NOTE: [passages] editorial afterthoughts
Chapter 7

When I returned from SL, I went down to Pushkin Square to work, only to find MN gone! It had burned down while I was away. The Artists' Union next door had caught fire and the damage to the entire building was beyond even the Soviet penchant for making do. Later I picked my way through the rubble and warped hallways to find a few belongings in our once lovely room with its circular balcony facing out on both Gorky St and Puskhin Square. I eventually located our operations on the 12th floor of the Coal Ministry on Kalinin St (now New Arbat St).

March 15, 1990

Am having trouble with my anger - the drunk pissing in my stairwell, the crowded grim metro - but have a modicum of experience meditating, which helps keep it in check. I realize the anger eats up more energy than it provides. Reasoned protest to accommodate my legitimate rights - yes, but catch the moment of anger arising. Don't let it capture you and become a mood.

March 22, 1990

Am compelled to make an entry because of a strange unsettling dream:
Trying to get in to work (MN?) on 2nd floor of an old house, but forgot the key. Go around back and decide to go in the basement window, but have to remove broken stained-glass window. While removing it, I see children playing in the field next door. One sees a ghost/ angel of Perry the explorer descending from the sky. I go to shake his hand. He refrains at the last moment. I realize it is dangerous to shake a ghost's hand.
Meaning: I've lost the 'key' to my solar phallic life (2n fl), and can get 'in' only through a union of the spiritual and erotic (basement windows). The cold (Arctic) explorer in me is not ready for this. I.e., I still have a long way to go.

A exhilarating clandestine visit with D’s mother by overnight train to the southern Ukrainian town of Pavlograd to visit D. The cigs I brought make him special on the base, where he is serving his first six month training period. We were able to lie together and sleep for an hour alone in a local Ukrainian 'izba' and I came. Pavlograd may be a hole, but there are lots of bored young guys there, in particular D, which is better than glitz in my books. "Eric, the important thing is for us to be together." I would move heaven and earth for that. Is that spiritual?

I put on dinner for my sexy MGU student friend Valera Matveev and his mother Ludmilla. L: "He's a young friend for you. You could have someone your own age, or a Russian girl, but you chose my Valera. Thank you for being my son's friend."

April 5, 1990

Realize I'm obsessed with other's opinions of myself (which uunconsciously are mother's), to the point I don't have a natural feeling for who or what I am. Hence my rather aimless and restless moving around. This despite my reading of Rousseau: Live by nature and never be poor. Live by other's opinions and never be rich. Buddhism would say it's a false self, and you should let it go.

In the SU, being Cdn really means something - a privileged foreigner. The role is forced on me. Whether or not this is a HEALTHY boost to my self image is a moot point. It encouraged D to fall in love with me and gave me, if briefly, a fulfilling sexual expression. This certainly provided me with greater self-respect, let me feel like a man.

In fact, Russians' envy of my false self does not impress me. Acknowledging this (false) respect lets me reject it, making me a little bit freer of others' opinion of me. But does that bring me any closer to living by nature?

With D gone, I have found Kostya, the lanky, severely shortsighted courier who actually came to blows with D at one point, but who turned out to be just as seductive AND attractive, in his own quirky way. The gaping hole in my heart left by D's departure for the army began to fill at the MN birthday cum New Year's party just before I left for SL. I was originally more taken with K's handsome friend. K even commented "He really is goodlooking," which suggested some interest on his part as well. But in fact, K's playfulness and (OK!) ulterior motive in hooking me steered my anima in his direction. Our energy proved contagious, and we were asked to select the most beautiful women there as NY queens. I picked Elena, the beautiful daughter of an American black communist and Russian mother, and rising MN journalist. Like D, K is also a total cynic but, unlike D, no friend of Brezhnev. Soon after the NY party, he quit MN to sell underground political papers on the street, but we have kept in touch. [At the party, I was experiencing what proved to be my first attack of gastritis, clearly brought on by the loss of D, and managed only a bit of vodka and bread. Of course the food there and in general in the SU is made to produce gastritis - pickled, fatty, almost never fresh, and mostly washed down with fortified wines and 'champagne'.]

April 22, 1990

A crazy week. Last Saturday night with Kostya and two giggly girfriends, drinking champagne and ending up at a nouveau riche 30-something bachelor neighbour's - Pasha - for a dubbed western thriller and cognac. Then hosting a party for lovely Patricia, a British stylist at MN, and my eccentric 50-something Cdn peacenik friend Erryl, here in Moscow for a Russian language course. Erryl brought a blue coloured liqueur which looked suspiciously like motor oil, drank far too much, eventually falling off her chair and being sick on my couch.

Though Patricia and I had a good laugh afterwards, I hasten to add that there is more than a little of Pasha and Erryl in me, and 'let he who is without sin etc.' Erryl provides a sober (sic (sic)) voice from the future-past. Taking advantage of my alternate-week work schedule at MN, I took off for 3 delightful and of course illegal days in Tallin with Kostya, which required all his charm to convince a hotel concierge to let me stay without registering.

My pursuit of K turned into a nightmare when we took acid and he flipped out on Leninsky Prospect, convinced that his arm was melting and that he was having a heart attack, though the attack was on his right side. I can still feel my own despair as I write this up 6 years later. A poor soul at the bus stop gave me some pills for him and I flagged down a car and we went to the local polyclinic, where a young woman doctor calmly pointed out that one's heart is on the LEFT side, not the right, and asked me what I was doing with this young man, what I had given him. This is NOT the way to peak on acid. Thank God she was as anxious as I was to avoid a scandal, and I took him back to my apartment and nursed him through. Whew! My respect for the basic goodness of Russians knew no bounds that day. We spent a sad subdued day and joined the informal protests marking Lenin's 120th birthday. K phoned that evening from home and told me he missed me. Father, friend, almost lover...

May 3, 1990

A protester next to me tried to set fire to Lenin (or rather a standard icon-picture of him) last Saturday at a big anti-communist demo at Luzhniki. "My action speaks for itself," the 40-something culprit told Izvestiia. Dinner at the Cdn Commercial Attache's, bridge at the Moscow bridge club on Gogolevsky. My courting of K continued with dinner for Gilbert and George at the Artists' Union and Pirosmani, and a trip to Volokolamsk to Tolstoy’s home with Mary Mosser from the Embassy. I invited along an MGU student friend who lives near me, Kiril Bessonov (literally, sleepless). Mary is a lonely spinster, full-time diplomat, neurotic, but fun and generous. She knows exactly what’s up, having met D and now Kiril. Another visit with D this last weekend. It was exhausting and frustrating: all that effort to get there and he decides to sleep both afternoons. Life in the army is not a piece of cake. I got my rocks off, though it was more him tolerating it. His smile still melts ice. He's worried about where he'll be sent for the next 1 1/2 years.

Kostya partook in the informals' May Day contingent with slogans such as "Gorby retire", "Down with the CPSU". 10,000 demonstrators halted in Red Square instead of passing through, and Gorbachev exited in humiliation. We went to Kuskovo - Sheremetev's estate at metro Vykhino, near K’s apt to see a fabulous kitsch ceramics collection from the 1920s - Bolshevik naivety. Falling more and more in love with K. Saw him off to Minsk where he must sell some underground newspapers. He phoned the next day from Minsk just to say hello. It went right to my cock! Also struck it rich at the banya.

Went to the 1930s art exhibit at the Tretiakov with Kiril, and made dinner for him. He's handsome and even a bit sexy, despite being uptight and self-deprecating. He's like me, also suffering from a hard cool mother, a doctor who is doing her best to bring up her children to be neurotic overachievers. After his first visit to my flat, his mother told him to be careful of me as I was probably a homosexual, which he to his credit immediately related to me, scandalized. I demurred. Call me a coward, but I don't want to be too open with someone who is slightly neurotic, uptight, troubled about his own sexuality,... in a word someone like me at that age. God knows how many toes I stepped on in coming this far to accept my own crazy sexuality. The more university students I know, the less I like them - calculating, selfish as hell, generally out of touch with their feelings, pushed on by overambitious parents. There is something to be said for the school of hard knocks.

A wild dream: Walking with 2 friends. 2 guys attack and we fight. One grabs me. I swing him. The other hits me. I like him. I invite him to party. At the party he looks 60. I lose him. An artist massages me and I pass out. See wild psychedelic image while swimming. Take elevator which turns into roller coaster. We change its course and slow down.
Meaning: I'm holding my own with my demons, maybe even gaining some wisdom, if fleetingly (the 60 year old). My creative side is still out of control, but I'm getting it up. The elevator ride in my dreams is often terrifying, ending in a crash, so turning it into a roller coaster ride which ends calmly shows my u is not too unhappy.

May 19, 1990

Feel very insecure about hanging around teenagers. But am bored by anyone else. Oppressed by emptiness and desolation of the system here (or is it of my life?). Another 1 1/2 years without D - how can our love survive?

June 13, 1990

D has been sent to Kazakhstan! Meanwhile, Eric Mills has arrived, and I'm exhausted from acting the tour guide, and jealous of other Cdns who have lucked into $ jobs here. Our grand tour - Kiev/ Lvov/ Odessa/ Yalta - all without visas or Intourist - is over. Phew! K came as far as Lvov, and joking and playing with him kept me high. But after that, my lack of sex made me less than a pleasant tour guide, I fear. On the ferry to Yalta, I befriended a Soviet windsurf champion who invited me to come to Sochi later that summer.

Am doing subtitles for 'Revenge' by Aitmatov. "Man is only a reed flute which someone plays upon." How D and I played. Revenge and jealousy are definitely empty. Only love makes me feel alive.

July 1, 1990

A tense formal Cda Day with all the Anglos fervently hoping Quebec stays. I've finally lost any strong feeling on the matter. I feel as alien as ever in the crowd. A great high with Shtukun and his beautiful Jewish friend, Daniel. A post-Mills 3-day orgy with 2 nights smoking dope, drinking, tripping on acid, lying together, embraced and embracing. I'm clearly a sucker for a beautiful teenager, especially when he can keep me just that little bit distant. We played tennis a few times and then they disappeared - hard on the ego. It brought me back to meditating, and the wound healed. K is obsessed with escaping, fleeing to the West, and when I refused to arrange an invitation for him to Canada through Mills ("You can't go there and disappear when my friend is responsible for you, and he can't sponsor you, Kostya. Sorry."), he took off to Yugoslavia with the intention of slipping across the border into Austria and claiming to be a refugee.

July 25, 1990

Spent two weeks windsurfing near Sochi listening to Alla Pugacheva (Priglasite molodoi chelovek) surrounded by straights. Boria I clicked with, however, (what does that mean - is there more to him, is he more open, does he unconsciously want a gay friend, or is he just sexier?), and will look up later in Moscow. K returned from Yugoslavia with his tail between his legs and disappeared to his cottage. All these 90% straight teens - K, Daniel, Shtukun, Valera, Kiril - are getting to me, not to mention their uptight, overprotective parents.

Enter Viktor Iakovlev, the latest MN courier - not too bright, a 16 year old chatterbox into Kungfu movies. After K left for Yugoslavia, Viktor became our courier and I was quick to invite him over. This was the height of the dry law cum general deficit period, and there just happened to be a great booze depot behind the highrise adjacent to the Coal Ministry, where a massive line portended a fresh shipment of SOMETHING. We were lucky that day and procured some Ethiopian gin.

He is the 5th of 7 children, and virtually homeless. His feet stank, and I let him shower and donated some new sneakers and socks (and jeans and jacket) to his wardrobe. He was happy to lie beside me watching TV and eventually pulled me on top and kissed me, so we were off to the races, spending a delightful weekend coming - discretely - without a word, after climbing into bed. It is like entering another world. Incredibly curious, delighting in beer cans and roll-your-own cigarettes. With 3 brothers and 3 sisters (!) and no resident father, he took my old socks and Soviet sneekers with gratitude, sporting them at work the next week. I was afraid I would reject him, but my loneliness and horniness have made me await his arrival tonight eagerly.

Maybe what attracts me to the SU is how ugly the human reality they've created is, and in contrast, how blindingly beautiful a fresh young fellow is, blooming in the dark muck. Failed communism cannot detract - rather it only intensifies - the beauty of youth, as does age (i.e., me!).

August 9, 1990

An irritating start (but nonetheless, a start) working with Dorothy for Greenpeace. Learning the nitty-gritty of Soviet co-ops, negotiating, GP internal politics, computer software, Western-style responsibility and hard work (vs Soviet-style slacking). Possibly will deal with 2 co-ops - one independent and one tied to a publisher. The contrast - private vs state - is stark. No great interest in extra work vs "We can do anything you need". I suspect the difference is really more in how easy it is to get direct access to the $s we will be expected to pay, but the bottom line is you just can't run a complex economy based on producer/ supplier whims alone.

D finally sent some drawings and sweet nothings. Daniel persists in phoning, arranging to come and then not showing up. Here I am - marooned yet again, without even Viktor (we still come - last time me fantasizing that he was fucking me and filling me with his come. This is not the only time I've had a relationship which petered out and ended with this fantasy. It's a combination of masochism, self-loathing, the feminine side of me (which I hate). That means the end of the relationship. When I'm horny, it's the masculine side, complete with erection. It must mean my masculine side is still weak or wounded. What's the answer: bring in the feminine side, respect it, or simply a la Buddhism, let the sexual feelings come and go, and not pass judgment?

August 19, 1990

Viktor bores and scares me. He jumped into bed with me the very first night and would love to have me as a permanent father/ lover. He is very streetwise, uses his penurious pathetic home life to his advantage (with me, with other MN editors - he claims he's got an invitation to work in a joint enterprise through the editor). A crooked but ingenuous smile, a jaunty energy, a shock of jet black hair - the natural beauty of sweet 16, even if he is really floating on a sea of despair. The latest count is that he has 8 brothers and sisters, and almost never sleeps at home - in a bus station, all-night video, at friends, even at MN.

[Writing this 6 years later, brief though our contact was, I remember Viktor like yesterday. Sadly, I couldn't handle his demands; his eagerness to find a niche in my life overwhelmed me. Is it my hang-up that cooled me to him or his silly chatter? What should I expect? There's no dazzling charm like with Dennis, no mysterious magnetism like with Daniel, no playful teasing like with Kostya. Getting him to wash, feeding and clothing him, 'lending' him money quickly became a fatherly chore. I even found him waiting for me at the subway exit one day, and I coldheartedly put him off. Pity, unfortunately, is no turn-on. Ah, the lure of the forbidden! I still long for the supermale cock - a weird afternoon at the Strogino unofficial nude beach 2 wks ago and an unsuccessful banya trip are proof of that. Or am I just too uncomfortable with my sexuality to allow myself more than socially frowned-upon one-'night' stands?

My bold playing with Kostya seems to excite and frighten him. His mother Natasha has her own agenda for encouraging me, and turns a blind eye (or merely an uncomprehending one?) at my infatuation with her 17 year old only child. She lets him stay over. The second time he slept over, I playfully jumped on him to wake him up in the morning with some pretty clear thrusts. He finally said: "OK, just this once," and let me come on his ass. This was exquisite though anxiety-producing - will he regret it? We're to leave for Poland next week for 10 days.

Meanwhile, I have become a Greenpeace bureaucrat partly due to their Moscow office rep's infatuation with me. Her brother just died of AIDS and I get the distinctly uncomfortable feeling I just might be a stand-in for the brother she loves. She met me with D back in November - she must have put two and two together. But maybe she's too hung-up herself to want more than an arms length infatuation with a gay. Whatever, I guess love springs eternal (and blind).

September 20

Poland leaves a bad taste from corrupt, nasty border guards, bureaucracy, a drunken naive Kostya, a restless self... As we bedded down in our upper berths on the way, I, totally horny, grabbed Kostya's hand playfully, but he backed off "Don't go any further," he said plaintively. The best and worst time was in a resort on the Baltic coast in the territory Poland got from Germany after the war. There was no need for a border guard to indicate when you crossed this invisible line - suddenly solid stone houses and a grim stolid Prussian order flaunted itself, even after 4 decades of slipshod Polish socialism. We stayed with K's friends at their summer home where K took great delight in convincing Jan and I to drop acid while he drank himself into a frighteningly self-destructive state. K bowed out in light of his last trip.

This alternative 'trip' of K's was less than relaxing for Jan and me. He came very close to jumping out of the second story window at one point (Jan and I were the ones on acid!) and we had to watch him like hawks, chasing him when he suddenly took off into the night. He eventually drank himself into oblivion, woke up the next day and pick up where he left off. An alcoholic in the making. He certainly managed to disgust me, most likely intentionally.
[Where's the Platonic ideal for such a relationship? Will we ever find it? Life is getting shorter all the time. Is there any hope to find it? That one magical morning of sex left us both confused and troubled, but it's a moment I'll always cherish. It's now years later, and I still long to embrace K, and love him - sex or no sex - as he vegetates in England, waiting for Natasha to bring him to Canada. But that's another story.]

My return proved a nightmare, as the Polish Embassy in Moscow had mistakenly given me only a transit visa, and I was unceremoniously dumped on the Polish-Belorussian border with only some useless roubles in my pocket. I rode as a 'rabbit' (without paying) back to Warsaw, moving from carriage to carriage to avoid the ticket attendant, found the Canadian Embassy (closed), where a security guard suggested I take my precious credit card to the newly opened casino in the $ hotel, which he assured me would give me a cash advance. This all seemed too far-fetched, and the thought of suicide DID cross my mind (keep in mind only a few days previously, I had had a relatively bad trip). But Sri Lanka came to the rescue: "It's all maya; I'm alive and healthy. What am I complaining about?)

On to the real den of iniquity. My first attempt was fruitless: I was thrown out for not wearing a suit and tie. I miraculously located Kostya's friends in the suburbs where we had stayed, borrowed his friend's suit (several sizes too small), returned and casually asked for the precious advance. Success! Of course I had to show that I meant business, and proceeded to play the one-armed bandit. The stars were most favourable that day - out poured $30 in tokens. "I'll be right back," I said as I exchanged the tokens and stuffed yet more precious bills in my pocket. A new train ticket, a trip to a dingy foreign ministry visa office filled with dozens of 3rd worlders, some with toddlers, all with strange desperate stories. Finally, the precious visa. Visa gets visa, so to speak. Or "hepi end,” as they say in Russian.

[BUT, a year later, back in Canada, I discovered a mysterious $50 charged to my Visa card in addition to my $70 advance at the casino. After endless talks with various Visa bureaucrats, luckily having retained my casino receipt, Visa ACTUALLY COUGHED UP!! So Visa is providing relief to poor, currupt socialist bureaucrats. Will wonders ever cease?]

The Greenpeace Seas campaign was thrown at me to arrange interviews. The Soviet GP apparatchik is infuriating - all talk, no action (much like the Soviet disarmament campaign for the seas).

Steve Beaupre is a Canadian - the youngest in a family of 8 with much of my neurotic behaviour and attraction to the SU, whom I befriended at the Canadian Embassy over some beer soon after my arrival last year. The slight sexual attraction I felt originally soon evaporated as his unyielding self-repression became clear, but gay spirits bond even without (or maybe precisely when they are without) coitus. When a job opened at MN, I marched resolutely across the street to the international post office and sent him a telegram. He's now packing and will be here soon. Am I a genie or a spoiler?

GP is taking over my life: Dorothy is coming and plans to crash with me. Meanwhile all I want is to do some fucking.

The increasing chaos in the SU makes me uncomfortable. Constant question: Why are you here. Silent answer: TO FUCK! I get a ration card soon and ration cards till December. SUCCESS! I bought 2 bottles of wine for $1 (how degrading for Soviets). I realized I secretly guard my $ privilege, even earning $s from nonprofit GP, while not using the privilege much. It's a kind of Catch-22: flash your $s around, MAYBE have a good time, and risk DEATH.

October 7

Dorothy's arrival to supervise my part-time work with GP to conduct a membership mailing campaign and K's coldness scared me into a fateful trip to Donskoi Banya, where I met Misha Mikhailstov, a commercial artist with whom I proceeded to have a fling for the 2 weeks of Dorothy's stay. THAT seemed to make things more or less clear to Dorothy, and after 2 weeks, she decided to stay in the vacant apt of Pasha, the nouveau riche friend of K’s mother, Natasha. The romance with Misha has been more cultured than the others: theatre (Mayakovsky's Klop, Genet's Sluzhanka), the circus, the Vaznetsov exhibit at the Tretiakov Gallery, and lots of fucking, though he stood me up last night. With Dorothy here, the guilt and frustration made for a particularly schizophrenic time. After fucking 6 times in 2 weeks (a lot for me!), I'm glad to be alone.

A thought: as a foreigner with privileges of money and access to things (and destinations) foreign (i.e., power), am I re-enacting the arbitrary terror (power) of Stalin, but this time as FARCE? A recent film for which I did the English subtitles - 10 Years Without Correspondence - shows Beria raping pretty young girls. Is that (in an albeit very benign way) ME?

October 8

My SEE student obsession Phil - tall and sinuous, long (and I mean long) blond hair, Birkenstock sandals - is, as long as he keeps his mouth shut, quite attractive. Like, he, like, turned up like out of the blue at MN one day last week and has moved in! I should be thrilled but …

His Ukrainian mother arranged for him to study Ukrainian in Kiev and for all his inability to tie his shoelaces, he managed to show up in Moscow at MN. It was HIS acid that provided the crazy trips which D, Volodya, K, Jan and I took. His naive fascination with all things Soviet ("They make everything here without capitalism and greed.") is a bit too much like me before I had to deal with it firsthand. Following the teachings of a Russian mystic, Porfiri Ivanov, he took a cold bath and emerged a glowing bright pink and blissed out which made me fear for his already fragile sanity. It was no turn-on.

[I later became a follower of Ivanov and his cold baths myself after battling gastritis for 3 months, at least until all the cold resulted in lumbago. In moderation I recommend them, or better yet cold showers. They are definitely the best thing to fight depression but, alas are not in any way sexy, nor are any of the followers of Ivanov whom I met. Recalling my obsession with cold water and fasting, I realize how their severe discipline really does focus their energy inwards. You lose all that decadent lustfulness when you stick to your merciless regime. Needless to say, my cold showers and fasting are intermittent now.]

October 14

When I see my filmmaker friend Tofik - quiet, self-possessed, concentrated - I realize (though I'm pretty sure he too is gay) that I haven't entered his 'grown up world' of career and art. I'm stuck in an immature world of feelings or rather emotion - possessed by the desire to fuck, to catch each moment's beauty, not for society or eternity, but for my own fleeting joy, or better to fight off the suffocating weight of despair which hangs over my graying head.

It's the same with the professional journalists I meet who are caught up in being respected, important. I am relieved to leave their company. I seem to revel in anonymity. Is it masochism? Is it connected with my pleasure in being fucked by Misha? But I find myself angry and cranky after fucking - a feeling of being used. After all, it's only one-way (I’m just not aroused enough to reciprocate).

My more active love of D, K or Vilnius Valera feels healthier - I want to come, give them my ecstasy. That's when I feel full of myself. Is this, then, slightly sadistic? Am I 'active' or 'passive'? Am I gay?
[Jung: the m spirit is the active lover, the f soul is the passive receiver of love. I don't respect the f side, though it is strong in me. I worship the m side (and project it onto my one-night stands).]

Vilnius Valera came to visit. He is a cop, tough on the outside, and yet within, I sense a strong feminine inner world. His rotten front teeth should be a turn-off, but his beautiful body and child-like smiling eyes make them somehow maddeningly sexy. Grrrr. I wined and dined him - my British teacher friend, Wendy, had us for a dinner party, and I took him to Slaviansky Bazaar. We slept together, though he seems oblivious to my intentions. As we settled down to sleep, my drunken arm was politely removed from its casual embrace. Sigh. Still, his gentle snoring made me come twice, and just sleeping with someone you love fills you with energy. Maybe unrequited love really is the best kind, who knows?

October 29

Everything is boiling. MN is restructuring. Perestroika is pushing hard everywhere. We have till next July. Clearly this leisurely existence will come to an end. And after months of keeping busy with GP and a string of visitors, and translating a steady stream of film subtitles, I'm back in depressing reclusiveness.

Valera made two more unexpected visits and I managed to fall hard for him. I guess I swept him off his feet and he seemed happy to let me cuddle drunkenly with him, listening to Pink Floyd. But no planned return from a trip to sell and buy things in Tomsk, and I'm pining away in 'exciting' Moscow, bored and lonely.

My affair with Misha has petered out: my repressed desire to be fucked was satisfied, but I felt smothered and didn't want to come with him anymore. It became more like me as a passive rider on a roller coaster.

November 3

Picked up young Lyonia Bubentsov [he called himself Dima that day - it was only months later when I phoned a number he had typed and 'Dima' recognized the voice that we really knew each other] at the Sandunovsky Banya on a visit with Valera. He can’t be more than 15, but started chatting at the pool, and then grabbed my balls and ran and jumped in. Liar, possibly thief, crude, not too bright, with almost a child's body - knock-kneed and misshapen feet, but lively and bursting with energy AND sex. He wouldn't leave us after the banya, insisting on getting my address when I told him I had to see Valera off on the train.

After Valera left, Lyonia came over and we ended up wrestling on my bedroom floor. Something clicked and I almost came, but he suddenly panicked - "What are you doing," he yelled, throwing my keys wildly across the room and running into the living room, leaving me worried about what might come next. Was I corrupting a minor? Would he try to blackmail me? I realize I've got to be more careful, especially now that things are getting more desperate here. I'm kind of a sitting duck, but the weeks off can be so lonely. Anyway, Lyonia raided the frig, drank everything in sight, chain-smoked all my cigarettes, played on the typewriter, typing swearwords transliterated, and as it happened his psuedonym and phone number. After about an hour, I was desperate for him to leave, and only with difficulty ejected him.

Now Steve is here. Funny how I'm cool to him, just like I am with everything from my old life. He stayed with me for 2 weeks while his MN apt was being fixed. Pichugin, I think, wanted us to share permanently, but I put my foot down and insisted on them finishing the apt and moving Steve in. Repairs can take forever now, so I was relieved to get back my private pad after only 2 weeks. I see my own confusion and loneliness written all over Steve - big family loneliness is a heavy trip. What will he do with his exotic 'freedom' here?

I felt dead after shooing 'Dima' out. I'm still reliving my first excitement as I discovered sex at 12-13 at camp, gangly, shy, secretive, giggly (I remember sleeping with another boy and feeling his cock until he squealed, forcing me to stop).