R all too casual this morning. ‘You know our sons fought?’ I asked. R acknowledged he knew, wanted to know why this excited me so much. ‘Because we're at war here. Now our gladiators have fought, fighting's sexy, and I've won the first round.’ ‘Why's it so important for you to feel you've won?’ ‘Well, it's a war, isn't it?’
He wouldn't answer. Then we talked about blood and bleeding and horses and my dream. ‘For you sex is inextricable from blood,’ he said. ‘Well, that's nice,’ I said. ‘Now please tell me how knowing that does me any good.’
Afterwards, I decide not to go see J. Went to club instead, played furious tennis for two hours, beating Jane and Tracy back to back. Later both looked at me funny in the locker room. Could tell they hated my guts. Life's a war, I'm a warrior, and winners are always envied and despised.
Met W for a drink at the Townsend. He's such a mean little shit! ‘Watch out love. Andy's going to play hardball going after your boys.’ ‘I can play hardball too, you know.’ ‘Oh, I know,’ he said, fluttering his eyes like he knew some dirty little secret about me, something unmentionable. Felt like slapping him right there in the bar.
On June 6, Mark's and my graduation day from Hayes Lower School, the three adults meet up again, a kind of replay of their Parents Day conference on April 18. Except now everyone's relations have changed, and other parties are also present – my mother; Barbara's mother, Doris Lyman; and Mark's father, Andrew Fulraine, along with his new wife Margaret.
Friday
Mark's 6^th grade graduation. T all dandied up in his schoolmaster's best, too shy to make eye contact. R, with his attractive, Semitic-looking wife, giving me a casual little smile while he put an arm protectively around his son's shoulders – good-looking kid but I hate him for bashing mine in the nose. Then there was Mister Wonderful himself, with his ski-nosed pupsy-baby. Doris, as usual, was glacial and overdressed, feigning interest in her grandson's achievement. And W in bow tie, rentboy in tow, spewing witticisms – his nephew's in the same class.
Speeches, prizes, diplomas, then an awful celebration party on the school lawn. It was too hot. The kids looked silly stuffed into their crested blazers sweating in the sun. All they wanted to do was shed their clothes and jump in the nearest pool. And all I wanted to do was shed mine and jump into the sack with T. I'd have thought seeing him in his milieu, underpaid junior faculty member at phony-tony school, might have diminished my ardor. No such luck! Every time I snuck a glance at him, I thought of tying him down to the motel bed like last week and riding him to hell and eternity!
R, I noticed, snuck looks at everyone – Doris, T, even my boys. Did he think he was going to see something in these characters that I hadn't already told him about? Gain rich insights he could weave into his analysis?
It's probably a good thing he's so curious. Otherwise how could he stand to listen to me ranting on about my creepy dream? Still there's something all-knowing and self-confident about him that makes me want to tie him down to a bed. I bet that would break through his reserve!
Afterwards had to go out to dinner with A and pupsy-baby for the benefit of the boys. Robin cute as ever. Mark very manly now. A his usual stuffed shirt self. Pupsy-baby pleasant enough. Still, I'd love to get the bitch out on the tennis court. I'd tear her apart!
Half hour ago, I called T. He said at school he could barely dare to look at me I was so stunningly beautiful. Now there's a guy who knows how to talk to a woman! I told him starting a week from Monday the boys will be away at summer camp, which means we can meet three afternoons a week at the F. Silence, then he said: ‘How about four afternoons? Five?’ Oh, dear boy!
And so it goes – therapy sessions three mornings a week; two to three noontime or evening visits a week with Jack Cody at The Elms, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon lovemaking sessions at the Flamingo Court with Tom Jessup; and the rest of the time spent taking lonely rides on her horse, playing win-or-die tennis matches against her girlfriends, partaking of unpleasant phone conversations and occasional lunches with Waldo Channing, and the usual round of summer cocktail and dinner parties that inevitably leave her feeling empty.
On Tuesday, July 3, an entry catches my interest:
Tuesday
J distant this afternoon. After we made love, he stared up at the ceiling. ‘Whatsamatter?’ I asked. ‘I know you've been screwing your sons' tennis coach.’ ‘How do you know that?’ He didn't answer. ‘Obviously you get something from him you don't get from me.’ ‘It's called tenderness,’ I told him. ‘Oh, yeah, tenderness – that's never been my strong suit.’ ‘Do you mind, Jack?’ ‘Not terribly,’ he said. ‘That's what surprises me. I thought I'd mind a lot, and I don't.’
Didn't know whether to feel insulted or relieved. ‘Wow, that's a hell of a thing to say.’ ‘It cuts both ways,’ he said. ‘Fact you still come here to see me tells me I give you something he doesn't.’ ‘I think that's true.’ ‘So what is it, cutie?’ ‘You make me feel dirty, Jack.’ He smiled. ‘You like that, don't you?’ ‘Oh, I do, Jack. I do!’
He put on his heavy maroon brocade silk robe, poured us drinks, then sat down in his cracked leather easy chair. ‘Tell me about tenderness,’ he said. ‘Tell me what it's like.’ So I told him, described T and how he treats me, the sweet things he says to me, the ways he touches me, the total adoration he bestows. When I finished, J swirled his drink and stared into the amber liquid. ‘You know, I think there're uses for such a tender young man.’ When he told me what he had in mind, I nearly choked.
What is she talking about? From what she writes, it's impossible to tell, but I have a pretty good hunch. If, as Tom told Shoshana Bach, Barbara gave him the task of penetrating the local kiddie-porn scene, then, it seems, it was Jack Cody who first implanted the idea. And this dovetails nicely with Jurgen Hoff's notion that Jack knew Barbara had another lover, and that, as Jurgen put it to me, ‘there was something going on there I didn't get.’
With this in mind I read on:
Friday
R stubborn. Really hated him today. Told him so in no uncertain terms. ‘Even though I'm trained to take hostility,’ he responded, ‘I'm still a human being, so it hurts.’
After fucking, T told me again: ‘I'd do anything for you, you know?’ So I asked him: ‘Really? Anything?’ ‘Anything,’ he replied as if we were living in olden times when knights pled for ways to prove fidelity to their ladies. ‘There is something you can do,’ I told him, ‘but I'm not ready to ask you yet.’ ‘Tell me so I can do it.’ ‘There could be risk.’ ‘I want to endure risk. I'd gladly suffer pain for you. I want to show you how much I adore you.’ ‘Please, T, you go too far sometimes. A wicked lady like me isn't used to hearing such talk.’ ‘I want you to get used to hearing it,’ he said ever so tenderly.
Monday
R and I are definitely not getting along. ‘I'm wondering if I ought to bow out,’ I told him. ‘I don't think this treatment is helping me anymore.’ ‘You're too impatient,’ he said. ‘It's hard, painful work. I never promised you it would be easy.’ ‘No, and you also never promised me a cure, did you?’
I turned around, stared at him. Then I felt sorry, he looked so crushed. ‘Look,’ I told him, ‘I think you're a brilliant man, but maybe we're not well suited. No crime in that.’ Then he annoyed me by asking why I used the word ‘crime.’ Ugh!
Later with T: he begged me to set him a task, something difficult, he said. ‘Well, how about slaying a dragon for me?’ ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I'd do that in a minute!’
Poor boy, poor boy!
Friday
Another row with R. I told him when I leave his office I feel like I'm burning up inside, like there's a fire raging in my gut. He said that's a good sign, it tells us something important is going on. ‘We've been at one of those painful impasses that always occur in an analysis. The difference between the men and the boys is that the men work the impasses through.’ ‘But I'm not a man,’ I screamed at him. ‘Always these gender issues. You knew I was just using an everyday expression.’ Sure, I knew, but there's something wacky going on. ‘I already have two lovers,’ I told him, ‘God, I don't think I could manage a third!’ ‘Do you fantasize about my being your third lover?’ he asked. ‘Do you fantasize yourself as my third lover?’ I snapped back. ‘This is something we can use,’ he said, ‘your fantasy that I'm your lover. Have you any notion of how seductively you act toward me?’ I told him: ‘Don't flatter yourself, Doctor. I act this way with everyone. It's my nature!’
At the motel, I tied T to the bed, then worked him over with my mouth. ‘Today is my day to have fun,’ I told him. ‘My pleasure will be to pleasure you.’ He squirmed and rolled, panted and came. ‘And now I’m going to take my pleasure,’ I told him, mounting him and galloping home.
Afterwards he said I made him feel like a beast. ‘That's my intention,’ I told him. ‘Start thinking of yourself as
