Blind Love (MF romance caution)


	The University of Montana was surrounded by ancient
forests whose wildlife, I had no doubt, was far more daring and
vigorous than that on campus.  It was a conservative school in a 
sleepy, often cold environment conducive to huddling and conserving
energy.  The academic tone was one of intellectual diffidence, 
cultural muting, religious mainstreaming.  Students gazed somberly out
library windows, rested their heads on their desks, gathered 
in the cafeteria to consume starches.  The surrounding roads disappeared
into dense woods, vanished under snowdrifts, and probably didn't lead
anywhere anyway. 
	When Jeanine graduated high school at the precocious age of 
sixteen and began attending the university, rather than finding it
stimulating she found it insufferably dull.  But at least she was
away from her parents, and, after pursuing her studies with such 
commendable diligence, she was now determined to spend her time in 
pursuit of nearly life-threatening debauchery: to finally cave in to
her roaring lust, to shatter her disciplined mind with a dizzying 
variety of controlled substances, to betray friends, to tear couples
apart in torrid trists, to...well, to really live. 
	This was a lot harder than she imagined; this was the 
University of Montana.  One of the most popular majors was agriculture,
and Jeanine soon concluded that the future farmers of America had 
as much of a capacity for hedonism as the vegetables they harvested.
	"You look at these torpid bastards and you get the sense that
all they fantasize about is planting row after row of goddam corn.   
These are people whose livelihood depends on fertility, for chrissake,
but do you think that even suggests sexuality to them?  Hell, no.  I'd
like to run the fuckers over with their goddam tractors."
	Jeanine began buying stacks of pornographic magazines in
convenience stores, tearing out photographs of nude women, then 
inserting these in library books in hopes of stimulating a massive 
outbreak of libido.  
	But it didn't work.  In her first semester, Jeanine was asked
out once: to a country music festival benefitting farmers.  
	"The guy wears nothing but flannel.  Imagining him in leather
is like imagining a cow riding a motorcycle."
	"You're too young," her friend Peggy assured her.  "They're 
afraid of being charged with statutory rape, or something.  Once you
get older you'll get more action."
	"Yeah?"
	"Definitely."
	"How many guys have asked you out this semester?"
	Peggy was silent for a moment.  "Well, everyone knows that 
I'm looking for a husband, not a roll in the hay."
	"Bobby," she turned to me, "How many girls have you asked
out this semester?"
	"I'm too busy planting mental corn to bother with girls," I
said.  She shook her head disgustedly, then grabbed a copy of Penthouse
from her backpack and handed it to me.
	I surmised the problem was that Jeanine came off as haughty.  She
seemed to disdain all of the guys in school: men destined to spend a 
substantial part of their lives shovelling manure, driving tractors.
Her arrogance, partly based on her stellar academic record, came
across as strongly as the Channel perfume she seemed to marinade 
herself in.  She reminded me of a slab of luminescent flesh yearning
to be ripped apart in someone's teeth, but which everyone assumed was
lethally poisonous.
	
* * *

	"Ted, can I ask you something?"
	"Sure, Bob, what's up?"
	I stepped closer to him, turning away discreetly, my gaze 
settling on the window.  Outside, snow swirled through the cone-shaped 
orange beams of the parking lot floodlights.  
	"You know Jeanine?"
	"Not really."
	"Do you think she's pretty?"
	He hesitated, as if somehow puzzled.
	"Pretty what?"
	"Pretty looking."
	"Well, sure."
	"Would you sleep with her?"
	Ted instantly looked away.  For a moment he gazed out at 
the snow, his eyes following its passage from the black sky to the
window, where it melted against the warm glass.
	"Well, I'd hafta think about it."
	"No no, it's a simple question.  Would you sleep with her?"
	He cocked his head.
	"Well, would she be talkin' much?"
	"No, she'd...well, she'd just be lying there, I guess."
	After a moment he shrugged, then said, "Sure, I guess, if...
I mean, it's a little far-fetched, but I suppose if--"
	"That's it.  Thanks."
	
* * * 

	"Jeanine, look."
	She was lying back on her bed, a rumpled psychedelic nest of
quilts and velvet pillows, gazing at the Janis Joplin poster she'd pinned
to the ceiling, and smoking a Marlboro like it was marijuana.  This was 
another one of her perennial complaints: the dearth of illicit drugs on
campus.  She rolled her eyes to me.
	"I've talked with a bunch of guys.  I mean, word has reached
me that there are a bunch of guys around here who find you extremely
attractive.  It's just that..."
	She hammered her cigarette out in the clay ashtray resting 
below her belly, then said bitterly, "It's just that they don't have 
penises."
	"No, no.  Look: Do you know Ted Daniels?"
	She covered her face with her hand, groaning.
	"Good lord.  Ted's farmer stock.  He's as articulate
as a bullfrog with tape over its mouth."
	"Well, okay.  Do you know Mickey Blake?"
	"Yes, I do.  Well, actually, no, but I did once watch Andy
Griffith, and that's close, right?"
	"All right, this is getting complicated.  Do you know Les 
Goodman?"
	"Know him?  Well, I've smelled his overalls, but I haven't
actually gotten within fifty yards of him.  That's close enough to 
smell his overalls, though."
	"Jeanine, you're making my point, okay?"
	"What point is that?"
	"It's not that there aren't romantic opportunities here, it's
just that you're so full of contempt for all the guys at this school
you're not even willing to give them a shot.  It comes across, okay?
They can all tell how much you deplore their agrarian mentality, or 
whatever, and so of course they're not going to make advances toward 
you."
	"Listen, all right?"  She grabbed another cigarette from the
pack and gestured fiercely with it.  "If I slept with any of these guys,
sure, it might give me momentary pleasure, but I'd be on the verge of 
nausea until I got old enough to drink."
	She lit her cigarette slowly, sucking at the lighter's flame
until it had burned up half of the tobacco, then lay back.  Janis
watched over her like the patron saint of dissolution.   She puffed for
a while, coughed hatefully, then closed her eyes and groaned.  
	"Christ, Bobby, I just want to get laid."
	Then the solution came to me. 
 
* * *

	At least it seemed like a solution at the time.  Like many of
my solutions, it ended up generating more problems than it solved, but
at least they were interesting problems.  The solution was that I would
select some clean, sexually hungry young man to come to Jeanine's dorm 
room and anonymously fuck her while she was carefully blindfolded.  The 
guy would take a solemn oath to not reveal his identity to anyone,
especially her, and would have to swear not to talk about the unusual
encounter with anyone.  Jeanine would get laid, but would not have to 
endure the painful knowledge of which local nitwit she'd slept with.
The guy, for the price of keeping his mouth shut, would get pussy. 
	The illusion that it was a simple plan lasted only briefly.  The
first actual encounter went smoothly: the man and I walked in together 
and found Jeanine masturbating on the bed: naked, blindfolded.    
	"Jeanine," I said sweetly, "You have company." 
	She froze for a moment, then lay back, her breathing quick and 
tense.  The guy gazed at her wide-eyed as he stepped out of his shoes
-- I was greatly relieved to notice that he was not wearing boots --
then clumsily undid his pants.  His heavy sterling belt-buck chinked
against something; shit, I thought, she's already got a clue; he wears
a metal beltbuckle.  I laid my fingers over my lips in the "Shhh!" 
sign, and he nodded, though I don't think he was aware that he'd 
done anything wrong.  I turned politely when his pants came off, and 
sat down in front of Jeanine's small television set, which was stacked
on top of a wooden box.  I turned on the television set -- a good 
strategy, I thought, since the program's sound would muffle any he might
make -- and didn't look up from the screen until the first commercial.  
He was panting, and pulling up his pants.  His eyes did not rest again 
on Jeanine, who was lying on her side, her knees raised to her breasts.
	Jeanine would not talk with me for a week after her dose of 
mystery love.  I guessed that that was the sexual equivalent of post-
battle stress syndrome -- after all, that had been her first experience
with intercourse.  For a while I was worried, but then she came to 
visit me.
	"I want to do it again," she said, lighting a cigarette. 
	"Ah ha!  See?  It worked out, didn't it?"
	"First times are never smooth, Bobby.  That was just to get
the job done; now I want to do it for fun."
	"I should charge you money for all my trouble."
	"You're not a pimp.  When can you set it up again?"
	"I'll have to communicate with your invisible knight."
	"You do that."

* * * 

	One of the questions that I had to confront was whether to 
select the same guy for the second event.  As I saw it, the main 
advantage was that if there was only one guy there was less chance
of the situation getting publicized.  The more participants, the
greater the likelihood of someone blabbing.  To tell you the truth, I 
didn't even really consider that using the same guy over and over would 
increase the intimacy of the encounter, or that they would care more for
each other with repeat sessions.  I assumed that since the guy was not 
permitted to divulge his identity there was zero chance of any 
intimacy.  
	But the downside of sticking with this one guy was that the 
fellow was not a remarkable lover.  It felt strange for me to evaluate
another man's sexual competence, and I wondered if my standards weren't 
a bit slanted by my own preferences.  Moreover, I realized that probably 
no man could really flourish under these circumstances.  But perhaps by
rating this guy's moves truly objectively I might be able refine my own 
skills as well.  At any rate, my conclusion was that this guy was too 
quick.  Not a severe premature ejaculator, but probably far too quick 
for Jeanine to really savor the experience.
	"So, look, do you want me to get the same guy?"
	"Are you kidding?  Of course I do.  I don't want half the
male population at U.M. parading their penises through my room."
	"You're exaggerating.  All I'm saying is, I might be able to 
get someone with more staying power.  Maybe better endowed.  Someone you 
could enjoy more."
	"Are you going to ask to inspect their genitals before 
admitting them?"
	"Of course not."
	"Well, then, you might end up with a guy who shoots before his
cock even enters me, or a guy who's got, I don't know, two inches or
something.  This guy -- whoever he is -- is reliable.  Maybe not 
exquisite, but he's tried and true.  Stick with him."

* * *

	Stick with him we did, for a total of nine sessions, and the 
guy's performances became increasingly effective.  In all fairness,
I'd say he went from about a 2.5 to an 8.  At first edgy, reserved,
a little bashful, he became graceful, attentive, and powerful.  
Jeanine became more relaxed, shed her inhibitions and fears, began 
grabbing his shoulders, arching orgasmically, clawing at his
back; vocally, she was like an orchestra warming up: she went from an 
eerie, cadaverous silence to delicate moans to exultant laughter to 
ecstatic wailing to animalistic shrieks.  It was really incredible to
watch.  Yes, I admit, the spectacle really tore me away from her
television set.  

* * * 

	"I want to know who he is."
	"No."
	"Did you hear me?  I want to know.  You have no right to keep
this from me."
	"Part of the deal was, I promised him you wouldn't find out.
Look, maybe he doesn't want a relationship.  But there's no way I can
tell you without his consent."
	"If you don't tell me whose cock was inside me, I'm going
to kick your ass."

* * * 

	The guy wouldn't consent to me revealing his identity.  I admit 
I felt awkward refusing to tell her who he was -- she was my friend, 
after all -- but I had given him my word.  We had exchanged trust; it 
was part of the bargain.  
	Jeanine's bitterness about me keeping my vow of secrecy aside,
it seemed that the whole project was going really well.  Her moody
urgency about losing her virginity was gone; her burning curiosity about
sex was satiated, and now she comported herself more confidently, with 
an uncharacteristic calmness.  I had heard about deflowering having a 
big impact on people's behavior before, but I had never witnessed it 
myself.  I was impressed; Jeanine went from being a edgy, high-strung
swarm of electrons to a cool, flowing girl.  If one morning I glanced
out the dorm window and saw her strolling naked over snow drifts with
flowers in her hair and her voice alive with song, I would not have
been surprised.
	She also began socializing more.  She acquired a fake I.D.,
and began hanging out in the campus pub with myself and various future
farmers.  She danced to country music, quaffed tepid beer, laughed 
dizzily at stupid jokes, and smiled a great deal.  It was a terrible
irony that this was when the problems began.
	One evening, sitting with Peggy, me, and three other guys
from school, she blew the whole operation.  We had been playing truth
or dare, which for us was usually a safe and unsurprising game, and
just by chance one fellow named Dale asked about her first time.  She 
stared at him penetratingly -- I assumed she was wondering if he was the
one -- and then she blurted it all out.  My proposal, the secret trust, 
the grand mission to liberate her from virginity.  I kicked her under 
the table but she wouldn't shut up.  By the time she finished babbling
the guy was mortified, and she clearly inferred from his reaction that he 
was not her man.  An awful silence descended.  Jeanine looked 
over at me, wounded, helpless, stunned by her own stupidity.
	"That's a nice bit of fiction, Jeanine."  I tried to cover
her tracks.
	"Did she make that up?"  Peggy asked me, her voice high-pitched
and wavering.
	"Nope," a guy named Del said.  "Too real.  She said too 
much details.  Know what I mean?  She couldn't've made all that up
just now."
	Her face flushed, Jeanine rose unsteadily and walked to the
ladies' room.  Two of the guys, almost fainting with hilarity, went
to the pool table to repeat what they had just heard.
	Later, Jeanine told me that as she exited the bathroom a 
stranger approached her and claimed to be her anonymous lover.
	As did nine other people over the next two days.  One of them
was a woman who claimed she had worn a strap-on.
	
* * * 

	Jeanine told me that her response to all the guys who claimed
to be her lover was: Prove it. 
	To which most of them replied:
	"Sure.  But, um...the only way I can prove it is if you
let me sleep with you.  Then you'll know it was me."

* * *

	"The problem, Bobby," Jeanine inhaled from the joint I had
managed to talk my older sister out of.  "The problem is...I mean,
I can deal with all this bullshit, the ridicule, everyone saying how
desperate I must be.  The real problem is, I love the guy."
	"Jeanine, no, you don't.  That's just a normal first-time
reaction to sex."
	"Fuck you, you bastard.  I love the motherfucker and you
can't say otherwise."
	"Jeanine, give me the joint.  No, go, go ahead, finish it.  
You can't possibly love him 'cause you don't know the first thing about 
him."
	"Like hell I don't.  I know how he treats me.  I can tell how
strongly he feels about me from the way he touches me.  Do you realize
how he makes me feel?"
	"That's what good sex is like.  Don't confuse your physiology 
with your emotions."
	"They're inseparable, dummy.  Our emotions are rooted in our
physiology."
	"Our emotions are rooted in our spirits, which have nothing
to do with our bodies."
	"If you don't tell me who the fuck he is, I'm going to tell
the dean you had him rape me, and then you'll be screwed.  You think
you're going to be able to withhold his name from the cops when they're
interrogating you?"
	
* * * 

	"Look, why don't you want me to tell her it was you?  She
loves you, for chrissake."
	Paul Banks sighed, shaking his head, then jerked off the metal
crank that triggered the sprinkler system.  We were the a gigantic
greenhouse the agriculture students grew experimental crops in during
the winter.  Abruptly the slender jets of water arching over the 
beds of loam were reduced to weak trickles.
	"She can't possibly love me; she doesn't know the first 
thing about me."
	"Well, I know, but she insists that she does.  Who are we
to argue?  It's her feelings."
	He began walking to a wall where rakes and other tools were
hung.  I followed him.
	"Look, she says it's the way you touch her, the way you make
her feel."
	"It's called orgasm, not love."
	"Well, I know, but...I'm in a total mess here, Paul."
	"Yeah, well, it was a weird idea."
	He grabbed some sort of peculiar tool, a wooden bar ending 
with forking plastic tubes.
	"You had fun with it, didn't you?  Come on, fess up.  You
took advantage of the situation for your own delight, now you have
to pay the price.  It's like everything in life, right?"	
	"Goddamit, Bobby, listen to me: I can't have her find out,
all right?"
	His tone was venomous, but his face seemed cramped, his eyes
narrow.
	"Bob, I'm married.  I have a two-year old daughter, okay?  
If my wife and my family find out about this, my marriage will end.
You understand?"
	I groaned.  Paul watched another student at the other end
of the greenhouse dump a bag of white pellets into a bed of soil.  I
struggled to think of something to say, some way to resolve the
situation.  Paul turned back to me.
	"And if you tell her it's me, I'll just deny it.  It's your 
word against mine, Bobby." 

* * * 

	"You goddam coward.  How could you do this to me?  You...you
not only deceived me, you not only humiliated me, you goddam fucking
well raped me.  That's right, you fucking worthless scumbag: You
raped me.  I consented to sex with some guy of your choice, but I did 
not consent to sex with you.  And I know goddam well it was really
you.  That's why you won't tell me who it was, you fucking bastard.
I can't believe that a friend would do this to me; it fucking shocks
me.  You're not a friend of mine, you have never been a friend of mine.
You've taken advantage of me, exploited my problems with men simply
to...to goddam rape me.  Nine times!  I can't fucking believe it!  You
raped me nine goddam times, you...you..."
	"Jeanine, no.  Hold on.  You're absolutely wrong."
	"I am not goddam wrong.  I could fucking smell you, you goddam
bastard."
	"Smell...you could smell me because I was in the room when
it was happening."
	"Bullshit!  Bullshit!"
	"I was there to make sure nothing went wrong; to make sure he
didn't mess with you."
	"You were in the room all those times?  Then if you're not a
rapist you're a goddam voyeuristic creep!  But it was you; I know it 
was you, and I'm calling the goddam cops on you, you fucking rapist
loser."	
	She hung up the phone.  I dug the bottle of bourbon out of my 
closet, drank half a glass, then walked slowly to her dorm room.  A
sheet of lined paper was tacked to her door with large, sloppy letters
commanding, "Go Away!"  
	I stared at the note for about half a minute, then walked
back to my room.

* * * 

	The next morning I found a note from her slipped under my 
door:  
	"Dear Creep -- I just wanted you to be fully aware of how 
much you fucked up my life and ruined my sense of self-esteem.  
You have made my sex life the subject of grotesque rumors all over
campus; you have made my vagina public intellectual property.  Every
moment that I endure this hellish existence, the knowledge of 
how you cheapened and hurt me grows stronger, more painful, like a 
cancer devouring my conscience.  You horrify me.  Your former friend,
Jeanine.  PS: Rotting in hell for eternity would be far, far too 
gentle a fate for you.  PPS: Don't ever talk to me again."

* * * 

	Peggy told me that Jeanine had initiated a series of telephone
sessions with a psychic in order to figure out who the guy was.
	"Madame Horowitz is really a fantastic woman.  Really empowered 
by the purity of nature and the spirit earth.  She lives in Los Angeles, 
reads Tarot cards, tea leaves, astrology charts, palms, crystal balls.  
Actually I think it's all nonsense.  Expensive nonsense.  But Jeanine's
pretty desperate."
	"She's threatened to go to the cops," I said.
	"I know.  But I think she's afraid of her parents getting
involved.  Her program of rigorous debauchery has given her a profound
sense of guilt."
	"She's not so bad.  Not nearly as bad as she wants to be."
	"She says the feeling of having fucked someone she can't
identify by name or sight or anything else robs her of the feeling of 
sexual accomplishment and makes her feel deeply violated."
	"She really enjoyed it for a while.  She told me she was in
love with the guy."
	"Sounds like a normal relationship, the way her attitude
changed so drastically."
	"If she'd just screwed some guy at a bar she wouldn't really
know much more about him than she knows about her Invisible Man.  Not
really."
	"Yeah.  Welcome to blind labyrinth of human sexuality.  Here's
a cast for your heart."
	Peggy stared at me, beaming with joyous sarcasm, her features 
bearing a sinister slant.  I wanted very much to kiss her. 

* * * 
	
	Jeanine began wearing hats, sunglasses, and clothing made from
hemp.  She changed her hair: once the color of maple syrup penetrated by
sunlight, she dyed it jet black.  I sometimes saw her striding quickly 
down corridors with a kleenex held over her mouth and nose.  She stopped
painting her nails and wearing make-up.  She stopped eating in the 
cafeteria, preferring dried fruit and nuts she purchased from an 
organic mail-order company.  She stopped saying "Hi," "How are you,"
or "What's up," but instead leapt instantly into the substance of the 
few conversations she found necessary to have.  She stopped inviting 
people into her dorm room.
	"She says she's very chemically sensitive," Peggy said while
we ate spaghetti with clam sauce at the cafeteria.  "She threw away her 
microwave, dumped her television, and now she's trying to get rid of 
everything made of plastic.  She's disciplining her environment."
	"What's wrong with plastic?"
	"She doesn't ride in cars anymore."
	"What's wrong with cars?"
	"The fumes disrupt her bodily equilibrium.  And plastics, she
thinks they emit toxic waves that distort her thoughts.  She considers
it a form of chemical rape.  She only listens to chants, and writes
everything in runes."
	"Does she ever talk about that guy anymore?"
	"She doesn't think that men are psychically evolved enough to 
register in her world."
	"Does she still want to know who it was?"
	"She claims she's still a virgin, and plans to stay that
way."
	"Jesus Christ.  She's delusional."
	"She thinks people shape their own reality.  What you decide,
what you focus on, that's what's real."  
		
* * * 

	About two weeks later Peggy discovered that Jeanine was 
pregnant.  Jeanine still denied having had intercourse, believing
instead that she had been procreatively enslaved by environmentally
reckless corporations.  
	"You're not going to believe this," Peggy said with an air
of investigative triumph, "But she thinks that toxic emissions from 
the paint on her walls triggered spontaneous life-formation in her
uterus."
	"What's hard to believe about that?"
	"I'm serious.  She said that."
	"Her walls are blue and green and red.  Paisely slop she 
threw up when she was going through her hippy thing.  Does she think the
baby will be paisely-colored?"
	"Christ, Bobby, I don't know what she's going to do.  I asked
if I could take her in for an abortion, but she hasn't gotten
permission from the foetus' spirit yet."
	"If she doesn't abort it, is she going to insist that the paint 
company marry her?"

* * * 

	Shortly after Peggy persuaded her to get an abortion, 
Jeanine escaped the narrow definition of "human being."  Humans were
creatures of wreckage, exploitation, environmental poisoning.  She had
become part of the earth, a silent, passive, but resilient force
that adjusts to each new vile liberty people take with it.  She had lain 
on her bed blindfolded like a pristine grassy hill tunneled into by 
callous metal miners, helplessly allowing, torn open, subjugated.  
Ultimately, like the earth being stripped of its minerals, she lost her 
child, but eventually endured the awful loss with an amnesiac 
forgiveness.  She seemed not to realize that any of it happened.  
Events came to completion, but the play of natural forces went on.       
	In the months before I graduated I saw her regularly in the
agriculture department buildings, entering the greenhouses,
transporting tools and pushing wheelbarrows of soil and fertilizer.
She was learning the creativity of the earth. 
	One afternoon I saw her chatting with Paul outside a lecture 
hall.  She was gesturing excitedly as he smiled and nodded.  I watched 
from a cautious distance, half-shielded in a doorway, wondering if at 
some level, perhaps unconsciously, she realized that he was the man who
had made love to her and impregnated her.  After about three minutes 
they walked to one of the campus coffee shops.  I kept staring at the
shop they'd gone into, wondering about the quality of their interaction
with each other, the emotional atmosphere of their togetherness.  And I 
was consumed with sadness for her.  
	I walked to her dorm room.  Standing in the corridor, I tore
a blank page from one of my binders, scribbled a brief note to her,
then slipped it under her door: