Richard Sharon - Diary of a Lover

When I came out, laundered and dry-cleaned, Terry was smiling.

"I guess you're not shy after all, are you?" she said.

"You mean because of this afternoon?"

"Yes."

Now I smiled. "Baby," I said, "I like you. I'll be your friend or your lover or both, but I'll never be your John-not as long as I can still get my hands up and down my cock to jack it off."

We both laughed.

It was strange that Terry made an effort to keep her eyes on mine and not look at my dangling dong. "Are you looking only at my face to show me you're a hardened veteran and could care less, or are you the shy one?" I asked.

She blushed. "I didn't know I was doing it."

"It's okay," I said. "I took in every inch of your body today and came to the conclusion that you're female. K you'd like to look down, it might reassure you to know that I'm not."

Then, making a point of it, she looked me over carefully as she slid under the blankets. "You're definitely not," she said softly.

I kissed her good night just once, gently on the lips, and went into the bedroom to sleep.

I think I was aware of light in the room before anything else. The sun was just coming up, its rays streaking up Jackson Street and obliquely through my Venetian blinds. Then I felt her arm around me, lying heavily across my back, her weight pulling at the mattress next to me, her breath warm 'and steady into my left shoulder.

I must have been deeply asleep, because I had no idea how long she had been there. Shifting my weight, I turned to face her, feeling myself get hard as her scent and softness permeated my senses. I watched her face for a long while, distorted slightly by her pillow. She was so tiny and cute, so helpless and trusting that I felt almost paternal toward her, but paternal with a hard-on. I stroked her cheek and tousled hair with the backs of my fingers, moving closer to her as her eyes opened slowly and regarded me sleepily for several minutes. She moved closer, pressing my cock against her soft belly, so warm and giving, and we kissed very slowly, very lovingly, as our hands explored with a light touch. She took hold of me lightly, moving her hand along the length of my shaft. We were still on our sides. She threw one leg over my waist and guided me into her. I had never felt a woman so wet without first having a lot of stimulation. She held me tightly until it was fully within her. Then for a long time neither of us moved, except to kiss and caress. Finally, slowly at first, and then wildly, we made love. And then I used my mouth on her and she on me, and this time I knew she didn't mind, I knew, even though we were wet with each other's juices, that she loved it, knew that I could never again be a John to her. And later, although I was still only semi-hard, I put Terry gently into the right position and entered her again. This time it was long and tender and so sweet. It was the first time since Mora that I had felt really satisfied with a woman. We made our cocoon, our small box of space, darkish and warm, and floated endlessly in it. The universe became our bodies and our feelings, and there was nothing else.

Terry stayed with me until summer vacation was almost over. She loved to cook fattening Greek foods for me and I gained about eight pounds, as we ate at home almost every night. She was sweet and kind and generous, but not overly bright. She had an annoying habit of being a slob, leaving clothes and things strewn about the apartment. When I would ask her to be neater she would try, but shortly fall back to her old ways.

Unlike all the others who had stayed with me, I had no thought of throwing her out. Our lovemaking was too good and pleased both of us too much. Terry was the first girl whom I actually tried to teach, as Mora had taught me. Sex bouts with adolescent boys and two weeks as a pro hadn't given her enough opportunity to learn. I taught her sex, a little bit at a time, from anus to urine, and she enjoyed it all. As a matter of fact, Terry liked urine even more than Mora had, after I gave her my own version of Mora's little talk on what is dirty and what isn't; what is normal and what isn't. She went so far as to buy a rubber sheet to put on the bed, because my shower and bathroom were small and cramped. I will admit that it did feel much better to piss on each other in the comfort of the bed; and even lying in pools of wet urine didn't bother me. However, if we didn't get up to clean the bed within a couple of minutes it became cold, sticky and quite smelly. Also, it was a pain in the ass. Terry would grab one side of the rubber sheet and I would grab the other, and we would have to let it drop in the middle, where the urine would collect, and walk gingerly to dump it into the shower, being careful not to drip any on the carpet. After a while, we did it less and less, not because we didn't enjoy it but because it was just too damn much trouble.

I took Terry to the symphony. She didn't dig classical music very much, and preferred pop stuff and vocals. I took her on jobs with me occasionally, but unattached men would ask her to dance, and she usually did. She told me that several had asked her for dates but she had declined. I couldn't blame her. It was boring for her to sit all evening and wait for me, and of course I couldn't dance while I was working.

One day, lying in each other's arms after making love, Terry told me that she loved me. She asked if I thought I might ever marry a reformed hooker. I knew that she loved me in the way a puppy loves its master, but I also knew that as fond of her as I was, I didn't love her. We had no basis for a lifelong relationship. We spent the summer days at the beach or park, or over in Marin County, and it was all very idyllic, but I had always assumed that there would be an end; there had to be.

I told her gently but honestly how I felt and she cried the rest of the day. Ours was a surface relationship; there was nothing deep or binding in it, and at seventeen I felt that I wasn't ready for that kind of commitment. I was the first solid support that Terry had known since she moved away from home, so I knew how she felt. I could remember how I had felt about Mora as a pillar of security in a swirling new world of self alone. Now I was such a pillar to Terry.

She spent a good deal of time job hunting but still hadn't found anything. Then, the week before my senior year began, a musician friend who worked days for the phone company told me about a secretarial opening in their head office. I set up an appointment for Terry. She went, was interviewed and tested, and filled out forms, and the following morning we were notified by phone that she had been accepted for the job, with a starting salary of ninety dollars a week as secretary to one of their executives.

Terry's depression over my rejection of her turned to mania. She was so excited that she couldn't sit still. We celebrated by going out for dinner, and then I took her to the Fairmont Hotel to see the Danny Thomas show, bought her a corsage, and had the photo girl in the hotel's Venetian Room take our picture.

The next morning she went for an employment physical, and when she returned I showed her the letter that Mora had written me almost two years before. Watching her face as she read the letter, I knew that she understood. I told her that another chapter in my life was over, as was another chapter in hers; that it was time for us both to move on, time to continue our search.

Three days later I found her a nice furnished apartment on Bush near Laguna and helped her move her things. We continued to see each other often for a while. Several times I stayed overnight at her place, and several times she stayed over at mine, but we both knew that it was over.

I gave her good advice; I told her to start dating and looking for a husband and a nice, normal life as a nice, normal housewife and mother. I told her to pretend that she was a virgin and fight for her "honor" for all she was worth with each man she dated. The old adage is still true, even for today's socially aware male. Each man wants to screw every girl he meets, but down deep, under all the sociological bullshit, he still wants his wife to be a virgin, to have the knowledge (or at least the illusion) that he is the only man with whom she ever made love, and all the New Liberal talk about preferring girls with experience melts into a deeply ingrained puritan ethic.