Plush Palace – Tuesday, January 3, 1978 – 9:25 PM
Back at work. Can’t concentrate on The Murder of Sir Edmund Godfrey, which is the book I brought – because I keep thinking Jervaze will drop by. Dead silence from him – no call on Christmas. I sent him one card but of course I only got back yesterday.
I can’t bear to take all the initiative. Oddly (especially after my dream about him) had a card waiting from Devon. Maybe I AM psychic. Evidently he regrets that love-letter – encourages me to “hang loose”. Quotes from Sister Goldenhair. In other words, don’t try to get him to plan to meet skiing, that’s just way more planning than he can handle. Kind of a pathetic specimen.
Plush Palace – 10:05 pm Thurs 5 Jan 1978
Jervaze came in Tues after my 10:00 set – with lots of little presents for me, perfume, bears, cards, pins – in a Christmas stocking. He wore a gold-banded black cowboy hat covered with snow and a shiny black down parka, his platinum hair swinging around his face – like a visit from an angel. Or possibly a Chippendale dancer. He is too pretty; mine eyes dazzle.
He stayed till I got off at 1 then walked me to my car – one kiss – asked me out very formally for Saturday night. I gave him directions to my place and he wrote them in a book – tipped his hat, climbed into his Shelby and vanished.
Leaving me wondering, is he gay? Is he even real? I continue to struggle reading The Young Romantics – artists in 1840’s Paris.
Avril and I found a perfect black sequin tube top while
we were out promenading yesterday – I’m going to wear it with my black silk trouser suit. She thinks she found herself the perfect apartment too – a studio in a skyscraper with a great kitchen, huge closets, only $216 month utilities included, says she is going to look for another week before she decides. Financial fount M & D don’t want her living with me because I am a “harmful influence.” We saw Armon in a bit part on TV last night – there weren’t any credits, but I knew it was him.
Listening out of one ear to gossip – Gina says the bartender at the Starlight is bisexual and that Tony the bagman is her male lover.
I can’t imagine them together. He is called the “bagman” because he runs between the clubs in a Lincoln filled with bags of money. Gina also says that she is a priest in a mail order religion and that her breasts are real and her ex-husband raped her nine-year-old daughter. I can tell for a fact those hard breasts are fake so it does make it tough to believe anything she says.
Last night went out with Erika to see the new Bunuel
(in spite of her claims to revere him she failed to notice he used different actors for the same part) and to eat at Chateau Gesundheit. Depressing conversation about how terrible men are – she says her ex-husband is a cross
between a psychopath and a momma’s boy – she naturally assumed because of Ryder that this would be my favorite subject. She also says all exotic dancers and showgirls were molested as children and as a result are lesbians who hate men. I say is that alllittle girls have some unpleasant memories of Adult Men but this is just a chip on her breeze. A breeze I think I better stay out of in future, perhaps. I also get tired of hearing the Marxist slant on Life. Love doesn’t exist, people do everything for “self-interest”, etc. etc. If that is true they are doing a piss-poor job of it. I think people live for fantasy and some people’s fantasies are very, very cheap.
Hoping drinks with Maeve will be more fun.
Midnight – 6 Jan- 78
Crazy with love. Jervaze and I had one of those unforgettable dates last night – Took him to my favorite restaurant in Ellicott City – Coco Lane and we talked for hours. He loves dogs – wants to raise Grand Pyrenees. His favorite cats are English blues. Wanted to be a vet except he always hated school, so that’s how he got into working with his hands and he thinks there’s no way back now. He loves WC Fields and horror movies.
The thing I love about him most (apart from his astonishing beauty) is his natural courtesy, his dignity (he is very polite to anyone in a service position – the exact opposite of status-focused Ryder who acted as if being exigent was the same thing as being discriminating.) He has such an aura of gentleness and calm, just like those big dogs he loves so much. His isolation, I like too – he’s the only male I’ve met in quite awhile who doesn’t travel in a pack. He has a brother in the same job locally – that’s why he came up from Alabama – but he plainly thinks suburban Virginia is the “fast lane” and I don’t disabuse him.
He eats seafood by preference and wants to live on the water.
He probably drinks too much and could be an incipient alcoholic. My parents would be totally, totally appalled but of course it doesn’t take much to appall them. Alas, he hasn’t finished my book – claims he’s “working on it”. I am waiting for him to outright say he doesn’t understand it – maybe when he knows me better.
When he kissed me goodnight he only kissed me – a relief at the time, since it was one less worry. Now of course I wish I had some clearer indication from him that he finds me even attractive. Is he polite or am I resistible? Don’t want to be resistible – we’ll have to change that.
Sat -1 pm 7 Jan- 78
I’m at the Starlight – our club owner owns this one too – it’s huge.
How I hate this stage. It isn’t a true stage but a runway winding through the audience, which means you must keep walking all the time – and they try to fill it by having several girls up at once. One can’t build any audience hypnosis – people pay less attention and have more business meetings – and tips really take a nosedive. The bartender is a grizzled old lesbian who stares right up my crotch – supposedly to see if my stocking seams are straight (they aren’t. Fortunately she doesn’t offer to do them for me – but she still watches.) Four of the other girls tried to get me to let them smoke dope in the dressing room – I told them no. They’ll have to go out back with the alley cats.
Thank God Glee – who has a lot of class – backed me up. So –
the two of us had the dressing room to ourselves, which made a pleasant change from watching the others trying to disguise the scars from their breast operations. Book I brought – The Pleasure of Ruins – does not go with this atmosphere – in spite of its title.
Ryder called me here – says he found me thru Randy who was impressed because Ryder’s on TV! I flatly told him he is scaring the life of out me with this behavior.
But he seems to know just how far to push things, so, amazingly we had a wonderful talk! Gentleman Jim lets us talk in his office: very respectful of our “privacy”. He obviously thinks we are dating. Wonder if he will tip R to the fact that I have a “honey on the side” at the Plush Palace? Jesus!
I told R I am sick of his “psychotic twin brother” (good idea for a novel, actually) and he really laughed – admitted he has “a Jekyll-Hyde” thing going on. (It’s actually worse than that – it’s really Hyde and Mr. Nastier Hyde – but didn’t say that. Keep conversation light.) He promised to stop calling me at work.
Monday 8 Jan 78 – 6 PM
Twenty-four hours ago I was sitting in my red dress over a glass of port, waiting for Jervaze to arrive. Anxiety level high. Somewhere –
– I think from Mom – I got the impression that my needs are so automatically repellent to any sane individual that they must be hidden. Therefore, I have to carefully think my way through to any honest approach – and then it isn’t really honest any more. But I can’t just be impulsive. Prepared myself for disappointment – that he would be late or perhaps not show – because there is something weird about him. Some deep dark secret perhaps? But he was right on time.
This time I took him to my nearest neighborhood restaurant
– where the waiter put on quite a show with Irish coffee till flaming liquor rolled down his sleeves! Jervaze came inside my house without hesitation –
Me fretting about how to best establish physical contact while he sprawled comfortably on the couch. I turned off the overhead light and lit candles – took off my jacket – he rubbed his face against my breasts acting calm, respectful and not neurotic. Must be my experience with R that makes me fearful of being “shamed” every second.
Jervaze kissed and kissed my face so long – tears
automatically filled my eyes. But he did not get upset. Got up like aperfect gentleman “when it was time to leave” and I managed to resist attacking him. I did one very strange thing that is causing me anxiety now.
We showed each other our class rings – he always wears his. I slid mine on his little finger and left it there. He wore it home. Uh oh.
11:30 AM Wed 11 Jan 78
Experiencing sharp attacks of fear all day long at “being in a relationship”. What the hell was I doing giving him my ring? See, I agree that everything’s my fault! Story of my life! Currently enjoying two quiet hours while Avril is at the gynecologist. It will be great when she gets her own place.
Plenty of private time and space to panic in.
Today I got a phone call from Ryder and a letter from Devon. So –
I was able to line my relationships up, so to speak, contrast and compare.
Even lumped together they are not one full relationship! R’s “gamesmanship” is down from its zenith, but, owing to my total nonparticipation, also at its most exposed. Lengthy chat about our vacations, and then he spent probably a half hour telling me his “insurance setup”. Why? So I can tell everyone where to find the will and the important papers when he runs into a tree on his next ski trip! I should be worried about him dying apparently!!!
I let him talk, I didn’t cut him off and I asked no questions, largely because this makes him the craziest and he deserves it. I know he’s comforting himself now that I at least care about his finances if not about him. Devon thanked me for the glamorpic (described me as “so lovely” and said he feels like he’s talking to me when he writes his letter) and then launched into a long description of his and Gwynne’s relationship.
They have an “understanding” which seems to involve “being there for each other” without “demands”. “Why won’t he admit he’s gay?” howls Avril when I read this to her.
But I don’t think sex is even that simple for him. His approach is much more diffuse – a constantly vibrating choice between “being sexual” and “not being sexual”. He and I had such good sex, but if it all has to happen in a sort of coma, if there can’t be any planning or god forbid, discussion then the hell with it.
As for Jervaze, he showed up for the last three hours of my first night back at The Plush Palace from the Starlight. He was wearing my ring. I asked him if my work bothered him. He said, no, he was cool with it, but was glad I asked.
Whereupon we went back to his place and made love for 3 hours. Whoo-hoo! I’m not kidding! The first test – home design – alas he failed. His furnishings are truly HORRIFIC Spanish Mediterranean dreck. His shower curtain consists of festoons of blue chiffon – it is INCONCEIVABLE that a male could purchase such a thing. Guess I am not asking the right questions. Old girlfriend? Mom? Sister-in-law? Some woman raised exclusively on pirate films had a hand in here somewhere.
As to the sex – that test he passed. He’s a prizewinner there. Everything takes forever and that doesn’t seem to bother him in the least. Is he some kind of reptile, living in a time zone utterly different from us mammals?
It took him 20 minutes to get my pants off working steadily. I got enough comments about the beauty of my body to satisfy my ego for life.
He went down on me without a flicker – so much for all those rumors about Southern men – and when he goes down he stays down. On the other hand – he never did come. Calms fears of premature ejaculation but –
raises other ones.
When I left, he gave me his key.
Alysse Aallyn 