so, anyway... Got up and started to make coffee but went back to bed instead. Dreamt I was sucking a boy's dick. (NB: He's legal. And he was legal in the dream, too. And it's pathetic that I feel I can't use the term 'boy' without explaining further, to avoid being pegged a child molester. And it is most pathetic of all that I am referring to a thirty-one year old man as a boy. Anyway...)

His name is Richard, but nobody has ever called him that. We call him Styx. Now, I don't think he would spell it that way (more precisely 'Stix' or blandly, 'Sticks'), and I am quite sure he would claim no association with the mythological river. It would seem likely that his nickname was appropriated from the eighties' rock band. But it actually originated with one of his mother's boyfriends who was making a darkly public reference to his secret experiences with Richard's pre-adolescent stick-like erection. Richard's mother had some abusive boyfriends, and they did not just abuse her.

A  marsh  it  makes,  which  has  the  name  of  Styx,

This  tristful  brooklet,  when  it  has  descended

Down  to  the  foot  of  the  malign  gray  shores.

And  I,  who  stood  intent  upon  beholding,

Saw  people  mudbesprent  in  that  lagoon,

All  of  them  naked  and  with  angry  look.

They  smote  each  other  not  alone  with  hands,

But  with  the  head  and  with  the  breast  and  feet,

Tearing  each  other  piecemeal  with  their  teeth.

Said  the  good  Master:  Son,  thou  now  beholdest

The  souls  of  those  whom  anger  overcame;

Dante's Inferno - Canto VII

(NB again: To cement my image as a non-diddler I suppose I should spew some venom toward the abuser, but here I arrive at somewhat of a dilemma. Venom-spewing results from a failure (or refusal) to maintain an exquisite awareness of everything. Those who place their faith in fear spew venom. I am at least as scared as the next boy, but fear is not the seat of my faith, and I will spew no venom. We apply notions of good and bad onto things which appear too painful and too scary to look at directly. When I was three years old, I was raped by an alcoholic Irishman who I loved as my friend. I will grieve with exquisite tenderness all the good that we lost, up to the limit of my courage for today. I will spew no venom.)

styx is in jail right now. He has children. He was a hustler when I knew him, but I never knew any hustlers. In some skewed way the hustlers I knew were not hustlers, they were my friends. Nevermind I paid them. And nevermind we had sex; in my life sex has always been a pernicious intruder on intimacy. But there on the street, they strolled and beckoned, inviting me to 'be their friend.' They smiled. Oh, such a melting warmth! for this isolated soul. Ice-olated. Such a squinting-sun upon my mole-darkness. As I age, I realize that I have always been terrified of e v e r y o n e; panic-stricken at every encounter. I acted the way I thought I should act around family, friends, acquaintences, and strangers. I fooled them. I fooled you. I even fooled me, but the act has become threadbare and shabby. One who fools is called, perhaps appropriately, a fool.

But I did not fool the hustlers. I could have, but I did not want to. "I want you to touch me. No, not there, really... but that will do." And afterward, "It's OK, you don't have to leave right away. Do you need anything? Do you want to go get something to eat?" (NB even more: Do you want to be my friend? Will you love me? ...show me how to love?)

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