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From: apuleius@poboxes.com (Apuleius of Madaura)
Subject: Kael's Diary Part 2, by Kael Goodman (MF cons/rom)
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Reposter's note: This is the second of a two-part reposting of this story.
Please see part one for information on its origins and provenance.
- Apuleius
---------------------------------------------
"Kael's Diary" is copyright 1994 Millennium Productions and is reprinted
here by permission.
Author: Kael Goodman (at745@cleveland.freenet.edu)
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Title: Kael's Diary: December, 1989
<Author's Note: this is one chapter in my on-going sexual self
examination. Theoretically each part should stand on its own and their
chronological order is irrelevant.
"Kael's Diary" is a work of fiction and the people and situations
described herein and from the imagination of its author. Any similarity
to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.>
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Kael's Diary: December, 1989: "Sowing the Seeds of Love"
Lurking at the top of the stairs was me. I was slouching in the
darkness, my black fedora pulled to just above my eyebrows, dark pea
coat humphered around my shoulders and tucked under my butt as I
crouched there, on those carpeted stairs, my black hush puppies not
making a sound.
I had only just taken my gloves off, up there, I'd already
knocked on her door but she was out. Couldn't find a light switch but I
knew the place, an old house in an old city in rural Ohio, possibly a
two bedroomer to start but addition led to addition and it's a good
thing I had known the place, there were half a dozen locations where the
floors didn't come together in just the right way and the architect
wasn't proud. Just another tiny apartment building, just another place
to stuff the students.
There was a key at the front door, down there, and that's why I
had ducked down and squatted where I was. Christ, what if it's not her?
Best way to find out -- wait.
The door flew open and she with it, ushering a blast of cold
late December air. Her hood was open and over her head, but it was her
and not someone else, I knew that. I knew the coat. Green down thing,
nasty. She turned to the steps and I said "hi" and she gasped in fright
and disbelief and then in joy and wonder and charged up the stairs at me
and landed in my outstretched arms.
"Woof, careful," I said, holding her and bringing her into my
lap, sitting now at the top of the stairs, "remember I was puking sick
this morning."
"Oh, God," she said, kissing me lightly on the mouth, "how are
you?"
"I'm fine," I said, taking my hat off and holding it with one
free arm, "just a bad gyro or something, ehw, I can still taste the tin
foil."
"I didn't think you were coming today," she said.
"Well, until about ten neither did I, but, you know, I'm in
love."
"Mm-hm," she said. "How long were you waiting here."
"Coincidence," I said, "I just got here. I tried your door."
Bright blue eyes set into a pyramid of darkest brown, wavy,
frizzy hair. She placed her bowy lips against mine and pressed her
tongue into my mouth slightly. I pulled my mouth against hers and
breathed a little faster.
"I'd like to try your door again," I said.
***
December in this last year of the boom-boom eighties. The
beginning of the end for the millennium and the start of the closing
chapter in my college career. My grandfather was dead and he had told
me the meaning of life, and for that I was grateful. It was just this
past spring and he was dying and I visited him in Florida and he told me
you have to set goals. Life is setting goals and achieving them. You
have a larger goal, and you succeed at it by establishing smaller ones
in order to attain that final, larger goal.
Yes, pretty simple, but it's not "plastics" and you don't have
to be in Wall Street or some other form of business to use it, you can
be an actor, like me. It's so simple anyone can see it and yet no one
my age was doing it. I was twenty-one, in the middle of my fourth year
of college, and aware that I would be starting a fifth in order to get
done. My grandfather's words of wisdom clued me in to the fact that my
present course was just another of the ones I'd been riding since my
inception, one of those fated paths of least resistance.
Sure, choosing a major in theater might have been considered a
little radical to those I'd grown up with in that stifling, fifties
era-style suburb I still called home. But it was still college. I was
still doing what was expected of me, and once that simple choice was
made, I now had a new set of adults to tell me exactly what to do next
so I didn't have to think about it at all. My advisor had a whole
pre-figured out course of study he sent all of us through in order to
keep our minds on performance and not worry about other aspects of
theater or business or the world or anything else that might distract us
from (or, who knows, improve) the "work".
Screw that, I altered the major a little, changed counselors,
and made myself learn things, important things, things I might need to
know later on, if I intended to carve a life for myself rather than just
following a well worn path set before me.
And I met Maria. And that was a surprise. After three years of
dodging every single possible relationship that sprang up in front of me
-- and god knows they were plentiful. I'm an adorable guy. Women love
me. I'm cute and talented and I kiss good. But I was terrified of
being hurt again. The single important relationship I'd ever had in my
life, one that spanned the decade, from first yearnings at the age of
twelve to losing my virginity five years after to the final break, the
moment I let go, see ya, I'm on my own now and don't expect any more
phone calls, it was finally dead and buried, and only since March.
I was complete. I lived alone in a basement apartment with one
bedroom, one bed, ceilings that towered three inches above my six foot
head and I liked them that way. Sure I had my nocturnal visitors, the
whole summer of 1989 I was getting laid all the time, but in the morning
they went away and I could just lie there or walk calmly and proudly,
naked, all the way from the bedroom, through the kitchen to the shower
and use up all the hot water.
And nights when I was on my own, a balmy summer's eve let's say,
with Joe Jackson on the stereo, all the lights out and just past dusk,
napping in my underwear, the alley light shining through the blinds,
casting sexy shadows on the tee vee, the couch, the wide bay doors which
divided the bedroom and the living room (but were never closed) and on
me. Half-awake now, I would hear the murmur of voices from the back
patio of the bar across the alley, wafting through the open window with
the fragrant night air, part sweet summer mist, part dumpster.
Cool jazz. Hot night. I stood and walked to the window.
"It's late," J.J. sang, "I'm winding down. Am I the only
one..?"
And for the first time in my young adult life I actively noticed
I was happy to be me. Just me. I had been happy to be me and someone
else before and that was nice, too. But to be alone and know it's okay.
I knew also that if I needed company, I could step out onto the street,
walk for a block or so and run into someone I knew, or check out a few
bars within reach or there was always the set or a movie -- but to know
I could just sit in peace, alone with my thoughts, and that that could
be enough...well, it was new, it was different, it was so alien and
wonderful.
But as I was saying, I met Maria. And I don't think I could
have without this transformation. Years and years of hiding and
ducking, yes love is wonderful but responsibility sucks and I was always
too fucking immature. But I changed, I was riding higher and taller and
I had opened a new door and the first person to step in was Maria,
nineteen and bright, a stunning young woman, taking time off from that
expensive private school she'd spent her freshman year at to make some
money and ride tuition free at this huge state university that employed
her father. A professor's kid. That same professor who'd written a
rather rude (but completely deserved) letter to the editor of the paper
I wrote for criticizing my work as "politically incorrect", whatever
that means.
I had met Maria a few months before, or even perhaps a few years
before -- I was always coming into contact with a variety of high school
students who either got involved in projects that crossed over to the
university, or through other college students, students who grew up in
town and had introduced me. She may have even been at a party or two in
the last apartment I'd lived in, I knew her old boyfriend anyway. But I
knew her by name only just recently.
Thad, a good friend, also a theater student, and I went to visit
our friends in Danielsboro, Ketucky, who were involved in an outdoor
production called "Daniel Boone was a Man" or some such nonsense, one of
those dramas involving lots of horses and square dancing and pretty
white views of American history. Lots of our friends were playing the
part of "Injuns" and had to shave all of their body hair off, paint
themselves dirt color and got to grunt a lot.
On our way home, an eight hour journey in Thad's lovely
air-conditionless rusty old tub of a car, we had a lot of time to just
talk and more often than not the conversation was little blue.
"So," Thad said, "have you looked over 'Balm in Gilead'?"
"That's the undergrad show?" I asked.
"Yeah."
"No."
"I'm auditioning for the part of Dopey," he said, "he's a heroin
addict."
We were cruising along state road 555 in Suthuhn Ohiyah, windows
open full blast, hot air on our faces, sitting in the same T-shirts we'd
slept in. Thad was at the wheel and I had just finished fiddling with
my banged up wee tape deck, god it was good for how literally dented the
exterior was. The plastic was cracked and every little piece of metal
was scratched and bent but it was nice and loud and tinny. Thad's old
wreck didn't even have FM but I had mix tapes of all sizes and colors.
"Sounds great," I said, "Can I tell you something funny?"
"No," he said, "no, not funny."
"Fuck you, it's, I feel a little odd, you know, it's personal."
"No, not personal," Thad said. "Come on, you can tell me
anything."
"Did I apologize for picking up Vera?" I asked.
"Oh forget about that," he said, "and give me another
cigarette."
I looked at him wide and strange. "You're out already?"
"Already?"
"You bought two packs at that gas station yesterday."
"Yes," Thad said, "and I spent the night with a bunch of broke
and sad actors."
"I see."
"I'm a charitable guy."
"Yes you are," I said, and fished out two sticks from the
already ratty pack I had planted in the cracked door-side armrest.
"And besides, how many have you had today?" Thad asked.
I reached into my pocket and found a pack of matches.
"Mom, I'm telling a story."
"I'm sorry."
"It has pussy in it."
"Tell your story."
I stretched out, reaching behind me with interlocked hands,
touching the roof a few feet behind me. My face was slick with sweat
and my hair a bobbed blond mop, ratty from filth. No shower this
morning and I hate that.
"Beth," I began, "you knew I was fucking Beth?"
Big sigh from Thad. "Yes, I knew you were fucking Beth, Jesus
Christ you know how to hurt a guy."
I looked surprised. "You like Beth." I cupped my hands and
leaned into my own lap in a desperate attempt to light my ciggie in the
gale force highway winds. It was a triumph.
"Oh you are mean, tell your fucking story."
"Don't raise your voice at me."
"Tell your fucking story."
"Do you know your lighter doesn't work?"
"Tell your fucking story."
"So," I said, turning my body slightly so I could look at him
better, one knee up on the wide, single, old-style front seat, "she was
going on about how shy she is."
"Shy?"
"You know, the first time we kissed she needed the lights out."
"She's got bad acne," Thad observed.
"You think she's cute," I said rather defensively.
"I'm just saying."
"She has got bad acne. Anyway, so she's over the other night,
and it's hot, and we're watching Cure videos and the blue light from the
tee vee is just painting the walls --"
"You are killing me."
"-- uh-huh, and we're kissing and I ask if she wants to fuck and
she's like, she doesn't know and I'm like, well, do you fuck and she
says, yes she had but she doesn't know if she can trust me and I say,
I'm not asking her to trust me I'm asking her to fuck me --"
"You didn't say that."
"-- maybe I didn't, I'm saying it now, though, but we crawl from
the couch to the bed --"
"Why did you bother?"
"-- why did? Because the couch is right in front of a window,
you don't really want to hear this do you?"
"Keep going," Thad said, "I am piqued."
"That's what she said."
"Ha."
"So anyway, I've got her all nude and everything on my bed -"
"How are her tits?" Thad asked.
"-- how are? They're nice, so everything --"
"Nice? They're nice? She has this killer cleavage."
"-- yes, killer, I'm not talking about tits here, I am, I am
trying to talk about fucking. You are talking about tits."
"You know who I really like?"
"You aren't interested in this story at all, are you."
"I am."
"I would like to know who you really like, though."
"I will tell you later."
"You won't change your mind about whoever she is?"
"I will not change my mind," Thad reassured me.
"So it's not going well. Her cunt, I dunno, it was too small or
something --"
"Oh you'd like people to believe that."
"-- and anyway, it was just not going well at all, it was
uncomfortable and she said she wasn't sure if she could really do this,
she said she wasn't really any good and anyway, she's shy, and I'm
trying to calm her down and my dick is just straining against the latex
here --"
"Ah safe sex, I was gonna ask."
"Why do you care?"
"Because I love you."
"Oh," I said, "that's sweet. Well, you know, these are the
eighties and all, it's a matter of life and death."
"Thank you, George Michael."
"Don't you bad mouth George."
"Please go on."
"Well, this is the thing, so she lifts her legs above her
fucking head! She just traps them behind her arms, outta nowhere,
whoom, her feet are behind the fucking headboard, her navel is almost
touching her own breasts and her cunt has become this wide open enormous
gash, it's like five feet wide now and she looks up at me, and I'm
gawking over the thing, and she says, will this help?"
Thad stopped in mid-drag to stare at me with incredulity for a
long, dangerous, eyes off the road moment, and then began guffawing in
the most athsmatic manner. I just grinned.
"I thought you'd like that," I said.
"Shy?" he asked.
"Very shy."
"Oh my god! So then what did you do?"
"I got fucking laid, Thad, I humped her 'til I bled, what do you
think I did."
"Jesus. That's great."
"That's just sex, Thad."
"You know who I like?"
"She does this groovy thing with her tongue."
"Who?"
"Beth."
"You know who I like?"
"Who?"
"Do you know Maria B.?"
"No."
It was the first time I'd heard her name.
***
"Oh, Maria B.," I whispered softly into her ear. Late December,
and I was pushing myself slowly into her.
She bared her teeth and hissed slightly, drawing in a sharp
breath.
"Huh?" I asked, "Is, are you okay?" I leaned up a little, up on
my hands, I looked into her concerned face.
"S'nothing, ah," she said, and the tension in her brow softened
and relaxed. I began pumping a little faster, but it didn't seem to be
going well.
"Huhn," she said, "I love you."
"Mmnf," I said, "yes, I love you, too, I'm so glad to see you."
I was rocking my pelvis into hers, curving my spine my rest my mouth on
one of her large nipples.
"Could I be on top?" she asked.
"Ha," I chuffed, "I love it when a woman asks me that."
We fumbled around each other on that bed, not too wide, a single
person's bed for a single young woman. The curtains were closed, it was
dark in her room and I didn't know where the edge of the bed was. I lay
back, pinching skin, and she hopped up on top of me, mighty thighs
straddling my wide hips, I put my hands onto her tiny waist and slid
them up to her happy little tits.
"God I love that," she said, "yes, squeeze them."
She put me inside of her and made that face again.
"Okay?" I asked.
"Mmn, yes," she said, "it's better now."
And we began rocking in time. Her time. It was better. I was
never very good at coming on the bottom, but now I was.
***
An hour later Maria was packing large amounts of her things into
a bag and I was put my loafers back on, getting ready to walk the half
mile back to my apartment to get my car. It was the first moving day
and we would be starting slow.
"Have you told your folks yet?" I asked, putting on my huge
coat.
"No," she said, futzing with some shoes, "not yet."
"But you will, right?" I asked. "I mean, soon?"
"Yes, soon."
"Today would be nice."
"There's a rush?"
"Yes," I said, sitting close to her on the bed. "Because I have
already told my parents you're moving in, and you know, news travels
fast."
"The length of the state?"
"It's a small state."
"It's not that small," she said. "What did they say about it?"
"Well, only Mom was home at first, and she said she knew this
would happen and did we need anything to fix up the place with."
Maria stopped what she was doing to look at me with a confusing
smile. "She didn't."
"You don't know my mother. Dad called when he got home to give
his congratulations."
Maria shoved a handful of undies into the side-pocket of a
suitcase. "You'd think we were getting married."
"Oh, no," I said, "too soon. We've only been together two
months. I told them that would be at least another two."
Maria just laughed.
***
December 31, 1989. New Year's Eve. 11:59 PM, the last minute of
the decade. Maria and I were walking very very fast through the biting
cold in order to reach a big house on Mentor Street. There was a party
there, a New Year's Eve party -- apparently it was one of the longest
running New Year's Eve parties in Clemson's history. Lots of brothers
and sisters, Clemson natives who also went on to attend the university,
renewed the same lease over and again and their end of the year bashes
had become such legend that it became THE place to be for every Clemson
High graduate or anyone else who happened to return to school before
classes started the following week.
"So," I said, "am I going to know anyone here?"
"Probably," Maria told me, "at least the odds are very good.
I'll probably know a lot of people. There's so many people I want to
introduce you to."
"I know," I said, "I'm excited about it."
A brash gush of wind thrust down the street and I pulled my coat
closer to me and yanked down my hat to keep it from blowing back the way
we had come. The house, our destination, set up on a little hill rising
from the street, was still a thousand yards away.
"Have I told you about Jo?" she asked.
"I think so," I said, "which one is she?"
"The one in New York. The artist."
"Oh, the one with the green hair?"
"It was green the last time I saw her," she said.
A rousing cheer of human voices rang out from the house.
Everywhere there was the sound of people yelling, fireworks being set
off, and further in the distance we heard the discharge of shotguns.
"Hey," she said, "happy new year!"
"Come here," I said, and stopped her in the middle of the
street. I grappled for her puffy coat and we both smiled and pressed
our faces into the other. Small, playful kisses and one big tongue
wrestle, her hot spit warming the inside of my chilledhead.
"Welcome to the nineties," I said.
"Strange, huh?" she said.
"I have a feeling they're going to be better than the eighties,"
I said, "with you in them."
"Hmn," she said, grinning wildly. And we headed up the hill to
the house.
Parties. Such unpredictable chemical events. If I know
everyone at a party, and I'm feeling good, it can be like Hollywood.
Lots of kissing and talking and drinking and it's a time to be
magnanimous.
"Hey what's up? How's the project? You look FABulous, baby."
Then there was the party I met Maria at, last July. It was a
cast party for a how I wasn't in. I was only running props and no one
there, except the host, who had invited me personally, knew me.
I put a six-pack of cheap beer in the fridge and took an import
sitting next to it for myself. I looked around the room. It was too
bright in that apartment, I could see everyone too clearly. No one said
hi. Everyone was sitting about, talking quietly. The music was on low.
I saw a familiar face (one that had been pointed out to me, not one I
knew personally) sitting on the couch, and an empty chair next to it. I
took the chair.
"Uh, hi," I said.
"Hello," she said.
"You must be Maria."
"Yes," she said, for indeed it was.
"I'm a friend of Thad's."
"Oh," she said, "yes, I know you, you're, Kael is it?"
"Yes," I said, "Kael Goodman."
"That's a strange name."
"I'm a strange guy," I said. "Kael Goodman, the Irish Jew."
She just stared at me.
"Ha ha ha ha ha," I said.
Awkward pause.
"You make a very good bird," I said, "in the show."
"Thank you," she said. "You go to school here?"
"Yeah, I'm in theater."
"How do you like it, I think I might have to spend some time
here." She said it like it was an impending prison term, but hey, she
grew up here, her take on the place was probably different from mine.
"Oh, it's great," I started, "I like to think I've learned a
lot. I mean, I hope I have after three years but sometimes I think I'm
doing all the learning myself. That sounded stupid -- what I mean is,
it's like you can just skate through most of these courses, almost all
of the profs are, like, complete dummies and they'll give you at least a
passing grade no matter what shit you sling at them, excuse me, I meant
excrement, but, I mean, do you see what I'm saying? I'd like to think
I'm a pretty intelligent guy, you know. I mean, I read for God's sake,
how many people can you say that about? I guess the point is, I'd like
to think this is all going somewhere, oh, I'm sorry, did I get any of
that on you, I'm sorry, and who knows, maybe when it's all said and
done, I'll have made something...of...all...this."
Death.
"That's very fascinating," she said, and turned to speak to
someone else.
Oh, and did I mention all of the assholes I've met here?
This party, however, was something else. It looked like the
kind of shindig where someone could have swung from the chandelier,
though no one did, and had there been a chandelier, which there wasn't.
(Oh, great, and now I'm Douglas Adams.) The place was packed with
teenagers and twenty-somethings, all drinking and smoking and shouting
and laughing and eating and drinking. It was bright, sure, not dingy
enough for my tastes, but the music was loud, the floor was filthy and
the company was young and degenerate.
"Hey!" Maria was saying. "God how are you? You look great!
Yes -- not since -- you were there, too? Oh my GOD!"
I just followed on behind, and it wasn't such a bad place to be.
"Have you met my boyfriend? This is my new boyfriend. Kael,
I've got someone for you to meet, Frank, Bob, Jim, this (dramatic pause)
is my new boyfriend, Kael."
Boyfriend. I hadn't been called that, excuse me, I hadn't let
myself be called that in a few years. It felt nice. It had a pleasant
ring. Kael, Maria's new boyfriend. My coat was still on as she took me
by the hand and led me through the streaming crowd of immediate
post-midnight revelers. She introduced me to a skinny guy, about her
age, with a wild mop of frenetically curly blonde hair.
"Kael, this is Lewis."
We shook hands. I smiled.
"Hey!" he said. "Heeey, I know you -- you were in, whatsis,
'Balm in Gilead' last semester, weren't you?"
"Yeah," I said, "that was me."
"Oh Maria," Lewis said, "oh hey, he was fantastic, you played
that, what, he was a dope addict --"
"Well," I said, in my studied 'demure', "they were all dope
addicts."
"Dopey," Maria said.
"Yeah!" Lewis said, "you were fuckin'-A fantastic, man, let me
shake your hand!"
"Oh, we just did," I said, "I don't want to peak too soon."
"Ha ha HA!" Lewis laughed. "Oh Maria, I love him, he's
hysterical!
Lewis was a fun drunk. I would like to have had him around at
all my parties, if only to laugh at everything I said.
"Hey you," came an unfamiliar voice behind me, and Maria cried
out in surprise and rushed past me to hug the new arrival. I turned to
see a small woman dressed in a black, second hand coat, but that was
what I noticed first. It was her electric pink hair that stood out like
a neon beacon crying "NOTICE ME."
She was almost a whole foot shorter than me, and once she and
Maria disengaged I could see her face. She was thin and small. Small
nose, small mouth, and HUGE glasses that were perched on the very tip of
her nose, dying to fall off.
"Kael," Maria said, "this is Jo."
"Oh THIS is Jo," I said, "I would never have guessed. It's a
pleasure to meet you."
"And you as well," Jo said, "Maria's told me a lot about you."
"I've heard a lot about you, too," I said, "I thought your hair
was green."
"Well," Jo said, not blinking, not looking away for a moment,
"you know, Maria hasn't seen me for a while, what has it been, a year?"
"'Bout that," Maria said.
"And after all," Jo said, "it is the nineties."
"Hell," I said, "I would have guessed 1983."
"Not in Athens," she said.
"But you live in New York City," I said, giving particular
weight to those last three words and letting my eyes bulge.
"Big sigh," she said, "why must people always fear the unusual."
"I apologize," I said, "my own flavor was black, black hair,
black eyemake-up, and that was only a few years ago."
"You don't strike me as the type."
"You just met me," I said, "what would you know about my type?"
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a pack of English
cigarettes. "Mind if I smoke?"
"It's not my party," I said, and I leaned in to whisper in her
ear, "and I'm dying to join you, but I told Maria I quit."
"Did you?" she said, sticking a smoke in her face, making her
already quite stuffed up voice even more so.
"Uh, yes," I said, "it's been almost a month. I don't want to
be a slave to anything in the world I live in."
"Except Maria," she said, and struck a match.
I blushed and smiled tightly.
"Except Maria," I said.
***
"What did you think of my friends?" Maria asked. It was an hour
or so later (maybe three, we were looped) and we were stumbling our way
through the brick paved Clemson streets back to my, uh, our apartment.
"Wonderful," I said, "all of them, just charming."
"You were getting pretty bold back there," she said.
"I was?"
"Sure, when Jo and Lewis and us, when we were all standing
around there, weren't you feeling me up?"
"Ha!" I said, "no."
"Oh come on." She looked at me to see I wasn't lying. "You
were squeezing my ass."
"I'd know if I was squeezing your ass."
"Shit!" she said, "it must have been Lewis!"
"Probably," I said, "it wasn't me. I don't think it was Jo,
either."
"You two hit it off?" she asked.
"She's just the type of lithe, androgynous pretentious art-fag I
would have loved to try and nail when I was a sophomore," I said. "I
think she's great."
"I knew you'd like her."
***
Maria and I slouched about our tiny love-nest of an apartment.
I had a viscious attack of the late-post-New Year's Eve-drunken munchies
and had just toasted and buttered a bagel. I put it on one of those
turquoise plastic plates I had discovered in the closet when I had first
moved in, and stepped into our living room.
The tee vee was on, perched atop a milk crate. The tee vee had
a nineteen inch screen. The milk crate was sixteen inches across. The
milk crate would have looked a lot more comfortable and secure on top of
the tee vee. Maria looked very comfortable propped up on the couch, her
big eyelids slowly dripping down her blue eyes. She was watching
hippies fooling around with the special effects generator on Clemson
cable access. I sat down next to her and set my plate in my lap. The
space heater behind the couch blew a pleasant gust of hot, dry air up my
neck, which was only now beginning to thaw from the five blocks we had
briskly strode back from the party. I peered at the tee vee.
"Are those hippies?" I asked.
"I went to high school with most of those guys," she said.
"Right," I said, "and the ones you didn't go to high school
with, I did." A scruffy looking kid was stuffing mustard into his mouth
while the others interviewed each other. There was lots of tie-dye
everywhere. "Do they think they're being creative?"
"Is that a bagel?" she asked, leaning her shoulder into my
thigh. She tossed her thick frizzy hair around her face and smiled up
at me. Straight teeth.
"Yeah," I said, smiling down at her suspiciously, "Why, did you
want it?"
"I'll take half."
I handed her the plate. "Take the whole thing," I said, getting
up, "I'm feeling big."
"You're looking big," she said, getting a prime view of my
backside as I rose. "You need new pants."
"I need to lose ten pounds," I said, heading into the kitchen.
"You need to stop taking me out to dinner," she said, munching
her bagel.
"I always went out to dinner," I called out, "only now I have
some lovely company." I stuck my head into the fridge the relocate the
bagels, which had mysterious hidden themselves behind the butter.
"I love you, Kael Goodman," she said, sober, for a moment. I
popped my head up over the top of the refrigerator door and looked at
her, squinting, my glasses left by the answering machine.
Lying almost sideways on the couch, our couch in our apartment,
was the most beautiful woman in my life. Where the hell had I gotten
off -- young, sexy round face, she had dimples! The woman had dimples
-- her heritage was Greek, Irish, Native American even, mostly Greek
though, her skin was pale and her eyes were huge and her nose was long
and straight. Oh yes, she had a little mustache, most women do you
know, but when she smiled at me her face was bright and shiny and even
now, plastered and stinky from party smoke, I could tell she adored me
and I was so happy she was there.
It hadn't been easy, I admit. One night, not long before, I'll
never forget this, we were at her old apartment, maybe last November.
We'd been together a month. We were lying on her bed, facing each
other, my shirt was off and she was running her fingers along all the
twisted scars and bumps on my chest. They were remnants of severe acne
scarring, these 'war wounds' were still quite red and visible. I had a
few stray hairs sprouting along my chest, connecting my nipples. Her
plaid shirt was all unbuttoned, no bra, her little breasts peeking out,
her big nips still hard from minutes before when I'd had her flat on her
back, licking and sucking at them, making her coo. I drew a line from
her navel up between her breasts and up to her chin. She was smiling.
"You know, Kael," she said, "I really like you."
"I like you, too, Maria," I said.
"I can't believe you made me dinner."
"I'm a sensitive eighties kinda guy," I said, "you have to know
how to do those sorts of things these days. If you want to get laid,
anyway."
"Not tonight," she said.
"I understand."
"I'm going back to my old school this weekend," she said.
"I see," I said, and moved my face in and bit her lightly on the
chin. She growled approvingly. As I sucked at her neckline I said
slurped out, "going to visit what's his name?"
"He's my boyfriend, Kael."
I backed away a few inches. "And what am I?" I asked.
"Oh, I don't know," she said, "I love spending time with you,
but I plan to go back there after a semester or two and I really do love
him, you have to understand that."
I laughed in a disaffected manner. "I know, I know, and I am
happy to entertain you while you wait."
"Yeah," she said, "that's it, you're my little entertainer."
My mouth twitched slightly. It almost gave me away.
"Ha," I burst out suddenly, "well, yes, I do know what my place
is. Kael Goodman, pleaser of women."
"You're very good at it."
"Honey," I said, "I'm the best."
A half hour later I was in my car driving back to my apartment.
My face was tense, my brow furrowed, my knuckles blanched, gripping at
the wheel. I began to slam my palm against the dashboard as hot angry
tears spewed out of my eyes and streamed down my face.
"Dammit!" I howled, "no, no, NO! I do not want to do this
again!" My voice was loud and unbridled, phlegm collected in my throat
which had completely closed into itself, and I had difficulty breathing.
I blubbered and bawled little a child, trying desperately to keep my car
on my side of the road as I sobbed without care.
"I don't want this," I groaned. "Never, never, never, don't let
me do this." I tried to sort through all the horrible, pathetic and sad
things I was feeling.
"I do not want to fall in love," I sighed.
But I did. I already had. Unbelievable -- there I was at one
thirty on a school night, banging down Alex's door (she lived right
across the street) still sniffling and teary-eyed. Alex had been asleep
but she knew something was wrong when she opened the door. I asked if I
could spend the night and she said sure and I curled up next to her, it
was very strange, I hadn't been in the same bed with her since we'd last
had sex, for the last time, the previous June, and this wasn't exactly
the same circumstance. She dropped right off and I stared out the
window trying to think of anything except Maria.
And here we were two months later and she was mine, sitting on
the couch, watching stupid homemade tee vee and she said she loved me.
I was toasting myself a bagel when there was a knock at our
door. It was Humphrey, Maria's childhood playmate, former Eagle Scout,
present day Communist.
"Hey, come on in," I said.
"Kael, right?" he said, shaking my hand as he stepped in.
Humphrey was a hulking thing, a big long mass of blonde hair and a
straggly thick beard, but you could still see the little kid in his
eyes. He had an uncomfortable self-effacing laugh whenever he spoke.
"Yeah," I said, ushering him in and closing the door against the
cold. "Warm yourself up. Happy New Year."
"Happy New Year," he said. "Boy, it sure is low in here, isn't
it?"
"Is that Humphrey?" Maria called from the living room.
"Yeah, honey," I said, "and yes, well, it used to be a basement,
you know. Maria's in there, watch your head as you go in."
"Thanks, ooh, is that a bagel in there?" he asked, pointing at
the toaster with one hand, removing his enormous army jacket with the
other.
"Uh, yes," I said, "I was making it for you." Humphrey went
into the living room and I buttered the bagel for him. As I was putting
another into the toaster, there was another knock at the door, a very
loud one.
It was Claire.
"Well," I said, letting her in, "I didn't expect to see you
tonight."
"Who's that?" Maria yelled from the living room.
"It's me," Claire said.
"Who?" Maria bellowed.
"It's Claire," I said, shutting the door again.
"Claire?" Maria laughed.
"Never mind her," I said, "she's drunk. So am I."
"That makes three of us," Claire said, and sat down at the
kitchen table. I just stood there and looked at her.
"Why are you here?" I asked.
"Happy New Year," she said, smiling up at me benignly.
Claire was a freshman here at the University of Ohio. During
the summer of 1988 I had a very, very brief thing with her. We were
both doing summer theater together and she'd come on to me very heavily
at a cast party I had thrown. I felt very awkward and self-conscious
making out with a high school student, but, you know, I did anyway. But
it didn't last very long and it didn't get very far, but that didn't
keep her from making my life hell whenever we ran into each other.
"Happy New Year," I said, "why are you here?"
"Apparently I missed you at the big party."
"I missed you, too, Claire," I said, "would you like a beer or
something?"
"Yes," she said, and I went to get her one out of the fridge. I
could see Maria and Humphrey talking, she on the couch, he sitting
cross-legged on the floor next to her. They were eating bagels. Maria
saw the look of helplessness on my face and just smiled and rolled her
eyes.
"This is a nice place," Claire said, accepting the beer, and
then taking a huge, long suck off of it.
"It's nice," I said, not sitting down, just leaning against the
sink, against the cracked brown contact paper that disguised whatever
damage had been done to it by previous tenants. The toaster went
"ca-chuunk" and went to put it on another plastic plate, this one peach
colored. None of the plates were the exact same size.
"Suplised to see me?" she asked.
"Yes," I said, scraping and buttering my bagel at the sink, "I
haven't seen you since, well since the last time I saw Thad I suppose.
Some time last semester."
"We aren't dating anymore," she said, squinting her beady little
brown eyes at me.
"I know you two aren't dating anymore, Claire."
"Why were you such a DICK to me, Kael?" she asked. The weight
she put on the word 'dick' made me wince and I cast another side-long
glance into the other room. They were laughing about something. I was
hoping it wasn't me.
"I'd like to think I was being honest with you," I said.
"You dumped me really fast," she said, "you didn't need to do
that." I turned around and set my plate on the table before going to
get myself a beer.
"We weren't even 'dating', Claire," I said, rummaging in the
fridge.
"Sure we were," she said.
"Ha!" I said. "We only did it once." I turned back and saw she
had slid the plate with my bagel on it to her side of the round table.
"Don't touch that," I said, menacingly.
She began to pick up the bagel. I lunged across the room at her
and she swiftly lifted the pate up and stepped back out of her chair and
against the far wall by the fire extinguisher.
"Don't you fucking DARE eat that," I said.
"Ha ha ha," she snickered. I countered around the table towards
her. She slid around the other side, stepping over boxes and huge
undiscarded piles of the U of O Examiner.
"I'm warning you," I said.
"You're warning me what?" she said as she slipped further around
the table, foot crossing over unsteady foot.
"It's been a long night, and you can stay here and abuse me, if
you wish."
"Oh, I do."
"But all I want is THAT FUCKING BAGEL!"
She stopped where she stood, in front of the fridge, and looked
into the next room.
"Hey Maria," she said.
"Hello, Claire."
"Hiya Humphrey."
"Nice to see you Claire."
"So," Claire said, leveling her gaze at me, "is SHE here now?
She's your main thing?"
"Give me that bagel, woman."
"She your new GIRLFRIEND?" she asked.
Conversation in the next room had stopped. I was pressed, this
was the challenge of my collegiate sexual career.
"Yes," I said, "yes Claire, Maria is my girlfriend. She lives
here. She belongs here and you do not." I stood up straight, almost
hitting my head on the ceiling. "Now," I said, taking a deep breath,
"just...please...give me the bagel. Give me the bagel and no one gets
hurt."
Her face dropped and a slight quiver came to her thin bottom
lip. She slammed the plate onto the table.
"Here," she said, "take your stupid bagel."
"Thank you," I said, even though the impact of her action had
caused one half of it to fall onto the floor. Claire then turned,
picked up her beer and slammed out my front door.
Humphrey quickly walked through the kitchen, his coat half on, a
partially chewed bagel sticking out of his mouth.
"Fee you, Kael," he said, heading for the door.
"Oh, no, Humphrey," I said, "you don't have to go."
"Oh don't worry," he said, I understand." And with that he
closed the door behind him. I watched him go, and looked back at Maria,
smiling wryly at me, still just sitting on the couch. I picked up my
plate. I retrieved the bagel from the floor (it landed buttered side
up, thank you) and dusted it off. I looked at it. I looked at Maria.
I took a big, comical, tiger-sized bite out of it, complete with
"Aaarumph!" sound effect and Maria giggled.
Fwump, I sat on the couch next to her, and she put an arm around
me.
I whimpered slightly.
"Aw," she said, "my poor little Casanova."
"I didn't mean to drive your friend away," I said, chewing
mournfully.
"You didn't," she said, "he told me he couldn't stay long."
"I told her," I said, in my best child-like voice, "that, that
you were my GIRLfriend."
"Yes," she said, "I heard. The neighbors heard."
"Wanna have sex?" I asked.
"Do you?"
"No," I said, "not really, not now."
"Then let's just watch tee vee."
"What's on?" I asked.
"You are."
And I looked at the screen. And there I was. It was a little
project I had done for access the summer before.
"Jesus Christ," I said. I was in my underpants, delivering a
monologue I made up on the spot about insects or something. "They'll
let anyone on that channel."
"That's this apartment, isn't it?"
"Sure is."
"How much did that cost?"
"Nothing," I said, "They just let you borrow the equipment and
you do the rest. Hey, and that reminds me."
"Yaas," she drawled.
"Mind if I videotape us fucking?" I asked.
"Hmn," she said, "well sure, why not."
We watched me talk for a little while longer in silence.
"Hey," she said, "I just thought of something."
"Yaas?"
"Who gets the tape if we break up?"
I looked at her and smiled. I looked down at her lap. I looked
back up.
"You worried about that?" I asked.
"No," she said, "not right now."
--
"Kael's Diary" is copyright 1994 Millennium Productions and is reprinted
here by permission.
Author: Kael Goodman (at745@cleveland.freenet.edu)
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Title: Kael's Diary: June, 1994
<Author's Note: this is one chapter in my on-going sexual self
examination. Theoretically each part should stand on its own and their
chronological order is irrelevant.
"Kael's Diary" is a work of fiction and the people and situations
described herein and from the imagination of its author. Any similarity
to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.>
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Kael's Diary: June, 1994 "Closer" part one
Who knew I could ever be an adult? Oh sure, they always
tell you you're supposed to grow up, there are all of these so-
called adult people walking around as proof of the kind of person
you should grow up to be. But fuck all that, all right? I'm supposed
to be getting serious now, right? Well, in my own way I am. I sure
can look the part. A little flabby here and there, and my golden
hair is getting quite thin indeed on top. I'll be bald before I'm thirty,
I'm sure, if I live so long. But for now I am twenty-five, going on
twenty-six, headed for the Millennium, and I'm gonna go down
screaming.
There I stood, wearing a cut-off pair of Dockers, an old army
belt, an over-sized T-shirt and a huge, structureless cotton jacket
that hung down past the ragged cuffs of those pants. Combat
boots, large wire glasses and long hair that defied the pre-
described onset of male pattern baldness. I stood, for a moment,
outside that old building, in that bad section of Cleveland -- I was
there because I worked there, me and everyone else sitting
around outside it on that balmy June evening, waiting for the
audience to arrive. It was a local theater house, one of the small
and less reputable ones, and we happy band of twenty-nothing
aged men and women had made it our base of operations. The
younger generation has no clear goals, no clear objectives? They just
couldn't see them. But then, any goal that doesn't include ruling
the world and enforcing your will on others always seems to confuse
Baby Boomers.
Take President Bill, for example. Oh, I supported him, and I
still do. But you have to admit that's what he's up to. That's what
all those who aspire to power attempt to do, but Clinton and his
whole generation aren't content to just rule, they want to mold the
world in their self-righteous image. My g-g-generation?
We're slackers, losers, we can't get our shit together. Uh-huh.
Just watch us. Oh sure, we'll prove you "right", who can actually
change the world? But cut us a break and don't turn a blind eye to
all the hard work we do.
I say I stood there, outside the theater, for a moment. That's
because the next moment I had to dodge yet another of a series of
excruciatingly embarrassing blows inflicted by Jackie, with whom I
was having an amateur boxing match.
Jackie had been with our renegade theater troupe since
the previous summer and you couldn't call her beautiful. A pixie, a
sprite, a wood nymph, are these descriptions insulting? A remnant
sale fashion sense and a strong body odor. She stood five foot
two, her normally brownish-reddish hair now dyed to a fluorescent
blondish-orangish with deep brownish-reddish roots.
Her hair was like that of a six year-old boy, unkempt and dirty,
even if she owned a comb it would have been hopeless. Oh, and a
voice like a demonic child --Linda Hunt meets that dwarf from
"Poltergeist", on a pack-a-day habit. Odd freckles and moles, one
clear bump on her upturned nose, and teeth that looked like
they had never seen the fuzzy end of a toothbrush.
Jackie was a mess. And she gave every boy a hard-on.
Right then, she, holding two tight little fists, one clutching a lit
cigarette, receiving a playful head slap to the forehead from me, tried
kicking my shins. I lashed down and grabbed her by the ankle. A normal
person would have flipped out, panicked, lost balance and cried out in
surprise. Jackie put her weight on her good foot, leaned into to my
torso, and began pummeling my ribcage. I let go of her foot.
This continued for a few minutes. Sid, Ryan, also hanging
around outside, waiting, begging for someone to finally show up to
see our performance, began to get worried that if someone did
show up, all they would see was that there was a fight going on
outside the theater, figure there's a good reason why they had
never seen this part of Cleveland, and move on.
"Hey guys," Sid said, "take it inside."
"You hear that?" I said, deflecting yet another hit aimed for
my solar plexus. "We're not being professional."
"You started this," Jackie said, pushing me with one free
hand, "you smacked my head."
I reached out and grabbed her hand that wasn't holding a
cigarette. "That's because you were being a PRICK."
She writhed in my hands and began kicking again. I let go and
stepped back.
"Stop?" I asked, smiling.
"Whatever," she said, and said down on the curb, with her
back to the nasty, city-maintained "beautification" (see: "dying
shrub"). I sat down next to her.
"You guys cool?" Sid asked, sitting a few feet away.
"Shut up," Jackie said, "sometimes Kael needs his butt
whupped."
"I was kicking your ass," I said.
"I had a cigarette in my hand," she said, taking another draw
off of it. "Do you want one?"
"Nope," I said, "thanks." I hadn't smoked in two months. It
was looking like I might quit for good this time.
A deep, dark, maroon van pulled up to the curb, and we all
sat back. The driver's door sprung open and Gail popped out.
"Like it?" she asked.
"Wow," Jackie said, "that's great!"
"Kel and I picked it up this afternoon from the airport, it's so
huge inside," Gail said.
Jackie flicked her cigarette to the sidewalk, and calmly stood
up. She stepped in front of me, and pushed me backwards into
the bushes.
I yelped out in surprise as her wee fists began pummeling
the living shit out of me.
"You crazy little bitch!" I cried.
"How do you like that, huh?" she barked in that great,
hoarse, pinched voice, landing on me, battering me with a variety
of punches and slaps. I flew my hands up in a weak defense. A
swarm of bees rose from the nettles and flew about us.
"Get her the fuck off me!" I yelled, grabbing onto her wrists
and pulling her down close to me, but she just kept on smacking
me about. I managed to fling her to one side and get to standing,
but she was already there. Sid leaped up and stood between us.
"Oh get away," she cried at him.
"Cut it out, you two," he said.
"Oh, MAN," I whined, petulantly, "we were having fun."
***
The plan was simple. We'd perform our Saturday night,
eleven o'clock show, hop in this rented van sometime around one
in the morning and drive to Chicago. Our show, consisting of
originally choreographed and constantly updated dance slash
comedy routines, had been running every week for seven months.
We all needed a little vacation, and the cheapest one available
was a short jaunt to Chicago. Those of us who had work managed
to take a few days off, driving non-stop, the five of use who were
going would drive and hour apiece and sleep (yeah, right) the rest
of the way. We'd arrive Sunday morning and leave on Tuesday,
flopping on the floor at friend's apartment, shopping and seeing
as much alternative, inspirational Big City theater as we could.
Our show that evening was another disappointment. The
media had a thing against our little theater, and we found it
impossible to get any kind of free exposure. The usual trickle of
ten people came in, saw our show (we jumped and sang, danced
and pontificated, moved our tiny audience to tears and got huge belly
laughs) told us it was the most original and innovative thing they
had every seen in their lives and why were there so many empty
seats?
Oh well.
They left, we turned out the lights, packed the van, and took
off for the second city.
***
I love driving, late at night, my favorite music playing on the
stereo, a-c turned off, the window cracked open after midnight.
I've had a lot of experience taking long trips, driving to or from
Clemson as often as I did for six years, that one time I went all the
way to Florida, stoppin once for a ten minute nap. Nineteen
hours was all it took, left at nine in the evening, I was in Bahama
City by dinner the next day. Never doing that again, I'm sure.
This time it would be for just an hour. I went first -- the van
was signed in my name. Jackie drove shotgun, Ryan sat in the
second, expansive seat, Satch and Gail tried to catch a few zees
in the larger, more secluded back seat. Sid couldn't afford the trip
or the time. Ryan, our seventeen year-old technical prodigy, by far
the youngest member of our modest theater company, had
purchased a copy of Madonna's contribution to the "Dick Tracy"
hype back in 1990, "I'm Breathless". It was one dollar in a bargain
bin, and we all listened to it. Funny. Ryan the high school student,
Jackie, the lower class punk and me, an affluent middle class
snob, and we all knew every word to that obscure collection of
great Steven Sondheim melodies and cheesy Madonna pop tunes.
"Would you knock it off, please? ZIP! Thank you."
"Hey," Jackie said, picking up her purple, rattan, oh so very
bohemian knapsack. "What does anyone else want to hear?"
"That's not done yet," I informed her.
"Yeah," Ryan chimed in.
"I don't care," she said, "I'm sick of this."
"Put in the 'Twin Peaks' soundtrack," I said, "as long as
we're on this whole 1990 motif."
"You and your thing about chronology," Jackie said, "it's a
little tired."
"Hey, I'm a little tired," I said, "it fits. Anyone see a sign
for a rest stop?"
"In about two miles," Ryan said.
"Coolee-cool."
Since Ryan was attending a public school for the arts, he
was able to tell his teachers that this was a special field trip
he was taking with the theater he worked for, which was,
when I thought about it, true. He was a hefty boy, almost taller
than me, and a much greater distance around. A red smear tore down
each cheek, just like the kind I had when I was younger,
a tell-tale flush that at the slightest moment of insecurity would
flare up into twin admissions of shame or embarrassment. Mine had died
down a little as I got older, and whether this was self-confidence
manifesting itself or just part of the aging process, I was glad to be
without them. Poor kid. They have the emotional scarring capability
of a hard-on in tight jeans, only you can't put your books in front
of them.
We stopped the car at the next rest stop, still miles from the
Ohio-Indiana border, and everyone switched places. Jackie took
the driver's seat, and once I came back from the pop machine I
found Ryan already waiting to sit shotgun. Satch and Gail
continued to snooze in the back. Ryan had no license yet, and so
the two of them would be taking us the rest of the way into
Chicago. I sat in the middle seat, and the three of us continued
our late-night pow-wow.
"Who put this piece of shit music on?" Jackie asked.
"It's Julee Cruise, it's 'Twin Peaks', man," I said.
"It's fucked is what it is."
"You're ugly," I said, "you know that, Jackie? You're so
ugly, it goes down to your soul."
"Whatever."
"If it means anything," Ryan kicked in, "I don't
think you're ugly."
"Yeah, well," I said, "we all know what you think."
Twin cheek flare-ups. Poor, poor kid.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Jackie asked, hitting the
cigarette lighter.
"Yeah, what's that supposed to mean," Ryan asked, not a
little defensively.
"I just thought, you know Ryan, we've been through this," I
said.
"No, what?" Ryan said, turning in his seat to look at me.
"It's about your thing, you know, with boys." I said flatly.
"Oh, fuck you," he said, turning back around.
"No," I said, "I'm sorry, I keep bringing it up --"
"You've got to leave him alone," Jackie laughed.
"-- it's just," I continued, "Jackie has got this whole Dennis
the Menace thing going with her hair and all, it just made sense --"
"Thanks," Jackie said, mock offended.
"I'm sorry," I said, sitting back and throwing up my hands in
a mocking sort of acquiescence, "I'm sorry, I just thought it needed
to be said."
"The only one here with a thing for boys is you," Ryan said,
trying to rise to the occasion.
"Well," I said, a little sombered, "there's no need to be
hateful."
"Whatever."
"I mean, when I make assumptions on your sexuality," I just
couldn't stop this, "I don't mean them as insults."
Ryan just sat there and stewed.
"You're so full of shit," Jackie said.
"I'm just trying to be helpful, I said.
"You can help me," Ryan said.
"Anything," I said, "how?"
He turned back to face me, his cheeks turned a deep purple.
"Shut the fuck up," he said.
I thought for a moment.
I nodded to him in closed mouth, wide-eyed, excited agreement.
***
An hour and a half later, getting on four in the morning,
Jackie pulled our maroon rental into the next available rest stop
and we all took a little stretcher. It was Gail's turn, more or less
awake and refreshed, and it was me in the very back seat when
everyone got back from the bathroom.
"Hey, Jackie," I said, "come spoon with me."
"Oh-kay," she said, quacking like a ten yea-old.
"Oh, man, "Ryan said, "that means I'm in the middle again."
"Did you want to spoon with me?" I asked.
"What do you think?"
"I wouldn't dare to presume."
Jackie stumbled into the back with me. I was lying with my
head to the port side of the van (uh, that's left to everyone else),
my back to the seat, on my side, and Jackie flopped comfortably
into my arms. My knees were a little cramped, I had one foot here,
another a few feet below and in front, I wrapped my arms around
her, my left under her head, that greasy, glowing, golden hair
under my nose. She smelled of patchouli, strawberry air freshner
and a lap around the block. I held her close, this man-child, this
freak of nature. A scratch on my calf, inflicted during the bee-bush
episode, rested uncomfortably on the back of the upholstered seat.
I fell asleep for a half an hour.
***
"Aaaagh," I said.
"Mm, what," she mummbered.
"My leg is way asleep."
"Wanna move?"
"Mm-hmn."
We shifted about. I tried putting my long legs anywhere
they would fit, but it was pointless. We switched positions, her in
the back, holding me, with my legs dangling out over the edge of
the seat. That wouldn't work. I ended up lying on my back, a little
of me hanging on the edge of the seat, I looked up into the ceiling
of the van, my left hand reaching over onto my stomach, she lay
next to me, on her side, back against the seat, her mouth an inch
from my ear.
One of her legs was tucked under mine. The other lay on
top. She held me in her arms. Her right hand gripped me around
my ribs, like she was helping me stay on the seat. She nestled
me close.
Her hand gripped my chest. Her breathing was a continual
repetition of tiny sighs in my ear, never losing tempo, only
increasing in volume.
Her knees squeezed together. That involuntary, right? I couldn't
help changing my breathing only slightly. I had been asleep only
a minute or two earlier. I was delirious. My chest rose with
uncertainty.
I turned my head to hers. I looked into her face. Her jaw,
slack, that small mouth, those chubby little lips, bucky little
front teeth, nicotine stained and nasty and adorable. Her eyes
were closed, her breathing heightened but regular. I opened my
mouth (what? what? what am I doing this for?) and drew my
lower lip against hers, and squeezing both of my lips against her
lower one, she pulled her lips together -- our faces were apart, our
lips cleared the distance, making a teeny little handshake.
We did it again, she still kept her eyes shut, were we both
asleep? No, I know I wasn't, her arms pulled me closer and I
swiveled my body to face her, and our lips pulled and pushed,
kissing again and again, tongues darting slowly, I put my arm
around her and caressed her little body and her hand came up to
touch my face. Her legs scissored around mine and the breathing
started to seriously pick up in speed.
And now it was a grope fest, albeit a slow one. I wrestled
my hand into her buttoned up, pea green shirt in a lame attempt to
fondle her tiny little breasts. She continued to kiss me every odd
moment, taking my lips in hers like a hungry bird, awkwardly
accepting a small morsel of food.
The truth is, this was not the first time we had kissed. The
first was on New Year's Day Night. That had been a Saturday
night and she and I and Satch and Gail had sat around after the
show, drinking what was left of the champagne and talking until
two. After those two had gone to bed, Jackie and I sat up longer,
talking it up until I had the balls to ask her to kiss me. At that point
all I really knew was that I was horny, Jackie looked real sweet in
the candlelight, and Maria had really pissed me off on New Year's
Eve.
But those were just simple kisses. I wanted to pursue the
matter, I tried getting my hands all over her, but Jackie talked
me down and I figured our relationship would be an on and off
series of months where we punched and insulted each other, and
isolated moments where we would just kiss. And being one of the
world's great kissers, a man who truly enjoyed just necking for hours
on end, I couldn't complain. Because she was good. Her teeth were rotten,
she smoked like a chimney, smelled like a man and looked like a boy, but
she kissed like a goddess.
I was not getting her normal kisses here, however. The breathing was
all wrong, less than assured, desiring more. I forgot about her tits,
they were nothing -- it seemed like they were nothing to her. She kept
tugging my lips with hers, urging me on --
-- I glanced upwards. The boy in the middle seat must surely be asleep,
right? --
-- we hadn't said anything. She gripped my behind and pressed my groin
firmly against hers --
-- and the music was playing, and the windows open, Satch
and Gail must be oblivious, they're miles away --
-- I tucked my pelvis back and rested a hand between her
legs. Hot, very hot, she must be steaming inside these tattered old
jeans. The soft, worn cotton was already damp with sweat, and
what else..? I slid my hand between her and she opened her legs,
one resting on the seat, the other against its back, and rubbed
where I could only assume the trouble was...
...and there was a hole.
No. No, you're kidding. I brushed a finger against it. Pubic
hair. No underwear? A hole?! She has GOT to be kidding. I was
beside myself with disbelief, awe, complete befuddlement and just
a little bit of restrained laughter.
Is this the trick hole? This woman has a trap chute in her jeans?
She continued to pulse with almost imperceptible earnest. I
withheld my anxiety and pressed my middle finger into the hole.
Wet. Stewy wet. Swampy wet. If she didn't want me prying
into her jeans, violating her through a secret hole that just barely
(not even barely, let's face it) allowed my bony middle finger, it
was the last thing she was telegraphing. My face was less than an
inch to hers, my mouth less close, no more kissing, just sharing of
breath, my eyes only slits as I drove as much of my left middle
finger as I could into her. It was easy, in comparison with the tight
sheath of thin cotton I had just passed my finger through, her
secret part was warm and soft and slippery, I pressed into her like
so much microwaved Cool Whip. I pronged her as carefully as I
could, my finger up and into her jeans as far as I could put it. My
lips brushed against hers and they trembled slightly.
But I knew this wasn't enough. I withdrew the offending
finger, bent it as much as I could, the tight denim catching around
my flesh just below the second joint, that bulky ring on the
adjacent finger getting in the way, and I rubbed the tip, fingernail
and all, in a valiant attempt to find THE CLITORIS.
The free fingers of her hand were kneading my shoulder
and back. Her eyelids opened imperceptibly, those dark brown
orbs now completely black between slightly parted lids. She
panted straight into my mouth, closed her eyes again and pressed
her face into mine, firmly mashing my lips with hers.
Pulsing, pulsing, the blood was not making an easy way
into my crooked middle digit, and I found my mark -- at least, I could
only assume that's what it was. Our noses touched, we shuffed
sharply down each other's throats, our chests slammed forcefully
together, our legs a tangled mess somewhere down there where I
couldn't see. The flesh right below my fingernail, thrubbing, over
and over against this tiny knot, no, not tiny, it was actually quite
large, it stood out proudly amidst the squishy skin and matted, moist
hair. If I had ever before satisfied a g-spot, now was the time to
remember exactly how it was done.
Not too hard, not too soft, maybe she liked it hard? Maria
had always been very picky about how I satisfied her. Maria was
really the only person I did things like this to for the past four or
five years. Funny I should think of Maria now. I thought of Maria
sucking off her manager at work in a van not very different from
this one and pressed on.
I kept up the pressure, the pain in my finger increasing
exponentially as it seemed to take on a life of its own, separate
from my hand except for the pain it supplied. My hand was baking
between her legs, she rocked in her seat and I tried to suspend the
finger in mid-air, just above her tender, tender fleshy bit, gently but
firmly and continually rolling it back and forth, slipping and sliding,
and her head bent back, her breathing never changing, and I
looked up at the seat back, had Ryan looked back here, and Jesus
GOD I am going to have to quit soon Jesus FUCK this hurts, and
still I went on, rolling and rubbing that thing, it was as big as a
house, it couldn't fit in the van, and my hand was screaming --
-- and she leaned her head forward, huffing silently, laid a
hand aside my face (hers glowing with perspiration) and pressed
her forehead to mine. I slowed my pace, withdrew from my
Chinese finger trap and laid my crippled hand delicately on her thigh.
"Heh-mmm," I cleared my throat slightly, and kissed her again.
She parted her eyelids. The eyes were brown. She smiled.
"Heh," I said.
"Hmmmm," she said, an open mouthed smile, displaying the dirty
dental work.
"Ah," I said, "did you, uh...you know."
"Mm-hm," she said, nodding slightly.
"Lucky you," I said.
"Mm-HM," she said.
"I wasn't sure I found it," I said.
"Do you think anyone heard?" she asked.
"Do you care?"
"No," she said. "Do you?"
"No," I said, without a moment's hesitaion.
"Hm," she said.
"I think," I said, "I can finally go to sleep."
"Yeah," she said, like a happy eight year-old.
The sun was rising behind us as we cuddled close together.
In a few hours we would be in Chicago, on a Sunday morning,
with everywhere to go and nothing to do.
"Hey," I said, reaching between my legs.
"What?" she whispered.
"I think I came."
She smiled her devilish smile and pulled me tight.
"Then we're both lucky."
--
Kael's Diary: June, 1994 "Closer" part two
Deep spring 1994, pushing into summer, I was in the prime of my
life and always looking back.
Just the month before Maria and I had gone to see Nine Inch Nails
at the Agora. It was a sold out show, teeming with youngsters, the
temperature rose swiftly as the two opening acts inspired a few people to
begin shoving each other down in the pit, a couple of combat-booted boys
were hurled into the air, set adrift on the hands of a few dozen hard-core
moshers. Those kinds of people will dance to anything.
But when Trent and the Nails hit the stage, the place went ballistic.
It was dark, dank and noisy, the sounds and smells of rusting machinery
flared in my senses. Maria's not too tall, and crowds seem to frighten her.
I saw the pit writhe and sway, huge young men, scrawny guys, a few pit
chicks, the entire mass of bodies would lurch and stop, jump and melt --
sometimes it was more interesting than what was going on on stage.
I had to get in it. I apologized to Maria and made my way through.
It wasn't hard. All of a sudden I was amongst them and Trent, great
haystack of black hair in girlie tight leather shorts, he was right in
front of me, spitting out lyrics and recklessly abusing his keyboard. I
was shoved and I shoved, and I leapt and helped people up on top of the
crowd.
The moshers hold a great secret in their heads and hearts. The
rest of the world, certainly the older generation (those fifty,
sixty, or, in Cleveland, seventy year-olds who write rock
criticism definitely) can't understand what the hell we think we're
doing. It looks like a big brawl -- what kind of maniac would risk
having their neck broken in that way? It looks dangerous as shit. But
if you haven't been in it, you just don't understand what it's all about.
It's sex.
Moshing is like sex, only on a grander scale and you have to keep
your dick in your pants. It's hot and sweaty, you push and pull and it
reeks of bodily fluids, and hands come at you from every direction and
touch you and touch you and touch you. BUT it is perfectly safe. If you
stumble and fall, there are twenty hands reaching for you to pick you back
up. No one is throwing punches, no one gets the distance to get a good
running shove at you, break your back, no one is kicking or biting, you are
just swaying back and forth in a delirious, loud, cacophonic herd of
confused and stampeding young skin.
"(Help me) Tear down my reason
(Help me) It's your sex I can smell
(Help me) You make me perfect
Help me become somebody else"
For a shining moment I was transformed into what I had once
been, or what I had always wanted. Kael, the anorexic young angel,
thrashing and pulsing in an apoplectic fit, everyone around me, all those
people on all sides, all my comrades, friends and lovers. I saw a woman
to my right and behind call "oh fuck" as she dropped her pack of Virginia
Slims. I threw out an arm to force one guy lurching backwards out of the
way. Noticing this gesture she briskly crept down and scooped up her
prize. Adoringly she put a hand on my shoulder and screamed softly into
my ear:
"I love you for that."
***
Chicago. Kind of like Cleveland, only much, much bigger and
infinitely more interesting. I love my hometown, but I sometimes dream of
the day I just pack up and sell everything to move to Chicago. New York
is too big, and L.A. too foreign, but Chicago still has the midwestern soul I
was born and bred with but, my god, just open the yellow pages and look
under "theater".
Every single weekend the place is alive with art, big houses, small
houses, you can shell out thirty bucks and see the latest offering at the
Steppenwolf, directed by John Malkovich no less, or maybe just seven or
ten to sit in a shithole and have people my own age, just like me, ripping
their own clothes off and spewing pointless obscenities. It's all there,
this great gumbo of ideas, opinions and experiences.
In Cleveland it's the one: Big Play House, two: the Established
Alternative Theater and three: us, a pathetic little comedy troupe in a
seedy part of town. And you never get to hear about number three.
Our caravan sped into Chicago through the dawn's early light, and
shortly after six-thirty (central time) we were entering the apartment of two
friends Satch and I knew from the U of O.
"Martin, you great stud muffin," I said, dropping my duffel to give
him a hug.
"Hey," Martin said, "bark for the ladies."
"Wurf!"
Introductions were made all around and we dumped our stuff just
anywhere, five guests in an apartment made for two. I loved these guys,
Martin and Wilson, and it amused me how they managed to live in squalid
splendor as though it were still 1989 or something, off campus,
homemade bookshelves crammed with mix tapes and theater books,
Rolling Stones and Spins laying about anywhere, a few haphazardly
framed rock posters, Crowded House, Elvis Costello...
...God, I must stop sub-referencing to pop stars, who am I anyway,
Brett Easton Fucking Ellis? "The Eagles 'Hotel California' was on the
stereo (you, the reader, supply whatever this means to you and save me
the trouble of bothering to describe what mood I'm trying to set.)" Jesus,
buy the man a god damn thesaurus...
***
The morning and early afternoon was spent wandering around
lazily in the giant familiar neighborhood that is Chicago. We didn't use
our van much, just parked it and walked everywhere we needed to go.
Both Martin and Wilson (who had been a roommate of mine at school)
worked during the day and so we five travelers had a lot of time to kill
until the evening. We could have just stayed at their apartment and caught a
few well deserved hours of sack time, but everyone agreed that could be
taken care of once we got back to Cleveland.
As the morning hours ticked by we would pick a place that had just
opened and stay there until somewhere else did. It was Sunday after all,
the cafe was open all night, the bookstore opened at nine, the health food
store next to it at ten, the mall around the corner at eleven, and so on.
That place has got some of the coolest second hand stores in the
world. There's this huge Army-Navy place which sells a variety of hand
me downs, new clothes, Doc Martens, and, of course, Army clothes. I
found a black vest, which was like this black Army issue jacket with its
sleeves cut off. I modeled it for Satch and he gave me an approving
shrug. And I found this groovy rainbow brocade thing which was meant
as a belt.
I put them on. A black vest. Like the one I had at school, only
better. It fit better. The old one was this suede thing, it was from the
seventies and was made for a woman, so it flared out at the hips. I suited
me well during my androgynous phase back in 1987, but I couldn't pull
that off anymore. I looked too old, it would have been foolish. Maria looks
great in it. But this new thing -- I looked bad. I mean Iggy Pop bad,
straight up and down, black over a white T-shirt. I discarded the beat up
army belt and knotted the rainbow strip over my slim hips and bubble butt.
Looking at myself in the mirror. Putrid, stringy, unwashed, sun
bleached hair, visibly vanishing on top. Huge dark sunglasses resting on
my proud, long schnozz. That weak chin showing the first day of fine
bristles. New vest, black. Cut off pants, hippy dippy belt, hairy calves,
beat-up Chuck Taylors, black, "1988" written in ball point on the side,
sneaks that made it up and down the Santa Monica mountains every
single morning for the two months I was in L.A., they had been tossed in
a box and left there for almost three years.
I felt like the old man in "Death in Venice". This was a put on --
valiantly trying to look the part of some macho grunge monster for my
Tadzu, the little boy who had caught my fancy. She and Ryan were off
somewhere buying groceries so Martin could make us pasta, and here I
was, having my face painted, rubbing rouge in my cheeks, a pretense of
youth.
Would I die of a broken heart, too? We had spent every moment
since the van ride just being our usual selves -- the insults were
noticeably absent, which was a sign of something, it seemed. Was that
our moment? I had to believe it was.
I'm a grown man. I am Kael Goodman. I don't need this shit.
But I bought the clothes anyway.
***
Back at the apartment now, early evening. Jackie sat out on the
porch, smoking, and Gail rested in Wilson's room. Satch sat on the couch,
close his eyes and stopped moving. Martin, Ryan and I sat around in
their weeny living slash tee vee room and talked.
"So what do you know?" Martin asked me. "Any news?"
"News?" I said. "Come on, Martin, everyone we know lives here."
"That's true," Martin said. "Thad doesn't."
"Oh, Thad," I said, intentionally looking thin-lipped. "No he's not
living anywhere anymore."
"No?"
"No," I said. "Sad. Caught a disease no one even heard of."
"What?" Martin said, rocking forward on his hands, and giving me
a big laugh. It doesn't take much to make Martin laugh, I give him my
cheap stuff.
"Either that or he's in jail."
"Ha ha," he said. "Heard from Alex?"
"All I know about Alex is that she's happily married and lives in
Alaska, I talked to her, I dunno, a year ago?"
"But she was doing okay."
"Oh sure," I said, "I'm very happy for her, it's the life she
wanted." And to Ryan I added, "Alex and me used to be a thing."
"They were a big thing," Martin added.
"Big big thing," I said, "way back in 1988."
"Wow," Ryan said, "and I was in fifth grade."
"Of course you were," I said, and to Martin I added, "he's the child
one in our little theater group."
"Oh yeah?" Martin said, "And how is that going?"
"Don't ask," I said, hanging my head. "I am just so glad to be here.
Away from Cleveland, away from the theater, away from home..."
"Yeah," Ryan cackled, "you sure were consoling yourself in
Jackie's bosom last night, you didn't seem to miss your wife at all."
I raised my head slowly to look at him, my face steely placid,
eyebrows raised. A countenance more in anger than in sorrow.
Twin smears of bloody red ran through both my cheeks. I looked
to Martin. He just raised his eyebrows in return and looked back at me.
"Heh heh heh," Ryan said.
"I don't know what to say," I said carefully.
"Well, you could say --" Ryan started, with a childish smile on his
face.
"No," I stopped him thoughtfully, and with a raising of my hand,
"right now I'd rather not say anything."
"Did I say something wrong?" Ryan asked, chuckling.
"How would you know," I said, sternly and evenly, "you don't even
know what you said." I turned back to Martin. "Now what were we talking
about?"
Martin and I carried on our conversation.
***
There is a certain kind of person that doesn't take to being insulted
very well. Maybe no one should. Most people deliver insults out of a
need to feel superior to whomever they are insulting, or perhaps who they
are making fun of isn't really a concern, it's just a need to look clever for
the enjoyment of everyone, and the self-confidence and self-esteem of the
joker. This could certainly be my case. I love being witty. People love me
being witty. I am the life of any party.
I never intended to seriously hurt Ryan's feelings, but somewhere I
did. Whether or not he took my rejoinders about his confusing sexual
preference or his age to heart, or whether he wanted to come off as
charming and eloquent to everyone (to Jackie?) as I did, doesn't matter.
When people choose to play these games, however, and they
begin losing, sometimes it is necessary to really dig in the dirt to find
anything that will stick.
I could make fun of Ryan's toilet habits, and he would be very hurt.
You can't make fun of the size of my penis and expect me to be affected at
all. And so you have to dig a little deeper.
Let's think about this as we go through the day. Do we want Ryan
telling everyone about what happened in the back of the van. No, that
might be hard to explain. Does anyone have the right to know? Do I feel I
need to explain my actions? No. I just needed to find the right time to pull
that little shit aside and tell him a thing or two about tact.
***
Jackie slipped on this eentsy, shocking blue, pinstriped, polyester
blazer she had found at one of the dozens of second hand shops we'd
been to that day. It fit her perfectly.
"Zounds, that looks sharp on you," I said.
"Thanks."
Our bizarre love triangle was sitting out on the porch, squatting on
dirty, broken, overstuffed chairs (my NaugaThrone? Martin did live on the
Boys' Side, this is too weird) or straddling the railing, overlooking
apartment tops and a rather non-descript alley -- except for the fact that
it was a Chicago alley.
I was decked out in KleinWear. Ryan, who worked at one took
advantage of his position.
"That vest doesn't go with that shirt at all," he said.
"Ha ha."
"What did you do," he said, "buy the whole display?"
"Yes," I said, leaning back in the cracked and filthy Naugahyde
Seat of Judgment, "I have more money than you could dream or imagine.
I can do things like that."
"I could have gotten that for half price."
"The point is I don't have to."
"What size is that vest," he asked, disapprovingly.
"Extra Large."
"It's too big."
"It suits me, Jackie say something I'm getting tired of this."
"You two didn't seem that tired last night," Ryan said.
"Huh," Jackie said, smirking and smoking a little more.
"Now, I'm glad you brought that up," I said, leaning forward in the
Chair of Fifty Dead Naugas. "I don't really appreciate you saying things
about my personal life in front of my friends."
"Oh?" he said, his face starting to turn and sitting up rigidly.
"No," I said, with a level form of intensity, my voice never raising,
"you just met Martin, he's a friend of mine, and he's a friend of Maria's,
and what happens between me and Jackie is between me and Jackie,
and when I get home it will be between me and Maria. You don't enter
into it."
"Oh?" he asked again, maintaining an impressive level of dignity.
"Yes," I pressed on, "I apologize if I or anyone else have been
making you the butt of our pathetic little jokes all day, but there are
some things you just don't say. You embarrassed me, and I don't think you
considered Jackie's feelings, either."
Ryan's gaze shot nervously over to Jackie, who just sat there and
shrugged.
"We're spending a few more days together," I said, nearing the
home stretch, "I want them to be pleasant. I will cut back if you will."
"Okay," he said.
"Okay," I said, and let out a huge breath. "Now, who knows what
we're going to see tonight?"
***
We saw "Lepers" at the Strawdog Theatre. I was completely
stunned. Our last excursion to Chicago included a viewing of "Cannibal
Cheerleaders on Crack" which is one of those ridiculously (some might
say deliciously) horrible plays held in claustrophobic and poorly lit
spaces featuring a variety of vulgar and horrifying situations and I
believe the most bodily fluids ever to come together in one show.
The only thing they didn't spray at the crowd was menstrual blood.
Thank heaven for small favors.
The blurb for "Lepers" warned of nudity and adult situations, and I
feared the same kind of attempted assault on the senses -- cutting edge
these days requires a parade of oddly shaped people screaming at each
other, on-stage, naked. No point, no talent, just pubic hair and breasts,
flopping about and calling itself art. But the write-ups were good, and the
price was even better, and the Strawdog has a very good reputation
(Wilson had done a show there).
It was brilliant. An intimate, well-maintained house (eighty seats
perhaps?) a six member cast (three of each) and the first brief segments of
the show featured, scene by scene, each initial pairing of couples in bed,
and highlighting for all of us in witness their sexual hang-ups in detail.
The performances were honest and the writing was realistic but carefully
stylized -- repetition of catch phrases ("Is it me?" a man's line, meant to
get some kind of personal validation just after "failing to perform" as
they say, and one uniquely pathetic expression of impotent hopefulness; "I
can do it now! I'm hard, well...firm.") and one particularly hysterical
scene involving the most narcissistic man in the world, under a sheet, by
himself, talking, bragging, urging himself through what must have been the
single most protracted and enjoyable masturbation in recorded time.
They were all completely nude (as opposed to "nude", which
means the same thing) lying beneath and slipping out from under one
sheet, but they were not self-conscious at all, the way most nude
performances can be ("Hey, I'm nude now! This is the nude bit you read
about in 'The Reader'!") and we all became very familiar very soon with
every small mole, interesting tattoo, width of nipples, those who were
circumcised and who weren't, and soon enough we didn't care. They
were supposed to be in bed, fucking, or at least trying to, wouldn't it seem
silly if one guy hopped out of the sack and was in his boxers?
And, a few scenes in, when they all sat around for a dinner party,
fully clothed, acting like normal, nervous people at a dinner party, that's
when the show really started to take shape.
We've seen you naked! We've seen your stretch marks and we
know exactly how big your dick is! We know your hang ups, whether or
not you're getting any, your sub-text is dead, we know who are you are
and what you think!
It was genius. It was painful and it was beautiful. It was angry and
fast and funny and said more about the modern state of human
relationships and sexuality than any show I'd seen since "Cloud 9", and
that was a long, long, jaded time ago. It was the kind of show where
Maria, had she been there, would have leaned over, dug her fingers into
my knee, and said, "I must fuck you, very soon". Jackie was sitting next to
me, her legs crossed, leaning a little towards me. I wanted very much to
reach over and touch her hand. I think I dug my fingers into her knee at
one point, I don't know.
***
Going to sleep time. We had all looked forward to it for so long.
Some of us managed to doze for a few precious minutes during the day,
but we were all pretty sacked.
"Well," Satch said, "this couch folds out and then there's that other
couch..."
We were all taking our turns going into the bathroom, scrubbing
our teeth and cleaning our faces, getting into our sweats or whatever it
was we slept in.
Wilson was spending yet another night over at his girlfriend's.
We'd seen him for a total of thirty minutes that day. I stood in his room,
just off the tee vee room with the folding couches, changing into my sleep
clothes.
"I'm in here," I said, "I asked Wilson, and he said it was okay."
Satch gave me the glassy stare of premature death. Wilson had this
really sweet futon, big enough for two. I couldn't tell if he was jealous
that I had dibbed it, or because he knew what I was up to.
"It's big enough for two," I said, suggesting that I'd sleep with
anyone else there. I looked at Ryan and smiled.
"I guess I'll sleep with you, Kael," Jackie said, arriving from the
bathroom neatly scoured, her hair sticking straight up in tufts. She sported
a tattered brown sweat suit and a look of sheer exhaustion. She
announced her intent to lie down with me as though she had only just
thought of it, and like she was doing everyone a big favor.
"Cool-ee cool," I said.
We all lay down to sleep, the door between Wilson's room and the
tee vee room remained wide open, and all the lights were put out.
Jokes were made, but not very many, we were all too spent to
have one of those slumber party kind of pillow talk sessions. I rolled over,
next to Jackie, and gave her a light kiss on the cheek. She nuzzled her
face to mine, and lay onto her back.
One by one the few comments there were dropped away, and the
buzz of adult snoring started to kick in. I drifted in and out of
consciousness for a few moments, trying to be relaxed after a day of
consuming a way dangerous amount of caffeine. I rolled over to Jackie,
half asleep now, and lay a hand upon her face. I turned it to mine to give
her a little kiss. It was instinctive, I would have done it for anyone in my
bed. I wanted a hug before sleeping.
She threw an arm around me and began sucking violently at my
mouth. One slender leg was cast about my waist and she hoisted herself
up on top of me. I was thrust flat on my back, we were kissing frantically,
my hands went up and down her back, inside her shirt, pulling down at
her flesh, pulling up on her small behind, massaging and tugging as she
rested all of her weight on her knees, digging into the mattress on either
side of my thighs and she roughly stroked her crotch against my rapidly
elongating penis.
Our kisses were becoming more violent, and she continued to
massage my dick, up and back her pants against mine, dry-humping like
some teenager, I pulled my fingers into her spine and dragged my nails
up her back, pressing them firmly into her neck as I ran my tongue about
the edge of her chin, suckling on and licking her filthy little ears.
She continued to slam away at my dick through those thin cotton
pants, and I was rocking, too, although every additional wave made my
penis more sore and tenderized, the fabric of my underwear biting at its
pained, aroused underside.
"Hah-hah-hah," I panted into her ear, "don't you think we better
close the door?" She leaned over and scrumbled off the bed and swung
the aforementioned door closed. She scrabbled right back on top of me,
sliding into position, ground her exponentially sticky and blazing groin into
mine and squeezed my head in her hands. We continued to pull and tug
at each other's lips.
She reached down with one hand and in less than a moment her
sweat pants had gone. Her naked and twisting vagina dragged fiercely at
my swollen and tormented penis. Hands reached for the elastic in my
sleepypants.
"Wha-wait, ha!" I whispered, "we can't."
"Hmn?" she asked, smiling this demonic smile. "No?"
"Hah, mmn, I wasn't prepared for this."
I gathered her behind in my hands and ran my nails along the tops
of her thighs.
Grind, grind, grind, FUCK, I must be bleeding.
She breathed sharply into my mouth. "We could go someplace
and get them."
"Jackie!" I laughed. "It's two in the morning. We're in CHICAGO."
"There's a Seven-Eleven across the street."
"Ha!" She was right. There was. "Oh my god, you're serious
aren't you?"
She shrugged slightly and continued to shift her hips up and back.
I kissed her slowly in an attempt to calm her down. She bit her sex even
deeper into mine.
"Okay!" I grunted. She smiled and hopped off of me to get her
pants on. "You're fucking nuts, you know that?"
"Whatever."
***
We skulked out of the apartment. Walking through the tee vee
room I could only imagine what all of our friends were thinking. Were they
asleep? Had we been keeping them awake, and they only pretended to
be asleep because they couldn't imagine asking us to shut up?
One bottle of orange juice (mine), one half pint of Ben & Jerry's
Chocolate Chunk Fest (hers) and a three-pack of Trojans (ours).
We settled back onto Wilson's futon and calmly and maturely
began to strip each other's clothes off.
***
"Mnnnnnnnnnnn," I breathed, smiling. Flat on my back on that
strange black futon, the light a half dozen alley lamps cast a pale, cold
glow over the room. I stared dopily up at the ceiling, at the slowly rotating
fan. A light cool breeze came through a crack in the window. My
moderately hairy chest (hair, the great concealer, masking years of
adolescent acne scarring, bumps and craters once glowing red now
colorless and hidden) heaving warmly, a small pale goblin crouched over
my penis, kneeling, small breasts dangling only inches above her own
knees, playful and knowledgeable fingers delicately and firmly pressing
into and massaging my testicles and that bubble gum smile, those horrid
teeth carefully pulling at my cock, her tongue a tunted dolphin rolling
about me, all of my pain and soreness a memory.
Dirty blonde hair, a ball of incandescence, right over it, then
ducking down as her thumb rose up to pad purposefully into just the right
spot, below the hole, her mouth, like some prehistoric sea creature, licking
and sliding around my balls.
It was bliss. It was so good and such a relief after months of
professional embarrassment, marital ennui and, most of all, a nagging
desire to be right here, with her. She lifted her head up and smiled,
reaching for the paper bag.
"Uh-oh," I said.
"What?"
"Nothing."
She unwrapped one and approached my dick. Just as latex hit
skin I began to, oh how can we say, lose that lovin' feeling?
"Ppppth," I sputtered, "put that away and come up here."
She looked down at my thingee and looked up at me, with a
certain degree of awareness and amusement. She put the rubber over on
the bag on the windowsill, next to the unopened juice and ice cream. Her
body stretched out along mine, resting folded hands on my chest and her
head on her hands. So cute, her eyes, marbles of pure cobalt shining
brightly through two narrow openings, grinning with happy front teeth.
"Ahem," I began, "I have what you might call opening night jitters."
"Mm-hm," she said.
"I try not to let it bother me," I said, "I hope it doesn't bother
you."
"Mm-mm," she said.
"And I won't bother asking 'is it me' because it is me, I don't have a
problem with that."
"Mm-hm," she said.
"I mean, I do have a problem with that, but what can I do."
She shrugged.
"Did you want some ice cream?" she asked, sitting up a little.
"Not yet," I said, and considerately flipped her onto her back. I
slid down her body, kissing her navel along the way. Sprig of filthy
blonde hair, not as dark as her natural color (huh, funny) and she spread
her legs wide, very wide, gymnast wide, eat me wide, open. She rested her
head and closed her eyes.
Planted on my elbows I drew both thumbs up the length of her
vagina. So wet, so soft, so pungent. I drew them down again, and back
up, one dawdled on the apex, finding the spot I had managed to discover
with no small degree of difficulty the night before (the morning before?)
and here it was in front of me where I could see it.
It was as large as I had imagined. She was harder than I was. A
tiny finger sticking straight up. I flicked it lightly and repeatedly with my
outstretched tongue and she moaned appreciatively. Thumbs kept
massaging the length of her lips as I batted that little appendage with my
tongue and, every odd moment I would place my whole mouth over it. It
was like a blow job, it so big and available -- all women should have them
like this, we'd never miss it.
***
"Want some of this?"
"Jackie, I'm drinking orange juice."
I leaned against the wall and she sat on one of the pillows.
"That was okay, right," I asked.
"Oh yeah," she said.
"I mean, who else on this trip can say they been brought to orgasm
at least once every night."
"I'm a lucky, lucky, lucky girl."
Another swallow of o.j. "I'm sorry about earlier. That scene with
Ryan."
"Yeah," she said, "that really upset him."
"Well, I don't care, I don't need him spreading shit about me or you
or Maria in front of my friends."
"You sure you don't want any of this?" She offered me a big
plastic spoonful. "It's good."
Big sigh. "Okay." Big bite. "Ew."
"I think it's delicious," she lisped, like a child with a missing
tooth.
--
Kael's Diary: June, 1994 "Closer" part three
"Hi, come on in."
I was freshly shaved and showered, a clean pair of jeans, nice
casual print T-shirt and a nifty vest with little Snoopys all over it. Her
Boss and His Wife had just entered the Goodman homestead. It was a
few Saturdays earlier and we were having them for dinner.
Why not? The day before Maria had Him for lunch.
I had been dreading this evening ever since Maria suggested
it. Sure, why not, supper with the dork twins, it'll be fun. Of course, I
was hardly being fair, and I kept it all to myself anyway. I had only just
met them at that housewarming party we'd had, showing off our lovely
new home to my friends and her co-workers. My time with my good
good good friends who I barely saw any more was precious, so after a
perfunctory little chat I went downstairs to play cards with people I
really care about.
He, actually taller than I am, and with about seven years on
me, a thick head of hair (the bastard) parted neatly like some fucking
six year-old in line for some snapshots at K Mart. Or a Young
Republican. A weak chin, prominent front teeth and a goofy smile.
Guys like this always have long, hard dicks. Great muscular
penises. I think it's from lack of use (yeah, of course I'd think that) and
they comically inflate at the worst times.
We shook hands. It was like groping gazpacho.
She, gawky and short, skinny and freckled and wild eyed like
she was on the verge of a complete nervous collapse. I knew the
minute she stepped in the door she would not be able to stop talking.
But I was primed and ready. Shame it was a show night or I would
have gotten half-tanked, but oh well.
"It's good to see you again," He said.
"Yes," I said, "welcome, Maria will be down in a moment."
"I'm so excited about seeing your show tonight," She said, "I
was really looking forward to seeing it last week but I know you had to
cancel it."
"Lack of ticket sales."
"Yes, I heard," She continued, "but we've just been talking
about it all week and I've just heard so much it really sounds
interesting and I think we're going to have a wonderful time."
"Can I take your jacket?"
"Of course. Dear, hold this for me, oh MY this place looks so
much nicer when it's not full of people, that's a very nice picture, was
that there before? I didn't notice it during the party."
"Yes."
"It's very nice."
"It is," I said, "it is very nice, thank you."
I think our spouses are fucking each other.
"Can I get you both something to drink?" I asked, and led them
into our kitchen.
"Oh, the kitchen," She said, "I love their kitchen."
"It's nice," I said, opening the fridge.
Later we sat around a table eating an excellent vegetarian
meal which Maria and I spent all day preparing. Actually, she
prepared it, I cleaned the house. I clean better than Maria does, and
she cooks better than me. That's why we got married.
"That's a nice van you have parked out there," I said.
"Yes," He said, "it runs like a dream."
Of course it does.
"I used to have a van, you know," I said.
"It was stolen," Maria said.
"Oh that's terrible," She said.
"Broke my heart," I said, "I have a new car now, one that I don't
care about."
"Yes," He said, "I saw it outside, the Honda."
"I never want to care so much about an inorganic thing again in
my life." I said, adding, "except Maria."
"That's sweet," She said.
You don't have a clue, do you?
"I had to have the clutch replaced a few days ago," I said.
"Ah right," He said, nodding his head with understanding, "you
shift too soon."
I stared at him with wide-eyed amusement. I looked to Maria.
"Been telling tales out of school, darling?" I said. Everyone at
the table laughed. "Any more of my little quirks you been sharing with
the boys?"
"Oh, Kael," Maria said.
I looked at Him. "I feel so violated. You ever have that feeling?"
"No," He said, looking down at his place and humorously shaking his head.
"Well," I said, removing the napkin from my lap and setting it on
the table, "that was delicious."
"Yes," She said, "you did a very nice job with this. I can't take
the time to cook as well as this, not with the children running around
and all, I'm always having to make something quick and dirty --"
"-- Speaking of which," I said, cutting her off, "I apologize, but I
need to grab a quick and dirty nap before tonight's show, I hope you
don't think I'm awful."
Even if I know you all are.
"No," came the general response, and I slumphed upstairs to
rest my eyes for fifteen minutes, in some kind of attempt to calm my
fractured nerves.
***
"Where are you goin'?"
Mid-afternoon, Monday, Chicago. The second day malaise of
most two-day road trips had settled in like an unwanted house guest
(or, hell, let's say two unwanted house guests) and it was time to make
sure I did everything I had promised.
"Well, Jackie, if you must know, I am going with Satch and Gail
to that mall that was closed yesterday and I'm gonna find a little
present for Maria."
"Bring me back something," she said, and hopped out onto the
porch to have another cigarette.
***
There's this mall, I can't remember the name, but the layout
inside is like the Guggenheim Museum in New York -- the walkway
spirals up and up, so saying that it has seven floors isn't quite accurate
because as long as you keep walking straight ahead, you eventually
pass through all seven of them.
A store called simply "Metals". I found some cute, handmade
earrings, pure silver, flattened hoop with three tiny bars of onyx
hanging from it, with other bits of silver and crystal, bent and curvy,
delicate craftsmanship. A very attractive and sensible piece of jewelry.
Maria can wear them to work with practically anything, and they also
wouldn't look out of place dancing topless around a pagan fire. She
will just love them.
...and an ankh. A couple of them, dangling from a display. You
can't walk down Main Street, USA without seeing them for sale, but
they still struck me.
A symbol for our generation. Eternity, but also an acceptance
of death (the "Death" character in DC's Sandman comics always
sports an ankh) permission to live recklessly and to not squander any
moment. Not the "X" Generation, the "Ankh" Generation.
Malekha, with whom I had a very brief, intimate moment back
in 1991 always wore an ankh, recently she had one tattooed on her
back. The kind of woman who would wear an ankh. Ankh. Ankh,
ankh, ankh. My keyboard just likes it when I type the word 'ankh' (oh,
and now I suppose I am Tom Robbins). One in particular, it was a few
inches long and it was flattened silver. A little gaudy? Yes.
A pair of earrings, then, and one gaudy ankh. I kept my promises.
***
Second night in Chicago. The last night. We had seen a
production called "I'm Sweating Under My Breasts" at Cafe Voltaire.
Eight original monologues about being a woman in this modern world.
The performance space reminded me of those old films of The Beatles
playing at "The Cavern". It was just a long, low ceilinged,
subterranean tunnel with a Persian Carpet to mark off the small
playing area and rows and rows of second hand chairs and sofas.
Jackie and I sat in front on some cushions.
"Liking the show?" I asked at intermission.
"Some of it," Jackie said. "I'm real sleepy, though."
We had all dressed up again. I was wearing a different, cute,
striped shirt and my new black vest I'd gotten at the Army-Navy store.
She was wearing the same ensemble as the night before, groovy
patterned shirt, bright blue blazer, and a new addition hanging around
her neck.
"I like your necklace," I said. "It's nice and tacky."
She gave me a big dimpled smile. "Thanks. It was a present."
"Sleep with me tonight?"
She gave me an bemused look. "Mm, okay."
***
Jackie and I tried in vain to find to find a disco open in Chicago,
in our neighborhood, on a Monday night, but it was a lost cause.
Every place we stepped into didn't have a dance floor, and every
place those places recommended we look appeared to have been
raided the previous week.
We went back to Martin and Wilson's place to find everyone
watching "Duckman", but even that lost its appeal after twenty minutes
and everyone hunkered off to bed.
It was cold that night. It had been cold outside, and the warm
early June breeze that came through Wilson's bedroom window the
night before had turned unseasonably bitter. Jackie and I lay side by
side and kissed a few times.
"Want to fool around?" I whispered.
"Uh-huh," she said, looking up at me.
"Okay," I said, "we'll wait until everyone falls asleep."
"Okay."
Everyone fell asleep.
***
I woke to dawn's early light.
Fuck.
I looked at the clock. It was shortly after four in the morning.
Well, heck, we'd only been snoozing for two hours at this point, no one
was planning on getting up until seven anyway. We could still fit it in,
and this time I was ready.
I leaned over and peered at Jackie. Completely sacked. Her
cheeks were bunched up like baby dough on one side, her lip
smacker lips parted, front teeth puckered out and snoring. So cute.
So adorable, I could cry.
Could I be so hard up? Despite my own clever comments
proving to her what a big man I was and how I wouldn't let something
as trivial as a limp dick hurt my pride...well, it's all a big act,
isn't it? I had something to prove. Something base and infantile.
Truth? I was in love. This woman had really done something
to me -- or was it her? Maybe it was just the time or the locale, or
perhaps the distance. Sure I'd kissed her before, but after I always
went home. What do you do when you make love to someone and
when you wake up, they're still there? You can't get away. You have
to continue loving them until, all of a sudden, it's too late, bang,
you've been duped, you thought you were acting again, but some part
of the charade became real.
Big snore.
Go back to sleep, little man. You're in way over your head
here, your holiday is over, and tomorrow you gotta go back home.
***
Parting was awkward. The trip home, unlike the one there,
was made in broad daylight and most of us spent the time
concentrating on different responsibilities we would have for that
night's rehearsal at eight o'clock.
We arrived back at the theater (where all of our cars were
parked) at around three in the afternoon, and I still had the van to
return. I said "see you in a few hours" to Jackie as she got into her
shitty little cherry red Ford Festiva but it was more like "good-bye".
We kissed once more before she sped off and somehow I knew it would be
the last kiss for a very long time. I felt cold and alone,
like there was some organ I was missing, some gaping hole that, for a
short time, this little monster had managed to fill.
I look over the pages of this diary, my workbook containing my
most secret and horrifying thoughts, Christ, if my friends ever got hold
of this book, well I would certainly be fucked, wouldn't I? These pages
covered in loose, sloppy handwriting, chronicling the parade of half-
finished relationships which make up my life, over a decade of dismal
failures and shallow victories. Becky, Fran, Michelle, Barbara, Sarah,
Alex, Betts, Maria, Malekha, Aggie, Ariel, now Jackie, to name a
handful. I keep trying to find a pattern, if I could just step back and see
the picture from all sides, maybe I can figure what went wrong. All I
can see from here is a man who spent his entire life struggling to be
loved and desired. It's just a little pathetic, you know?
Put down the book. Set it aside, hide it up in the attic and
come back to it in a few years, get some distance, man.
And besides, maybe a book is the wrong place to start trying to
figure it all out.
***
"Hey, honey."
"Baby, is that you?"
"Yeah," I stepped into my house, dropped my duffel, and Maria
came downstairs to give me a big hug. She felt so different from
Jackie, her back much broader, her long dark hair so thick in my
hands. My poor baby's face still bore the damage of an only recently
survived bout with acne (oh, I sympathized, boy did I sympathize) but
that was vanishing fast, and her smile was wide and bright and her
eyes even more so.
We kissed full adult kisses, reserved and adoring, less saliva,
more technique, what do you expect after five years? Her arms
wrapped around my neck and I reached in front to massage her happy
little breasts, and then down to fondle her huge behind. She smelled
so fresh and beautiful.
"How was your trip," she asked.
Big sigh. "S'was great. I'm really spanked."
I picked up my bag and marched upstairs. She followed close
behind as I began tossing things in the laundry bin in our yet to be
redecorated since we bought the house bedroom.
"Tell me everything," she said, sitting on the bed.
"First things first," I said, casually sorting smelly clothes, "what,
exactly, is going on between you and your boss?"
"I was wondering when you were gonna ask," she said, tensing
herself up, but smiling.
"I thought we didn't have to ask," I said calmly, recalling our
pledge of total disclosure.
"Wee-ll," she said, "we are fooling around."
"Fuck him yet?" I asked.
"No," she said, "just a lot of groping in stairwells and stuff like
that."
"Uh-huh," I said, sitting next to her on the bed, "well, I had a
girlfriend this weekend."
"I knew you two had a thing going."
"Oh, no, we didn't, this was a surprise."
"Was it."
"Well, whether it was or not, I think it was just this weekend," I
said. "I want to tell you I'm very depressed."
"Oh, baby," she said, and I lowered my head into her lap. She
drew her fingers through my hair.
"It's just," I started, staring up into the ceiling fan, slowly turning
around and around, "it's like, from my point of view, my life experience
is populated with all of these ghosts who fade in and out, but even
when they're gone, this trace stays behind, this spiritual residue, do
you get me or am I just talking shit?"
"Oh no," she said, purring softly.
"I need to start killing them," I said, "my every movement and
solitary thought contains the leftover fragrance of some past lover or
friend and I've forgotten myself in all of them."
"That's life, dear," she said, hunching down to kiss my
forehead. I began to weep softly.
"I'm so tired," I said. "I just don't think I can do this any more.
I..." Big sob. "I'm tired of losing myself in other people, I'm so lost, I
just don't know where I am."
She drew a hand along my cheek and smooshed the hot tears
over my face.
"I just...want to be..."
"Tsh, tsh, tsh, tsh, tsh," she whispered, "what do you want to
be?"
I thought for a long moment.
"Me," I said.
That seemed to be right. She sat tall and looked straight
ahead while I gathered my composure. Huh. I cry about once every
four years, I just don't allow myself the satisfaction. See you in 1998.
"So, uhm," she said.
"What?" I asked, sitting up, snuffling.
"Well, it's gonna seem kind of selfish." she said, playing with
the zits on the back of my neck for a moment before I took her hand
into my lap.
"Ha!" I said. "Selfish, well hell, that's you and me all over, isn't
it. What do you want?"
"Should I stop messing around with him?"
I chuckled softly to myself, and then laughed a little bit louder. I
let out a great congested guffaw and threw up my hands in
resignation.
"Whatever."
--
"Kael's Diary" is copyright 1994 Millennium Productions and is reprinted
here by permission.
Author: Kael Goodman (at745@cleveland.freenet.edu)
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Title: Kael's Diary: July, 1994
<Author's Note: this is one chapter in my on-going sexual self
examination. Theoretically each part should stand on its own and their
chronological order is irrelevant.
"Kael's Diary" is a work of fiction and the people and situations
described herein and from the imagination of its author. Any similarity
to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.>
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Kael's Diary July, 1994 "Possession"
The rain smacked angrily against the windows of my sweet little
office. Ten minutes ago it had been eighty-five degrees outside, and
with the storm it had dropped to seventy-five. In another ten minutes
the torrent would no doubt vanish as swiftly as it had come and the
temperatures would be right back up there, ninety degrees at eight in
the evening, a herald, a mild example of a world without ozone.
Me. Talking self-righteously about ozone. The neighbor's house could
be on fire for all I could tell, 'cause we had ay-see, and it was
seventy-five all the time.
Abby sat comfortably in a sturdy stuffed chair, the one in the office,
which had a purple sheet draped over it. Sitting upright, looking at
me, not slouching, but with one crossed leg slung over the arm, real
casual. Her long, dark hair pushed backwards over her head and hanging
down in wisps past her shoulders. Dark eyes, the brownest eyes that I
had...no, have I ever loved a woman who didn't have brown eyes? Well,
other than Maria, I mean? Funny. I can get so lost in brown eyes,
they're so mysterious. Maria's eyes I never get lost in. In Maria's
eyes I know right where I am.
I leaned back a bit, set in my favorite office chair, the one my
brother found in the trash when he was at school (in Clemson) and my
mother had recovered and I had claimed as my own. I had a pad of sketch
paper in my lap, a pencil in my mouth and a gum eraser in my hands,
dabbing down a mark laid down just a bit too heavily, around the nose.
Difficult nose. She had such a beautiful face, round, and well-defined
cheeks, those eyes and a nose that starts out straight and ends with
that familiar tell-tale Jewish ball. Small, but the tip is so round, it
was so hard for me to get it right without making it look like she had a
mushroom on her face. Forget the nose, get back to the mouth.
I looked with concern at my pad of paper.
"Could you smile just a little bit, please?" I said, looking up slowly.
She had gotten so relaxed her mouth was making all sorts of odd shapes,
as if she were looking past me into things that weren't there, or
playing out scenes in her head that were becoming too real. At my
request she looked right at me, then away, and smiled. A big smile, big
straight, big teeth. White. An actor's teeth, which is what they
were. Abby and me had met when she auditioned for our theater troupe
last fall. She got a better offer the day before we were about to offer
ours, which was a shame because I felt she would have brought a lot to
the company in the way of writing and performing, and, let's be honest,
because I thought she was a knock-out. She met Maria, too, at one of
our openings and they had become very good friends.
"Not so broad."
"Closed mouth?"
"Yeah."
I had been with the two of them on a dinner date or two, always weeks
apart. The big even was when they went off to Indiana to participate in
yet another "Earthfest" event. That's this big pagan festival where
everyone runs around naked and sacrifices small animals to Satan.
Okay, it isn't. But it's kind of personal and I don't want to get into
that right now.
Anyway, it was obvious to me when they returned that they were both
becoming increasingly friendly and I'm not talking Betty and Wilma.
"Um," I said, "just relax your mouth." And I went back to the pad.
Her top, a loose khaki colored number which displayed her long thin
arms and a pleasant amount of her chest, it hung about in casual folds,
I wasn't very used to drawing clothing. Maria always posed for me naked
and I just don't ever feel the urge to draw animals or things, just
people. Abby had offered to disrobe for me, she wasn't self-conscious
at all in that regard, but, I told her, I wanted her to be comfortable.
Honestly, I wanted me to be comfortable. Take your clothes off? Sure,
here, let me do it for you, I am only ridiculously attracted to you
physically and the more time we spend together not fooling around the
more I know I'm gonna fall --
"Penny for your thoughts?" she asked.
I stopped scratching my pencil against the paper for a moment and,
still looking at the pad, smiled a tight-lipped little smile.
Sigh.
I began drawing again.
"You don't want to know what I'm thinking," I said.
--
"Kael's Diary" is copyright 1994 Millennium Productions and is reprinted
here by permission.
Author: Kael Goodman (at745@cleveland.freenet.edu)
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Title: Kael's Diary: August, 1994
<Author's Note: this is one chapter in my on-going sexual self
examination. Theoretically each part should stand on its own and their
chronological order is irrelevant.
"Kael's Diary" is a work of fiction and the people and situations
described herein and from the imagination of its author. Any similarity
to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.>
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Kael's Diary, August, 1994: "Get Me", Part One
Checking my face at ten thousand feet.
I was standing in a big old jet plane, Delta flight 4844 heading
into JFK. I was nervous, my stomach was in a bunch, the captain had
informed us our arrival would be delayed TEN WHOLE MINUTES due to
holding patterns or somesuch nonsense and I was feeling like a six year
old -- ten minutes? What's that, it sounds like a really really long
time! I rationalized, like the twenty-six year-old man I was. I've
waited four weeks, I can wait ten minutes, that's nothing. Lessee, ten
minutes, remember when it was ten days? One minute for every day you
waited, think of that, that's so nothing.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK.
I looked into the mirror (the mirror looked also, ha). Every
long long blond hair in place, except for all those checking in absent
up on top of course, a little tiny red spot, barely noticeable, now,
just under the dimple on my nose. Would that turn into something
unpleasant to look at in the three days I will be in New York? What am
I, fifteen? Jesus Christ.
Clean white T-shirt, spiffy black vest, the one I got in Chicago
last June, the one I was wearing when Jo and I had our, uhm, thing in
Indiana. A month ago. Clean, pressed. Cut off shorts, not so clean.
I had polished my boots, polished them shiny, I had told her I would.
She had told me she wouldn't be wearing any underwear.
Gray eyes. Lookin' kinda sleepy. They love that, though, they
all do. I could never figure that, I always thought my eyes were kind
of bleh but women dig my eyes. Maybe it's the color, soft gray, almost
blue, but they change. Flecks of color in them, reds and yellows, when
my pupils are small there's a greenish ring around them. I practice
looking with them in the mirror, lowering my eyebrows, my dark brown
eyebrows, they are perfect, perfect arcs over my eyes, I can do anything
with them, they can be comic one moment and so angry the next, and when
I am aroused, well, then they are really something special. It's not my
eyes, it's my eyebrows, that's it.
"As you can see the Captain has turned the fasten safety belts
light on over your seat. If you haven't already done so, please return
to your seat and fasten your safety belt for our landing at JFK
International Airport."
I did.
***
We had to take a shuttle bus from the plane to the terminal. In
one door, through another, led like cattle, up some stairs -- who would
see who first -- around a corner, tromping up more stairs, my blue
backpack slung over one shoulder, my other hand gripping a large pad of
sketch paper, glasses slipping down my nose --
-- we saw each other first. I clearing the floor going up the
stairs, she walking towards the gate. A pretty, deep blue dress with
tiny white polka dots, the kind of dress grandmother would wear -- when
she was twenty-four and beautiful, that is, back then. Striding toward
the gate, an hour on the subway a little more than apparent, but happy,
such a strange smile, must have been a little like mine. A smile that
says, "I don't know what the hell I'm doing here, but shit I'm glad."
All us passengers had to clear by helpful Delta attendants
giving people on there way somewhere else an idea of how to get there.
Jo was feet away, we were just staring at each other. Clear eyes, God
she had clear eyes, and they were, yes they were brown, you people are
fans, I know. And heavy eyebrows, smiling too, brown, dirty brown,
unlike me, the hair in her eyebrows was identical to that on her head,
which was waist length and tied up in braids and around her head, again,
like grandmother would on her way to the USO or something, I wouldn't
know, I didn't live then.
I was trapped behind a guy wearing a black T-shirt which read
"All I want is the cure and all my friends back."
"Excuse me," I said, and slipped by him, straight into her arms.
She's short, her arms reached up around me and placed her delicate,
caring hands to my head, I could feel each finger slide through my hair
and she whispered "hi" and I didn't say anything as I touched my mouth
to hers and her tongue, wide and wet and lovely slid into my mouth and
pulled up hungrily against my top lip.
My hands slid around her waist, feeling every inch of that awful
polyester and indulging in the flesh beneath it. The backpack fell from
my shoulder. We were kissing obscenely and in public and god did I used
to hate that and now I just didn't care. I sucked on her fat lower lip
as people pushed by us to catch taxis and other planes. I pressed my
cheek to hers, and caught my round glasses on her oval ones (see:
grandma). We pulled away slightly to look at each other.
"Hi."
"Hi."
No more. We put our hands together and she turned me away from
there to head to the taxi stand.
"It's so good to see you," I said. She turned her head to me
and smiled, peering out over her glasses. She does that a lot, her
glasses always slide down her thin little nose, but see had never looked
at me like that before. Well, not until Indiana.
"How long were you on the train?" I asked.
"An hour," she said, "that's how long the cab should take."
"I can't believe it's you," I said.
"Yeah," she said.
The doors slid open and we were outside. She talked to a few
cab drivers and we got into one, a real New York taxi cab, headed to
Manhattan. It was very private back there, one of those old giants with
a huge, low backseat, and a pane of glass between it and the driver.
Perfect.
She leaned up to it and gave the cabby instructions, up to the
George Washington Bridge and she'd take him from there.
Back to me, slouched against my own backpack, against the driver
side back door, smiling in the bright August daylight that struck
through the rear window. She sat back in her dress and looked at me,
the corners of her small mouth turned up in a smile, exposing her two
front teeth. We each leaned in and started kissing, our mouths wide
open, her big fat tongue sweeping the roof of my mouth, I drew mine
against her gums, savoring each tooth, my hands sliding around her body,
the flesh of her back through that nasty fabric, in front to cup a hand
on one of her wonderful tits, not too big, but that's what it was, tit,
it wasn't small like Maria's --
-- hmn, let's keep comparisons to Maria out of this --
-- seeing her flesh up close, the flesh of her face, god it had
been such a long month and my imagination had been all over. Our
letters certainly left nothing to it, great long pulse thumping memoirs,
and those phone calls! We'd started out slow but by the time the date
was approaching we'd sit for two hours, either very very early in the
morning, six-thirty perhaps, as the sun was rising, or late into the
night -- once even for two hours, and sometimes we wouldn't say
anything, just listen to each other breathe. Pathetic, huh? Christ was
I in -- well, maybe I wasn't. I knew one thing, I was here, and she had
promised to keep me in her room for three days. Not her apartment, her
room. And though I had gotten to know to touch of her skin ridiculously
well in the four hours we spent rolling around in the open air and in
the dirt, I hadn't fucked her and I hadn't cared.
Would we fuck here? In this cab? She had suggested we might.
We had each suggested a lot of things. Three days. Certainly we'd get
to try them all.
The cab driver didn't say anything and by now he knew we were
interested in how the Mets were doing or whether that bum Pataki was
going to get elected. I don't think he knew much English anyhow.
I slid my clean shaven face against the soft, smooth surface of
her face, cottony smooth, and licked at her earlobe and she moaned
softly into me. My hands fell down to her lap and her legs parted for
me and I put my hands up her solid thighs, trying to keep her dress
covering her, for the sake of my modesty more than hers because I knew
she didn't care. Hot and slippery, I think she was wet before she had
even seen me, her pubic hair, never trimmed, spilling out onto the
inside of her legs, slick with herself, I lightly grazed her vagina with
my fingers and she moaned even louder, putting it right in my ear and
kissed me hard on the mouth. One finger, in and out slowly, getting my
finger, my hand, wet and smelly, and slowly massaging her clitoris,
rolling circles of flesh with my fingertips.
She spread her legs wider and I glanced down to see how much of
her was showing. Enough. She obviously didn't care and I shouldn't
have either.
We were caught in rush hour traffic heading into Manhattan --
school buses were passing on either side and children of all ages were
getting a little adult education. Jo pressed her face to mine and I
pressed my hand into her and she was moaning and humming into me and
that ball of tension, that nervousness I had carried with me from
Cleveland began opening up, that uncomfortable lump of
self-consciousness was breaking apart and dissipating, I stopped looking
around, ignored the driver, who were we? Just some consenting adults
having wild foreplay in his cab, couldn't have been the first time.
How do you describe this? How do you write this? She came, she
shuddered and came and tried not to be too loud, a nice and tidy orgasm.
How do I express this? I've had so much sex in my life, so much
meaningless sex, nothing felt special anymore. I had resigned myself to
the reality of the Sticky Tape Theory they had taught us in Youth
League.
Take a piece of sticky tape, any brand will do, and put it on
someone. Sticks pretty good, doesn't it? Now remove it and put it on
someone else. Still sticks, but not as well. Keeping doing this until
it doesn't stick at all. That's promiscuity. That's what happens when
you have sex with a lot of people, it loses its meaning, it stops being
something special, something that should only be shared with one person,
with your life mate, with a spouse. That's what they taught me in Youth
League and I never forgot it, and worse, I believed it. That's why they
told us those things.
I removed my hand, it was suddering too, I was quivering all
over and she continued the breathe hard as I drew away, her head bent
back, eyes squeezed shut and her mouth forming that small O I remembered
from Indiana.
I was here, in New York, with her, I was here, not on the phone,
this was Jo, one of Maria's best friends and I was here.
I threw my arms around her arched back and held her desperately
to me and kissed her neck and kissed her face and she drew her fingers
down my back and we put our mouths together, not a tightly sealed, neat
kiss, a big open mouthed slobbering thing, I ran my tongue along the
inside of her cheek and she began spasming again and groaning loudly at
my intrusion as I explored the deepest part of her mouth, getting my
lips inside hers, licking her up and around and I grabbed her ass and
pulled her to me and our faces parted to look at each other. Her eyes,
small and round and close together, deep brown pupils and the whites of
her eyes were the whitest I had ever seen, so clear I could cry. I
smiled a big evil smile.
"I'm glad I'm here," I said.
She smiled.
"So this is New York?" I asked.
"Yeah," she said, "a mid-afternoon traffic jam in the Big
Apple."
I hopped up, kneeling onto the seat, facing back out through the
rear window, hunkered down with my fingers gripping the leather-like
upholstery. No big city skyline for me, just more and more cars and
lots of run-down apartment projects on both sides. Perhaps this would
be the most of NYC I'd see. I sincerely hoped so.
I slipped back down into my seat and we wrestled with each other
more and she opened herself to me again and I made her come again, she
buried her face in my neck and tried to make no sound (yes, a little
modesty, just a little) and she was panting hard and I was breathing
sharply through my nose and licking the tops of her ears and we did that
all the way to her apartment. I couldn't believe when she excused
herself from my attentions to start giving the driver more specific
instructions, and which side of the street we'd want to get off on.
"We're almost there?" I asked, surprised.
"Yes," she said.
"That was an hour?"
"Yeah," she said, "it was."
"Wow."
We hopped out into the gray heathaze amid the bustle of midday
Manhattan.
"Twenty-eight dollars," the cab driver informed us, and Jo paid
him as I pulled my bag, her purse and my sketch pad from the car.
"Thank you," I said to the driver.
"It's nice, eh?" he said, turning his head, smiling back at us,
"making love?"
We laughed self-consciously as we picked up our bags.
"Shyeah," I laughed, blushing, "it sure is."
--
The author, Kael Goodman, may be contacted at:
at745@cleveland.freenet.edu
End Part 2 of 2.
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