I return home from my date on a grey Sunday afternoon feeling satisfied. Jim is an intelligent, affectionate man. Sprawling on his sofa this morning to opera, wrapped in each other’s arms, newspaper strewn around us. Coffee and kissing foreheads. The dishwasher is humming in the kitchen. We have loved each other all night. I drift through my inner spaces and think about how much I want a lover and a home.

I survey his modern apartment so well put together in the midst of Fairlington– high grade suburbia– and lie to him unmercifully. I make up stories about my life and my job and my background. Over a steak and potato dinner I tell him that I am vegetarian.

Throughout the night during sex (we both come three times) he keeps changing from a fat girl who wants me to love her to a hunky guy who I want to love me. I wonder if I become the fat girl then…

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Now I am home and Shirley Bassey is doing her ballads and I am drinking beer and typing. I call my mother on the phone. We validate each others’ life. She pretends too. She plays with her men. She plays superior too– constantly seeking someone who will make her feel inferior– and then feeling crazy when it happens.

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I keep my journal out of boredom.

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