Mon 13 Mar 67
Developed a whole new theory during German class. Possibly my exam suffered (I rushed through it) but what are classes for but to provide intellectual stimulation? I’m thinking Aiken’s too domesticated. Am I mistaking youth for originality? (That I think would be his argument.) That everybody “gets over this” and romance is a function of youth. But history and literature prove that its not. Since, however, I’m “the kid” and he’s the “PhD” I will NEVER win an argument with him. Never! And I am accustomed to winning my arguments! Trying to write a story in which I construct the Perfect Man. Anyone over twenty’s too old. He’s tall and thin and golden and had most of his toes taken off my a lawnmower. Sadly the story races away from me - my heroine isn’t good enough for him – so I’m having her run off with someone else. Not quite halfway though Queen Victoria – Born to Succeed. Ugly period – the women in their heavy clothes look very depressed. Thurs 30 Mar 67 Left a note at Aiken’s he wasn’t there (being satisfied by a glamorous – yet elderly brunette? No – working hard at the library to “gain a place in life”) and took the train to the new Penn St house. (It’s haunted!) The place was all lit up and Avril was playing the piano. The third floor has the most beautiful windows flush with the floor. Sending sunlight across the ancient, uneven boards. Delicious. Daddy not home so off to Bookbinder’s for dinner where I ordered soft shell crab. I got annoyed with Mom’s questions about Aiken so said he was a Mau0Mau with a bad case of cradle cap. She laughed so hard she wept. Our phone not yet installed so I put a jackknife in my pocket and went out to the public booth. Aiken was in – sounded cranky but surprised me by inviting me to a party. I was certain I was going to be dismissed for being too “jejeune”. He seemed completely unimpressed y the risk I’d taken to call him – probably thinking if I got raped it might clear up some of his problems. Borrowing a blue velvet dress from Avril – it so short!! A classic baby doll! But she is a champion blabbermouth and told Mom who absolutely FORBIDS IT. We WILL BUY A DRESS! Uh oh. Madras and whalebone, mark my words. I bought a man’s shirt from the man who sells used clothes at the corner of Chelten & Chew. Pink chiffon with balloony sleeves! Indescribably flattering. Tight through the body. I already have a perfect black velvet skirt. Tues. 4 Apr 67 My hand is shaking because I just left a heavy make-out session with Reed Hambro. I want to write about the awful party but the wonderful evening . I got out of the house without a problem because Mom wasn’t there. I showed Aiken all around the house – I could tell by his eyebrows he was confounded by the mixture of splendeurs et misères. I told him it was temporary and showed him my beautiful third floor where I sleep on a mattress on the floor so I can look out the windows but he was unimpressed. Oriental artifacts everywhere but they are shabby. Still he admitted OI looked beautiful. Horrible university party full of pregnant wives. Didn’t like the way they looked at me – decided to drink coke and say nothing. They seemed so doglike and uncomfortable. But I did get into a long discussion with a Prof Wylie who has a system of “personal anarchy” that sounds a lot like my own. He was drunk but funny. He kept saying “What this party needs is a little audience participation.” But everyone had to be on their best behavior because it was more like work. Strange Danish Oldern house with peek-a-boo architecture – how can you climb stairs – in a dress – that are only slats? When we got back to Penn St my mother was there. She said nothing about my clothes but she really gave poor Aiken the business while I made Earl Grey tea. She is the only person I have ever known who can lower the temperature of a room to freezing in seconds. At least she didn’t ask him his intentions. He behaved very well, just as if she was normal. He got her on the subject of Southeast Asia while I roll my eyes. Finally she had to go upstairs to get Avril to sleep. Avril’s afraid of Phila because of all the stabbing news and who can blame her? So Aiken and I were left alone…on the oriental rug in front of the fire. “I wish I could take you back to my place,” he muttered. “Why don’t we do it right here?” I suggested. To be funny. He said seriously, “Because you might bleed and we need some form of birth control.” Let’s go straight to the hospital and do it on a gurney! “I really have to go” he said. We could hear Mom creaking about upstairs. He gave me one last kiss – lifted me up completely! Bliss. When I got upstairs I saw my shirt was all torn and I had to throw it away. But it was definitely worth $9 even for only one evening.
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Sun 26 Feb 67
Wearing tights, purple corduroy miniskirt, wide belt and boots I found his apt without trouble. I was bouncing with excitement but he left a note saying he went to borrow a car – “Make myself at home in the vestibule!” So I did, borrowing somebody’s Inquirer to read. A luscious blond exited. We eyed each other. Then I tried to figure out who he was from the nameplates. Cooper Fowler? Fowler Cooper? Great name! After only a few minutes Aiken came bounding up and gave me a kiss --- on the forehead. He was wearing a blue sweater and some khaki pants – eyes blazing out like sapphires. I just sucked him in, gulping like a guppy. He opened his mailbox – one letter. Said it was a check of his that bounced! I told him I could stay till then fearful I’d outstay my welcome but he seemed thrilled and offered to drive me back! We went to a smoky place next door where he always has lunch and I ordered the most appalling beef stew – worse eve that the school’s! Muffins, salad, coffee. We talked about Russian writers – I extracted a promise to read Gogol. He was very sneery about my acting aspirations – just like my father. They seem to think it’s all outer presentation with no inner work involved and I just can’t explain my attraction. I believe the word “exhibitionist” – horribly – was used. Brice, who worships the theatre, wouldn’t do that. I talked him into the 5:30 show of Blow Up, which I’ve been dying to see. Then back to his apt where he put on some Cannonball Adderly. I must say it’s just awful, awful stuff. At least I coaxed him to turn it down, then I made things very easy for him by sitting on his lap. In moments we were making out furiously. Dizzying heights! I’m not so crazy about the “grinding” though. (You know what I mean!) Then we got into a “shadow” conversation about whether it was better to be “partially” frustrated or “thoroughly” frustrated. Felt he was asking me something else – unspecified. Like I know what I’m doing! I love just being touched – like a concentration camp victim. At a certain point we had to stop or we’d be late to the movie. I could tell he was grumpy. But he was so much fun in the movie line, pulling me inside of his coat, touching and grabbing me. Ate it up! Blow Up is as magnetic and gorgeous as I’d heard. I fell in love with Jesus-eyed David Hemmings. Aiken too was stunned. He seemed to admire it -- said it was like an extended dream. I loved especially that the mystery wasn’t solved but Aiken argued we were supposed to see something in the blowup and the resolution wasn’t good. I said we aren’t supposed to solve the mystery and he said very rudely “Where did you read that?” as if I can’t come up with my own ideas. I couldn’t remember whether I’d read it or not but at least I could say I’d seen L’Avventura and I know that mystery isn’t solvable. I prefer making up my own solutions but Aiken says that’s “unfinished” art. There was one horribly embarrassing scene where David Hemmings plays with two teenagers who are all elbows, hair and knees. I winced but Aiken made no remark. At least I’m not child/skinny and when we got back to his apartment I proved it by taking off my top like Vanessa Redgrave. He complimented my “amazingly pale areolas” – palest he had ever seen! He touched my breast and an electric shock went through him! In moments we were making out passionately. He took off his shirt so we were skin to skin. Best feeling in the world! After a few moments he rolled over, took my face in his hands and said, “I have to finish.” I said, “It would be my first time.” He said, “Did you think I meant intercourse?” “Didn’t you?” “No,” he said. “God, I thought girls talked about these things on dorm!” He mistook Plumly for a “finishing school?” He’d be better off with the girls from Wilton who wear eye makeup like raccoons and play hockey like them, too. I said, “We talk about nothing else but we don’t know what we’re talking about!” Then followed the most excruciating fifteen minutes of my life. He wanted “me” to “finish him!” Eeeew! I mean, I did it with Trey but he was doing me at the same time! I don’t even know how to ask for what I want! I just bubbled purposelessly like a landed trout! He got up and made himself a drink – offered me one but I don’t like vodka. “Don’t you have anything else?” (Very annoyed) “No”. So I guess he didn’t get to “finish”. Very, very hairy blue balls presumably! I’m frustrated too but that doesn’t seem to count – he assumes whatever I get is what I want and it’s true I’ve learned to roll with the punches (hem hem.) I don’t even LIKE the word “finish” – it seems so unnecessarily terminal and I can’t quite picture it. Trey and I, after all, were rolling around nude in a bed – but this would presumably be me giving Aiken a hand job! Would I need a washcloth? Sounds so prostitutional! Inner visions of a fire hydrant coming loose and spraying everything in sight! Would we both need a shower after? Two showers? I did discover he WEARS SOCK GARTERS and this is the first real turnoff I’ve had with him. They look like slingshots! What baldness and fatness couldn’t do, sock garters have achieved. Ugh. There must be times he DOESN’T wear them! Surely they’re an artifact of some sort like collar studs. He could read revulsion on my face. For a good actress, I’m a bad actress. I said, “Are you mad at me?” He said, “Don’t say silly things” and bolted the rest of the vodka! Incipient alcoholism? I was sort of in a state of shock on the way back to school. I finally said, “Maybe this is post-coital tristesse.” I was joking but he said, “Without the coitus part.” Kissed me goodbye very affectionately. Should I stop being a virgin with a guy who wears sock garters? Can’t decide. Fortunately I have Pushkin to come home to! “I was in love with you it seemed…I lost the kingdom of my dreams.” Sun Mar 5 – 67 Incomprehensible greeting card from Aiken covered with Japanese writing. But at east it says inside, “je pense à toi” which I can understand. Showdown with Reed Hambro Friday. I had just come back from performing detention in the Costume Room (I was sorting bats from fairies – I’ll have to go back to do peasants vs. nobility.) He dragged me into the Trunk Room to ask me, “Would you be disillusioned if I took wyamine!” It’s that inhaler drug they’re all taking. Reportedly keeps you high for three days. I said, “I don’t like the word “disillusioned”. Mad is what I’d be.” “Well I took it after lunch.” I felt manipulated! I said, “Have a nice oblivion!” He said, “What if I have a bad trip?” All puppy eyes. I said Bon Voyage! And left him there in the trunk room. At dinner refused to sit with him till his roommate Brent came over, all mad at me for being one of those Dylanesque blonds put on earth to ruin Man’s Good Time. The usual druggy spiel. “He thinks rabbits are devouring his insides! He thinks his skin is alive!” “It is alive!” But I sat next to him and ate a few pretzels and tried to pretend I didn’t think he’s a dope. (I even let him put his arm around me). But for a good actress I’m a bad actress. I haven’t seen him since. Sat. I called Aiken. He had such a bad hangover he could hardly speak. He said Brice was passed out cold on the floor. (“Finished” each other?) He said he’s “trying” to have me “up for the weekend.” I said my parents rented a townhouse on Penn St and when they get back from Europe I can take weekends there. He sounded unenthusiastic. He promised to call me. I said “I’d better give you a time – I’m hard to get ahold of”. “But very nice to get ahold of.” Aww. Am I forgiven? (Particularly if I’ve got Brice doing the “wetwork”.) “It’s best at night.” “Particularly at night.” When his garters are off… “After ten?” “Wed after ten.” Got this note in my box from Reed to ponder as I sucked down milk & crackers: “How to say I am sorry when you seem so sure I am not. I never pretended it would be a substitute for you…” (Like that’s what gets me. Jealousy!) Quite a double-edged sword it’s been this weekend for more than a few people. The disadvantage of your current frame of mind is I can’t put on paper how I feel. Would you reconsider Prom?” I would. Because otherwise no date. I even apologized for hurting his feelings! I’m so sorry the rabbits ate up his insides! If nobody can produce that “special feeling” in you I guess you can always produce it in someone else. His eyes really lit up. Soon we were hugging and kissing. He is so different from Aiken! But at least I feel safe which is very emboldening – he is just going to pet me FOREVER. Soon I was huffing and puffing like a steam engine! Isn’t life peculiar? The next voice you hear… Sun. 12 Mar 67 Desperate for a really strong cup of tea but must wait for Miss Beeston to close her door. WHY does she keep it open? She isn’t actually concerned we might be throwing up or anything, it’s just morbid curiosity and vicarious excitement. What do they DO all night? Don’t dragons sleep? Ah here’s my chance. N such luck – ran right into the Gruesome Twosome – one tall and fat the other short and fat. “Was that your water they just turned off?” (They know it is, they’re the ones who confiscated my personal hotpot.) “Not tonight.” I waited for “See you in the Greenhouse for 2 hrs hard labor” but it didn’t happen. Must be feeling mellow. I scuttled back to my den. THEY WRITE BY NIGHT – part 2 When Brice and I got to Aiken’s apt he wasn’t even up. Wearing only a blue Chinese silk dressing gown with his curly chest hairs sprouting out. Just grab me and lay with me in his bed until Brice made coffee saying, “Enough of this orgy.” Jealous. Aiken nibbled my ear and said, “Look how we fit. Interlocking pieces.” I had noticed. The we got up for breakfast and Aiken took a shower. He came out looking magnificent in blue and white striped shirt and white levis. An astonishingly spring like day. Went to the park to play on the swings and seesaws. After that we ate pizza then Brice went to the library. Gentlemanly of him. I stripped down to my pettipants but refused to go further. I just don’t feel safe. I could tell Aiken was irritated but he doesn’t try to reassure me. There must be magic words but he doesn’t say them. I don’t want to be “operated” on and I don’t want to operate on him. I’m beginning to think babyish Reed Hambro, who is practically an idiot savant, may know more about satisfying a girl than this guy does. So we were Two People Separated by a Bed; very Saturday Night & Sunday Morning. Then Brice rang the buzzer and we had to get dressed fast. On the drive back Aiken said (right in front of Brice) that I thought sex would be “violent & cold.” I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t GET to say anything because Brice talked for a solid 40 mins about the biological Difference Between Men & Women, which I totally don’t agree with. He brought in Freud, he brought in Jung, he brought in Samoa & Masters and Johnson! Neither of them talked about “sex leading where” and I felt to say so would sound like I expected marriage! So I was completely flummoxed! The weird part is they both sound regretful about it as if it WOULD be a bad thing! That’s not a recommendation! So you can imagine the state I was in when I got back to school. How can you be both attracted to and repelled by the same person? If not “pre-coital tristesse” this is “pre-coital nausea” at the very least! I had 3 minutes to get dressed for Prom! Wore my Christmas dress with long sleeves & black cuffs of gold tissue brocade, tinsel in my hair. Reed is very relaxing. Comforting. Is it just because I know he can’t physically overwhelm me? If Aiken was long and thin – built like Trey, say, would I be less afraid? Stubbornly I still eel it is his attitude. Defective somehow. Honestly it reminds me of Beales whose every third word needed a face slap. Aiken isn’t so obviously unromantic but both he & Brice think there is no “mystery of sex” and are very utilitarian about the mating process. I don’t think ANY girl would be safe with them because it’s never a joint experience. It’s women letting men have sex (for whatever reason.) It seems so repulsive. They would make progress with me if I didn’t know history and literature so well. They think “modernism” is anti-Romance but of course, it isn’t. “Baby you and me We live this life From when we get up Till we got to sleep at night You and me we’re free We do as we please, yeah – From morning – Till the end of the day.” Aiken hates the Kinks. He prefers jazz because it is meaningless and goes deliberately nowhere. I am very spoiled I guess because I want MORE. I am beginning to think Aiken needs some old woman to satisfy him – dripping cigarette ash as she jerks him off. In spite of all this mess it was the best prom ever! Reed was so sweet I was close to actually LOVING him! He was getting high on me. He kisses so completely differently from Aiken it isn’t the same thing. Makes me feel it is really spring at last, and maybe I can leave my virginity behind as slowly and imperceptibly as we have escaped this harsh winter. Tues 31 Jan 67
Just finished Eliz Gray Vining’s Take Heed of Loving Me. Much preferred Wife to Milton by Robt Graves. It’s a better book. But now I have plenty of evidence on what bad news it is to marry a genius. They’re selfish and they keep peculiar hours. Who will put up with MY selfishness and MY peculiar hours? Starting to get impatient with Aiken for using Brice as a go-between. Too Shakespearean! Brice’s natural oiliness coats everything he touches. Aiken hasn’t called me once so for all I know Brice is making everything up. According to him A wants to invite me to a movie. I try to play it cool but it’s hard with no one to practice on. Why not this weekend? Oh Aiken’s going to Princeton. Where he will presumably drink and fool around while I pine in this benighted teenybopper school. Thurs 2 Feb 67 Hair smells like smoke, as if it is haunted! Unbelievably sex-starved tonight. Hanging out the window singing a dear little children’s rhyme: Here comes the candle to light you to bed AND HERE COMES THE CHOPPER TO CHOP OFF YOUR HEAD!”. Childhood such a time of innocence. Aynsley makes me close the window. See how I am constrained by the coldblooded conventionality of others. Brice called me BEFORE BREAKFAST to say Aiken had to rush down to S. Carolina where his father had a heart attack! Apparently his father is REALLY OD – had Aiken when he was 70! 4 Feb 67 Asked Brice flat out why he likes me so much. He said because I am “deliciously cynical”. I was very surprised! I am raw and red and tender on the inside (like a good steak.) HE is the “cynical” one! (Hypocritical too.) He really likes me because I badmouth his Place of Employment. I am Well Informed simply because I read so much. Today felt like spring. Couldn’t resist [laying around with Reed Hambro even though he’s so young. He keeps sending the most interesting KOBS. I wanted to see what he was made of so decoyed him into a classroom after dinner but I couldn’t even get my arms around him because HE WOULDN’T STOP TALKING. I am willing to go nine-tenths of the way but at that point I subside before the Law of My Ancestors. When I came upstairs Aynsley asked if I’d been making out. “Because your mouth is all smashed.” From sheer desire! If I get too focused on Reed there is always the danger Brice will find out and tell Aiken. The magazines are all for Honesty saying that its healthier. It may be healthier but privacy is yummier. Worked out mathematically: Either I will see Aiken or I won’t. Either he will encourage me or he won’t. Either I will get hot with Reed or I won’t. Wed 4 Jan 67
Back at school the horror continues. I refuse to write my New Year’s resolutions or I’ll have to keep them. A rotten vacation. Genevieve complains about Radcliffe where you have to take deportment class and march around with a book on your head! She says it’s not what she was expecting at all. Harvard won’t even let them use the library. Beales DID ask her out and she said yes because she couldn’t figure out what else to do but then a cool Harvard guy asked her so she told Beales she was sick. And who should she run into on the date but Beales – who looked at her with “disgust and horror.” She returned the look of horror at least. New Years’ alone babysitting at the Carnahans. They are teetotalers – nothing to drink at all – not even cooking sherry. Did find a bar of cooking chocolate which I tried mixing with sugar – disastrous results. Spent all night reading Kristin Lavransdatter. Really interesting! Six kids are definitely out for me, however. New speech coach offered to drive me to school and parents said yes! (Anything to get out of taking me themselves.) Wore extremely tight jeans, scratchy ski sweater hair in pigtails to be as unapproachable as possible. He took me out to dinner at the General Greene Inn! (Because he’s faculty he can give me an excuse for Vespers.) I had to get a dress out of my suitcase and change at a gas station! Let down my hair and wore the glittery hoop earrings my mother hates so much. Over clams & wine he told me to call him Brice and explained how he lost his virginity to a stewardess in the back seat of a car at the age of 14. (Not sure I believe him.) He spent the vacation getting drunk on bourbon and looking for a Rich Woman to Marry! That lets me off the hook! He ordered coffee and poured his cream over the spoon in the coolest way. I said I’m looking for a Rich Man and he said he’s got the perfect one, his friend Aiken. Actually met me at the school and compliments all over (I don’t remember him.) That I was so alive! Unfortunately he started inveighing against Today’s Mores and I began to see why our school hired him. He’s just as confused as anyone. Tells dirty jokes out of one side of his mouth and talks about Freedom VS License out of the other side. Told him if Aiken can get me out of school I would be willing to date him. Older mean are three times harder to resist. And presumably they’re not all stupid about V.D. & pregnancy. Aiken Billings looking better and better. Fri. 6 Jan 67 Why remain a virgin? Why why why? The mags say to avoid Emotional Hurt & pregnancy. Aynsley insists if you use tampons you’re not a virgin anyway. Headmaster showed us a drink/drugs/sex/cigs movie and wanted our Honest Opinion what we thought of it. No takers. We still have to live in this place. These moves are invariably loathsome “case histories”. Should it be shown to sophs for “health class?” Sure, we say. Yes, Virginia, sex can be bad. So can fire, penicillin & coca cola. I think I am held back by Fear of the Unknown. Irrevocable steps make me nervous on principle. Mom and Dad say they are moving to Philadelphia! Better for me. They are renting a townhouse on Penn St to throw their furniture into until they find something permanent. |
Alysse Aallyn
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