Oh, Arnold.
Jeff.
Kiss ended. A step back and hands behind my back and worked the zipper and dropped the dress to the floor. Stepped out, kicked shoes loose. No bra, no pants, nothing but me, burning in his eyes.
Hands so nervous and shaky, and God took the key from my fingers and stuck it in my head and turned off at last my brain.
Won’t write about it.
Can’t write about it.
Can write about everything else but not IT, not Arnold and Arlene and Jeff and Jennifer, not us in bed, can’t write about it, won’t write about it.
All for him, that was the idea, all for him, everything for him, and not thanks for the drinks thanks for the dinner thanks for the play not thanks for the job thanks for the raise not thanks for anything. Thanks for you for being you, everything for you, everything, and all of me caught in it, owned by it, part of it, with it and of it, and my brain turned off off! and my body turned on on! and me alive and with it and of it and for it and all for him, all, all, and then suddenly surprisingly impossibly...
All for me too.
“Don’t go.”
“All right.”
“Sleep with me.”
“Yes.”
“No one ever slept with me.”
“Won’t your mother expect you at home?”
“So much to tell you.”
“Huh?”
“She won’t expect me. Your wife—”
“Don’t worry.”
“Good.”
“Arlene, I—”
“No. Oh my darling, I can’t talk or listen. I cannot. Don’t talk, don’t make me talk.”
“Sure.”
“Just hold me all night. Just do everything you want with me, just show me what you want me to do with you. Both of us in the darkness and doing everything and not talking, oh my darling.”
Slept so nicely. Woke two, three times, reached to see if he was there.
He always was.
Slept so nicely.
Woke, and he asleep. How warm and soft and helpless. Curled on his side, baby in the womb, sweet.
Woke him in my mouth. Woke him up, up, up. Arnold come for breakfast, how sweet.
He showered, returned. I showered and he was dressed when I came back wet and naked. Dried my hands and went to the radiator and took off the cover. Looked at the stack of paper and closed the cover and turned to him.
Said, “Arnold, you have to know me. Jeff has to know Jennifer. Arnold, my mother is dead and this is my apartment and, oh I can’t talk, I honestly cannot talk. Arnold, you have to read this. No, don’t talk, please don’t say anything, just let me.”
Opened the cover again, got out the pages. Handed the thick stack to him.
“I’m in these pages,” I said.
His eyes.
“I’m in these pages, this is where I live, in these pages, this is all the persons I have been and all the places I have gone and what I have seen and been and done there. Arnold, listen to me. Take this with you. I’ll stay here. Take this with you and read it. Read all of it because that’s where I am and I want you to know me. I am afraid but I am more afraid not to be known by you.”
My own eyes closed now.
“Take this with you. I’ll stay here. Read this, read all of it. And then decide.”
“Decide?”
“Whether or not to call me. If you don’t call me, I’ll never call you. Just a minute.” I find a pen, scribble my unlisted number on the top sheet of paper. Odd that I know the number. Never gave it out, never dialed it myself. The number sat all these months in a corner of my mind, waiting for me to need it.
“It’s all up to you,” I said. “And don’t answer now because you can’t answer now, you don’t know me enough. You have to read it first. And then it’s up to you. Kiss me. Yes, oh yes. Now go.”
And turned away and closed my eyes and stood like a statue until he was gone and the door shut behind him.
A long time staring, a long time sitting and doing nothing, thinking nothing.
Then sat at this typewriter and rolled another automatic sheet into its carriage.
Because my diary is gone. It has gone away and left me behind, and I must work hurriedly to fill up the void beneath my radiator cover. I must hurry and type up thousands more sheets of paper and let those sheets share my empty life, my forever empty life.
Glad I did it. Glad glad glad I did it. Glad I brought him home into this apartment where no one has ever been but me. Glad I brought him here and took him to bed.
Last night in bed beside him thought I might die in my sleep and thought too that it was all right if I did.
What will he think when he reads of Arlene? When Jeff learns of Jennifer?
God, what will he think?
Better that he knows and hates me than that he goes on knowing only part of me. Better that I am for once in my life naked in one man’s eyes, even if that man never sets those eyes upon me again.
Better.
Tears in my eyes that won’t come out, a lump in my throat too big to swallow. Oh, to come that close. To have that much and watch it walk out and hear the door close behind it. To have that much and not have it.
For he will never call.
And why should he? He’s reading the words of a crazy person, but he’s a good man, too good a man to laugh, too good a man to feel anything but sorrow. But an intelligent man. Intelligent enough to burn the idiot pages and put the idiot girl reluctantly but firmly out out out of his life for once and for all.
Better this way. A far far better thing that I do than I have ever done, the best of times and the worst of times, oh, Christ, I don’t think...
The phone is ringing...