August 13th, 1967

Rachel has found a room in Berkeley.

Not only is she afraid of staying at her place now, she's afraid of becoming too dependent on me. When she's with me she forgets the necessity of fulfilling any other part of herself. She was very political in North Carolina, working in voter registration & civil rights & wants to make the protest scene in Berkeley.

"You would have to be the sensible one," I say.

"I'm not being sensible—I'm compelled to do this."

I agree. Because of her reasons & the fact that she's a real distraction to my writing.

But she’s been a help beyond belief to me. She has taught me how to begin loving someone & how to survive without loving someone. For a time anyway.

In being so anti-analytical during this relationship, I realize I’ve come to understand her very little.

“I love you in a very strange way,” she says, “but not a way that will bring us closer together.”

She can be brutally honest, but that doesn’t mean she’s not confused.

She mentions that she wants to tell me she loves me at moments when she feels intensely for me, but she doesn't love me all the time. Same thing for me.

Through the night I feel her kissing my back.

In the morning she says: "I loved you so much last night, and I loved you all through the night, and I still love you."

Not sure just how this thing will end or if it has to. Will only be sure of my feelings for her when she is finally absent. Perhaps I can't really define my feelings for a girl till she calls it quits.

But for selfish reasons I would like to keep knowing her. In the first place I would like her for a friend, in the second I would like to be welcome in her bed.

She feels the need to tell me that during the first week we slept together she slept with someone during the afternoon.

Doesn’t bother me, but I tell her I think it’s disgusting to be picked up in the park & fucked by someone she doesn’t even know.

She says she wasn't picked up in the park (although it wasn't anyone she knew).

I don’t pursue it.

She also mentions that I might have illusions about her to fulfill a need I have.

I tell her I don’t have any illusions about her.

“Maybe that’s not what I meant to say at all,” she says.

“Maybe you love me more than you’re willing to admit to yourself,” I tell her.

"Maybe I do."

She starts talking about one's needs outside the bed & whether we fill them.

Then she says maybe it’s not good to verbalize your needs because if the other person can’t sense them, then maybe the thing is going nowhere in the first place.

Also if one is consciously aware of the other's needs, then the 2 people become more dependent on each other. In other words, maybe you shouldn't have so many needs, or if you do, solve them yourself.

After lying in an ambiguous state for a few minutes (during which time I’m caught between sadness, pouting, & knowing damn well that it's best for her to go to Berkeley), she starts playing with me. It annoys me that she might be trying to seduce me.

But I realize we have something beautiful in bed & that independent of what went before or what might come after we could once again create our lovely thing if only for the moment.

I’m unusually strong with her, driving my face alongside hers, pinning her shoulders back, burying my head between her legs & rubbing her clitoris forcefully while licking her.

"That's the trouble with making love to you," she says when we’re finished, "I never want to stop."

She lays quietly, pensive, then a firm caress: "I love you," she says.

A much more genuine expression because she’s probably pondering it, the element of reflection making it all the more difficult, yet more meaningful, also more of a confrontation with her fear of extending herself.

"I feel like I've known you for so long," she says. "I must've known you in another lifetime. Maybe I was a hen & you were a rooster. Or I was the rooster & you were the hen. No—I'll bet I was a rooster in my last lifetime. A big showy bastard!"

We go to the bathroom to brush our teeth. When I start shaving, she grabs the can & sprays shaving cream all over me. I grab her & smear it over her breasts.

In the bath, we sit facing each other, splashing each other, taking turns washing each other with the washcloth.

"Don't you have any toys,” she asks, “any little boats or ducks to play with?"

We get passionate, playing with each other, slowly stand up.

I turn her so her back is against the wall & her feet braced against the side of the tub. When I slip it in, the towel rack snaps in half. We both start howling & go back to the wall bed.

During the night she’s very happy because every time she wakes up I’m facing her & although asleep I reciprocate with touches of affection. She tells me she loves me during the night. I mention it to her in the morning.

"And I did!" she says.

Did.

» August 19th, 1967 : I Could Be In New Zealand