Alysse Aallyn

Category: Creativity

  • Inspired Pleasure

    Diary of a Dancer

    Shalimar – 3:30 PM –13 Aug 76
    Was sitting on a box of Lite Beer sipping coffee


    reading Miss Read when Carmen warned me that the boss


    might  fire me for reading. Apparently writing he doesn’t mind


    so much, probably because he can’t imagine anyone keeping


    it up longer than 10 mins at a time. R. will be here soon, then


    we hit the bank, pick up my stuff and we’re on the road for the


    Finger Lakes. Five hours alone in the car. I find I have a lot


    of inhibitions against voicing boundaries in our relationship –


    mainly because I don’t want to be lied to. I want to find out


    how things really are. For example, he spent last night in


    Gaithersburg with his wife. Now her I’m jealous of, because


    he used to love her, used to think she was a “catch” and


    was surprised and gratified that she “descended” into


    marriage with him. 


    I probably won’t ask him if they had sex because


    it would be making too much of it. He’s said before he wouldn’t,


    and she definitely wouldn’t. But I can’t believe a woman who


    knows she’s losing a man might not change in her feelings –


    just to see what power she has left. I would, if he wanted the


    divorce and I didn’t. Will I be able to tell just by looking at him?


    R feels the right to be jealous and possessive over me, which


    I don’t grudge him since I’m naturally monogamous. He feels


    no discomfort making rules for me. But he should.


    6:00 PM Saturday 14 Aug 76 Finger Lakes
    Lying on the bed in our tiny TINY two room cabin –


    with just a curtain separating the rooms – I was going to write


    here about how much I love my job (I really miss dancing so


    much when I’m away from it – the ideal thing would be three


    sets a day for life) – when R came in, threw himself on me,


    tore my clothes off, began kissing my breasts and exploring


    my tan lines and pressing his beautiful valued body hard hard


    hard into mine – and you know what happened next.  If he turns


    the fan on high I don’t think the other campers can hear our little


    yips and screams.  At least I hope not. We spent last night in his


    grandmother’s house in Binghamton, New York.


    She bedded us down in separate rooms – he gave me a


    long lecture about how you have to respect the house rules of


    whoever you’re staying with – and then who do you think showed


    up in the middle of the night saying he couldn’t sleep. It is ecstatic


    to have sex almost without moving – this must be what Tantra is like.


    We were directly over her and the bed creaked so we didn’t move a


    muscle – absorbed and shed each other like snakes. Wonderful.


    Next stop was R’s cousins who own the cabins. I don’t know


    what to say about them – plastic flowers and Sonny James. My state


    of deep shock probably resembled mental retardation. Some people’s


    houses are frighteningly ugly. Their clock has eyes, they keep the


    plastic on the lampshades. I just sat there while the ethnic and sex


    jokes filtered around me.  Who could blame R’s first wife for


    shunning this bunch?


    I would not choose them for buddies either. And the fact


    that they are renting us a cabin doesn’t appear to mean we will


    also get privacy – so I have taken to wearing my glasses. Number


    one – I don’t see as well – number two – it creates a kind of screen


    between me and them.


    The Lake is beautiful – but I don’t need to go in more than


    twice a day – I also don’t have the patience for the fish-a-thons that


    absorb the rest of them, dawn till dusk.


    Plus one time waterskiing was plenty.  Since dinner is a


    vast barbecue down at the beach every night and we only have


    sandwiches for lunch and cereal for breakfast there is not that


    much to do, thank God. Sadly the dinners are followed by


    hours of dancing, drinking and fighting.  I go to bed early to read


    but R stays and plays “peacemaker”. Tonight he says he’s going


    to let them kill each other and join me. Therefore I can set up my


    typewriter on the kitchen table and get right to it. People keep


    coming to bring me coffee and cookies – I think they really


    want to see a writer “in action” – at the end of this trip I MAY


    be 20 lbs heavier. The rest of my time is spent sunning and reading. 


    Unfortunately St. Secaire going VERY badly. Complete


    horseshit, alas.


    I’ve started it four separate times. I think at this point I just


    have to keep going and hope it’s possible to clean up the mess later.


    Tuesday 17 Aug 76 7:30 PM
    Outside a fair number of people, all high as kites,


    revving their engines and swearing they’re leaving and never


    coming back. I don’t know if anybody’s actually going to GO


    or not but I wish they would.  No wonder R had nothing to do


    with these people for four years – he may conveniently blame


    his wife but the truth is none of them can stand each other.


    Pack of wolverines. I’ve been left totally alone and am well


    out of it – they may have forgotten I am even here. Last night R


    was so depressed he just lay on the bed exhausted by them. I


    tried to explain to him about resentment and the resulting succubae


    and incubi thus created. (Subject of my novel, in fact.)


    He said something about “our next 25 years” that just


    floored me. Even my husband didn’t talk like that.  Remember


    saying to my father – I would be fine if I could only find a man who


    treated me as well as I treated him. Dad – so ready to take


    anybody’s part over mine, said, Has it ever occurred to you that


    you might be hard to live with? Such a typical Daddy remark –


    the more you think about it the worse it gets. 


    Well, R treats me better than anyone else so far.


    He’s almost talked me into looking for a new job when I get back –


    and that’s a lot. But if he wants to introduce me around, can’t lie


    about what I do, etc etc. (This group – doesn’t know about my job –


    he says they’d eat me – and him – alive. I can scarcely believe


    they would take the moral high ground with me but I suppose


    anything’s possible.) Tried to read a Redbook someone brought

    –
    shouldn’t do it. So depressing. Could never write like that or


    be like that. If that’s the standard this whole thing is hopeless.


    Then I picked up a book by Grace Livingston Hill.  I’m going to


    include her in my article on female pornographers.


    R told me he had the impression that if I didn’t have my


    novel to write I would probably go bananas. I said probably. I tried


    to prepare him for the very different kind of vacation he’s going to


    get in Maine – where people very deliberately leave each other alone.


    If somebody sets off down the beach and you wanted also to walk


    on the beach – you’d turn and go the opposite way. R says in his


    family that would be grounds for a six-year grudge punctuated by


    sobbing, screaming and threats of suicide.


    12:10 am
    Went night fishing with R because he wanted me to.


    Wrote a wonderful poem about Coleridge – just came to me in


    one piece. Couldn’t really share with R – he doesn’t know who


    Coleridge is. So I showed him – Haunted Wedding. 

    HAUNTED WEDDING
    The pregnant car disgorges
    Only us. It’s winter.
    Drunk as silver fish
    We beat our gills as light
    As hummingbirds.
    In an amethyst ring
    Of drypoint trees
    The half-built house
    Gapes and swells
    Its timbers stink of sap.
    Windrill fields occlude
    Our crossing, so you carry me
    High above the thorny osiers.
    We sleep aloft for safety
    Locked and levitating
    In this space of air
    One season only,
    Unseen by angry outriders;
    Bloodless in our wedding robes
    Like the doubled membranes
    Of the frozen flowers

        This triggered a fight because he says it wasn’t written

    for him. If he jealously searches my work for other lovers


    madness is assured.) He almost talked me into thinking it a


    bad poem.


      I feel my mother’s disapproving stare on all of this – “


    don’t ruin what you have by trying to get something else” – as


    if showing R this poem would be a deliberate way of hurting him


    by making him feel inferior – part of her larger accusation that I


    channel so much energy into writing I’m no good with people and


    that’s why my relationships suffer. All I can say is, thank God for


    my diary. 


    Writing now with my feet in R’s lap while he plays cards.


    He strokes my toes from time to time, as if I were a cat. We came in


    from fishing and he just took my pants down – such earthy


    sexuality has never existed for him. He told me he’s never


    been so happy.  And as for me? One side of my multi-prismed


    personality is happy, but some of the other sides are complaining.


    Difficult to contemplate an existence where I am not mentally alone


    six hours a day.


    One of the reasons I like my job is that it leaves that part


    of me remarkably intact – dancing is a lot like sleepwalking. If I get


    another job there’s a strong chance I’ll have to interact with humans.


    Hell. And we both know how humans can be. Then I might be too


    exhausted emotionally and battered psychologically to have the


    energy to write – it’s a serious risk. Those architects ran roughshod


    over me.

  • Inspired Pleasure

    Diary of a Dancer

        Fri 23 July 76 - Tyler St, Chevy Chase, Maryland 
    R and I have seen each other every day since Fri –

    I think he’s in love. I could fall if I let myself but something holds me back.
    I like our relationship now – he drops by the house after work
    and we’re both in jeans. I think tonight’s the night for sex –
    first time – I’m nervous but since I love his body I expect
    to be all right.
    Adore these slow working mornings. I get up
    with A (depending on when her first run is – she’s now
    working courier) to have time to set my hair before leaving
    at 10. Beautiful walks up Tyler St. Early AM at the Shalimar
    such a pleasure – sitting at the bar with my diary balanced
    on my hipbones, watching the barmaids get ready, feeling
    like a character out of Toulouse Lautrec.
    Yesterday we met our across the street neighbors –
    one of them is a gorgeous guy named Larry getting a degree
    in Hospital Administration. Among ourselves we call him
    “Shoulders” because he has such a gorgeous pair. To see
    them dimpled with sweat on his way back from a run is to be
    in heaven. Invited Larry and roommates Garrett and Opal to
    dinner tomorrow night – if they can come.

    Thurs 22 July 76 – 9:25 PM
    God I’m in love. I love his fragile, tense blond body –
    love holding it. Love looking at his Lorenzo diMedici face. 
    Those blond Italians! He wouldn’t like to hear me say it –
    he has a black belt in karate and thinks he’s so tough – but
    he probably only outweighs me by 20 lbs. Made love all afternoon –
    he is very skilful – obsessed with my pleasure. Says he doesn’t
    care if he ever comes – wants to see what gives a woman  pleasure. 
    We fit together exactly – interlocking puzzle pieces even
    upside down. I can feel his feet with my feet – his knees
    with my knees – it’s like having a mirror body – only with a
    hard chest and penis. After the first time the relief of the orgasm
    was so great I wept.  I fell asleep with him inside me.  Wrote
    a poem about him but don’t know if I want to show him. If I
    learned anything from Bruce it’s that people misrepresent.
    He could be shockable and its early days yet. Today I want
    to buy a bookcase.
    Love equals, unfortunately, anxiety attacks – could
    he possibly love me as much as I love him?  Yesterday walking
    in the park I expressed fear about him going straight from one
    serious relationship right into another – but he says he refuses to
    limit the experience. Which of course was exactly the right answer.
    The worst part is his trouble with my job.
    He says he knows he can’t ask me to quit because
    he can’t support me – I pointed out he wants me to go on the Divers
    World expedition, and then to Cozumel, and I want to take him to Maine,
    all of which would be impossible if I had a regular job. He says he
    can deal with it only by avoiding the Shalimar – OK by me as long as
    I see him outside. He came in today – I got rid of him after a half hour,
    before my set.

    11:05 AM – Shalimar Tues 27 July 76
    Feel like throwing out all my diaries. Driveling gush broken
    up by gushing drivel. But I go right ahead and produce some more.
    Randy throwing ice and cases of beer, Bobbi cleaning trays,  Carmen
    checking paper towels and me writing. Perfect.
    We were lying in bed – me and Ryder – I have to lie on his
    right side because he only has one good ear – and he told me a long
    purposeless allegory about bullfighting. Can’t tell which of us is the
    supposed to be the matador. I’m the only one with a poetic license
    in this relationship.) He said I should just write, and he’s going
    to see to it. I said fine by me. I love this job but not as much
    as writing, love and freedom. Then he said, I love you.

    9:45 AM Wed July 28 76
        Anniversary of Toss Sheffield relieving me of

    my impacted virginity (as I relieved him of his.) R came yesterday at 2 –
    left at 3 – came back at 5. Another watershed in our relationship – Fears.
    He’s afraid to lose the hearing in his good ear. He speaks sign
    language but doesn’t want to live in a world without sound. I made
    him promise to go the doctor. He agreed to make an appointment no
    later than Weds.
    Reading Christina Stead’s wonderful Dark Places of
    the Heart. Considered inviting Ryder to live with us – rejected
    the idea. I need too much alone time. So important to establish
    amour proper. I am so impoverished from setting up the house
    (though I’ve made enough in tips to pay my taxi ride home tonight)
    I am barely going to make the rent. Need a windfall.
    Sweaty and smelly. I think I’ve boogie –oogie-oogied
    till I just can’t boogie no more.


    Club Shalimar– 30 July 76
    Cookout at Ryder’s parents – I met his folks – two
    roly-poly people who are nothing like him – one sister who is
    a lot younger.
    We had glorious talks on our way there and back –
    about having our own space – (we agreed he needs to live alone);
    our hopes and dreams (he used to write music, wants to do that
    again someday – I told him I have an agent shopping a novel around)
    first impressions (I discovered he was in the bar when I auditioned!
    Horrors!) He said what intrigues him most about me is that he
    can’t figure me out – still can’t – everything about me is a surprise.
    I guess I could say the same about him. 
    Wonderful abandoned sex – just crazy stuff – I came and
    came.  He told me he spent last night at his old house – he and
    his wife had to have a “meeting”. I was jealous until he told me
    that his wife is sexually dead – and always has been. He didn’t
    understand it when they married, assuming it was something you
    get over. I suggested she was probably molested as a child –
    he didn’t want to believe it. He thinks some people are sexually
    just asexual. I thought – but didn’t say – there’s a self-protective
    concept. He doesn’t want to think she is turned off of him but in
    my experience – such as it is – chemistry is a completely
    mysterious yet crucial factor women have a tendency to discount
    it when choosing a life partner. So they end up married to the
    “perfect” person, except they’re not sexually stirred.
    2:00 AM. He tucked me in – kissed me – left – then
    I was wakened with his hands all over me. When he got to his
    car he realized our clock had stopped and he didn’t have time
    to go home before work. So he snuck back in the sliding door.
    We had sex again, and the whole night became a snake
    eating its own tail. This morning got a wonderful poem:
    Love, the Magician.

    The Magician is a Capricorn
    Bleeding cock’s milk from nipples
    Pale like mine but
    Maler.
    Illusion, he says is memory
    Of things that should have been.
    Doves and rabbits he entices
    From sacred groves between my legs
    Placed by ruse, and freed by art.
    When he dies, passion turns his eyes
    To quarters.
    He hears the world but faintly
    Through his one good ear.
    The other turns to me,
    Safecracker’s daughter.
    Trust the magician, voices tell me
    He knows when to drop the dice.

  • The Wedding Dress

    a Ballet


    Characters:
    CHORUS (white-clothed & black-clothed.)
    WHITE-HAIRED MAN (husband), WHITE-HAIRED WOMAN (wife)


    SET: A low bed with scrim behind it, a table, a sewing machine, surrounded by a garden. Old couple in the bed. CHORUS member (white-clothed) brings out SUN.

    Couple yawn, stretch, wake up, perform yoga sun salutations in perfect harmony together, smiling frequently at each other.


    They dance a warm, familiar dance – then he goes to the garden, she goes to the sewing machine. She is making a quilt, holding up different-colored patches, trying different arrangements. In the background we see him gathering flowers, trying different arrangements.
    White-clothed Chorus removes sun. Black-clothed chorus brings out MOON.


    Husband puts flowers and vegetables in wheelbarrow and brings them to wife – she displays her quilt, he shows off his produce, they dance joyously, make flower crowns for each other, sit down to eat. They then perform yoga moon salutations in perfect harmony, then get in bed under the new quilt. We see something that might be sex, might only be hugging and stroking. Sleep.

    Chorus removed MOON brings in SUN. WOMAN rises, pushes man. Nothing. She gets out of bed, begins disturbed sun salutations, but interrupting constantly to touch him, push him. Finally realizes he is dead; his arm & head fall out of the bed in a too-obviously dead way. Distress. She seeks in the garden for others – calling. The white-clothed CHORUS appears, comforting her, checking the body, dancing sorrowfully with her, trying to keep her from the body, trying to get her to eat, to dance. She resists; angry; sad. SUN trades with MOON.

    CHORUS lifts the body to take away, she insists on covering it with quilt. Chorus helps her into bed, she kicks off her covers; lies like stone. Finally closes her eyes. Might be asleep. HUSBAND appears behind scrim, trying to reach through scrim to her. Finally she wakes up, touches him through scrim, without seeming to be able not to see, only feel, him. She rises up, presses her body against his through the scrim. They dance around the stage, always with the scrim between them but their bodies locked close. Still, they are not able to get through the all-encompassing scrim.

    Finally the black clothed CHORUS appears, pulls him away from her through the audience – he is reaching toward her, unwilling to go. She reaches toward him, but he is gone. Wife sits dejected. Finally she takes down the scrim, sniffing it like an animal, dances reminiscently with it, shakes it out. Of course it’s not alive. She folds it up, regards it thoughtfully. Takes it to her sewing machine where she turns it into a fantastic see-through dress, like a wedding dress with a deep skirt, flounces, full sleeves. Puts it on, dances joyously for the first time since the death. Pulls the MOON into her dance. SUN appears, she pulls him too, the three dance wildly together. At the back of the stage another scrim, previously invisible, is lit. Behind it we see the HUSBAND yearning to join their dance. Then he, too begins to dance, with increasing joy until they all are dancing. Dancing.

    DARKNESS