July 1992

I'm ready to stop dreaming and feeling sorry for myself. I'm glad I met Thomas. I don't regret it.

Jessie was in town with her new boyfriend Ferras for the Fourth of July weekend. "But why should we celebrate having no freedom?" Marcelo had asked as we'd driven to Roscoe's to meet Jessie and Ferras. Ferras was Arab and sexy. I was immediately attracted to him. The touch of his hand when we first shook hands. Those vibes. As it turns out Ferras was very much into drinking and drugging. Back at Marcelo's Ferras and I danced. Jen said, "There's no way he's not at least bisexual!" Ferras and I talked. He told me not to try so hard. Marcelo wanted to have an orgy. Everyone laughed and danced, talked, smoked. Some people left, others slept, but Marcelo, Ferras, and I stayed up talking sex. Earlier I had said to Ferras, 'Before I start flirting with you I have to tell you I'm very attracted to you.' All night he'd kept saying, "Emil, you're so cute." We were like brothers who had grown up in separate homes. The next night everyone met at Marcelo's for a small party. When Jessie's in town we drink tequila. Silene got us high. Drugs and alcohol played a large part in my strange weekend. On the street Ferras and I walked behind everyone else, talked intimately. I wanted to tell him so much. Give everything to him. I wanted him. I wanted him because I was drunk. He said I was holding back. He listened. He said things I understood. All the while an air of sex, desire. Confusion. I had volunteered myself for the confusion and could not blame him. I hated him. I wanted him. Then understood him. He said again, "Trust me. It's o.k. to tell me things. Sometimes I tell personal things to people that I'd never tell to a close friend." He'd been right. I wanted to tell him things, but what was it I wanted to tell him, to give him? I was drunk, I couldn't remember. Through alleys and across streets we walked, conversed. He talked vulgarly of women. "Pussy" this, "My balls" that! I was angry because I, the bitch, wanted more than vulgarity. I told him that I had thought about him all day long like I'd known I would. And I confessed that I would do the same tomorrow. Now that I'm sober and think about it, it was all me. I started the game. Not Ferras. I played. I got drunk to play. I was the instigator. He said that he'd thought of me, too. He said, "Brandon and I are straight, (Jessie had told me the night before that Ferras had always wanted to be with a man but was fearful) but we… you see… Emil, you have this sexual power." I did not fall for any of it. People talk. They say things. You've heard them before. They'll say anything. What does it matter, anyway? Then everyone wanted to go to Shelter. Bryan and I went into the bathroom and exchanged clothes. I liked what he was wearing. He liked what I was wearing. Although Bryan was with us the whole weekend it had felt like he was always out of the picture, as though Jen had stolen his soul. But he was always there with a sweet fatherly smile. I asked him to turn around. Dressed in his clothes and felt his body heat on mine. On the way to Shelter Ferras mixed drinks in Marcelo's car. I was surprised that Marcelo who doesn't drink let us drink alcohol in his car. When we got out of the car I said to Marcelo, 'I don't like this. Why do I do this?' Downtown Chicago was spinning all around us. I hated being so wasted. At Shelter I went to the bathroom and lost everyone. I sat alone for a moment. Felt awful. Then I spotted Marcelo. We all stood around. Ferras bought more drinks. I wanted to dance, let the frustration out. I walked out onto the dance floor. Everyone followed. It was wonderful. Ferras danced up to me with his drink and put the straw in my mouth. I drank. When I stopped sipping he pinched me. Again. More. I danced for him. Someone passed a joint around the dance floor. It all sounds so humiliating now. We went to another bar. It was closed, but Brandon knew the bartender who let us in. Suddenly I was crazy and wanted out. But the door was locked. I stood there and saw daylight through the small window in the door. Saw a copy of Nightlines, picked it up. Jim and I were on the cover amidst spectators at the Pride Parade. I needed air. I went up to Marcelo. He said we'd leave in a minute. I told him then, 'They feed their egos on us, the two homosexuals.' Marcelo agreed and I really wished he hadn't. I don't think he was really listening. In the car again I wanted to scream, tired, wasted, exhausted from the games that always make me feel so delicate and lonely. I opened the car window, unfastened the watch my father had given me for my sixteenth birthday and flung it out into the street. Sweet guilt, a certain pleasure, a drug. I sometimes love it so, it takes me away. We went to some diner and over breakfast Ferras sat with his head down, passed out. Jessie giggled. Brandon talked nonsense. 'Will someone please wake Ferras the fuck up? He's making us look bad!' I suddenly said and we all burst out laughing. Later that morning we sat on Brandon's back porch and got high. Ferras explained how much I had flirted with him and we all laughed about this and the things others had done and said. I went home with music and voices from the entire weekend ringing in my head.

Marcelo and I went to Sidetrack and Manhole. I felt desirable. Men touched me. I worried if I would burn out on the whole bar scene because I'm too young and am starting early. I thought of the weekend and Ferras. Everything I learned about myself. I had fun, but I am never- I swear it- drinking like that again!

Headache. Crabby. Impatient. I'm obsessive about everything. I want to write, to draw, but fuck creativity, art, knowledge. Do I really want an education? Fear of failure- future, future, future. I need new words to describe this feeling of anger, frustration. This wheel. My fate, my condition. Thrown into the fire but feeling cold. Feeling love for a thing, but then hate and bitterness for that very same thing. Wasting pen and paper and life. For me to understand something I have to be lost and confused about it. I'm realizing how insecure I am and how insane my insecurities are.

Nick and I had wine over dinner and talked. I told him all about the weekend and Ferras. Red wine. Tipsy. We went back to Nick's apartment. Listened to ABBA. He told me about some of his design ideas- shirts made out of human hair that he's actually collecting now. I had told him over dinner how much I had enjoyed having sex with him the last time. We had sex again tonight. Condom and all. I love taking my clothes off and having someone touch my skin. Nick touches well. I rode him. We came together, a very good orgasm. Then I sat there for a moment with Nick still inside me. We breathed. Sighed. I lay next to him. He said I was experienced, that I was good in bed. Oh journal, listen to what I said, 'You're the second person who's ever entered me. I love it. I was born to do it. I live because of it.' We laughed. I felt so much stress melt away tonight. Nick was going to sew. I went home to sleep.

I am nothing but a psychological subject to myself to observe and analyze. It irritates me!

I went to see Marcelo at Kinko's in Evanston where he works the graveyard. He called a sex hotline he's been doing. I listened in on another phone. He said that he did it yesterday, too, and met a doctor who drove an hour from a suburb to have sex. Not necessarily anal, but sex nonetheless.

Marcelo and I went to Sidetrack. I was talking to Mike when he gestured and caused me to spill my beer all over myself. He apologized profusely. I told him it was o.k. and wondered to myself: What am I doing here? I'm too young for this!

Been writing stories. Marcelo's given me the number to the sex hotline he's been using, as if we're housewives exchanging recipes. He simply wrote down the number on a piece of paper, without my asking, and gave it to me. He had towered over me at that moment. Friend.

Went to Sidetrack but I was frustrated because I didn't feel I got all the attention I wanted.

A long way to go, to go, to go…