Mutual attraction July 16, 1985

  

They promised rain and it rained, splotches of wet covering the Fotomat booth and its joints, one bolt of lightning caused a hiss on my radio at home, dangerously close. Here, out in the open with a ballfield on one side and a parking lot on the other, I feel much more vulnerable, and I half expected when I got here this morning to find the booth in cinders.

If I was superstitious, I might take violence of last night’s storm as some kind of sign, coming at it did in the middle of tarot reading Pauly conducted.

Pauly is good at drama and effects, but not quite that good.

Still, he managed to twist the cards into meanings that seemed to have relevance in my life.

He seems his self as rogue and saint, casting spells for the sake of goodness.

The whole reading seemed to center on my relationship with Safire, pushing me closer to a point of making a decision.

“Go ahead,” Pauly said in reading the cards, “It won’t kill you.”

Maybe not, but it will turn me in a direction different from the one I intended, much less predictable than when I dated Fran or even Suzanne.

I actually feel the potential for fundamental change with Safire and it scares the crap out of me.

The whole thing reminds me of my early days with Louise – not that Safire is so much like Louise (there are similarities), but in the way I feel – the sudden emotional quickening that comes to my heart and lungs.

The cards, Pauly reads, claim this will only become more intense, and I’m almost ready to throw off this cloak of reason and plunge right in.

Yet there is the thunder of guilt in taking another man’s wife, the Bible full of warnings against such misbehavior, full of “thou shalt nots!”

That’s reason speaking again, struggling to keep the reigns tight on the beast that resides inside me, the beast that stirs and beats from inside my chest, breathing fire with my breath.

Fantasy after fantasy rises up with each guilty thought, scenes of lovemaking, sexual play, the erotic and the forbidden, as I connect with her past and her present, blood boiling each time I think about touching her, holding her, maybe even healing her.

Pauly stresses the word “empathy” over that of “Pity.”

I do not pity Safire but want to take her and make her feel good about herself – in the process satisfying my own sensual needs, finding out where I stand in this world of sexual confusion.

It would be grand just to float for a while, to have my body fall into a wondering open kind of sexual sea, with me and her exploring each other the way children might.

This comes out of fantasy, but as long as she wants me in bed, then it begins a journey that might end with bliss. Everything hinges on this mutual attraction, leaving me, however, with fundamental questions as to what she ultimately wants in the end.

 

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