July 20th, 1967

Rachel & I start talking.

We’re both aware that the relationship has been mainly sexual so far. We talk for 2 hours while it gets dark in her living room & we sit there in the dark continuing to talk, never turning on the lights.

She's wondering if she can make love to anyone else, someone she might feel an immediate attraction to, even one night, & still feel as strongly about me.

I tell her it would just be fucking.

She doesn't think so.

I suggest she try it & see.

“You can do anything you want,” I say, “just don't tell me about it.”

She says that wouldn't be honest.

We talk about intellectual aspects of a relationship. She doesn't like “word games,” but agrees discussion is necessary. She talks about Meher Baba, the Oneness of all things, her spiritual studies.

I talk about Camus, Sartre, Tillich, & my idea of “existential spirituality.”

I press my hand to her cunt (after she's talked about mind & soul) & ask her if she feels soul down there when we’re making love.

We go to bed, make the best love we've ever made, building slowly, falling back & rolling on the bed in different positions. Then she’s sitting on top of me as I sit on the side of bed, pulling her hips toward me. She leans back, swaying from side to side, her long hair sweeping the floor. I stroke her breasts & belly.

“How can I tell you what that felt like,” she says when we finish.

In the morning she tells me she’s thinking about going to Berkeley for a couple of days for lectures on Meher Baba. I’m suspicious she’s seeing some guy named Ian over there. She also mentions that she might want to move there. Even though I know we won’t be going together by the time she does, it bothers me to think of her leaving.

We make love again.

"That was a nice little treat," she says, cuddling against me. "Nothing feels so good as another body. It's even better than the furry little animals in my storybooks."

Reasons for recent distrust of Rachel:

1) Betrayal last summer (Stephanie)

2) Inability to retain girl because of recent hang-up over another guy in Philly (Suzanne, Honey).

3) In general things so bad in Philly that possibility of beautiful love with Rachel makes me overwhelmingly desirous of protecting that beauty through total possession.

Bart gets Draft notice. Must report for physical. Plans to play crazy. Memorizing monologue from Waiting for Godot. He’ll recite it at his physical whenever they tell him to do something.

» July 21st, 1967 : Grace & Tom