sexual problems, I still might not be interested, while if she refused to do anything about her health, then I most definitely wasn't interested. We parted on good terms.

The next day, Helen called again and wanted us to have lunch together. I refused, on the grounds that her company drains me of energy. She hung up in a huff.

Sarah called and arranged to stop by my apartment in the evening, where we had a merry time talking about Nazism, of all things. I am something of an authority on this subject, due to having studied it extensively during my teens. Sarah's friend (I'm still not sure if they are having sex so I hesitate to call him boyfriend or lover yet) is talking about not wanting to get involved in a relationship now because his former girlfriend died of cancer not too long ago after they had spent twelve years together, but that if he did ever live with someone again, it would be Sarah. He is thinking of buying a boat in Sardinia (in the Mediterranean) and he and Sarah might visit there this spring. Sarah is very excited about this possible trip.

My uncle called and left a message inviting me to Christmas dinner. I called back and left a message thanking him but saying I had a previous engagement with my girlfriend. Lies, lies, lies. Does he really want to see me, I wonder? If so, why? If not, then why does he call me?

Email from Mark: "Maybe I could meet you in [your hometown] instead of West Metropolis, if you were renting one of those typical hotel rooms with two beds. But maybe you will spend the bulk of that trip in the country, which I am sure has it charms but would not interest me as much. Merry Christmas, Mark. P.S. Raymond is busy preparing our lunch and cleaning up the kitchen; who says slavery is over!" Raymond is Mark's black friend. My hometown is the nearest big city to the small town where I would have to go to give a deposition regarding my will contest suit. Perhaps Mark suspected that I'm not too keen on having him visit me here in West Metropolis? His idea certainly sounds promising, regardless of whether I have to give a deposition or not. We've never visited my hometown together, but we certainly could have an enjoyable time together there.

Tango dancing in the evening. A few boring experiences and then I sighted a woman in her forties sitting alone, and immediately knew I wanted to be her lover. Not a striking beauty by any means, nor was she probably more than merely pretty even when young, and furthermore, she wears her hair short, which I've always found less attractive than long hair, but I nevertheless found her very attractive. Besides, a beautiful face means little sexually. A beautiful face is mostly just a status symbol and attention-getter, which are drawbacks as far as I'm concerned. We danced together eight times, with tremendous sexual energy. It was all I could do to keep from turning my head and kissing her on the mouth, and I could sense she felt the same way. She is also an excellent follower. It has been a very long time since I last had a partner able to follow me this closely. After the eighth dance, I suggested we take a break. "Can I buy you a drink?" I offered. She hesitated a bit, then replied: "Okay, water." As it turns out, there wasn't much of a bar and the water was free. Before we got to the bar area, a man (who she evidently already knew) engaged her in animated conversation. I dawdled around for about five minutes waiting for the man to finish, and then finally wandered off, as it seemed foolish to wait around longer. Later, I asked her to dance again and this time made sure to ask her what tango clubs she frequented, as I wanted to be sure to be able to see her again if we didn't exchange numbers tonight. We danced four more times then split up again. Later, I saw her sitting alone and so wandered over and sat next to her and engaged her in small talk about the various tango clubs. She mentioned that she liked one because it was right on her way home (she lives in the suburbs), but that she was sometimes late getting there because she doesn't get off work until nine. I asked about this and she explained that she worked as a "therapist" from three in the afternoon until nine at night. After that, the conversation died. Maybe she was embarrassed to admit she is a therapist (which I assume means mental therapist of some sort, as opposed to physical therapist), maybe she detected that I shrunk back slightly upon learning her profession. It is a somewhat disreputable profession, after all, since the practitioners are notoriously as crazy as their patients. But then I'm pretty crazy myself. I noticed she was wearing a ring on her wedding ring finger, though it didn't look like a wedding ring.

Who should I see at the cafe today but Jackie, the woman I met at the tango party yesterday. Our eyes met and I thought I recognized her but I couldn't remember from where, then she smiled and waved at me, and then the two men she was sitting with me turned and stared at me as well. I was surprised and thought they must be waving at someone behind me. Finally she called out, "I'm Jackie. Remember? We danced together last night." It is strange that I didn't immediately recognize her. She appeared different from yesterday. Much prettier among other things. I smiled and waved back but sat by myself. I thought about joining her and her friends, but didn't. Of the two men she was with, one was unattractive and disheveled and despondent-looking. He hung his head and stared at his plate the whole hour or so they were in the cafe, without saying a word, as far as I could detect, so that I can't imagine him being her lover. The other man was a complete contrast. Clean-cut and also cheerful and glib in his conversation, to the point of appearing gay. I tried to make eye contact with Jackie as she and the men were leaving, but she didn't look my way.

Tango dancing in the evening. The club was one Jackie had mentioned she occasionally visited, though she wasn't there tonight. While looking around, I saw another woman who resembled Jackie, and at first I wasn't sure if it was her or not. (Strange that I have such trouble remembering what Jackie's face looks like...) Once I began dancing with this other woman, however, it was obvious that she was someone else. She danced closely but lacked Jackie's good posture, and consequently ended up missing my rhythm completely. And yet she had looked so good with the men she was dancing with earlier, which was part of why I mistook her for Jackie! This just confirms what I have always thought about tango dancing. Namely, it is impossible for an outside observer to know what is really going on between two dancers. This was my only dance of the evening, despite there being many women who obviously wanted to dance with me. I was carrying through with my new determination to dance only with prospective sex partners and thereby reduce my count of bad experiences. The problem is that woman who don't interest me sexually detect my lack of interest and then sabotage the dance in revenge, while women who do interest me sexually but are already involved with someone else tend to scrupulously avoid anything that might raise sexual energy, but if we can't raise sexual energy then I'd rather not dance at all. This leaves single women who interest me sexually, and there aren't that many of these. Unlike some people, it doesn't bother me to be alone or to spend a whole evening sitting and watching other dancers, whereas it does bother me greatly to have bad dance experiences.

I had called Helen last week several times but never got through, nor did she respond to the messages I left on her answering machine. Today, she finally picked up the phone but refused my invitation to have lunch, in retaliation for my refusing to have lunch with her last weekend: "I might have lunch on the weekends, if you want to call me then. But I'm not just having lunch when you want it." Then she briefly described her recent date with a man who answered her personals ad: "It was hilarious. He was twenty years older to begin with and then when I said I wanted children, he said he didn't want them and that it was a non-negotiable issue. Then he asks me, Do you mind if I leave? Not at all, I told him. In fact, I was glad to see him go. No, I didn't tell him that, but that was what I was thinking."

My sister's lawyer signed the settlement agreement prepared by my lawyer, in which my sister agrees to pay me $450,000, of which my lawyer will pocket $81,000 so that my net will be $369,000. However, my sister's lawyer insisted first on slightly modifying the proposal so that the money won't be turned over until April 15 of next year, which is about four months off. No reason given for this delay, though it probably has to do with my sister hoping the stock market will go up again before she has to sell anything. So it appears that this will contest suit is finally over, and now I can begin the process of forgetting it ever happened. This will contest suit was the one remaining piece of unfinished "business" in my life, in the sense of requiring me to pay attention to the calendar and answer my phone calls and mail. Now that it is resolved, I am at last completely free to do whatever I want with my life. And what exactly is it that I want to do with my life, I wonder?

One of my close cousins died yesterday. I decided to attend the funeral. My monk cousin (the one I visited a year and a half ago at his monastery) was also present at my aunt's house, where we were both staying as guests. He asked me what I planned to do with myself now that I was no longer running my software business. I replied that I really didn't know. He then tried to convince me to devote my life to doing good works: "Think of how many people you could help. Nothing is more satisfying than volunteer work." Certainly he isn't speaking from experience, since he does nothing himself but sit around and diddle on the computer in the monastery library. (I learned later that he has become something of a chat-room fanatic. It seems there are chat rooms about religious topics as well as the sex-related chat rooms that most people are familiar with.) I replied that I might someday busy myself with volunteer work, but probably not in the immediate future, and that I failed to see why he was so obsessed with helping people. Why didn't God just step in and fix things if they were so bad? Then he turned the conversation to the topic of morality. I explained my view that morality is a subjective or relative phenomenon, meaning that it exists only in the mind and that it varies between individuals. If a group of individuals can agree concerning what is moral and what not, then a society can be formed, to reward moral behavior and punish immoral behavior, but neither the agreement nor the society based on this agreement constitutes proof of the objective or absolute validity of the moral code, any more than a group of individuals agreeing that apples taste better than oranges proves the objective or absolute validity of such a taste preference. My cousin was outraged by my liberal views: "What about Hitler? I guess what he did is okay in your opinion since he thought it was okay. And what about hurting young children? Do you think it's okay to sexually abuse young children? What about killing babies? Is that okay?" I replied that I had no desire to kill babies nor to sexually abuse young children and then I repeated what I meant by subjective versus objective. "At least we know where we stand," he muttered in disgust before trudging off to the living room, where he planned to sleep on the sofa. (I was sleeping on the floor of the den, another cousin was sleeping in the guest room, and the remaining bedrooms were occupied by my aunt and her two rent-paying lodgers.)

A large funeral at the church, then a tiresome conversation in the evening with my aunt and another cousin about Europe, which they visited this past summer and I visited last spring. They recited the usual list of tourist attractions and asked if I had visited any of these, and of course they were dismayed when I replied no. Eventually, the weight of their cliché-ridden thinking and mindless worshipping of whatever it is that the newspapers deem worthwhile in this universe became impossible to bear, and so I struck back by declaring that I wasn't a "fetishist" and that's why I hadn't visited any of the traditional tourist attractions of Europe, but that I had been impressed by the pastry shops. Naturally, this led to a screaming match. My aunt accused me of not knowing the meaning of the word "fetish". I went to get the dictionary. Fetish: an object (such as a typical museum and its contents) regarded with superstitious or extravagant reverence and awe. My cousin began to tremble and snapped: "You don't have reverence for anything, do you?!" Her son then revealed that my monk cousin had been abusing me to the whole family ever since our conversation last night, telling everyone that I don't believe in the absolute wrongness of killing or sexually molesting young children and that I had no respect for the beliefs held by decent people of this world and that altogether I am an amoral monster.

My aunt and I then got into an argument about whether she was a liberal or not. "People are always accusing me of being a wild-eyed liberal," she announced with a sort of smug pride. I couldn't resist popping her bubble and so replied that, at least as I understood that term, it didn't apply to her: "Liberal means free-thinking and open-minded and hence willing to discard the old if the new is better, or to discard the new if the old is better. Conservative means desiring to maintain the status quo, regardless of whether it is good or not. Reactionary means desiring to change back to what existed in the past, regardless of whether it is better or worse than what exists currently. Radical means a tendency to discard existing institutions completely and start over from scratch, even when the existing institutions are only partially flawed. You and the other members of the so-called liberal establishment are conservatives by this definition. The Christian right, on the other hand, is reactionary, but not conservative. Right-wing libertarians are more radical than liberal. Few people are truly liberal, because few people are truly open-minded. I am one of these few. You and the other members of the so-called liberal establishment, on the other hand, are often narrow-minded and bigoted and hence far from being truly liberal, regardless of your views about the environment or civil rights for minorities or whatever." My aunt exploded at this and the screaming went on all evening.

Dinner with my monk cousin at a restaurant. He asked me again what I planned to do next in my life, now that I was essentially retired from computer work. I replied that I might do some traveling in the immediate future, but after that, who knows? Perhaps I'd become a tarot card reader. He suggested I visit Mount Athos, a famous orthodox monastery in Greece.

"Or visit some other monastery. There are several monasteries near where you live, for example. Or if you're traveling in Russia, there are monasteries there. And you're always welcome to visit the monastery where I'm at anytime. But Mount Athos is my first recommendation. It's a very large monastery, of men from all over the world. No women are allowed, for obvious reasons. There is a story that once the Empress of Byzantium tried to visit Mount Athos. She was stopped on the way by Mary, the mother of Jesus. The Empress said, But I am the Empress of Byzantium! Mary replied, But I am the Empress of Heaven! And so the Empress turned back," said my cousin.

"Like a boys-only treehouse. I'm sorry, but the truth is that I have never found Christianity attractive, precisely because of its hostile attitude towards sex," I said.

"Orthodoxy is not hostile towards sex. In fact, it has a very positive attitude towards sex. Within marriage."

"Are you allowed to masturbate?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because it is wrong."

"And who says so?"

"God says so."

"Why does God say so?"

"Because sex is meant for two people. A man and a woman."

"Or for no people in your case." [In retrospect, it was a mistake to let my cousin off so easily on the subject of masturbation, as this might have been the key to breaking through his mental fortress. There are, after all, many valid reasons to avoid partner sex, but none for avoiding masturbation. Unfortunately, my mind was working sluggishly, partly from nervous exhaustion from being around my aunt and partly due to concentrating on the pizza I was stuffing my face with just then, and so I didn't think of this at the time.] "Every organized religion is concerned with controlling sex and masturbation. Sex control is the basis of society and organized religion is a tool used by society to effect such control. The mind police, if you will. The brainwashers. Of course, the brainwashers have to be brainwashed themselves first. That's what happened to you, for example."

"No one has brainwashed me," replied my cousin. Then he returned to the subject of volunteer work, which led to a discussion of Mother Theresa.

"As far as I'm concerned," I said, "Mother Theresa was a combination masochist and publicity seeker. Think about it, what makes a woman bury herself into poverty like that? Living in a city where the air is filled with clouds of dust from dried up shit? Furthermore, in the grand scheme of things, she probably did more to increase human misery than alleviate it. She supported the Catholic prohibition on condoms, for example, which means she contributed to excess population growth and the spread of AIDS. The people who really alleviate misery in this world are the money-grubbing corporations. The people who invent and manufacture useful things like pesticides so they can grow more food and air conditioning and vaccines against diseases and all the nifty gizmos you can buy in hardware stores and so on and so forth."

"Mother Theresa did a great deal of good. And you could do a great deal of good, too. Think of how many people you could help. There are volunteer organizations that would love to have your computer expertise. Or you could just give your time."

"Why should I? Why can't I just enjoy myself in life? I really fail to understand this sense of guilt you have."

"It isn't guilt. It's Christ's teaching. To help others is the mark of humility."

"Humility is to accept yourself for what you are, which is an animal and a part of nature, just like the birds and the bees. An animal whose duty, if any, is to follow its animal nature. To sleep, to eat, to seek social status, to have sex."

"But those are animal desires. To be selfishly concerned only about oneself is to be proud, and pride is the worst of all sins."

"The proud one is you, sitting in that monastery and imagining yourself to be some sort of saint."

"I don't think I'm a saint. I am as great a sinner as anyone."

"See what I mean by pride?"

"Let me tell you a story, which might help illustrate the meaning of true humility. Once there was a woman who wanted to join a monastery, but she couldn't, because of her sex. And so she dressed up in men's clothes and pretended she was a man and joined the monastery that way. Later, she was accused of impregnating a woman in the nearby village. She was innocent, of course, and could easily have proved her innocence by showing that she was a woman. But she didn't do this. Instead, she accepted the punishment imposed on her. And it was only many years later, when she died, that it was finally revealed that she was a woman and had been innocent all along."

"Another masochist. She was crazy, that's all there is to it."

"She wasn't crazy. She was humble."

"Do you know what your problem is? You're over-socialized. Do you know what that means?"

"I'm not over-socialized."

"All of us, when we were children, were taught the meaning of right and wrong, and that we would be rewarded when we did right and punished when we did wrong. For most people, this learned morality acts as a restraint on the underlying desires, without crushing those desires. But with you, this learned morality was imposed too severely, and now it has come to completely dominate your mind to the point where you are no longer even conscious of your underlying desires. This is what is meant by the term over-socialized. All this business about helping the poor. This is just something you learned as a child."

"Helping others is God's will."

"God? God is a voice in your head telling you that sex is bad and you're bad and you have to atone for your badness by doing good works. But of course you can't see that because you're insane."

"I'm not insane. I'm perfectly sane. I'm as sane as a tree stump [sic]. I'm as sane as anyone in this room."

"Oh? Living in a monastery and thinking that when you hear bumps in the night that this is the Holy Spirit knocking on your door? If you call that sanity, then I don't know what to say."

"Do you know what a monastery is? It is a shining city on a hill. A model for what human life can be. Visitors from the world outside come to us to be refreshed."

"As far as I'm concerned, your monastery is a lunatic asylum, though I don't advise you to leave it. I really do believe that you're happier there than you'd be elsewhere. Your mother rants and raves about marriage and children and how we'd both be happier that way, but there's no question in my mind but that she's wrong. Both you and I are happiest single and childless."

"Actually, giving up a wife and children was a sacrifice for me. Oh yes, I can easily see myself as the head of a family. Of course, if I had married my wife would have to be someone devout and modest and we would spend our time praying together. And the children, too. We would all pray together."

"Giving up a wife and children was no more a sacrifice for you than for me. You and I are both loners by nature."

"I'm not a loner. In fact, I'm rather gregarious at the monastery."

"I'm sorry, but nothing but stupidity comes out of your mouth. I hate to be so rude, but it's true. You're not gregarious. You're a loner."

"Do you ever yearn for complete and lasting happiness?"

"Of course. Who doesn't? It sounds wonderful."

"Then welcome Christ into your heart! Ask him to show you a sign and he will!"

"This is the same thing you wanted me to do last year at the monastery. I asked Christ to show me a sign then and he didn't show me anything."

"Because you didn't ask him sincerely."

"That's because I can't believe in all this nonsense! Asking him sincerely implies that I believe in Christianity already, otherwise how can I even formulate the question? This whole business of asking something of a man who is both a man and a God and dead besides and so he doesn't have a body anymore and just goes floating around the vacuum of space or whatever. It's all just stupid! It's like asking me to believe the earth is flat or that two plus two equals five. How can I believe such nonsense?"

"Let me tell you about a miracle I once experienced, and maybe this will help you believe. I was in a convent, watching the nuns and thinking of what they must look like when undressed. I was much younger then, of course. And the Mother Superior said to me, You mustn't think about them that way. Christ had told her what I was thinking! There is no other way she could have known."

"That's called women's intuition, okay? Jesus fucking Christ! Actually, men can have pretty good intuition about sex and love, too. Unless they're all repressed on the subject, like you. Believe me, that Mother Superior didn't need Christ to tell her what was going on in your head."

"Why not just ask Christ to show you a sign?"

"Because I can't believe in the foolishness long enough to ask the question sincerely, that's why! I already explained this before. It's like asking me to believe that two plus two equals five. I managed to crack my brain open wide enough to temporarily believe in astrology and then later I started to really believe the stuff, which made me realize that my sanity is a fragile thing and I shouldn't be messing around with it. At least astrology was interesting. Christianity, by contrast, is boring and depressing, besides being pure and utter foolishness."

"Saint Paul writes, They call us fools for the sake of Christ!"

"So? He was a fool and you're a fool, too. Admitting that people called him a fool doesn't make him less of a fool."

"Just ask Christ to show you a sign..."

"I told you, it's like asking me to believe the earth is flat! I'm sorry, but it just doesn't compute."

"If you'd just ask him!"

"I tell you again, it's like asking me to believe the earth is flat!"

"Let's go. Everyone in the restaurant is looking at us."

I looked around and saw that what he said was true. Though it probably wasn't just our increasingly loud voices that had attracted attention, but also my cousin's appearance—long black robe, grubby black hat, long gray beard—together with his foul smell from not bathing or washing his clothes frequently. We were finished eating and so asked for the bill, which my cousin paid using money my aunt had given him earlier. She had dismissed my protests that I should be paying since I was staying as a guest at her house. On the way back, my cousin continued to hammer at me to ask Christ to show a sign of his existence. I responded more or less as follows:

"Suppose I ask Christ to show me a sign of his existence and he does. He appears and talks to me. So what? Am I supposed to apologize for not believing in him so he and his father won't throw me into hell? You talk about God's love. What kind of loving God goes around throwing people into hell just because they refuse to believe in a religion when the evidence for that religion is no stronger than the evidence for other and mutually exclusive religions? Okay, now you tell me that hell is something we create for ourselves. Now you're finally starting to make some sense. Maybe God is also something we create for ourselves. In your case, a God who frowns on sex and masturbation. What I find interesting is how you constantly use the word love in all this talk of religion. God's love and Christ's love and whatnot. Normally, we speak of love when referring to the love between man and woman—sexual love, that is—though yes, I admit, the word love is also commonly used in religious contexts, so you're not really abusing the language. But maybe there's some relation between your avoiding sex and your having this burning desire for God's love? Did that ever occur to you? You've shut yourself off from sex and human love and so off you go babbling about God's love. And then you say that the way for me to have complete and lasting happiness is to accept Christ into my heart, whatever that means. But this doesn't seem to have made you completely happy, assuming my intuition about your state of mind is correct. Maybe you're the one who needs to do the accepting. In particular, maybe you need to do some accepting of your sex drive."

But all my arguments were wasted. Nothing I said affected him any more than what he said affected me. As soon as we arrived at my aunt's house, I told her and my cousin that I was going out for a late night walk. I had a craving just then for fresh air, exercise, silence and solitude.

The next morning, my aunt inquired as to how the dinner with her son had gone yesterday.

"Oh, you know, the usual. We talked about the monastery and then he tried to get me to ask Christ to show a sign of his existence," I said, somewhat mischievously, since I knew this would set her off on a rant.

"That's not why I sent you two out for dinner! I wanted you two to be friends. He's never had a real friend in his life, poor thing! $40 for dinner so that he could try to convert you! You could have eaten here for free if that was all you were going to talk about. It's pitiful, that's the only subject he can discuss. He tells me the other day, Oh mother, the head man is so nice, he even paid my airfare here out of his own pocket. And yet they have him like a slave there, working for free! He just can't see that. And then he doesn't have a driver's license so he can't drive my car and run errands. Why not? Because he gave up his driver's license in order to save the monastery on insurance, he tells me. And then he asks me to buy him some walking shoes. Can you imagine? They won't even buy him decent shoes at that place! The shoes he has now he got at a rummage sale, along with that filthy hat he wears all the time. It doesn't even fit his head properly! Oh God! My son, my dear baby son! What did I do wrong? And those clothes he wears. Absolute rags! But mother, he paid my airfare out of his own pocket!" mimicked my aunt.

"One thing I've always wondered is whether he wears a hair shirt under that robe? I've never had the gumption to ask."

"No, no, penance like that is mostly a Catholic thing. The Orthodox have never been big on that. But please don't discuss it with him. I don't want to put ideas into his head."

"And how about never bathing? It isn't just him either. When I visited his monastery last year, I noticed that all the other monks there smelled bad, too."

"I wouldn't know what he smells like. I can't smell anything anymore. My whole body is falling apart. I can't even go out anywhere anymore because I can't control my sphincter muscle and when I have to go, I have to go right then or else it all comes pouring out like a lava flow and then my clothes are all covered with diarrhea. That's what happens when you get old, it's horrible. You'll be coming to my funeral next, and I'll tell you the truth, it can't come soon enough. Eighty-four years of life is enough, believe me. You get this old and everyone else is gone. My friends are all dead, my sisters are dead, and now my oldest son is dead. The only reason I'm sticking around is so I can see my grandchildren grow up... But yes, I know what you mean about him not washing. Back when I was still able to smell things, I asked the head man of the other monastery he was in, Don't you think it gives a bad impression to the public when all you monks smell so bad and wear such dirty clothes? He was struck dumb. He didn't know what to say. I'm probably the first person who had ever suggested such a thing. Oh, it would be so nice if you two could be friends, so that he would know someone his own age and intelligence outside that monastery! He's never had any friends. Not even as a boy."

"Interesting you should mention that. Last night, I told him I thought both he and I were natural loners. And he objected, and said he was actually quite gregarious."

"Gregarious? Him? Ha, ha, ha! Poor thing! He has about as much self-understanding as a chicken. Gregarious, indeed! He is as ungregarious as a person can be. And look at you! When are you going to get married and start having children!"

And so off we went on this tired topic. Eventually, I lost my temper and told my aunt to stop "chattering" so much and then maybe people would listen more to what she had to say. Something about her has a way of getting on my nerves. It's hardly a wonder that her son is terrified of women. If she had been the dominant woman in my life, I suppose I'd have ended up in a monastery myself. (As it was, I had to grow up with her sister as my mother...) Her fundamental problem now is that she fails to exercise and then spends the whole day slouching on the sofa, watching television and keeping herself fat (she's always been slightly overweight) by gobbling the most horrendous junk food (her favorite treat of all is a cracker loaded up with mayonnaise, with a liberal sprinkling of salt on the top). The tension builds and the only outlet is through constant chattering and screaming. A similar situation when she was younger, except instead of tension due to lack of exercise and bad diet, it was unrelieved sexual tension then. Or maybe sexual tension is still the problem. Even when married, she got no relief from her husband because he was sexually repressed (the husband's mother was fond of saying: "I'd rather he die than have him hurt a girl", where hurt is obviously somehow related to sex) and she can't and never could get relief from masturbation because she's inhibited about touching herself (she never told me as much, however my intuition is pretty sharp on this subject).

My cousin accompanied me on a walk in the park. I warned him that I was going to part ways if he brought up the subject of religion again, and so we talked about how beautiful the city was this time of year—everything green but with the temperature moderate instead of steamy—and about the advantages of the number twelve as compared with ten—both are divisible by two, thus allowing for division into halves and taking a pair at a time, but twelve additionally allows for division into thirds and fourths. Regarding my earlier snapping at his mother, I explained: "That chattering and screaming of hers is like someone stepping on my toe over and over until I finally lose my temper and kick them in the shin. She disturbs my serenity. When I first arrived here, I was so calm, and now after just two days of her company, I'm feeling like my nerves are shot to pieces."

The usual Christmas dinner with the relatives. Everyone wanted to know about Elizabeth. I grew exasperated and so told the truth as I see it. To wit, her secret dream in life, which she couldn't even admit to herself, had always been to be a high-class prostitute, or at least the marrying version thereof. That is, she wanted to marry rich, farm out any child-raising chores to a nanny, and take on a lover in case she got bored with her husband. She didn't carry through with her dream because of guilt about sex. The consequence of not carrying through with her dream was to be unhappy and finally to get breast cancer. An interesting story, but I doubt anyone understood what I was saying. My free-thinking spirit soars so far beyond their pettiness and self-imposed limitations that all they can do is gape in wonder and catch at a few salacious details: "She wanted to be a prostitute! Isn't that something?" I overate and felt sick afterwards.

I talked to Helen by phone. She and Paul got back together for Christmas: "I did it for my parents. I didn't want them to worry that I was spending the holidays alone. Paul and I took a picture of ourselves and sent it to them, so they won't have to worry about me being abject." Paul is once again proposing they get engaged and have a child. Helen plans to give him a list of demands before agreeing to anything, however. The first demand is that her sleep has to be the primary concern of their relationship. It seems Paul has developed a new habit of waking up at five in the morning to grind coffee beans. He can't grind the coffee the night before because then it won't be perfectly fresh. After grinding the beans and making and drinking a cup of coffee, he returns to bed and sleeps for another hour. Apparently, the caffeine in the coffee has little effect on Paul. Helen, meanwhile, is woken up by the noise of the coffee grinder and then can't get back to sleep no matter how hard she tries.

Tango dancing in the evening. A very bad floor (ceramic tiles that were bad enough with thick men's street shoes and must have been absolute murder in thin-soled women's shoes), a smallish crowd, a shortage of women, and what few women were available either had bad posture or else were so frightened of getting close that they could only catch maybe ten percent of what I was trying to accomplish. One of these skittish women remarked, "You have rhythm, you don't have many steps, but you have rhythm". As if there is something extraordinary in a man having a sense of rhythm. Or maybe it is extraordinary, maybe all the other men lack a sense of rhythm and that is why they like but I detest complex steps. Complex steps are a substitute for following the rhythm for them, but interfere with following the rhythm for me. I could sense her melting against me but not wanting to. At the end of our first dance, she pushed herself away and so we began the second dance with a large separation. I put her through some forward and backward ochos (How I despise these ochos!) and then she said, "I guess I spoke too soon. You know more than you let on." "I prefer rhythm dancing," I said. "So do I," she said, and then she pulled herself moderately close again and we danced nicely in the style I prefer, but she was still too far away for us to achieve excellence. If she prefers rhythm dancing, then why does she comment on the simplicity of my steps? The way it was made, her comment implies deficiency, just as commenting "But all the printing is in black and white!" with regards to a typical book implies that the book would be better if the pages were in color, perhaps even with each letter of each word a different color and different font, like in a ransom note. Though maybe I'm being too hard on people like this woman tonight, and on my cousin and aunt with their "fetishizing" of tourist attractions, and maybe I'm underestimating how unusual it is for someone to be able to think for themselves instead of echoing other people's opinions, and to spontaneously enjoy what their body registers as enjoyable, instead of waiting around for someone in a position of authority to declare that something is enjoyable before being willing to admit that they too enjoy it. It isn't like rhythm dancing is that easy, either. While my steps are indeed fairly simple, the timing of those steps can be devilishly tricky. Perhaps I should apologize in advance by telling women I'm "still learning" before asking them to dance. This is true, after all, and will continue to be true for the rest of my life, since only a fool isn't "still learning".

Two women melted on me, then said thank you after the second dance, then gave me a look as if to say, "Why not introduce yourself and talk to me?" But then why did they say thank you after just two dances? Why not wait for me to say thank you after four or more dances? Thank you is how to get rid of someone, as I understand dance etiquette. In any case, it hardly matters, since I had little desire for conversation with either of these women, though they were physically attractive.

My monk cousin left today, after only being here for less than a week.

"Where did I go wrong?" asked my aunt, regarding why he turned out the way he did.

"He would have turned out more or less the same no matter what you or anyone else did. Maybe you could have done something to keep him from getting hooked up with this kooky religion, but then he would have just ended like me before I started my business, living alone in a small apartment and working at a flunky job for some big corporation. He never would have married and had children, just like I'll never marry and have children," I replied.

"And so what's wrong with you that you can't get married and have children?"

"It isn't that I can't, it's that I don't want to. At least from my point of view, marriage and children is all cost and no benefit. I'm better off alone."

"You're just terrified of marriage because of how screwed up your parents' marriage was."

"Maybe I learn from other people's mistakes. Anyway, my parents' marriage wasn't that screwed up. No worse than average."

"You're not happy! Can't you see that?!"

"I think I am happy. And I'm almost certain I'd be less happy married and with children. Maybe you'd have been happier if you'd stayed single."

"Pfff!"

I've developed a sort of routine for my stay here in my hometown. The morning masturbating and exercising, the afternoon reading in a cafe, another masturbation session in the late afternoon or early evening before dinner, an hour talking to my aunt, the late evening walking. Today, however, it was colder than usual, and so I decided to take my walk during the day, to take advantage of the sunshine, and then read during the evening. The walk was to the historic district, where there were at least thirty and maybe even fifty tarot card readers lined up and waiting for business, of which there was little, which caused me to reflect on just how absurd an idea it was of mine to even consider reading tarot cards as either a hobby or a career. But if not tarot card reading and not computer programming (which no longer interests me) then what am I supposed to do with myself?

Much of my time and energy this past year has gone into studying and practicing Taoist sexual kung fu, so it seems appropriate at this time to state my final conclusions on that subject. To wit, sexual kung fu does work, in the sense of allowing men to have unlimited amounts of sex and orgasms (a capability many women have naturally), but it takes considerable practice to get it working perfectly. Normally, middle-aged and older men face an unpleasant choice between sexual frustration if they avoid orgasm, or else a significant period of sexual boredom following orgasm, whereas with sexual kung fu, it is possible to have the orgasm but avoid the period of sexual boredom. For someone like me, with a surplus of leisure time and not too many ways to fill that time, and thus in constant danger of being bored, the ability to greatly extend the amount of time spent on sex and masturbation is a major breakthrough towards the ultimate goal of minimizing pain and maximizing pleasure in life.

Unlike some of the Taoists, I do not believe that ejaculation causes baldness or health problems, nor do I believe that the practice of sexual kung fu or any other esoteric Taoist body or mind techniques leads to immortality, or the ability to live on air alone instead of requiring food (breatharianism), or to withstand knife thrusts with the unprotected skin, or to the creation of an energy body double which can go flying about the universe with the spirit as a passenger while the physical body remains behind in a state of hibernation.

I'm not sure I ever properly defined peak orgasm and valley orgasm as I use these terms, so I'll do so now. The focus of pleasure in peak orgasm is at the tip of the penis and there is no sensation of restraining oneself. Depending on intensity and muscle relaxation, the peak orgasm can be whole body or limited to the genital area. The focus of pleasure in the valley orgasm is inside the body, slightly behind the base of the penis, and the orgasm is typically accompanied by a sensation of energy passing up the backbone, of warmth at various points along the backbone, of the body shuddering, and of a sudden squirt of saliva into the back of the mouth (not all of these symptoms are always present). Peak orgasm may or may not involve ejaculation, valley orgasm never involves ejaculation. Peak orgasm is followed by a loss of erection (at least in middle-aged and older men) and of sexual arousal energy. Valley orgasm can be repeated fifty or more times over a period of twenty minutes or so before the erection gradually fades. Then after a brief rest period, it is possible to restore the erection and resume with more valley orgasms, and this process can be continued indefinitely, and at no point is there significant loss of sexual arousal energy. Eventually, after several hours of orgasms, there is a feeling of total satiety, at which point the mind tends to be bored by the idea of more sexual pleasure. However, this boredom is more an intellectual boredom than boredom due to a loss of sexual arousal energy.

Valley orgasm requires the relaxation of most muscles, which allows for free flow of energy throughout the body, so that the entire body shudders. And yet valley orgasm is not really as intense as the most intense "whole-body" peak orgasm, since valley orgasm requires more mental concentration than is required for peak orgasm, and because certain pelvic muscles (at the perineum) have to be kept tensed at all times, in order to ensure that valley orgasm doesn't turn into peak orgasm, which means it is impossible to "let go" to the same degree during valley orgasm as during peak orgasm. (Of course, few people let go completely even during peak orgasm. In particular, most people retain control of their anal sphincter muscle at all times.) Peak orgasm gives a feeling of instantaneous and complete relief of sexual pressure and so appears to the beginning practitioner of sexual kung fu to be more satisfying than valley orgasm. However, the same relief of sexual pressure can be obtained through a series of valley orgasms. It just takes longer. Relief of sexual pressure is thus not a true advantage of peak orgasm. Advanced practitioners of sexual kung fu tend to find valley orgasm more satisfying in all respects than peak orgasm.

My goal for some time now has been to limit myself to valley orgasms exclusively. Unfortunately, I have yet to achieve this goal, either during sex or masturbation. However, progress this past year has been very promising, and I continue to make headway. By this time next year, I hope to have weaned myself completely of peak orgasms.

The noise and crowds of people at the family New Year's Day party was beginning to get on my nerves, so I decided to go off for a walk in the park. My aunt noticed me leaving and pointed out that a woman who I had talked to earlier, a friend of the family but not a relative, was also interested in taking a walk and maybe we could go together. I agreed, out of politeness. My aunt smiled at us benevolently as we walked off. Visions of marriage and grand-nephews and grand-nieces dancing in her head, I suppose. This woman she had set me up with was a single mother in her thirties, overweight but not bad-looking, with a daughter about eight years old. She works as a teacher in the public schools, and bemoaned the poor attitudes of her students: "If they would just strive for mediocrity, that would be so much better than what they're doing now". I told her I was a computer programmer, without revealing that I'm retired and no longer work for a living. Before long, I picked up the scent of left-wing puritanism of the "earth mother" variety and began to wish I'd been allowed to take my walk alone. When she realized I was bored with her, she began chattering about anything and everything, the better to mask our lack of anything interesting to say to one another. She recited the names of plants and trees as we passed, she oohed and ahhed at birds, she stooped to pick up "rabbit pooh" and crumpled it with her fingers beneath her nose: "it smells just like fresh-cut grass!" In the end, we did find one topic of mutual interest to discuss. Namely, my monk cousin, who it seems tried to convert us both. When she told him she was an agnostic, he replied that she would be much happier if she would stop reading "feminist theology".

Once back at the party, another of my religious nut cousins, of the right-wing fundamentalist variety, bombarded me with annoying questions about my life. Where was I working? What happened to my business? Was I dating anyone? What happened to the woman I was dating last year? What did I plan to do next in life? To some of these questions, I responded evasively, to others I responded with lies, to a few I responded with the truth. I learned later that the husband of this cousin had cornered a man well known for being moderate in his political beliefs, and hammered away at him for over an hour on the subject of welfare and why it was ruining the moral fabric of the nation and why it was so urgent that it be cut. It seems his victim had earlier made the mistake of joking about "welfare for the rich".

I was up and about at a reasonable hour the next morning, since I planned to catch a bus leaving at noon, and so, for the first time on this trip, I was able to see my aunt before she had put on her makeup. A dreadful sight, her complexion a dull gray, like death itself, and dark shadows under her eyes from not sleeping well.

"What do you plan to do with your life? Suppose you saw someone like yourself, what would you think?" she asked.

"Are you really asking a question, in the sense of wanting to listen to what I have to say? Or is this just a pretext to scream at me to get married and have children and not let my precious genes go to waste?" I replied.

"I've never screamed at you, even though you accuse me of it constantly."

"You're intelligent and I'd like to be able to hold a conversation with you, but we can't converse unless you're willing to listen. Disagreeing with me is fine, provided you disagree with what I say, instead of interrupting me before I've said even two words and then disagreeing with something I didn't say and had no intention of saying and never have said in my entire life."

"If you don't want to talk with me, then fine." She turned and walked towards the door and I followed her.

"I do want to talk to you," I said.

"No, you don't."

"All you do is go on and on about marriage and children like a broken record."

"All those good genes gone to waste. A complete waste."

"If you'd read that book about diseases you'd see that intelligence, which is what I presume you mean by good genes, means nothing compared with the ability to resist diseases, and it remains to be seen whether I'm more disease-resistant than anyone else. In fact, I'm not even sure I'm more intelligent than average, and I say that in all seriousness. Besides, in another century computers will be able to do our thinking for us and intelligence won't matter anymore."

"You say things deliberately just to get me annoyed."

I walked back to the kitchen to eat the rest of my oranges. Later, when my aunt saw me preparing to leave, she began pleading: "Oh, can't you stay another day? I feel so lonely now. My older son was the only person I could really talk to and now he's gone." I replied that I thought it was time for me to move on, and then I thanked her for her hospitality, and she responded that I was welcome anytime, etc.