Dear Joanie,

Last appointment with Severin, today. I suppose it’s nice that my tooth is fixed, but I did come to enjoy those weekly visits. Well, not the noisy, invasive goings on in one’s mouth.  But it was quite clear, almost from the start, that Severin has a thing for me. And I find that fascinating.

What is so unusual about that? you will say. And, of course, men having a thing for me could not be more commonplace. Barely a day goes by when someone doesn’t fall head over heels in love with me. I suppose it delighted me once, long ago – when I was 14? By the age of 15 it had already become so much boring routine.

But, you see, a dentist…I’d have thought dentists would be naturally immune, wouldn’t you? How horrid it must be, to look into all these unappetizing mouths! It would revolt me. Of course I know that my teeth are nearly perfect, and my former dentist, Marc Unzinger, complimented me on my ‘aesthetic’ mouth – teeth nicely lined up, not too large, not protruding, gums not even thinking of receding. And of course my oral hygiene is excellent, I make it a point to brush my teeth with full attention twice a day, come rain or shine.

Yet any mouth remains a grotto of saliva, unpleasant odors (this would hold true for the general populace, if not for you or me), food rests (horror!) and grotesque slabs of meat called tongues, positioned ever so unflatteringly when the dentist’s equipment enters (I beg your pardon for that most suggestive phrasing.)

I wouldn’t look into one for the world. Even when I am deeply in love, I prefer not too think too much about what’s inside, when I kiss a man. The body does not hold up to close scrutiny, I always say. Good – that is, sparse – lighting is of the essence. I cannot emphasize this enough.

So I never imagined that a dentist could fall in love with any of his patients, even me. I suppose an internist might, a podiatrist, or even a surgeon – once everything is sewn back up, one can forget the bloody nightmare one has been privy to. And I have received most flattering attentions from all such medical men. But not a dentist. As Freud did not consider his own children and family to be people with a subconscious, so the dentist probably considers his loved ones immune to plaque or tooth rot. How else could he ever kiss his wife?

And yet, Severin fawns over me every time I sit down in that clunky chair, flirting with me even as his tools probe the depths of my mouth. I try not to look into his eyes while he labours away. But that’s hard – whenever he can, he looks into mine. Which, naturally, disturbs his concentration, so that the dental work suffers.

Proof, once again, that being the object of so much male desire isn’t always a pleasure!

Love,

Lisa

Dear Naomi,

I’m sorry, too, that we haven’t seen much of each other lately. Has it really been ten years? I suppose we’ve both been very busy. Are you still with Herman?

Last Thursday, darling, I passed within 200 miles of your house in the Charente, on the way from Bordeaux to Paris. Would have stopped by, had it only occurred to me, and if I hadn’t already promised to spend the night with Giorgio and Matt. Well – spend the night…not that way, of course!

I’m entirely not the type to enjoy having sex with two men. It’s surprising how many people enjoy that sort of thing, don’t you find? Carl was always going on about how he’d love to sleep with two women. In fact, he had the specifications all ready:  they had to be two redheads, and they had to be twins.

One day he actually ran into redheaded twins in a bar in Seattle, and of course he felt this was a sign from God. And that’s not a manner of speaking: in his own bizarre way, he was as religious as your average mental institution inmate, believing that God followed his every step with keen interest and gave him Signs left, right and center. As if God doesn’t have anything better to do with His time…So, in his mind, the twins had been planted by the Lord to give him the best sexual climax he had ever experienced.

Here’s the surprise to this story: the twins accepted his offer, and he actually spent a night of Hot & Sweaty with them. The only downside? They were ugly as all hell, early fifties with thick glasses (sorry, darling, not implying that people with glasses are generally unattractive – I wear reading glasses, myself, occasionally), and half an hour into the thing one of them burst into tears because she’d never been with a man before and hoped ‘this would lead to a relationship’. The plainness of the women, and the virginity and despair of the one were not in Carl’s dream scenario, of course, but it was what God wanted for him, and you can’t argue with that.

You must have heard this sort of thing a lot from men – the Two Women thing. Common as it may be, I’ve never had a desire to have it on with two men. On top of that, the two dear men in question, in the Charente, are gay – so the whole thing would just end in a terrible fiasco. I have, in my younger days, made an effort to cure several men from this unfortunate affliction, but to no avail. I don’t mean to toot my own horn (that is so vulgar! as is the expression itself, of course) but it does seem obvious that if I can’t turn them, the whole thing’s hopeless.

It’s a scary thing, to me – gay men. Alice likes to take me to homosexual hangouts – to the “Petunia”, for instance, and while their tiramisù is great, I was taken aback, almost physically taken aback by the positive wall of a cold front I walked into. It was only then that I realized just how much attention I get from men. When it’s absent, I get clammy and nervous. Do you ever feel that way?

The dreadful thing is it makes me doubt my femininity,  my physical attractiveness. And I neverdoubt my attractiveness. That’s why I don’t like to hang out with gay men. It’s different with Giorgio and Matt, of course – they adore me. And Giorgio is from too good a family to make one feel anything other than extremely sexually desirable.

My usual migraine coming on – will write more, soon, love,

Lisa

Dear Helen,

Thank you so much for your kind card. A courtesy many people forget, in such cases. I am feeling a little better, but we all miss Stanley dreadfully.

Burke, too, has shed a tear. Well, not the sort that actually rolls down one’s cheeks. But his eyes welled up when he looked at Stan’s stiff, dear body. “Thank god he won’t be humping me anymore,” he said. I heard the emotional strain in his voice.

It’s true that Burke always took the brunt of Stanley’s sexual drive. Pugs are incredibly sexual, did you know? Of course many dogs have urges, but our darling Stanley took the humping to quite an extreme. He would glare at one with wild, angry eyes, and then come running and exert his passion on one’s arm, with a furious look  that said ‘don’t you dare try to stop me’.

Burke would lightly push him away, which would make Stan all the more frenzied, a mixture of passion and rage. If he got very displeased by Burke’s rejection, he would even bite him, so Burke usually gave it up and let Stanley have his way with him. Oddly enough, Stan never quenched his desires on me - a dog of strange tastes.

Barnaby is of course much less lascivious than Stan, especially since his chemical castration. I always wonder, by the way – why can’t they do those on men? So much simpler than the whole vasectomy thing, which I personally don’t like because men tend to complain of all sorts of little aches for weeks afterwards, so that one is wholly put off one’s feed, if you see what I mean. Of course, now and then even Barney suddenly discovers a Love Object, and when he does, he won’t take no for an answer.

Wasn’t it funny the way he used to climb on top of Dr. Veltman? Simply hilarious! No matter how vehemently poor Barnaby pawed Dr. Veltman’s stomach and bit and sucked on his ear lobe, Dr. Veltman had no clue what was going on.

“Yes, yes, you’re a good dog,” he would say. Or, if he was very put upon: “Why don’t you go play with your fire truck, now?” But he was never on to Barnaby’s carnal lust for him, even when the dog humped his arm furiously. I just didn’t have the heart to tell him what was going on. So innocent, Dr. Veltman…Even his almost fanatical devotion to me seems quite chaste and pure – Thank God!

I have put your card on the mantelpiece, my dear, with similar attentions from other friends. Nothing from Joanie – she can be quite cold, can’t she. I love her, of course.

Lisa

Dear Joanie,

Darling, sad news – Stanley passed away in the night.

I’m sorry for announcing it so bluntly – but I’m all red-eyed and exhausted, and have, for the moment, lost my usual knack for diplomacy. Of course we knew it was imminent – there’s only so much a body can take. He was old and worn, basically. But even when you know the end is near, part of you doesn’t want to believe it, don’t you find?

Dr. Harman dropped by early in the evening, bless his soul, gave Stan a sedative, and told us to sit with him, be close to him, and that was all we could do for him. “But it is a lot,” he added. And yes, for that I am grateful. Stanley didn’t die alone.

In the middle of the night, he let out an odd grunt, then panted frantically for several minutes, his eyes bulging from the effort. I could see his extreme discomfort, and the sedative had worn off, but Burke said I shouldn’t call dr. Harman. I didn’t want to argue over Stanley’s bed, but I think it’s a doctor’s duty to do anything he can, even if it’s the middle of the night, and I do think I should have called him – even if he really couldn’t do anything, it would have been a reassurance to have him by the bed.

Don’t you agree?

Then  came the death throes. L ‘agonie, as the French call it. Oh darling, so awful! I don’t think I’ll ever be able to erase the image from my mind – Stanley half-conscious, half gone to a better world, yet in obvious distress…He was so far away from us, and then suddenly, his eyes opened, and there was a moment when I knew he recognized me. It was very brief. I think he knew – he knew that he was going to die.

Thank God I was there for him. But of course, in the end, we all die alone. No one can help us through the transition.

And now, we are left with the pain. Even Burke, who used to pretend he didn’t much care for Stanley, and shooed him off the couch quite brusquely many a time. But I know that deep down he adored Stan. He’s been digging a grave all afternoon, didn't want for dr. Harman to take his little body away.

Darling, I am heartbroken…Will write more, soon. Right now I need a Valium.

Love,

Lisa

Dear Joanie,

To get back to the topic of fidelity – do you have the same problems I do? Could you not?

Your Averill isn’t the most physically alluring man, if you’ll forgive my saying so…I’ve always warned that choosing intellect over body entails great dangers. It seems so appealing, at first – here is this man with this great mind. I know. I’ve been there. It was that way with me and Bentley. I stupidly thought the attraction would last.

And then, of course, it doesn’t. After so many years (or months), the fascination wears off. His bon mots don’t seem so fresh, anymore. His witticisms have become tedious. His repartee, which you once thought brilliant, now drives you to frantically varnish your nails while he speaks. This is the point of extreme danger. Now that his mind has become wearisome to you, all he has left is the physical trapping, and that physical trapping, with men of intellect, is usually lamentable.

I know I have argued the reverse, one evening when you and I were both drinking just a little too much. That a pretty face can grow tiresome, too. This is a fact. After you have quenched your thirst for his body, a handsome man with no conversation becomes a stupid doll. Oh, it may take months, years even, but the moment will come. And then you’ll find yourself wanting to shake the wretched doll, shake it till its sawdust brain gives out.

And yet – how much more tragic is the relationship which once took off in a dazzling affair with the brain, a love for what was in the person rather than the flesh and blood hull, a spiritual affair, in other words…only to collapse onto itself and leave nothing but cold ashes and broken dreams…and a puny little man with glasses and no chest hair. Thank god Burke is not puny.

But you see my point, dear – yes, life with an inane doll will bore you frantically, after the novelty has worn off. However, you can still shag his brains out of a bored evening. But the man you once revered for his intellectual powers, who then deflates on you like a pompous balloon, will be of no use whatsoever. Unless he’s rich. And even then - I’m famous, as you know, for saying I prefer brains to money. And that’s only a slight exaggeration, a fairly minor deviation from the truth. Believe me, no amount of luxury can make you forget how appalling his once adored profile looks on your pillow, when you wake up in the morning.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you…

Lisa

Dear Marcia,

Have you ever looked up people with "similar interests", on the internet?

I am at present of course not in interested in meeting somebody, as I share my life with Burke and he seems, for the moment, to expect 'exclusivity' - but it's always nice to expand one's circle of acquaintance, isn't it.

Idly looking at Blog Profiles on Blogger.com, I found there was exactly one other person, among the hundreds of thousands, who has the Hite Report on Male Sexuality in his list of Favorite Books. And a man, at that. Who is this intriguing person? I thought. Could he be a soul mate?

I checked his profile:

I am a dissenting nonconformist working-class writer with a moral, intellectual, artistic and social voice of conscience! Please do not ignore my valid concerns about -- and accusations of -- malignity, wrongdoing, ineptitude, dishonesty, illegality, and perversity --against SAFTI military authorities (now retirees) who, in 1972, decided to implant me without obtaining my consent, approval, agreement or acceptance!

And so, you see, it doesn't look as if this gentleman and I have much in common, after all. It's certainly true that I am a nonconformist, and I believe I know a little about the working class life from my brief stint in the grapevines of Margaux, France.

(I know Burke told you I didn't finish my shift, there, but I did a full three hours of it, and have you any idea how absolutely back breaking and awful it is? I only did it to help out Papi, Jean-Claude's father, because he had to harvest everything before the thunderstorms began. It was brutal! You had to pick the ripe clusters, but leave the unripe ones and the ones with bunch rot. First I thought all my clusters were unripe, so I walked leisurely through the vine, and as it was a lovely day, I contemplated that the working life wasn't so bad. After all, I get to be in the house most of the time, bored and wan, while these people socialize and get tans.

True, isn't it? But then Tanguy, Papi's rather rude helper, said my clusters were all just fine and I should go back and pick the grapes. Unpleasant little man. Within 20 minutes I was drenched. But you know how I am - never one to let people down. Poor Papi was moving around awkwardly and picking with bent back, and when he tried to straighten, he didn't - that is, his back hasn't gone back to normal in the past twenty-five years. So I carried on, wouldn't hear of stopping, and by God if I didn't put in those three gruelling hours! Then I was simply exhausted and went inside to make Papi a cup of coffee. I think several hours is plenty to get an impression of anual labour is all about. Let me tell you: I've been there, seen it, done it, and thank you, I don't need any more of it.)

I suppose I'd also agree I have "a moral, intellectual, artistic and social voice of conscience". The plight of our world hurts me almost physically, viscerally, sometimes. I really have no time for people without a social conscience. I suppose that's how Mommy raised me.

But apparently, this man has been "implanted" in 1972, and this without his consent. Or even his approval, agreement or acceptance. Quite apart from the fact that 1972 is of course before my time, I very much doubt I have been "implanted". But, who knows? You know what I always say: I know I've been abducted by aliens, because I don't remember it at all. This could be a similar thing. How does one know whether one has been implanted?

Lisa