Alysse Aallyn

Category: #Sexuality

  • Inspired Pleasure – the dance diaries of Alysse Aallyn

    6:30 PM 9 Aug 76 – Shalimar

                     Writing carefully so as not to mess up my fresh 

    polish.  Got here early – Fessenden bus much better.  Rick 

    Marl in tonight talking about R’s divorce.  Said I should hear 

    his wife’s side of the story. (He’s met her.) I don’t want to hear 

    his wife’s side of the story – what would I do if I did know it. 

                    Sounds like they should get a divorce – she’s not resisting so 

    obviously she had as many problems with him as he had with her. 

    The fact that he spent so much time here is bad news for any marriage.

                     I was very impressed by his job – a TV news director 

    is a king – he sits in a the control booth with all the camera angles 

    in front of him and tells everyone what to do. I said nothing, but I 

    enjoyed the way they looked at me – very admiringly – where did 

    SHE come from. Little do they know – R won’t tell them. If they 

    dine at the Shalimar, they’ll find out. Fortunately, they’re all good 

    family men – eat lunch out of a cooler then rush home to fix the 

    automatic garage door opener and read a bedtime story to the 

    little ones. 

                     Reading Mortal Wounds and loving it. Fun to compare

     the George Sand period to the Notorious Woman TV series last year. 

    Went on a picnic with R. then saw Robert Shaw in Swashbuckler.

    Ghastly flick. I wasn’t too rude because R liked it. Told him he should 

    have seen Anne of the Thousand Days.

            Sent out 12 poems. But I’m trying to force myself to stop writing 

    poetry and concentrate on novel. There’s no financial point to poetry

     – Alas.

    11:35 am Thurs 12 Aug 76

                     I’d like to write but I must pack for the trip and it junks up my

     head. Mss, 2 ribbons (in case) correctype, The Romantic Egoists, 

    Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald’s Scrapbooks, and the wonderful 

    portrait by Julia Cameron of the two little girls clutching each other 

    which I see as the cover of my book. Sad to see the way Fitzgerald

     tried to force his wishes on the universe – force it to see things – 

    to be – his way.  No wonder he admired the rich – they’re the only 

    ones who sometimes – very infrequently –  get away with that. But 

    they are not enviable nevertheless – it’s always a naked emperor 

    situation.  Zelda’ s constant references to “not having a past” interest 

    me exceedingly – that way madness most definitely lies.  This is what 

    happens to people who insist on “living in the present”; they become amnesiacs.  Idea for a poem.

    F. SCOTT FITZGERALD:

    “To the Spoils Belong the Victor”

    The butler’s name is Gin;

    He never gets the girl.

    The Heart’s Café is terraced –

    Cantilevered exits exalt

    No core. At the Pony Bar

    Payment is upfront;

    Robert Service and Booth Tarkington

    Left prints on ice;

    The service is bad but

    There’s a reason for everything.

    Back at the Alhambra someone who might be Ernest

    Puts the moves on someone

    Who looks like Zelda or possibly it was

    The other way around.

    They never get these stories straight.

    Here’s the one they played last year:

    Sole is déclassé but at least

    There’s always caviar.

    Look on, look down, look it up or read

    The menu.

    Floorshow Tonight: Van Wyck Brooks &

    Edmund Wilson Debate:

    Artist = Self-destructive Sport?

    Or Fad? Or Fate?

                      I guess I’ll need  clothes – so I must do laundry.  I also should 

    clean house for poor A – it’s only fair.  No writing; circumstances militate. 

                     R working very hard to get to the point where he can take a 

    vacation – he didn’t get in till 2:45 AM.

    Shalimar – 3:30 PM –13 Aug 76

                     Was sitting on a box of Lite Beer sipping coffee and 

    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 at 

    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 – The Dance Diary of Alysse Aallyn

                     Fri 16 July 76 – Club Shalimar

                       A & I hung living room paintings today, and the last piece 

    was moved in. Half an hour till my date with Ryder. Will his 

    name mean anything to me in twenty years?  Brought blow dryer,

     change of clothes and unguents sufficient to slap me back into shape 

    after 7 hrs dancing. Idly listening to gossip of Randy 

    (bouncer), Jinx (dancer) and Bobbi (bartender).

                     A and I had pleasant evening last night – wild storm 

    and the power failed. So we went out walking afterwards with 

    dogs & flashlights. Fun looking into people’s houses, seeing 

    them move about with candles. What does the future hold? 

     I worry both that Ryder will be there and that he won’t be there.

     Margery Sharp’s The Faithful Servants has a lot of sweetness.

                       17 July 76

                      Interesting date. I want to write about it but first I have 

    to say today has been a TERRIBLE day – I had to follow ex-stripper 

    named Edie who wore a black lace corset and gloves and carried

     a whip onstage – everything but the donkey, as one of the other 

    dancers remarked. Then I had to listen to loud speculation on 

    how I got the bruise on my ass when it was my turn.

                     But Ryder Arlen. We had a wonderful dinner. He 

    ordered in Italian.  The weirdest thing about him is that he 

    doesn’t like mushrooms. Long dinner, then over to the Gangplank 

    for Irish coffee. He insisted upon carrying me across two puddles – 

    he’s not very big and I was sure he’d get a hernia – but he made it.

                     We got back to Chevy Chase the house looked wonderful – 

    A had obviously slaved for hours. We had her down for a glass of 

    wine, then she went back upstairs. We ended up reading my poetry 

    I didn’t show him the erotic stuff because I didn’t feel the time was right.

     He liked valentine the best – 

    Valentine

    I sent myself in a letter

    Heart-creased

    Like a glove

    Too much folded

    An anecdote

    Too much told

    Dear stranger don’t

    Lose me

    I forgot the rule

    (Hold back a copy)

                       Then we made out for hours. He was deliciously 

    passionate. I said, “You don’t want to end up in bed on the 

    first date, do you?” He said, “You pick the time and the place 

    but I hope it’s inevitable.”

                       I said it was certainly feeling that way but I’d have 

    to get to know him better. I wouldn’t let him take down the 

    top of my dress either.  He left at 2:45 AM. He seems to 

    really care for me – so my worry that I’m just a first experiment 

    after leaving wife seems baseless. He invited me to go crabbing

     tomorrow, then on a four-day cruise sometime in August.

                       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 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 joy.  

    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. 

  • The Demon Lover – a play for two voices by Alysse Aallyn

    6. ENTREGARME – SURRENDER


    EVAN
    I am utterly becalmed.
    What I dread most is silence,
    The latest form of impotence.
    I need stringing up and tautening.
    This is the
    Revenge of love. Its revenge on me.

    EVA
    I am suffused with love because I am free.
    My work becomes our child,
    Our extension. Immortal. Still,
    Something vanishes when you’re not there.

    EVAN
    Elayna broke her hip.
    How irreplaceable she is to me.
    Our brand of married happiness is entirely unsung.
    I shrink to leave her even for a day.

    EVA
    I’m sorry it wasn’t fatal.
    Am I so dispensable to you?
    You love no one. If you turn against me
    I’ll die in a week because
    I have no one looking after me.

    EVAN
    Turn against you! Agonizing!
    In spite of the hangover of humiliation
    I broke down all reserves so we could be together.
    A very happy day and I was sorry to leave you.

    EVA
    Wed & sad.
    Past distress muffled by age & habit.
    Today we meet formally as if at a garden party.
    A promise unfulfilled.
    Miracles happen but
    The gift of love is guilt & pain.

    EVAN
    You looked so ill
    I was nagged by fear I bored you.
    I long for the happiness of old age,
    Guilt free, pain free, fear free.

    EVA
    I invited Elayna to lunch.

    EVAN
    I am not best pleased.
    Your ghost will haunt me till I die.
    The day you come to like each other
    It will be poison to our love.

    Elayna rarely admits depression.
    I have had not just love but loyalty.
    You force ruthlessness.
    It is a good thing your throat is sore
    Or you would never stop talking.

    EVA
    Are you sending me your signet ring?
    I want something solid to remember you by.
    A last communion.
    Dodging death, I fight off this
    Paralyzing loneliness.

    (EVA fades away. EVAN is alone.)

    EVAN
    Is the flaw in love a flaw in me?
    I never should have married.
    My heart jumps with pain like a hooked fish.
    I am rudderless. Upon your death
    My ring comes back,
    All your contrivances revealed.

    Now that you are gone, I find you everywhere.
    It’s hard to take in the fact that
    We will never see each other again;
    Never, never, never.
    You are gone from me forever.

    I walk the streets and weep.
    Is this delayed shock? Boredom or despair?
    I will never cease to feel this pain till
    I cease feeling anything.
    For the last three nights, I dreamed of you.

    Did I anger you, neglect you?
    It’s too late to pray –
    I await your final book with horror.
    I need to know I was your life.
    Please come back one last time
    For just an hour.
    If you ever thought you loved more than I
    You are now
    Revenged.

  • The Demon Lover – a play for two voices by Alysse Aallyn

    VOLCADA – CAPSIZED

    EVA
    Allen’s buried.
    Without husband, I re-experience my youth.
    Oh, the bafflement of the young!
    I broke off my first
    Engagement because I loved too much
    And cast about for a spouse I could
    Control. I believe you did that, too.

    EVAN
    I experienced our parting as unbearable.
    I had to run away –
    Your rush of talk was like someone bursting into tears.
    I felt like an executioner robbing you of sleep.
    Without you
    My nose began to bleed and
    It’s been bleeding ever since.
    We must love each other less to become more tranquil.

    EVA
    I am a witch and you should fear me.
    I glow with contempt and boredom and fury.
    I don’t understand why
    I can’t experience life by your side.
    We share the same senses,
    The same vein of joy.
    Our life together is timeless, continuous.

    EVAN
    Your letter fraught with dynamite.
    I can never be alone, it is me and the gin bottle.
    I am home nowhere now – except with you.

    EVA
    Please don’t get yourself into a state –
    But Edgar has proposed, forcing me to face the fact
    That I literally cannot live without you.

    EVAN
    I dread you will succumb to Edgar.
    You called him “sweet” and “cozy” and “brilliantly entertaining”
    And I am none of those things. Did you bewitch him?
    I ask in my persecuted voice.
    It would be your ultimate justice, sending me to hell.
    We lose each other by inches.
    Aren’t we doing that already?

    EVA
    I can’t show Edgar the brutal candor
    Behind my loving kindness.
    He mistakes the hostess for a person.
    I arrange my flowers in symbols of you
    And everyone’s too stupid to notice.
    To bed alone again tonight.
    I wish Elayna would die.
    Then we should be equals.

    EVAN
    I must refuse your guilt.
    I feel a shift in the angle of vision
    Further from you than ever.
    A foreboding so final it seemed the end.
    Your pleading for our life dissolves my will.

    EVA
    I am gnawed by an aching hopeless wish.
    Loneliness leads to breakdown,
    Becomes dementia. I batter
    Around the rooms of this castle,
    Brightly-plumaged,
    Knocking into furniture,
    A tragic bird who’s trapped indoors.
    Even dizzy with drink I maintain the frigidity
    Of an Edwardian hostess
    Intolerant of scenes at meals.
    Without you life’s a half-lit room.

    EVAN
    I’ve become a character in your melodrama
    An absurd scalawag of romantic vice.
    Let’s reject this
    Hopeless dilemma.

    EVA
    What could be more beautiful than our ten days in New York,
    Among perverted architecture.
    No loss of illusion there, rather an increase.
    I’m in the midst of a dreary financial crisis,
    Having breakdown on my feet.
    I hope I don’t sound too shocked and sad.
    You are life to me as nothing is.
    My fingers still tremble,
    Touching you after 17 years.

    EVAN
    This is the Eva I first met, first knew, first loved.
    We waited it out and didn’t lose each other.
    I was sane or mad to doubt you & myself.
    We are like two people sweating blood
    I dread losing you
    But Elayna’s power still holds me.
    One of you may do me harm.

    EVA
    Thanks for the cash,
    I hope it doesn’t embarrass you too much.
    You are a reviver and a balm.
    We shall be in Paris together before we die.

    EVAN
    If you want me to be unselfish, let me be unselfish.
    You are my greatest friend. I’m
    Trying to keep off the drink while you’re here,
    Otherwise I know I’ll wreck everything.
    Three manhattans makes me crazy.
    Your feverish cheer does not seem solid.
    Is this the wreckage of our love?
    Once frightened of your clinical eye
    Now I’m more frightened of my own.
    I’ve matriculated in
    Your fearful university.

    EVA
    We sheer away in horror
    Scenting fumes of evil
    As we lose control.
    Defeat and exhaustion, alarm and despondency.
    Demoralized and sad.
    Slam down the lid on pain and resentment:
    I have taken against your family.
    Let’s dance. To sit
    In silence denigrates our love.

    EVAN
    My heart aches for you.
    We talked for the first time in weeks
    About hurt and resentment.
    I could manage my life if it weren’t for you
    And you could manage yours if it weren’t for me.
    You infect me with your despair and I flee to my wife
    To release the pressure.
    Her quickening influence works my imagination.

    EVA
    I hate that you travel the world without me.
    You pervade that place as God pervades our hearts.
    I obsess that you’re in places where I’m not.
    I could not live without seeing you. Yet
    Our visit may turn sour.

    EVAN
    Everything except your beautiful self rusts
    Or dies or goes away.
    My love only seems dead;
    it’s alive underneath. If you die
    I shall never forgive you.

    We need ideas that are less about ourselves.

    EVA
    My rage is based on my assumption
    Of togetherness and my
    Secret fear you’re being got at when
    We could be so snug together.

    EVAN
    I hurt Elayna tonight
    But there’s no help for it.
    She cares for me and I only care for a life apart.
    A clean break, an amputation
    Makes me frantic and guilty.
    She says we have a happy marriage only because
    She willed it. This smell of death and decay
    Makes me long for sex.
    Could you help me find a girl – any girl you choose –
    Or will you call me a sex mad degenerate?
    Panic makes my hands shake.
    I thought of Elayna and I wept.

    EVA
    I received your sad, wild letter.
    I accept that you can’t free yourself.
    Do you accept it?
    I feel so very near you.
    I accept that you make sex
    Desperately with strangers –
    Do you accept it?
    Can anyone love such a cold-blooded person?

    EVAN
    How silly I am, I thought
    I reconciled to our ending,
    Expecting a collapse of tension & illusion.
    But it’s a prospect I just can’t face.

  • The Demon Lover – a play for two voices by Alysse Aallyn

    4. CALESITA –THE MERRY GO ROUND

    EVA
    Did I leave my diary behind?
    Don’t read it, not that you would.
    It’s anaphrodisiac. I am filled with envious admiration
    For the way you spend your time.
    It’s an incentive to work, being alone.
    Diplomats are never lonely.

    EVAN
    My bed gets so icy in the small hours of the morning –
    I am losing interest in sex.
    Perhaps I am already part of the spirit world.
    I am in limbo and will never escape this place.

    The teenager remains alive in me, I have a
    Panic fear of conformity
    So I cast myself as the elderly rake.
    I fear I’m the bore –
    Marriage gets me down.

    EVA
    When you go on and on about yourself
    You’re a man I don’t recognize.
    I prefer your adolescent self.
    The man of the house should be a free agent.
    A respected prowler
    Never lonely, housebound,
    Eating baked beans and drinking stewed tea.

    EVAN
    In other countries women
    Are less bossy and more decorative.
    You are jealous of my life –
    I am jealous of yours.

    EVA
    Ah the pain of your reproach!
    Not seeing you would kill me.
    I live for the memory of our every moment.
    I wouldn’t give a damn if I died tomorrow.

    EVAN
    This is the letter I would write you if I dared,
    if I weren’t frightened by the cancer
    Of your wife-hatred.
    I am overworked, wrung out.
    Possessed by you.

    You make me live at the pitch of anguish.
    Our love has roots in good and evil,
    It lives in the darkest places of our natures
    Shall we end by destroying each other?
    You have the deadlier weapons.

    EVA
    I do have a bad effect on people.
    Guilt, conspiracy, love,
    I cannot breathe without them.

    EVAN
    Boredom, dissipation, remorse,
    And apprehension– I can’t escape this obsessive cycle.
    Beneath the controlled surface of my mind
    Opportunities to be frenzied are endless.
    I’m afraid of saying something ruthless which many stick.

    EVA
    This place is full of you.
    I can no longer look at hyacinths
    Gratitude for our happiness chokes me.
    The restlessness of pleasure going to waste.
    Missing you is like an illness.

    EVAN
    If there’s a worm in this bud
    Who is the corruptor?
    Your insights are so powerful they alter mine.

    EVA
    I believe we should exchange rings.
    Is this a faux pas? Would your wife object?
    I need something in case you die of your itch or
    I fall out of an airplane.

    I wonder why Elayna’s throat won’t heal?
    I believe she is ice-bound.
    Sealing you away from life.

    EVAN
    You witch, you have
    Frozen poor Elayna’s throat.
    I begged you not to. You make all
    Suffering physical.

    EVA
    Elayna’s frozen her own throat –
    I wish you’d see it.
    Depression is hallucinatory.
    Guilt and sorrow undermine my confidence,
    I refuse to give them credence.

    EVAN
    I’m grateful when we talk calmly,
    Our fearful scenes seem so long ago.
    I’m sure the panic of youth has played its part.
    I used to hope you would love me less over time
    But now I think we love each other equally.

    EVA
You are so near me I feel we are one person.
    I feel you now beside me.
    I will make you real.

    EVAN
    I feel your longing
    As I fear your signaling.
    I owe you happiness
    But I can’t express it.
    We must believe life is as beautiful as music
    Says it is.

    EVA
    The illusions we cultivate are
    A form of courage.
    Forget my deficiencies
    Find amusement in the worldly game.

  • The Demon Lover – a play for two voices by Alysse Aallyn

    3. LATIGAZO – WHIPPING

    EVAN
    Do you really love me?
    Why should you?
    I don’t any longer
    Believe In friendship.

    EVA
    It is a horror, an outrage
    That we should not be together. I struggle against
    The wound of not knowing where you are each minute.
    Everything you do is more important to me than my own life.
    The whole of me is with you.
    I see and feel you so distinctly,
    Your beloved cold hand in mine
    Your touch on the nape of my neck.

    Joy and agony
    – my insides torn by pincers.
    A double goodbye would have been awful
    – two bites on the bullet of pain.

    This love is like something we have given birth to.
    We must never blunt our imagination or tenderness.
    Don’t get a cold in your soul.

    EVAN
    Are these abortive suicide attempts?
    I disappoint everyone.
    Cut the cable. Set me free.

    I deliberately left one of your letters for Elayna to find.

    With me love is linked with
    A need to betray. I invite possessiveness.
    She made me promise our love would never be physical.
    I lied fluidly.

    EVA
    Even the thought of
    Such a loss of pleasure tears at my heart
    Like some medieval torture.

    You harrow me unbearably.
    My defenses are down.
    I’m filled me with a sense of ghastly injury.
    How I wish I were more beautiful –
    It’s my mouth that ages me.
    It reveals my greedy secrets.

    I want you seeing all of me –
    Even if it hurts. My work
    Is my legacy –
    You are your own child.
    You preserve your youth with the harm
    That you cause.

    I feel I am dead and already
    Interred – in you.
    You are my eternity.

    EVAN
    Repressed boredom causes blocks
    You can’t have everything.
    I am kept aloft by the conflict of
    Unbearables.
    It makes me happy.

    EVA
    If our dancing life is over –
    Should I enter a convent?
    There’s no point in being alive
    if we’re not together.
    I show my deepest self to you alone.

    EVAN
    Please – no more shaming conversations
    Over Irish whisky. Let’s cut our losses
    And get some fun from life.
    Your miraculous capacities awaken
    My belief in myself.

    EVA


    The gash in our love might close
    But I’ll never forget it’s there.
    Life with you is a remote happiness to which I cling

    EVAN
    And all this time you write such
    Fantastic books. If you were as unhappy as you say,
    You couldn’t write so well.
    I’m proud to be
    The whetstone on which you sharpen –
    I should be thanked for all your works.

    Writing to you
    Makes me itch with a beastly itch –
    Exhilarated, punch drunk
    Feeling your enthrallment
    Despite the day’s malaise.

    I can’t put my heart back in the hollow
    Where it used to be.
    You force me to see
    Myself.

    At the peak of my ambition,
    Beauty and power curdle within me.
    People are so easily fooled, so
    Satisfied with little
    identify my performance with my Soul.

    You’ve spoiled me for everything.
    Stop warning me you’ll take a lover –
    I don’t own your life and never aspired to.
    There is heartbreak here, but is the ghost in the house
    Or in me? We argue about who has the worst friends,
    But our friends are all the same. Please
    Send another psychic telegram, “You’re the One.”

    EVA
    Your last screed was a masterpiece.
    I believe writing it
    Creates that eczema from which
    You say you suffer.
    My friends at Tosca said it’s bad manners
    To make a depressing fuss
    And get other people down.

    EVAN
    Is the strength I draw from you a fairy tale?
    I am appalled by the joint misery we feel.
    Why should we not rebel?

    EVA
    You shed your light around me.
    If only we could stand each other.
    You’ll keep the blood
    Running in my veins
    Threatening to spill.

    EVAN
    Someone said I look ten years younger
    From drinking your life, I’m sure.
    I need my own room because I sleep badly and
    I like to roam at night.

    Tosca is too emotional to be good taste
    But I’m happy you enjoyed it.
    I feel far from you right now but
    Underneath
    I’m outrageously glad.

    EVA
    Your diplomacy fascinates me.
    Your mettle is the stuff of history.
    When young I resisted education
    Like a fool – But
    It makes everything comprehensible.
    What kills me is having to deal with people.

    I tie myself up writing
    Imaginary conversations with you –
    It’s possible you’re a creature of
    My invention. Our pattern seems set –
    Or is it?
    If treachery can’t break it,
    There is no death.

  • The Demon Lover – a play for two voices by Alysse Aallyn

    THE DEMON LOVER

    I. ABRAZO – THE EMBRACE

    EVAN

    I like women willful, late
    For appointments,
    fond of showy clothes and society, vague, drifting, dreamy,
    yet of course all of that is tiresome.

    Love mingles with irritation.
    But I don’t like competence, intellectual honesty, intelligent sensuality.
    Women who turn on me saying,
    “You don’t love me.”

    What good is it to have been so happy
    when it ends so painfully?
    I am a “crook”, a “torturer of women”,
    “Murderer.” She makes me feel a monster.

    Below the surface of the will
    I feel deep animal distress, as if I had wives
    Hidden away somewhere; perhaps
    That is why I had to marry
    My present wife.

    EVA
    If you start “trying to be good”
    that will really come between us.
    It’s too unattractive. What are you up to?

    I dream of a small house in Burgundy but
    You must help me pay the rent.
    Having a home is a form of egotism.
    My beautiful one, you could make me so happy.

    Selfishly I want you here
    So I don’t have to hallucinate your nearness.
    What’s that wife of yours –
    What do you call her –
    Elayna –
    Thinking in her frozen chamber?

    I’m feeling sorrow at our growing separation.
    Can’t we pull out of the world’s battle and live in retreat?
    Grant me one last happiness
    Before the sufferings of
    Pain and old age.

    EVAN
    I can’t keep up with life’s ambiguous futility.
    Is happiness just “freedom from pain”?
    Life is unendurable without you.
    People here are flirtatious but not sexy.
    it’s so boring here
    I’m hardening my heart to give up my home.

    EVA
    I find your misery gratifying.
    This power of enjoyment comes from being an artist,
    It is the secret of my strength.
    When I was younger I used to
    Accommodate everyone –
    Now I’m recalcitrant.

    It hurts because the sword runs through both of us.
    You’re never out of my thoughts, but
    Sadness dulls one.
    Honestly, I always risk failing you,
    Failing you in outstandingness.

    You are extraordinary, I am extraordinary,
    we have been extraordinary together.
    Specimens under glass.

    The agonizing force of missing you
    Is sweeping over me.
    We have eternity connecting us,
    Backward & forward but I just
    Can’t get anyone to believe it.

    EVAN
    Would my death simplify things?
    My wife struggles with carrying the conversation
    While I stare glumly at the rain.
    We go to an expensive little restaurant
    And pretend we are on a date to really talk.
    My double life begins the moment
    I say “Are you in love with me”?
    And really mean “Am I in love with you?”

    EVA
    That woman’s killing you.
    Imagine if you were dead and your wife
    Wrote a book explaining you
    To everyone! That’s true suffering –
    Fodder for the mealy-mouthed.

    EVAN
    My wife won’t be writing any books
    About me or about anything. You’re the one
    To write the book. And
    I feel safe in your witch-like hands.

    EVA
    Except I’ve told you over and over
    You’ll outlive me. Because
    You’re a killer.
    Or your wife is.

    You look younger than I’ve ever seen you.
    Have you gone queer? I fear
    I’ll die of my addiction –
    We always do.
    We prefer it.
    Will you write about me?

  • Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

    Sex – Soulmates

    If This Archetype Chooses You – You are searching for your “other”. Do you look in the mirror and see another face? Do you dream of a lost twin? Do you imagine “the other” across a crowded room, and think when you touch their hand, you will feel a strange galvanic charge? Do you think soulmates are even possible? Is there only one or are many soulmates potentially developed over a lifetime? Are you disenchanted with sex? Does it seem like more trouble than it is worth? Do you have sex dreams that feel more like night terrors? Does sex make you feel increasingly worthless and untouchable?

    Soulmates Are Real and You Have One – It’s never too late. You are never so “lost” you can’t find your soulmate. The problem is, your soulmate feels just the way you do and both of you are frightened of those feelings, isolating you further in an invisible, impenetrable membrane. You want your soulmate to rescue you, but creatives rescue each other. This takes a lot of bravery, a lot of humility, much insight and a little magic.

    Desire Can Be Slaked – Temporarily. Creative must stay alert. We don’t pursue numbness – or even satiety. It’s good to get acquainted with hunger. Pro tip – hunger keeps you young. Hunger is a condition of youth.

    When Creatives Bond There is No Going Back. – The potential magic of sexual connection ignites the search for a SoulMate. Creatives believe that once found, a Soul Pair becomes capable of Time Travel, TransSubstantiation, and Immortality. Genders merge; either one can be feminine, masculine or androgyne at will. One wing searches for another to form a bird and fly. The question we must ask ourselves is: are we willing to undergo the pain of having the boundaries of our borders breached to fully merge with another?

    Creatives Lift Each Other’s Souls – The power of a doubled pair is raised to the nth power by their knowledge, commitment and shared purpose.

    Creatives Release Each Other – There are so many permissions, forgivenesses, and skills we cannot give ourselves. Love literally gives you eyes in the back of your head. There is no hiding from your soulmate.

    Doubled Creatives Power the Universe – The constant clash of mating, sharing, satisfying and negotiating is the music of the spheres. It keeps us all spinning in an ecstasy of selfless selfhood.

    Creative Challenge – There are plenty of frogs out there and some vipers, and you will kiss each. Possibly more than once. It’s also possible that we have “rewired” our system – through porn, games, and casual sex – so that it actually prevents us from recognizing a soulmate and forging a life bond. This is why starting as friends is so critical. It gets your defenses down to the point where you can talk about fears, desires and problematic reactions. Go slowly, welcome mistakes and be prepared to learn.

    Creative Danger – Sometimes – let’s face it – most times, you and your soulmate are “sick.” You have “caught” infection from a society that says “fuck you” to eternal, mystical, mutual sexual union. That makes things hard. You don’t recover overnight. You must commit to good mental, emotional, physical, spiritual and sexual hygiene and you will both have to figure out what it is. You need to make a plan – yes, a map – out of each other’s minds and bodies. If the other person refuses to accept health you will have to detach for your own sanity and safety. Vampires make other vampires, and bliss will elude them. The most important part of soulmating is the mutual pledge for health and growth – for both of you.

    Creative Opportunity – My book, I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead – is about the supernatural powers of soulmates. It’s about what to do when you dislike and distrust your soulmate at first. It’s about what to do when you and your soulmate both have horrific pasts and are pursued by actual demons. I can’t say it clearer than that. Don’t be frightened. Your bond is eternal, across time, geography and multiverses. Take it slow. You have all the time in the multiverse.

    Bereavement Is Never the End – As life itself is not the end, bereavement cannot be. The glory of bliss still awaits, and detached Soulmates have been known to find each other and form new spiritual and physical connections.

    Models & Mentors – “A soulmate’s purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life and then introduce you to your spiritual master” – Elizabeth Gilbert

    “A soulmate is the one person whose love is powerful enough to motivate you to meet your soul to do the emotional work of self-discovery and awakening”
    – Kenny Loggins

    “They fought all the time and challenged each other every day. They were crazy about each other” – Nicholas Sparks

    “I know what love is, because of you.” – Herman Hesse

    #Haiku: I’ll Sleep When You’re Dead

    Only soulmates can
    Slay each other’s dragons
    Says Tibetan Master

  • Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

    Fish – Ambisextrous

    If This Archetype Chooses You – His or Hers? Creatives Express All Genders. Are you an empath? Do you identify easily with multiple avatars? Are you happiest with fluid roles in a relationship? Do you dream of the fetish trophies of gender; makeup, wigs, shoes, sports equipment? Do you have frequent “freedom” dreams: flying, swimming? Waking up damp, pulses pounding?

    Love Opens Creatives – Empathy Ennobles Creatives – IS there an “opposite” sex? Deep empathy makes us worthy to be our own romantic partners, the subject of our lifelong pursuit. This is nothing but the honorable, deepest desire to truly know oneself AND others; to master selfhood and compassion before leaving the planet. C.S. Lewis says we are not a Body with a Soul, we are Souls with a Body.

    Creative Strategy Requires “Becoming” the Other – Strengthening our imagination, we see through the barriers raised by the fearful and the pugnacious. What is “winning”? Empaths double – triple – multiply our vision, our power, and therefore our souls.

    Don’t Fear Gender – Creatives who perform “gender specifics” are limiting themselves. Creatives who look for opportunities to expand their reach encompass the powers, the delights, the ecstasies of all humans. What we absorb, we reflect.

    Creatives Don’t Fear Physicality – We express ourselves with this gloriously gifted, given body, coming through this gloriously gifted, given world. We expect, even worship, Transformation. Woody Allen says bisexuality doubles your chances to get a date on Saturday night. Anything wrong with that? Creatives never “force” themselves to perform sexually; that is subjugation.

    Creatives Move Slowly to Absorb, Interpret, Comprehend – We desire to see, to know, to experience everything. Always move as slowly as you feel comfortable with, keeping all options and emotions alive. The “sexual revolution” was a lot of fun, but it was spoiled for many by a witless prejudice against “reserve.” Revulsion, instinctive distaste and doubt tell us plenty. We are on this earth to hone our “gut” instinct as well as our sensitivities. Gavin de Becker, danger specialist, reminds us that fear is an insight, an intuition, a God-given “gift.” Honor it.

    Creatives Educate Themselves on Risk – Dangerous “bad sex” stories start with substance abuse, usually undertaken with a nervous desire to get into a more relaxed or even transcendental state; but all it actually does is skip over the “informed consent” that is such an important feature of identity and will. Predators with a need for speed drug their prey! Afterwards the complex feelings of violation and shame can take a lifetime to deal with. These facts mean we must study “trust” BEFORE we study sex. What is trust? Safety? Honor? Let’s work on those issues while we develop a free space to evolve, experiment and grow.

    Creatives Seize Opportunity – Fresh interpretations of “gender“ make this a glorious time to be alive. I can recall when gender was a prison sentence of compulsion and rigidity! Now it is an invitation to live more fully, to experience oneself and others more richly, to participate in that fruitful, heavenly life for which we all yearn.

    Models & Mentors – “The great gift of human beings is we all have empathy. We can sense a mysterious connection to each other” – Meryl Streep

    “Leadership is about empathy. It is about relating to people for the purpose of inspiring and empowering their lives” – Oprah Winfrey

    “The capacity for empathy leads to a genuine encounter I which heart speaks to heart” – Pope Francis

    “I believe empathy is the most essential quality of civilization” – Roger Ebert

    “Empathy has no script…there is no right way or wrong way…there is only listening, emotionally connecting, communicating the incredibly healing message ‘You’re not alone” – Brene Brown

    #Haiku: Ambisextrous

    Fresh birthed –
    Splash
    Into you
    Drenched,
    Once
    Halved, now
    Wholed –
    Doubling multiplies
    Us

  • Sleeping Orchid – Creative Boot Camp for Sensitives & Empaths with Alysse Aallyn

    The Lovers – Alliances

      When This Archetype Chooses You – You Don’t Have to Go Through This Alone (and you don’t want to!) Check your friend list. Do you dream of love, sex, connection? Hand-holding, hugging, family celebrations? You were born to search for Alliances. An alliance is symbiotic, good for both sides of the equation. To reach out, you must each decide your motive (“I Could Use a Friend”) and approach with the CERTAINTY that you are WORTHY of friendship. This last one is tricky because we are ALL looking for validation. This is the source of many “imposter” dreams where we find ourselves naked in front of the entire class, unprepared on Test Day!

      Love Begins With Friendship: You Are a Giver and Worthy of Help – We can’t see everything because we don’t have eyes in the back of our heads. Luckily, we are surrounded by other humans, struggling, just like us. If we pledge to help each other, we can dispatch terror and celebrate joy! Comforting! But how can we tell the difference between Builders and Exploiters? We don’t want to end up devoured; someone else’s temporary “meal”.

      Creative Danger – When someone is trying to mangle your self-esteem, recognize that fact. Many women purposely diminish themselves to attract mates: Bad Idea. Even if it comes in the guise of “friendship” any person who takes you up on that offer is an enemy. This is not what friends, and certainly not lovers, are for. When someone is trying to “capture” you, i.e. limit and control your possibilities and behavior, that person is a hostage-taker looking for slaves. NOT a friend.

      Creative Challenge – How to recognize friends? Friends are honest: “I just don’t like that dress but maybe it’s me.” Friends are forgiving, ‘I’m sorry, I was having a bad day. I know you’re sorry, too.” Friends are fun, “Let’s cheer ourselves up.” Friends are helpful: “Let’s figure a way out of this.” Are you honest, forgiving, fun-loving and helpful? You’re ready to be a friend. Friendship is a good place to start. Be the friend you want to have – warm, funny, loyal, truthful.

      Love Enriches – It Does Not Deplete – – Friends are a mirror in which we see ourselves. We can experiment with possibilities, we can expand our reach. Our intelligence is doubled, as well as our efforts. Our sorrows are halved and our ideas are increased exponentially. Reach out! You never know until you try. And there’s always the possibility of Love and a deepening sexual connection.

      Love Transforms the way Creativity Transforms – Things you thought you could not do seem possible now because someone believes in you. Believe in yourself because they do, and honor them by believing in them, in return.

      Locked Back to Back the Creative Pair Sees Everything – Gaze turns outward at the world, not inward on each other. Are you chewing or strengthening? Learn the steps of your tango. Add new steps of your own.

      As You Change, the Couple Changes – Compare Training Journals. Are you evolving? Can you evolve together? Is it safe to speak the truth? Does one partner try to dominate? Does one partner use infantile behaviors to get “their way”? There is no “one way.” As joint creatives, the couple has goals also. Compare. Allow differences. The truth will be revealed.

      Models & Mentors – “You are my sun, my moon and all my stars”
      – e.e. cummings

      “All that we love deeply becomes a part of us” – Helen Keller

      “Love makes your soul crawl out of its hiding place” – Zora Neale Hurston

      “Love is not proud or boastful, keeps no record of past mistakes – love rejoices in the truth” –
      II Corinthians

      “Laugh as much as you breathe, love as long as you live” – Rumi

      #Haiku: The Lovers

      Falling upwards
      Into you
      My other wing, my second
      Clapping hand