Taking off my clothes, I sat down as Charles and his assistant fiddled with a big klieg light softened by a white umbrella. And then I posed, moving my body this way and that way as Charles directed. After the first ten minutes, I lost most of my self-consciousness about being naked.
In downtown Miami, when we went past a long motorcade of honking Cubans waving flags in support of the 10,000 Havanans on the Peruvian embassy grounds, I shouted “¡Viva Cuba libre!” out the car window.
I decided to take a ride out to the beach at Fort Lauderdale. There was a long wait at a drawbridge, and four girls in a nearby car rolled down their windows. I thought they wanted to ask directions, but they were just waving and smiling. On Las Olas Boulevard a guy in the car next to mine began flirting with me.
I drove up A1A by the beach. All those honky-tonk motels attract me, as do the young boys and girls on spring break, tanned and youthful and full of energy.
Gary and I went to one of those places that buy old coins and gold and silver jewelry, but the line there was too long. With 20% inflation, people are panicking and selling off rings, coin collections, bracelets and even silverware. The 1980s seem to be a time of panic, war hysteria, and senseless violence.
Avis and I were talking about Simon and Josh’s not speaking to each other. I wondered aloud why people who care about each other should cause each other such pain. “It’s usually people who care about you who cause you pain,” Justin put in – and I felt he was talking about him and me, not Simon and Josh.
I told Ronna I liked Jordan. “He’s very young,” she said. “He’s earnest,” I said. “Arrogant,” she countered. “Hey, Ronna,” I said, “it’s obvious you’re crazy about him.” “I know, isn’t it awful?” “No, it’s not awful, it’s very nice.”
Contemplating suicide tends to relax me.
I am ready for a gay relationship, but not with Justin. I’m not really attracted to him; as Avis said, Justin isn’t sexy. The other night, when he returned upstairs after seeing me out of their apartment, Justin asked Avis, “Why does Richie shrink from my being affectionate?”
I just got off the phone with Beth, a 19-year-old Pratt student whose Voice ad I answered, who wants to date a bi guy. She said she’s gotten hundreds of replies and has already found one guy who’s really cute: “I think you’d like him, too.”