In my next letter I commented that I thought that was the one I liked best, and we began to write seriously about actually doing it, planning explic- itly to get back together.In my next letter I commented that I thought that was the one I liked best, and we began to write seriously about actually doing it, planning explic- itly to get back together. The character of our letters changed: we wrote more practical fantasies, things that we could actually do, and how we would do them. And we planned for the future. I was to quit my job and get a job where he lived. Nurses are in demand everywhere, although salaries are lower in the South. I was getting pretty tired of Winter in Chicago anyway. You could freeze to death on the way to stand in line to sort out the phone bill the company screwed up if it wasn't for the muggers being so tightly crowded onto the streets that you didn't have room to freeze in the first place. Besides, I was tired of being lonely. Once I had made the deci- sion, my mood changed dramatically. Suddenly, instead of being lonely, sexually frustrated, and obsessive about getting and writing letters, I was optimistic, lonely, sexually frustrated, and obsessive. We got together briefly before I left Chicago. J had written a letter telling me he would visit. Our last few letters had carried a long list of fantasies back and forth between us. We added to the list every time it changed hands. Ultimately it contained nearly everything we had written about and some new things we hadn't. In his final letter he told me he had a chance to come back to Chicago on a job- related trip and wanted to see me. About that list. Below is a part of the letter, copied verbatim (so I keep let- ters.): "I want you to understand something clearly before I arrive. We have been very close, but the last four months have put a dis- tance between us that our letters have only partly bridged. When you come [down here] we will be trying something neither of us has done before. The newness will perhaps be the best and most exciting part of it. |