[CW: relationship abuse mention/mild description]

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This tour's given us so little free time that we're literally writing stuff for a new album while we're on the road-- not just the usual sorts of riffing and brainstorming for fun to add to later, but SERIOUS writing. G-d it truly has gotten ridiculous. Maybe Walt really wasn't kidding when he said he liked Reagan for his business sense. It's more motivation for me, though. ...I'm probably going to have to do a bit of snooping myself, but I'm good at that for the reasons I'm good at lifting. Snooping and reading up on labor law (beyond that, I can't say, not even in here). While I'm not doing band stuff. So little time to rest! Before the band I'd turn to speed in moments like this but I feel so much forward momentum and determination right now I don't need any sort of outside assistance.

The poor crew, though. Phil and Walt are really putting them thru it when they can. Captive audience meeting type bullshit, which makes it even more difficult to get things done in time, then trying to punish them when those things aren't done in time because they were forced to sit in a fucking corporate bullshit meeting. Benny told me this kind of thing would happen, but ugh. Thankfully he's standing firm and steady, and that core of trust around him has grown so much. Hence all the retaliation. They're scared, they didn't expect this, and they're lashing out with what they have to put things back where they want them. Walt, come on. Even Jeff’s on board with us, now (Nate… is more complicated, but I’ve been careful about it; Walt’s been taking all this as a personal attack on him-- blaming Ben far more than anything else-- and so Nate has as well and I’ve had to start gently diffusing that assumption). It's only natural to want to work smarter instead of harder, and to want to have more of a say in the work you do, and that's what Ben is offering-- and really, not just Ben anymore, but a slate of people, including Eoin and Juan and Marty. It started out as a "get Ben in this position" type campaign, but it's become something a bit bigger than that. Not unionization (of course that's what Walt and Phil are sounding alarm bells about anyhow), but still something more democratic than before. --Working both the band and the crew harder this tour might've been a mistake on Walt and Phil's part, in that regard. :) Especially since this is Jeff's first go-round, and he was in a different professional band before this one and has that experience to compare it to...! Despite everything else about Jeff, the more I think about it, the things he does bring to the table are so helpful it nearly makes up for the bad. It DOES make up for the bad, in a practical sense.

Want to think of some morale boosting things for the guys and Marty, tho, I really do. I have the resources to do a decent amount, especially if I pool things together with the rest of the band. Just to let off some steam and also to let them know that they're more than appreciated but also supported.

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I've been thinking about why cruising hasn't felt as good lately, and at first I truly did think it was all because of how focused on Benny I am, but I've realized now that it isn't just that. So many of the guys around now are fans first and foremost. They want me to autograph their cock after they pull it out of my ass, you know[35]? So much gushing about how good I sound, how much they love me as a Figure; touching me like I'm made of glass, or like I'm a dream, that I'll shatter or disappear if they believe in my physicality and humanity too much. I'm not just a guy anymore, I'm like an icon or something.

Sometimes I can make it work and have fun with it. Guys don't always buy that I can top (sometimes my height alone makes it a non-starter. oh well!), but they certainly buy that I can be a bossy queen. Even the shyest fan of a man listens when I tell him I want him to fuck me and fuck me hard, harder, harder; are you holding back or are you smaller than I thought? No? Prove it then. --I get nicer if and when they earn it (some of them are hopeless, in which case I ride them as hard as I need). Sometimes I'm out of bed and cleaning up before he is and he's still laying there, breathing a little heavy, eyes following wherever I go, and I'm reminded of the time Greg jacked me off in my tub and left me there, him so unbothered and nonchalant about it all, me caught between bliss, frustration, confusion, unsatisfied longing. I understand it, now. There's a power in bringing people to that state; in holding something so tantalizing out and not letting them have any part of it, any part of me, outside of the smallest taste. Making them beg for even that much. I'm not sure if Greg ever fully understood how his version of it made me feel. In my case, I know exactly what I'm doing: this was just another night for me and to the guy on the bed it was everything. And I let him know in my own ways that I know both of those facts.

What I don't let him know, of course, is that he'd never be able to fuck me like Benny can anyhow. We can't have each other the way I'd like most of the time, but it makes those rare moments all the better. I tell him, too. About the boys that try to fuck me, that is. He knows as well as I do that none of them could ever hold a candle to him and he loves proving it and I love making him prove it-- it's nice how that's all worked out. He's had the sexiest dirty talk during it all too, MMM... and it's all true, too. None of those boys know my body like Benny does. They don't know exactly what drives me wild the way he does. They can't hit the exact spot in me he can and they wouldn't be able to do it the same even if they could. He asks me if they can and I say no to each question and mean it, and the whole time he's doing all he can to make me go crazy wanting him. UGH we just have so much fun together and it's almost always effortless.

Things with the crew are getting better and better, too. And I've finally won a couple games of poker fair and square (not against Ben, tho!)! Juan and Marty are finally starting to see the fruits of their labor, ha! I love that a whole group of people knows about me, knows about Benny and I, and I can trust them all with that knowledge. If we're "official" anywhere, it's there. I mean, Marty calls me "Ben's road husband" which makes me go red every time, which is probably why she keeps calling me that... and if only it were half that committed! But yes, I'm still so grateful at how welcome I feel with them, how part-of-things I am. All that is sustaining me the most, now.

*

Walter seriously crossed a line today in a way I truly wasn't expecting and I still don't know what to do about it. Maybe nothing, I mean, who the hell would I turn to for it anyway? And who would care? But UGH it was beyond the usual sliminess, truly and fully into that sort of crude fantasizing that bigots delve into. Like, the way they get off on anything that renews their disgust, the way they're always looking for another hit of it.

But anyway, he's been understandably increasingly frustrated with me regarding my "activities" with the crew. It's become something of a clear and obvious wedge between us-- especially because he went thru the crew hierarchy himself on his way to his manager position, so it feels very personal for him-- and that's a risky thing, especially because a lot of the band likes Walt far more than I do (I especially don't want to lose Nate), but I feel everything has been worth this risk. I hope I'm right. It's a terrible gamble but I'm doing it for love and Walt would never understand that (as in: it's personal for me, too, but in a way he could never know). He has other ideas about my motivations. He said the ties I have to the crew have nothing to do with loyalty, that I wouldn't know what that is, that I just want to "jack off to the idea of being passed around by a bunch of guys that do real work". It very much rattled me, to the point where I couldn't help but drop my mouth open for a moment. For one, I've only had sex with a single member of the crew and it's the same one that I love, but that's very much beside the point-- it wouldn't matter if I really did fool around with however many of them. I don't want to hear my fucking boss-- a boss that considers himself some sort of father figure, no less-- talking about me, TO me, like he's reading off the cover of a porno mag, and if that makes me a pussy, oh well.

I just said, carefully, that that was a seriously, deeply inappropriate thing to say. He echoed "~Inappropriate~" mockingly back at me and for a moment I hated him almost as much as I could hate Lorenzo. He got a rise out of saying things to intentionally disgust me, too, and I couldn't ignore it. Or-- I could, but he'd keep pushing... it never lead anywhere good. Of course, sometimes it didn't stop even if I just gave in and played along. There was no winning with him. Ever. He just wanted to upset me and make me feel as small and ashamed of myself as possible, because he was a pathetic rat.

I have the very distinct feeling Walt wants me to feel the same way, even if it's for different ends. Sometimes I have been crushed by the weight of peoples' wishes to bury me in shame. This time, I was proud of myself-- very rattled, like I said, very upset, but also able to stand my ground and not completely lose my cool or drown in old fears and feelings (he reminded me of Lorenzo but that in itself didn't fill me with terror the way it might've a few years ago). He can say awful things to me, think awful things about me, pressure me in various ways, but he can't hurt me the way Lorenzo or my grandfather could. Regardless, it was very much a new low for him, and something I won't forget.

*

Some bigshot promoter begged Walt and I to add five more stadium shows to a tour that's already gone on far too long. Ugh, he was so damn annoying about it, too, like the fact that he was the first one to book the Grateful Dead would be something that was in any way relevant to the current moment. He literally got on his knees at one point, hands clasped around mine in mock-prayer, looking up at me like a particularly annoying overgrown puppy. Well, that's still an insult to puppies, poor things. But yes, if he wanted sympathy from me, he chose the dead-wrong tack. "Isn't he pathetic, Walt?", I'd said (hoping it’d work, hoping he’d remember how much he hated pathetic people, but...). "Yeah, but money's money, Jules.", Walt said, "It's just five shows." And I said it's one show. THREE, PLEEEEEASE!, and even more groveling. I told Walt how much I hated those damn stadiums, how alienating they are, how difficult they are to sing in, and I told the promoter how all he had to do was sign a check, that he had no damn clue the work that went into setting up or performing shows, especially not at such short notice.

The begging didn't stop, though, so I knew I had to relent to and stay firm at two, with the caveat that Walt figures out SOMETHING to make them less awful. He kissed the hands he still had in his sweaty mitts, blubbered his thanks, and left Walt staring out after him with his jaw slack. "What the fuck was that?", he said. I told him I was surprised he even humored him, that I could tell he had just as much contempt for him as I did. And that either way, he better figure something out, because that was the only way my offer would stand. "You've turned into a real bitch, you know that?" Oh, I learned from the best, pops!

Anyway, I made sure to wash my hands immediately after all that. Yuck!!!

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[35]A guy did literally want me to sign his fucking condom wrapper once, so it’s not really much of a joke, is it?