more
certain than that.'
`But how long will this 'I' last?'
'Forever,' I said.
Her hand became motionless.
`Forever?' she said in a very low voice.
`Forever. Maybe even longer.'
I turned on to my side and took her hand and kissed the palm. I looked into her eyes with a playful smile.
Staring seriously back at me, she said `But that 'I' which loves me may be replaced by a different, unloving 'I' and be
forced to live forever underground and unexpressed?'
I nodded, still smiling.
'The 'I' that loves you would like to arrange things so that the whole rest of my life is fixed to guarantee the continued fulfillment of himself. But it would mean the permanent burial of most of the other 'I's.' `But ego or no ego, there are natural desires and imposed actions: To come over on top of me and fuck would be a
natural act; to follow the fall of a die and kneel in the sand to jerk off wouldn't.'
I maneuvered myself clumsily into a kneeling position in the sand and began to lower my swim-trunks.
`O Jesus,' Linda said. `Me and my big mouth.'
But I smiled and pulled up my trunks. `You're right,' I said, and moved myself over and lay my head naturally onto her
warm, soft thigh.
`So what are your natural desires? What do you really want?'
Silence.
`I want being with you. I want sunshine. Love, caresses, kisses. [Pause] Water. Good books. Opportunities to practice
the dicelife with people.'
`But whose kisses, whose caresses?'
`Yours,' I answered, blinking into the sun. `Terry's, Arlene's, Lil's, Gregg's. A few others. Women I meet in the street.'
She didn't respond.
`Good music, a chance to write,' I went on. `Good film occasionally, the sea.'
`I feel . . . Huh! You're not even as romantic as I used not to be, are you?'
`Not this particular me.'
`You love me deeply though,' she said, and I looked up to catch her smiling down at me.
`I love you,' I said holding her eyes with mine. We looked deeply and warmly at each other for more than a minute.
Then she said softly: 'Up yours.'
We watched a gull circling and swooping, and she started to ask something but stopped. I turned my head to press my
mouth against the inside of one thigh. It was hot and salty.
She sighed and pushed my head away.
`Then don't spread your legs,' I said.
`I want to spread my legs.'
`Well,' I said, and buried my head between them and sucked in a firm hot fold of the other thigh. She pushed medium
hard at my head, but I had one arm around her now and held fast.
Letting her fingers relax in my hair, she said `Some things are naturally good and others aren't'
`Mmmmmm,' I said.
'The dicelife sometimes takes us away from what's naturally good.'
`Mmmmmm' `I think that's too bad.'
I broke my mouth hold and hauled myself up on an elbow alongside her.
`Was that crazy slavery deal I created with you a natural and good thing?' I asked.
She smiled at me.
`It must have been,' she said.
`Everybody is always doing what seems to them to be naturally good. Why is everybody miserable?'
I unhooked her bikini top and slid it off her onto the blanket. A ridge of sand lay across the upper half of each breast. I
brushed it off.
`Everybody's not miserable,' she said. `I'm not miserable.'
`You were before you discovered the dicelife.'
`But that's because before I had a sex hang-up. Now I don't'
`Mmmmmm,' I said, my mouth filled with her left breast and my right hand holding the warmth of the other.
`The Die is good for getting you over certain hang-ups,' she said, `but then I think maybe it isn't so necessary any
more.'
I un-swallowed her breast, licked the taut nipple a few seconds and said `Personally, I think you may be right'
`You do?'
`Certainly.'
I untied the near side of her bikini bottom. `I don't consult it about a lot of things,' I said. `But when I'm in doubt, I
find it nice to consult the Die.'
I untied the far side of the bikini.
`Bur why bother?' Linda said. She had a hand now under my trunks and was pushing them down with the other.
`In consult the Die at dawn every day about whether I should consult it about everything during the day, about only
the big things or not consult it at all under any circumstances. Today, for example, it told me not to consult it about
anything.'
'so even your dicelessness is filled with the Die?'
`Mmmmmmnnnrui.'
`So you're acting naturally today, huh?'
`MmmmmmMmmmmm., 'I hope you're enjoying eating the sand down there.'
'Mmmmmm.'
'That's nice,' she said. `I like that I'm glad you told me. I like 'to know that what you're doing is natural.'
I came up for air and said: `Most things people do aren't natural the first time they do them. That's what learning is all
about. That's what the dicelife is all about.'
'Mmmmmm,' she said.
`If we always limited ourselves to what was natural to us, we would be midget dwarfs compared to our potential. We
must always be incorporating new areas of human action which we can make natural.'
'Mmmmmm,' she said.
`Say that again,' I said.
'Mmmmmm,' she said. The vibrations were delicious.
`I hope the dice keep me with you a long time, Linda.'
`Mmmmmmetoommmm.'
