Alicia and I are monogamous. In some 1969 circles, fidelity is an impediment to liberation, and jealousy a means of oppression. Occasionally Alicia wants to discuss it, “not because I want to change it, but because I want to understand the contradictions.” We go to school in separate states, and I'm worried that our states of mind are drifting apart.
I try this argument: Sure, sexual fidelity is a linchpin of an oppressive system, and in the best of new worlds one could have a main squeeze and be up front about squeezing others on the side, no more threatening than dancing with someone else (“She showed me some new steps I can’t wait to show you”). That’s the way it will be. But there’s a grandfather clause — if two people fell in love with the old mind-set, they have the option to live by it.
She buys it.
Still, I am nervous when Alicia writes that her roommate has dropped out of Goddard, and a guy named Sean, who is crashing classes, is staying in her room. “There’s nothing to be jealous about,” she assures in her letter. “He’s just a friend.” At least she is accepting the possibility, if not the appropriateness, of jealousy.
When I mention to my friends that a guy is staying with my girlfriend, their eyes widen and I say, “Hey, it’s no problem, we need to get beyond possessiveness.” I do request that Sean find another place to sleep when I come up the next weekend, though it never bothers me when another woman is in the room while we have muffled sex under the covers.
Sean is there when I arrive. Wan with a scraggly beard, he is more puppy than wolf, and I score points with Alicia by feigning interest in the architectural drawings in his notebook. “You were so nice to him,” she says after Sean leaves.
I have it all: sexual fidelity without begging for it, while maintaining my progressive reputation.
On Saturday afternoon, Alicia is at one of the endless meetings they have in their group house, figuring out how to govern themselves without government. Today’s topic is dishwashing. I stay in the room to do schoolwork. I am enrolled in a course called “Sex, Censorship, and Literature” (we call it “Porn 101”). The professor told me the highest grade I can get will be a D because I have missed so many classes to spend time with Alicia (“No points for irony.”) To avoid an F, I have to do a decent textual analysis of White Thighs.
I soon get bored with the book, in which women ejaculate and their hairy armpits are erogenous zones. I pace around the room: unmade twin beds, a smattering of books and papers, modest stereo equipment, and a poster of the Last Supper tableaux posed by modern-day hippies. I pick up Sean’s black, beaten leather sketchbook — the kind I’ve always wanted — and flip through the pages, admiring his meticulous drawings. I come across a diary entry in Sean’s tiny, precise lettering, unlike my baby scrawl.
The entry is in the form of a letter to Sean’s girlfriend, starting with how much he misses her and a reference to the changes they are both going through. People are going through lots of changes these days. The Firesign Theater’s Nick Danger is told, “I can’t knock success, but you still put me through too many changes,” Phil Ochs sings “Changes,” and some people I know swear by The Book of Changes.
I am enjoying the letter — glad these aren’t my girlfriend’s changes — when the words slept with jump out from a sentence down the page. Alicia leaps out next. Heart fluttering, I read like Evelyn Wood’s star pupil: .... faithful .... up here .... haven’t slept with anyone .... except once .... Alicia .... wasn’t good .... agreed .... not again.
I am quick to confront the federal government or the university administration, but I tend to delay confrontations with those close to me, especially Alicia, rehearsing them in my head until either the issue goes away on its own or I have a persuasive argument. But I cannot delay this one. Though I feel disoriented and dizzy, I have to confront Alicia immediately.
I wade to the room where the meeting is, and open the door. They keep right on with their free and open debate: "I have the right to let the dishes get dirty if I don’t mind eating on them!” I catch Alicia’s eye and beckon her to the door.
“What’s wrong?”
“You know what’s wrong,” I say, as if I have read the journal aloud to her. “Did you sleep with Sean?” I ask, hoping that the journal’s narrator is as unreliable as the one in White Thighs.
Instead of dissolving into tears as she crumbles into my arms begging forgiveness, she is calm and defiant: Yes, we have done it once, it wasn’t good, it happened weeks ago, there is less to worry about now with Sean since it is out of the way, we aren’t married or even living together though who knows if even that would preclude it with someone else, she is sorry I found out the way I did.
Alicia has clearly gone through some changes. Her brown eyes are emboldened by a confluence of forces that has me beating on against the current, borne ceaselessly into the future.
If I say the wrong thing, I may lose her. I rally my will, promise her I will work on the relevant issues she’s raised, and start thinking of women I can screw.
That night in bed I touch Alicia's arm. She reaches down between my legs, and when I get hard she starts to sob.
(from the working draft of Based on a True Life: A Memoir in Pieces)
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