In order of appearance —
Kelsey (or Kelcey). We met on the second day of freshman orientation at college, the weekend before classes started. Kelsey’s pseudonym is from the name of one of the swimmers in Salvador Dali’s Dream of Venus surrealist fun house at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.
Orgy Girl. We met that weekend also. She’s the woman in The Needle post, the naked woman sitting by the punch bowl at an orgy. Her smile lets you know it’s okay to have some.
The Dancer. Kelsey left school the end of January 1970. The night before I was at this party, reluctantly and in a bad mood. This woman took off her clothes and did things at my feet. I was thinking, Just why the hell is she doing that?
The Dreamer. I had this strange dream I’d lost my virginity but couldn’t remember what happened. I woke up, went out and she was the first person I ran into. I blurted out my dream and she gave me a weird look and fled. That’s how I met her and later I found out my dream was what happened to her. She remembered going into a house and remembered coming back out but nothing in between. Six months on we weren’t doing so great and I ended up, in our dreams, chasing her in my submarine.
The Joker. After a party I got ready to go to bed and there was a woman there. “I’m staying the night,” she said. I seriously considered throwing her out. I’m glad I didn’t, but goodness knows this one hurt. I fell hopelessly in love with her but she had a boyfriend in prison and I knew it wasn’t going to last forever. He got out and beat the crap out of her. I got dumped, of course.
A long tedious interim where I was extremely relationship shy. I decided I wanted to go somewhere and live in the woods. So I asked every woman I knew and they all said yes, much too quickly. I figured they weren’t sincere. Kelsey was soon getting letters from women that they’re going to live out in the woods with me and a bunch of other women and have babies. This didn’t happen.
The American Artist. I met her in London in 1975. She’s the friend of the English Artist. I just got an email from her; she’s vacationing in London with her husband and son.
The Beautiful Woman. I was back home after working in London for a couple of years. The doorbell rang and I answered. My first thought when I see her was, She’s beautiful. Orgy Girl sent her to me because I had slides she could use for a class.
The Beautiful Woman was engaged but the fiancee lived out of town. He saw me one day and wanted to kill me. He was sure I stole his lover years earlier — a woman I’d never talked to. What she told him was that I was taking care of her. What she didn’t tell him was we were sleeping together. It was platonic since, because of stories she’d heard, she refused to have sex with me.
Kelsey and the daughter came to visit me for a month. We decided to live together but it was almost a year till I moved to Ohio and that happened. We’ve just had our 33rd anniversary of not being married.