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Met Jeff's wife Teri and AHAHA I love her. She was able to get a record deal thru Walt because she made Jeff promise one to her. Moxie! Chutzpah! A woman who knows what she wants! Yes!! I suppose that's why Jeff was so down about it all though... Walt probably put him through the ringer. Anyway, she was dressed to the nines, and carried herself like a queen. I hope she'll make Jeff take her to ALL our parties. Especially any Halloween party, so I have an excuse to be Marjan again for a little while and swap gossip with her (she ABSOLUTELY has some). Asked Jeff why I hadn't seen her around before and he totally took it the wrong way. Got a glum, sour look on his face and I remembered that not everyone clocks me immediately (I should be more thankful for this now, I know). Thankfully a laugh and an explanation that I was taken anyway (sort of true? hopefully soon-to-be-true?) sorted that out. Well, mostly. He also asked why he hadn't seen "HER" around, and I said-- well, only your house has room for a piano! But I do have to think up something and/or someone good to bring up to the girlfriend question, I suppose. Ugh.

I hope I DO see Teri around more, though! She's so perfectly, wonderfully bitchy and has a GREAT sense of style. I love women. :) --It's funny that I've never been deeply/seriously sexually attracted to them. I feel like I look up to them, more than anything-- wishing I could be more LIKE them, not WITH them (tho that and the specifics of it were hard to untangle for a long time). It's always been that way, even though I used to be deeply ashamed of that fact (I had so few men I looked up to outside of music until I met gay ones, but really, they shunned me first). Now I know that's just how queens are, and that's what I am, in some fashion, and that's okay, even if I have to obscure it a little more again generally. The tides will turn again someday, G-d willing, and until then, I'm rooting for Teri.

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Jeff and I were talking about interesting experiences we've had camping or just being out in nature-- he likes talking about various things in order to brainstorm-- and it reminded me of a time during college where I went with some friends to some valley creek during spring break. It was *beautiful*-- the nature in the valley wherever there was water was gorgeous, admittedly-- and there was this perfect patch of sun to dry off and bask in. I was almost naked, looking out at all the other almost naked people, and I first noticed a girl I had something of a crush on in senior year of high school-- Abby something-or-other. Topless and wearing cutoff jean shorts with nothing else, leaner than me (and I was still running competitively then!), copper hair in a ponytail mostly hidden by a baseball cap. Her shirtlessness was practical far more than flirty: it was the same outfit most of the boys were wearing, including myself. I was staring out at her, watching her collect tadpoles and frogs in a bucket, seeing the muscles in her back and shoulders move and fascinated over her effortlessly cool, unique-I-thought-at-the-time female masculinity: something similar to how I am but coming from the opposite end of the spectrum (at the time I'd hoped that this admiration could be close enough to love, I think-- or perhaps that the masculinity could override her female-ness). And somehow... that was how I met my college boyfriend Luis.

He sat next to me and started making smalltalk. Didn't take too long to tell that he must've been looking at me for awhile the same way I'd been looking at Abby, if not even more boldly. I was nineteen and still in and out of denial about myself. But the creek was a safe place, and the people I went there with were safe people. It was like a place out of time. Like a dream. So when he got bold enough to stroke my shoulder with a thumb, I let myself act like I would have if it really *was* a dream. That was the excuse I used to allow myself to make out with him in that little patch of sun.

Of course, I didn't tell Jeff about him-- just about Abby (and even then, not everything, of course). But the song we wrote together is still a little about him, the whole first verse in fact, and Jeff can't do anything about that :). Just like I can't do anything about the second verse being inspired by one of his poor old girlfriends, or about poor Luis being relegated to a "she". Ah, compromise! ...Writing lyrics with Jeff really is something else, though. It's like it's effortless for him. I've never experienced that before. It makes it so much easier. But at the same time... I can't help but wish it was effortless like that for me. It never has been.

PS: Sometimes I wonder how different my life would be if I followed Luis to New York after he graduated; if I would've fallen into the same or similar traps or not.... I loved him and he didn't seem to understand and it broke my heart to pieces, crushed me so much, I did so many awfully stupid things because of it. I got with Lorenzo because of it. Now that I think of it, I do wish I went to New York. I would've been so far away from Mom and that would've been hard, but even if Luis didn't want me anymore, there would've been no Lorenzo. The gift of hindsight. Ugh

PPS: I listened to Teri's tape... and it's... not as bad as it could have been? Walt having to figure out how to sell it'll be SO funny, though... G-d, SHE'S so funny!

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Benny finally had the time to come up to my new place-- so exciting!!-- and it was wonderful for most of the time. Like, perfect. Which is why I almost ruined everything; I was so blissed out I wasn't thinking clearly. Only about how surreal and amazing it was to see him outside the road context, how good he made me feel, how gorgeous and fine he was and is, how nice it felt to rest my head/face in his pits and on his chest (and stroke and lick and kiss his chest&belly hair....) and feel his deep rasp of a voice rumble in it/thru me. How I didn't feel just physically good, but so calm in a way I never feel (a running thing with him most of the time, and part of why I love him). So-- the long and short of it is, I asked if he was looking for a more serious partner. And if I could be said partner.

He hesitated for a looooong time and each extra moment made me want to die a little extra. Then: "I think it's better we just keep what we got goin' on without putting a name on it. Not 'cause -I- couldn't handle it, or 'cause I wouldn't want it. But I dunno if anyone else outside of the boys (the crew) could take it. ...And a couple fat cats'd be waiting to fuck 'n dump us the moment we do a single thing outta line." And furthermore, that once we inevitably got caught and outed, the things they'd say about us would be even worse than usual-- the way they were already even worse, because he's a big black man and I'm a tiny flamer. Not just gay but short-and-tall, skinny-and-big, notblack-and-black; things I find so beautiful about our togetherness are things other people would see as a freakshow, a laughingstock, the notion of it enough to spark an anger that wells up behind my eyes. And he'd likely get worse career and even just LIFE ramifications than I would, for reasons already stated, tho it'd be so dangerous regardless, for both of us (the one thing I will say is that he isn't a public figure the way I am, so anything known about me will be known by people across the damn country eventually...). It's so frustrating; straight people (and in this case too white straight people) can be so disgusting and I hate that we have to worry about them like this. I'm used to it in certain ways, but not as a ~public figure~, and as silly as it sounds, being with Benny makes me forget all about anyone else or what they think. I know in the end, even if we can't officially be partners, we'll still have each other in whatever way we can manage. I feel like we're nearly partners in all but name anyway, so I shouldn't be too disappointed. It still made me feel stupid at the time. I suppose it still does, a little-- how much I want the official attachment. The feelings are shared and they're real, I know he wants to keep going with all this same as I do; why can't that be enough for me?

It was interesting to learn, from him, how threatened Walt and Phil feel by us. I think they're very used to running things their way or the highway without pushback and got lucky with the rest of the guys-- not necessarily that they're stupid or anything, just that their personalities or goals or opinions align more with his than mine do. My existence, in a way, is a kind of pushback. I have to be ~minded~ in a way the others don't, even when I'm on my best behavior (like my family growing up, sending me out into the world praying no one would see through me, the bracing for disappointment). Now, on top of that, I'm starting to throw my weight around a bit and think a little bigger instead of simply being content hiding and bowing my head being thankful just to be here. And I'm doing that with another man whose existence is also a kind of pushback, who's also brave enough to think bigger in ways where we both have a lot to gain. --And a lot to lose, of course, and it's an understandable worry on Benny's part (and it's not like I DON'T have that worry). It would be rational to wait until he actually *does* succeed at what he wants to accomplish. We'd both be a lot safer then. Our feelings for each other wouldn't undermine our goals for each other.

Anyway. I'm in a little bit of a melancholy mood now over how stupid and complicated things always have to be, but I am glad that in this case it's a mutual feeling and want instead of a helpless one-way pining. We were able to dance with each other at my place. Donna, Diana, Sly, Betty, Parliament/Funkadelic, Prince... so much fun! And I let myself get totally sexy with it in a way I haven't done in ages and we both enjoyed that, and he enjoyed it by being a pretty good dancer himself + more importantly knowing just how/where to feel/touch me. Started things off sexy as I could too-- wearing the tightest (and lowest cut...) blue club jeans I have, the ones I cut two slices in the back of to show off some of my ass, extra necklaces/chokers and bracelets and rings, my old see-thru buttondown-- which certainly helped things along. He looked perfect too, in tight white tee, chest hair poking out, nipples poking thru, CLASSIC (equally tight) button-up Levis-- the kind that does wonders for any bulge, and it was BENNY'S-- rattlesnake belt buckle, a nice gold chain in his chest hair... mm-mmm.

Things got pretty heavy early on, but he's always been more patient than I am, and I'd wanted to dance with him so much that we stayed in a sort of half-mast quasi-making out quasi-dancing state for awhile. It meant actual sex was AMAZING (the more direct foreplay as well; my jeans were a VERY good choice). Especially because there was no time limit, no having to worry about anyone catching us, no having to have an ear out for Juan's knuckle rapping on a door or a wall.... just pleasure, and each other, and Adventures in Paradise. So it meant there was all this new free space to allow myself to really relax and *feel* (both myself and also his body), and he noticed and was SO into it, coaxing me along, his voice sweeter in my ear than it's ever been, ughhhhhh it was a miracle I held off on cumming (...for the first go-round, that is) for as long as I did, it felt like I was on the edge-of-the-edge for at least three quarters of it, my entire body humming, SO perfect, just entirely at his mercy and loving every second of it--

Writing it all out, could anyone blame me for asking to truly be his? He still slept with me after all my silliness-- and it was so amazing waking up next to him, like I was still dreaming-- and stayed for breakfast, which I cooked for us (and before breakfast but after his first cigarette and mint gum we enjoyed ourselves some more, lazily, still a little sleepily, in bed), so I suppose worrying that I ruined things was silly. Maybe my cooking saved everything...! ha ha.

PS: I DID tell him that we WILL go clubbing someday and we'll find a way to make it happen. Because you'd think the dancing here would scratch that itch, and ohhhh no.... it's only made it that much worse. Like, it's one thing to grind my ass up against his hard-on thru our pants to music at a ~reasonable volume~ by ourselves, it's a whole other thing to do so to music with bass loud and deep enough it feels like you're already getting fucked a little, around a bunch of other beautiful freaks doing similar things. If the sex after the livingroom dancing was like this, in other words, the sex after club dancing is probably going to kill me and send me straight to heaven or whatever other afterlife there may be.

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Ricky,

We fell in love while dancing, remember? I always thought you were so beautiful, so stunning, ever since the day I showed up at band practice, but I didn't feel worthy of your beauty or your kindness. I'd just spent three years trapped with a man who put me down any chance he could, who I did so many awful things for to keep him paid and to keep myself safe (and high...), and all I could see in me was that dirtiness, that ugliness. I didn't want you to have to see anything but the confidence Cryssie helped me find, the prettiness I had on stage. But one night I was a little drunk on rum and cokes and dancing without a care in the world with whatever boy I happened to be next to on the floor, and then eventually that boy was you. It was like the world stopped and it was just you and I. It was like a movie. I fell into you so quickly, felt so safe with you; all the ugliness within me disappeared and all I could see and feel was a beautiful shared future. Of course you know we slept together that night at your place, made love-- the most passionate, romantic, honest sex I'd had in years (but still so hot!). It sounds silly, but in retrospect, part of me knew right then that we were meant for each other.

All that is to say that all of this with Benny is reminding me so much of you and it frightens me a little, but excites me, too (waking up next to him, too, filled me with the same kind of joy and relief that waking up next to you that first time did). We haven't had sex *quite* like that, yet, but we've gotten close to it. I can tell that both of us are afraid to go that extra distance, for our own reasons. We've both been around some, we've both been hurt by life. Maybe it is silly to want to seriously be his boyfriend. So many obstacles are in our way, with fame being the biggest of them all. We already have to hide so much and we'd have to hide even more. Is it worth it? I wish I could ask you and that you could answer. I never know what to do when my heart wakes up. Following it, trusting it, has always lead to such pain. Yet it's pain either way! I suppose that's just our lot in life, isn't it? Maybe I can allow myself to hope the way you allowed me to have hope when you were alive-- for a beautiful future, again, unburdened by hiding or shame. I don't pray much at all anymore, but that hope is a kind of prayer in and of itself. I love you.

Always,

Julie

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