Sensuous

8 March — Monday

I called him after work. He told me things about myself that I probably knew before. That I do not want to have my flesh touched because I do not want to have myself touched. To have myself known.

Knowledge. Adam knew Eve. I do not wish to be known, in the usual or in the biblical sense. (And the point is that both meanings of the word are identical. To fuck is to know, to be fucked is to be known. I am secret and invisible and not to be fucked.)

I had been thrilled yesterday, hadn’t I? Yes, I said, of course. His acts thrilled me, didn’t they? And I could enjoy them because I was not a participant in them, couldn’t I?

Yes, of course.

He asked if I would like to watch him in person. If I would like to see him naked. He would enjoy masturbating in front of me. He will not touch me, will demand nothing from me. I can watch. I can touch myself or not, as I please.

It is a quarter after nine now. We arranged that I would come over to his place at ten o’clock. I went out to dinner and bought a bottle of Scotch on the way home. Filled a water glass half with whiskey and half with water. I’ve been sipping it. It’s almost gone now.

I don’t much like the taste. Maybe it would be better with bottled spring water. The tap water is terrible and I can taste it through the whiskey. I ought to use bottled water all the time. The tap water makes awful coffee. It seems irksome, though; to have to pay for water when you can get it free from the tap.

If the whiskey affected me at all, I haven’t noticed it yet. I’m not nervous but wasn’t nervous before. Excited but not nervous. I trust him. I trusted him before but not down inside as I do now. I feel safe with him because I truly know now that it is my response that turns him on, my enthusiasm and excitement that delights him.

Time to end this and go. I should have something very interesting to write tomorrow. I’m almost afraid to find out what he’s like in person. I have a picture of him, vague in definition but real to me. Suppose his appearance turns me off? What then?

A cover, I guess, for my real reservation: Suppose my appearance turns him off?

What then?