The Cambridge Chronicles

I couldn't tell him he was eating the wrong place. His prick was in my mouth and it wouldn't come out. It was the position of his body. I tried to move him but then it became a game. He started to jostle me. Then I bit his prick. That did it. So I was able to tell him. But he did want to know why I bit him. So goes Simone's latest adventure and overnight stay with Stu. He was very antsy it seems. Simone demonstrates how he was grabbing, touching, pushing her. It was very aggressive if her impersonation was accurate. At first I was a little jealous. But as a picture of it began to form in my mind it made me horny. It was quite another story when I told her about what Linda and I were going to do. Linda wants to fuck me again. She had to get an early train to NYC. We would meet at South Station, get on the train, and do it in the washroom. I would get off at Route 128 and take the next train back to Boston. But she got to the station too late. Simone stayed up till about three that morning. It occurred to me later that it was intentional on her part. So I would be too tired to get up for meeting Linda.

This writing of the last few days is not going so well. In my head the story is perfectly clear. I have been nervous the last few days about doing something with the writing. A feeling of some new insight. About myself or Simone, I don't know for sure. But first I noticed sort of new development in her fight against my having other relationships. Now she is seeing it as sort of a competition about who can have the most lovers. Well, it is really no contest. She is much better able to do this. You win. Sunday night was very hard. Suzanne was on her way out the door. It was about midnight. She was going alone. I wouldn't let her. Dana didn't want to do it so I walked her home. But before leaving Simone says, anything to get another woman. And just before this, I'm going to win in the end. It was the tone of voice that Dana and I noticed. We talked about it today. He thought it meant a lot more than she said. How did he say it, I wonder what's behind that? I don't even remember what set it off. Yes, I do. I had gone to the office. She was in my room with Joe. They were making out. I came in to get my coat. Joe turns away and can't face me. Simone sits up, grabs her toes and feet, smiles broadly and begins to rock back and forth. I accuse him of doing immoral things with my wife. Also point out the guilty look on Simone's face. Later she told me how nice it was with him. She could easily ignore his fat body, bald face, and joking manner. They all disappeared when he became very sensual. Joe tells her how I'm not good enough for her, that he notices how happy I am being with her, and why don't you come stay with me on Thursday. Just now Simone comes home, and I have got off the subject. Which was about the three phases I have noticed in her difficulty with me having other relationships. It is currently that we have a competition to see who can get the most lovers. But I said that already. At least she is beginning to see it a little more realistically. It is competition, but not with me. Its probably a deeper form of competition that she is aware of. Namely, to get as much for herself as she can. And this is exactly what she accuses, and I do mean accuses, me of. But that's not now I have forgotten what to say next! So it seems like competition.

She and Dana have just left for their dream group. The other Dana, who visited with us, and then her, has also just left. She has not seen him in some time. She thinks him very handsome, but he has a lot of belief systems, she says. He plays the piano very well. We were at the office. He played. I left. Then he tells Simone all the gossip. That he is getting a vasectomy next week. He has always wanted to sleep with her, he says. But was afraid to. He was a born again Christian for eight years. That stopped him. Now, or rather in two or three weeks, he wants to sleep with her, but no sex. He doesn't want to get involved too deeply. She tells me and the other Dana about the song he wrote for her. Its very romantic in parts, and then comes the refrain, I fuck the shit out of you, but only in my filthy dreams. She likes that part very much. They make a date for about three weeks from now. He doesn't seem bothered that its right here in my room, with me here. But later he will probably tell her more about what he was feeling. I give him a copy of my book and notes. This sets me to thinking about why its so hard for me to attract women. She and Dana do much better at this than me. But on the other hand, Dana spent some hours last night telling me how he doesn't like the way things are going. Maybe its not good to be so blunt and straightforward, unless its with a woman like Simone. With her it goes just fine. She likes me even more for it.

Donna commented on my notes after reading everything up to March 10. This time it came out quite a bit different. She says I never talk about love, and that everyone seems like an object. My reaction is to say its true, but I hadn't thought about it. Its something like breathing for me, I tell her. It is something that everyone needs, and everything people do is to get love. She thinks that people have relationships, or do things for other reasons. Nope! I think not. Love is a thing inside us just like breathing. Maybe you want to run a race, but the breathing part is not something you have to think about. Maybe you want to run a race, by why you do it is not something you have to think about. We talked about it some more, but love seems to be the sick feeling you get about someone from time to time. The feeling makes you constantly long for and think about them. You constantly worry about their being with someone else, or what they might be doing.

Simone told me she loved me at breakfast Monday morning. I told her I knew this. How, she asks. Because of the way you cut the banana into little pieces and arranged them all around the edge of my bowl of cereal, I tell her. I put extra bran in it, she says. That's still another reason why I know you love me. You don't have to say you love someone, or have them tell you. You don't have to tell your lungs to breath, and your lungs don't have to tell you they will breath. Its an easy thing to feel. I know she loves me when she does so much for me. It is only necessary for me to ask her for something. When she resists it is clear how much or little she loves me at that moment. On the other hand, I could make a false test of her love, and ask her to do something when it is not possible for her to do it. Then it is only the problem of my feeling insecure about her loving me. Donna seems to have the idea that love is something you talk about, think about, write poems about, but avoid relationships where it will be tested for real. Its when you want to be with people and do things for and with them. All this nonsense written and said about love but with no real contact between people. What am I trying to prove here? I seem to be a bit perturbed about her problems with love.

What else about life. Its when the things in daily life get taken care of with ease. When one doesn't feel put upon, resistant, or obliged to do something. When its an easy thing to fit in. For me its when I help Simone to do things that will help her develop herself and her relationships and abilities. And she in turn wants to do lots of things for me. It would never work one way. But on the other hand it is not really that I am expecting anything of her, but rather that she is stimulated in a very natural and positive way. I keep falling back to my own inadequacy in attracting people the way Simone does. It is not possible to put all the blame to her being a woman. Dana has no such problem. He does have the problem of developing deep relationships. But that has nothing to do with his being able to start so many. It still comes down to something about me. I imagine myself in the middle, for an SD, to try and find the way into myself for an answer. Pacing around. Covering my face with my hands. Not being able to look at anyone. Ashamed to reveal myself. I try to get off the track by thinking about times I've attracted more women than other men. Back to the subject. Simone tells me I am starting to look like a derelict again. Sometimes when looking in a mirror, or window, I try to arrange the angle of my face so that certain parts, like the eyes, will be dark, and maybe evil? A handsome face, but very stern and cold do you think? An odd thought about the end of that line. What word to place last do the end of the line isn't so blank. So after cold goes the word do, rather than going to the next line. How the fuck am I ever going to develop anything of any importance about the world when I get caught up in such small things? Such trivial, stupid, who knows what, such things.

I speak to Jeannette on the phone last night. We talk about what's going on here, what she's doing. How about dinner Wednesday night, she asks. We could go to your place, out, or come here? Why not there, since I haven't seen your new place I say. I want to cook her some chicken with Tamari sauce, the way she did some times before. It never came out right for me. Maybe it was the Teflon pan she used. I really want to see her, desire her, and so find myself carefully presenting myself and trying to be open to her in a way I have found her responsive to. She slept with me some number of times after I had done this. I don't know exactly how to describe it, but it works. She did ask me to stay. This was last summer. She has not had much to do with me for some time. Maybe things are over with her and Vinnie. I am overwhelmed by sexual fantasies of her after we hang up. Later I masturbate myself to sleep and again in the morning, with fantasies about her. Fucking her from behind, biting her on the back and legs, grabbing her all over with my hands and squeezing. Playing a rough gorilla with her. Watching my prick go in and out of her cunt. Its making me horny again. Its not a definite date. The next day I notice anxiety about telling Simone about it. Anticipating an explosion, and then pressure not to do it. Maybe she will cancel her date with Michael, I imagine, just to prevent me from seeing Jeannette. But this is only me making my own trap. Such a thing shouldn't stop me even if it happens.

Lotti has just called from the office about doing some work. It is so much fun to do things with her. She is very proper and prudish. It is easy to make jokes and funny things with her. I enjoy it a lot with her. Just now I am reminded of something Simone said. It was about fucking with Judy or Lotti, anyone but Linda. But she knows they can't really do anything with me, so it's a safe thing for her to say. I suspect if anything happened that they would become the same as Linda. But maybe this is just a sort of vengeful thing for me to be saying. Why do I have to get stuck with this so often? Always these little resentments about not having things work out in my favor, or they come up when she gets what she wants. Maybe starting out this days writing with the story about Simone was another example of the same thing. Was it too provocative? Was it a cutting thing for me to write about? On the other hand it did cause me a lot of thought. This sort of thing evokes this constant questioning of why Simone has so much difficulty with my developing relationships. But then just now I think maybe it is a defense of my own. That is, I use it as a way to say that I would have more, if only she wasn't putting so many roadblocks in my way. She is able to fill the air with intense feeling. Her I'll win in the end remark stopped both me and Dana in our tracks. She was out of sight in another room when she said it. But I see myself continuing to make Simone somewhat of a scapegoat. Anything to avoid looking at my own deficiencies. The second way that Simone explained my wanting other relationships was that it was an ideological thing from FH. I only did it because that's the way things were done. My natural inclination was to be monogamous. And then I realize that many of our discussions on the subject would be interrupted by people calling to make sleeping dates, or otherwise, with her. Is this another example of hyperbolic text in the pursuit of resentment material? Grit my teeth and suck in my breath about doing this so often. Why am I persisting in making this woman such a problem for me? Constantly feeling like I have to fight off something. Is this what Michael couldn't stand? Is this what made a thousand affairs so short? Maybe there is something that tries to push down what comes out in her. Lately its been possible to defend against these attacks by turning what she says around and using her own behavior as an example of what she means. Perhaps its this that's caused her to develop this new defense, competition, as an explanation of what's going on.

I have just been leafing through my writing for the last two plus months. There is a not-right feeling about it. That some quality is missing from it. Not, it seems to me, the leaving out of anything crucial, but something I can't put my finger on. It always seems so stiff and frozen. I get impatient for progress, or some sign of it. There have been several times these last few days when I have shut myself off. It always follows a feeling of rage. On Sunday it happened. The morning. We got up. Simone said something that set it off. I'm going to the office, says me. Gets dressed. Goes to the kitchen and starts doing the dishes. The rage subsides. I realize that it was about to control me again. I don't go to the office. We make plans to go to Bryant's for brunch. Suzanne and Dana will go with us. We walk. Its pleasant enough. Totally superficial. We have something to eat and leave. The walk was the best part.

Last Friday Simone and I go to New Haven for a wedding. Her friend Loris. She is 3 months pregnant. Its in a Catholic church. We talk during the whole thing, make jokes. There is this neat box from which the priest takes a cup. It has two sets of doors. They open and close in a very interesting way. I speculate how the cup is full of sperm from the priests. Then to the reception. We learn that Loris's best friend, and someone Simone knows, killed herself the day before. She jumped from the same building Loris's mother jumped from just about one year ago. The dead woman left a jealous, nasty letter to Loris. Simone and I both have the feeling that this is not a good thing for them to do. He is 22 and she 25. But she has this confident tone in her voice when she says, nothing ever seemed more right to me. But the shaking head, and downcast eyes, as she says this, do not convince. But who am I to say. She may be strong enough, and he also, to overcome their difficulties. They keep us in the dark about this side of their relationship.

We stayed the night with Simone's parents. A number of things happened where I saw very clearly, as did she, how she does things they do. Changing subjects when talking about something emotionally charged. Her father not signaling when making turns. The way they keep animals. Her father always being late. It reminded me of growing up in my own family. Most of this growing up seemed to be absurd. It seemed that something was very wrong with my family. That most other families seemed to be much better. We gave Loris some baby clothes. I was reminded of Cheyenne and the first year and a half I knew her. I wrote many little things about her development. They are on 3 by 5 cards. The idea of writing them as a set of notes occurred to me. I told someone the story of Cheyenne and the orange sling. It went around your neck and under one arm. I resembled a deflated bicycle tire. One section had an accordion type fold in it. This could be opened and the child would fit in it. She came to know this orange seat very well. At some point she would become very excited when I put it on. She knew it meant a ride. It never mattered how short the ride. The excitement was still the same. Then, a few minutes later, it was possible for her to be just as excited again, if I went to go out again.

Did you know that The Cambridge Chronicles, 1981 Edition, has been published on Amazon? Buy the whole thing for 99 cents and read it on a kindle (or kindle software for your Mac or PC), here:

A Memoir About Art & Sex During The Reagan Years (The Cambridge Chronicles, 1981 Edition)

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