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.