This was a photo taken of me here around the time I met Pierre. Pierre has been around throughout the holidays, but tonight I had a dream that someone was trying to get my attention. I was in an upstairs bedroom of this old house (this old hotel). Finally the person pounded on the door so insistently I finally went down to talk to him. I could see he was not going to go away until he got through to me. He said he had been waiting there for quite a while trying to get my attention. He said he wanted to make sure I was all right, as I had been feeling kind of disconnected, but did not know what this meant. I still don't quite know, or why Pierre was so insistent in reaching me. But here is my guess. It is Doc since he is in far worse shape than I am. Pierre has come to warn me, because he knows from experience how hard it is to go through the detachment of someone close.
I had probably the most complete and best relationship with Pierre that I have ever had with a man. Pierre was kind and would not hurt anyone even when he was in pain or drunk. He would hurt them by being drunk and doing things that you did not like but he was never physically abusive. He was not in as bad a shape as Doc has been ever since I have known him, until just the last year when he was hit by lung cancer.
It is strange how people detach from life. Doc has never come back at all from the severe detachment from his feelings through alcohol. He is about as detached as a man can be without showing signs of dying, not yet. He does seem more afraid now, and has started saying he does not have long to live, but whatever he is experiencing he is hiding it.
Pierre being here is the biggest sign I have had that something is breaking. Doc must be moving into the narrows, and of course, before the illness manifests, you don't know who is in trouble, you or the other person, especially when you are both seniors.
Pierre can help me just because we were so close physically. Doc and I do not have a physical relationship at all although he does everything possible to act the part. It is hard to believe that a man who looks as good as he did in the last photo I took of him could possibly be on his way out But I know he is a hollow shell of a man. Eerie.
At this writing, Pierre is more physically connected to me than he is, although I know that Pierre has come to warn me and help me during the next few months of crisis. I know things cant go on like this forever with Doc and so does he. I have gotten over Pierre's betrayal the last year before he died. He said tonight that he is one of those men who became addicted to homosexual feelings, but did not want to be homosexual, so he took steps to move away from those feelings when he met me, but did not altogether succeed. He said tonight that my quitting the relationship when he strayed proved to him I was serious when I said no infidelity. I realized I had not really forgiven him untl tonight. He said it was very humiliating to have to accept my help during his final illness after what had happened, but I had been kind and he needed me. We were still too attached for me to cut him off at that point.
Pierre was a vigorous very intense man, which was part of his great appeal. He was also still some attached to his ex wife. It was too soon for her to let him go even though she had initiated the divorce. I think she did it because she was humiliated by the complete absence of a physical relationship with Pierre. She told us all one night in a kind of frank open chat she used to have with residents that their physical relationship had been over for two years. He told me after the divorce it was a lot longer than that, it had been ten years, but she still highly valued him, so was not willing to let him go. It was almost like she wanted to kill him so he could not be with anyone else. He acted like he was a little bit afraid she would do just that, hire someone to kill him, if he tried to cut thngs off with her completely. So she called all during our relationship atleast once or twice a week, and he always took her calls. She had made threats to have him killed which I did not take lightly, so I didn't say anything. I had never heard a woman threaten to have her husband killed that many times. Indeed that was a first. I thought that eventually she would accept their parting. She died around two years after he did, so now it sounds as though he has finally been able to sever their relationship over there. I know he no longer loved her. He said she was unfaithful to him. She helped kill the relationship as much or more than he did. But it had lasted 30 years.
We had a long talk tonight. It was very natural. We went over the past and resolved some of our troubles. He said he would be waiting for me to come. It is strange that he would be the one, but Doc and I have always been more creative partners than anything else. It was like his life with women was already over and done with when I met him, whereas Pierre's was not. There was always a strong attraction between Pierre and me, sparks, and for two years there was satisfaction, but at the same I knew that men had some attraction for him, and that could easily get out of hand. It was like I had gone my whole life in preparation to meet a man who had been corrupted into these practices, not born that way, and was willing to work to try to move away from these feelings which did not give him as much satisfaction as a relationship with a woman. Pierre proved my theory that there are some men who can move away from those practices if a woman is understanding and willing to help him do it. And also believes he can which is another very important part of the process.
Pierre quit school and went to work when he was 8 years old and here is where I think that he discovered that he could earn money if he responded to men's desires for 'boys.' I don't know the whole story because he was not ready to to tell it to me. I hope he will tell me some day, but his family was desperately poor and I think he was ready to do about anything for money. His mother could not work. Her health was too bad, and his father had abandoned the family after nearly starving them to death for years. Money had to be gotten from somewhere. I donot think his family ever realized what was happening with Pierre. But I had grown up with a lot of examples around me of boys being corrupted into these practices, so he always acted like I understood him in a way that his sisters never did or could.
His wife was living with a woman when he met her, so she had lived the lesbian life, but he said she went back to it during their marriage whenever she wanted to or felt the urge. She also had affairs with men he resented. They were similar to other couples I have seen, both straying with members of their own sex, but basically with each other, but this is a slippery slope and Pierre eventually got outraged over affairs she had with women the last few years of their marriage. He had become disabled so I think he felt powerless, and she lorded it over him with her working power. That is when I think the relationship went completely sour. At any rate he said he could hardly tolerate her anymore and was not happy. Whereas once he had quite enjoyed her.
I know that most women could not have stood this kind of drama surrounding a man but because of my background I could tolerate his troubles. Now we will see how this all plays out with Doc. I feel better now that I know that Pierre has come to be supportive. Life and death matters require intervention. That is when he could come in and be of help, and I know he would want to do it to pay me back for how I helped him to enter the other world when it was his time to go.
