Whitzz/544K-RP-Datasets huggingface dataset:
Thread: When Nobody's Watching [Dane Stalling & dearestdarling]

September 11th, 1967, clear, 55 Oh who cares whether Ophelia had prettier ears than you or if Juliet had cuter tits. Drowned and stabbed and gone. Never existed. Lizzie and Jane either. You though- you exist. I see you in the stacks, running your fingers over the spines of the books. You breathe, and you forget that Titania never drew a breath. The brain that imagined Elizabeth has been dead a hundred and fifty years. You shake her entire world when the pulse in your finger trembles her page. If you don't stop comparing yourself to paper girls, you'll end up just one of them. Dry, thin, and pressed. Maybe Mr. Hefner's magazine is just what you need. He doesn't create sexuality. He just acknowledges it, and so do his bunnies. Why shouldn't they? Why shouldn't you? Who decides what a good woman is anyway? How is your morality strong if you're always fighting against your body? You have to admit, Miss June, that you're pretending it's winter during a heat wave. Maybe women and men aren't so different You're a good woman, pretty G, and you want to be respectable. It doesn't take a hypocritical society to tell you what you should be able to say about yourself. You already are being controlled, but the voice that controls you only says no. If you really do want to be controlled, you should at least choose who controls you. What would you do if I gave you an order? Sleep in the nude tonight. See if your dreams stay vivid. I won't pretend I'm not curious about your dream. You'll tell me about it one day, and soon, I'm sure. It's burning a hole in your sheets. I have kissed a girl. Three girls. One was a cousin, the second was a cheerleader on a dare. It was her dare. I was just the chump her girlfriends thought she wouldn't kiss. The third one though, she smelled like cinnamon and cigarettes and she ran out of love for me sometime between Fall and Winter three years back. She didn't tell me until Spring that I was too inconvenient to keep stringing along. She dug David and I was a drag. You're so heavy all the time, Baby, she said, My karma needs some cleansing. She didn't get cleansed, but she got David and I got Dear Johnned without the Dear. Forgive me if I'm both gun shy and guns blazing. I get a little right hand second hand thrill when suspensions are creaking some nights and no wonder. If you want it spelled out, you'll have to ask without a threat next time. I'm staying away from the hippies tonight. Keeping my hands in my coat pockets to see if clarity comes with control. I have low expectations, but there's no harm. R P.S. Ask Mrs. Stanford for the list of banned books. It will be worth it just to see the look on her face.
Thread: When Nobody's Watching [Dane Stalling & dearestdarling]

September 14th, 1967, foggy, 68 You enjoy being watched, whether you should or not. I enjoy watching you, so I do. I watch everyone, but you're interesting. You have a voice, opinions, desires. You struggle, you are alive. Youre right, Pretty G, youre not like me. Youre reticent, innocent, delightful. Your thoughts are on your page, I even see them on your face sometimes when you leave the library, arms tight around yourself as though you would fly apart if you let go. Let go. What do you have to hold together anyway? What huge important thing will be lost if you just relax once in a while? Your dignity? Your modesty? Your virginity? What would break if you were the girl with the man tapping at her window? The girl with a beard tickling her thigh? Would you open up if Johnny tapped and your sister wasnt there? You should. Tell me you would, that youd at least consider unlocking that window. That you would stand naked in the dark of your room by the window and consider it. Im surprised you actually did it. I thought you might compromise somehow. I thought youd try to feel safe, but you didnt. Bare and burning along with your sister. What a delicious sound your breathing must have made, your hair still damp against your pillow. What did you feel? How will I have been with you if you dont tell me? Have I ever watched a man kiss a woman like that? Was that the question you didnt ask? Or have I ever done it myself? Tasted a woman like that and made her writhe? Ill answer you even though you didnt ask, since you dont seem satisfied with my answers about watching. Ive watched, once, and not the flower children. It was Mr. and Mrs. Banning on their front porch at midnight. I wouldnt have noticed them, but she squeaked. The porch light was out, but the living room light was on. She sat on the porch swing and he knelt in front of her, his head pushing up her dress. There was company inside, people laughing, playing charades, drinking. One of her hands was a fist in his hair and the other was over her mouth. I was just walking down the street. I think she saw me, so I kept going, straight, whistling low so she could hear me leaving. I came back silent though. It made me thirsty for woman. Cinnamon and cigarettes thought it was dirty. She couldnt understand what would make me want to do something like that, but all I wanted was to make her tremble. Maybe you should write that article for Hopkins. Banned books in the Hinckley Public Library. Keeping our children safe from anything like an interesting idea. Safe from excitement. Safe from desire. She has every book on that list in her office, you know. All ready to check out, with their Dewey Decimal System stickers on the spines and the checkout cards in their little pockets in the back covers. Not a single name on any of them. Ask her for Clelands book. Ask for Marx too, just to throw her off. All for the article. Itll be fishy if you dont. What kind of reporter would start a juicy search and call it off before getting to the meat of things? Who knows? Maybe Mr. Hefner would put it in his magazine. So many of us get it for the articles. R
Thread: When Nobody's Watching [Dane Stalling & dearestdarling]

September 16th, 1967, clear, 57 I was in the same school system as you, watched the same dirty movie about sperms and eggs shaking hands. I saw those little pink circles form on old Miss Fredrick's cheeks as she explained how coitus should be avoided at all costs because it leads to the clap and babies. It's drilled into all of us. Maybe Leary's got his finger on something when he says to question authority. How much could Miss Fredrick actually know about what she taught? Look around. Everyone's got their double life. Me, Hopkins, Mrs. Stanford, even you in your very timid way. And who says anyone would ever have to know about it? You've seen me a dozen times and never even wondered who I was, let alone whether I was subversive or depraved. It could be argued that I am both, or neither. The hippies, at least, make a halfhearted attempt to shed their masks. There's another mask underneath, but nobody's perfect. Suggestions are just that. Experiments. I can suggest anything I like and you're free to accept or reject them, but how can you judge them? I can feel your desire to break free. You have to confess you at least have a wish to have the desire to break free. Here's a suggestion hang your sister's panties out when she's not home. Or your panties. I imagine yours are all pure white except for that one pair that your mother doesn't know about. What color is it, I wonder? Not pink, I guess. Something dark and sensual. Sinful red. Or black. Hang that on the line when your sister is out and see if it doesn't make you listen to every creak of your house. You'll hear a thousand phantom taps on your window. You'll imagine him there, smelling of smoke, and when he kisses you, he'll taste of what? Cloves and stolen apples? Don't say what you'll never do. I want you to take that back. Write that you take it back in your next letter. It hurts when you say things like that. What you described was beautiful, arousing, I joined you there in your bed, in my own way, feeling your need and mine, feeling my own ache and letting my hand drift and grasp. Your need is intoxicating, Pretty G. Does that disgust or fascinate you? Just because they call it self-abuse doesn't mean that it is. Just thirty years ago doctors were prescribing radiation treatments for skin beautification and a hundred years ago some doctors were saying that tomatoes were poisonous. When your fingers find a sweet spot, your health is in no danger. I hope nobody is looking for Victor Hugo's book. Mrs. Stanford might have to do some creative explaining. You should make that millionaire pie for the boys at the office. I might even be able to spirit away a slice. Some of them know my face. Things that have stories are better to eat than things that don't. You have stories in you, rattling your cages, don't you? R
Thread: When Nobody's Watching [Dane Stalling & dearestdarling]

September 18th, 1967 I read Fanny, but I don't think I will again. No intelligence, no elegance. Once the shock wore off, it was just words... That's what's missing with Johnny too, but maybe some part of me li that maybe I did feel delicious watching each soft, subtle movement of his head as he him with Joyce, but you know what they talked about after? If chicks hatch from eggs, but chickens lay eggs, where did the first egg come from? They went on for almost an hour before Johnny left, higher than kites, back and forth, and it was painful to be their accidental audience. All the joy that I felt, the excitement... Spoiled. The next morning Mom made omelettes and Joyce couldn't stop laughing. It should disgust me. How do you tou . does it But the way you describe it makes me think twice. My mother said that it'll make you go blind, but you seem to see just fine. They're fire engine red. I bought them with my first paycheck at the paper, but... I've never worn them. I felt ridiculous buying them-- who would ever see them? And no one has, they're scrunched into the back of my sock drawer, so soft they feel like a dream. They're ridiculous, sometimes I blush when I accidentally touch them in the drawer, but what can I do with them now? They won't fit in a book unnoticed. And maybe somed If someone sees them what am I goin Maybe... Maybe I'll do it. If this is your double life, what's your other one? What does it feel like when I look at you and you know exactly who I am but I have no idea? I figure you have some reason to hide, and I won't lie and say that I haven't considered maybe a dozen possibilities, but I haven't even tried to look for you. Don't tempt me. A pervert lurking in the public library is a promising story for a puny paper like ours, and everyone likes sensationalism. I won't look, but... Tell me. Tell me what it feels like for me to glance at you. I share so much with you. G P.S. Did you like the pie? Tell me what I added. I'm not sure I believe in your omnipotent presence.
Thread: When Nobody's Watching [Dane Stalling & dearestdarling]

September 19th, 1967, clear, 66 Dottie Davis was my Johnny. Beautiful, blank. She marches at the front of the Daughters of the American Revolution float every 4th of July. Shed tumble for anyone, at least back when we were in high school, but I was too cowed by Miss Fredricks lectures to do anything about it. She was as unattainable to me as Hefners Miss September, and more tempting. Like Roethke said, she moved in circles and those circles moved. You want to know, but you dont want to ask. Theres something appealing about your eager reluctance. Something sexy. I wish I had heard your voice not quite asking. To understand what its like, you need to dispense with the anatomical diagrams from health class. I guess you wont have touched a cock before. Theres nothing analytical about it. Its simple and hard when it stands straight, and it has a soft sheath that slides and slips. I wrap a whole hand around mine when I start, just feeling it pulse. Its very expressive. A thought can make it jump, the right pictures or words can make it stiffen. Your words have hardened it. Just the idea that you are reading this has me firm. I stroke it in all kinds of ways, squeezing hard or feather light, tickling, pressing. It feels delicious, as you have said, sweet sometimes, smooth sometimes. It has a spicy feel sometimes like pepper in the nose, and the rising climax is like a sneeze, it becomes inevitable, unstoppable, overwhelming. Have you felt that before, at least? Maybe it does make me blind for a second or two, my eyes squeezed shut and my legs shaking. You should see it one day to quench your curiosity, but would you ever ask? Red. I would have guessed black, something more easily explained away. You must want to get caught with them. In them. Put them on tomorrow morning when you dress. Then youll have to make a decision. Theyre a garment as much for taking off as for wearing. When will you take them off? Right away? Or will you let them tease you all day long? Theres wind in the forecast. Decide carefully. South Vermont and West 11th. The receptionist at the paper was very helpful to this lost delivery boy. A telephone is a powerful thing. The clothesline was empty and it seemed lonely, and that's why I pinned my handkerchief to it. For company. I feel alone when you pass me over, not noticing. I shouldn't- it's not your fault. It's mine. You cross out your words and I cross out my face. I don't like to be seen, so I make it an asset. I see, and that's enough. You can write your article about the pervert in the library. I wonder who you would write it about though? Me? Mrs. Stanford? Yourself? Any of us or a dozen other weekly library goers would fit the bill. I think it would be a terrific story no matter who you wrote it about. R P.S. Cloves, but just barely. I couldn't get a slice, but I got a fingerful. Nobody notices the person that washes the pie plate.
Thread: When Nobody's Watching [Dane Stalling & dearestdarling]

September 21st, 1967 My words I've sneezed. But I don't understand? How do you know when to sto I haven't felt what you said, the legs shaking, some overwhelming moment... If anything I feel frustrated, coiled up like a spring, all tension and nothing like what you described at all. I read it three ti I should be working when I come to the library-- you know that? Not... Not that. You surprised me. I thought you relished the fact that you could stand right over my shoulder, just on the other side of a bookcase, and I wouldn't suspect a thing. I'll be honest with you, Recluse, the whole thing makes me jumpy. To think that maybe you're watching me right now is... I'll admit I thought I caught a man glancing just a little too long at me and I shuddered but it was a goo and I looked directly at him, deliberately, before he finally went back to flipping through Life. Was that you? I thought so at first but maybe not... I won't ask you about it further. Not now. It seems like something you would abandon if you could, and I'm curious but not cruel. Red, yes. I had never had my own money before, besides chump change I was allowed for small things. My heart was racing at the register, and I never went back to that department store again in case they recognized me. You're laughing but what if I went back with my mother and the fitting attendant asked me how I liked them? If only I had your forgettable face. The red satin looks completely scandalous and I felt like I was burning from the secret of them. One of the copyeditors used to make a game of flipping my skirt when I passed him by, and all day I rehearsed excuses for them if I needed them, but thankfully he kept his hands to himself. The wind, however, didn't pay me the same courtesy and I doubted I would make it through the day undiscovered but somehow I did. I washed them indiscriminately and now all of my once-white panties are blushing with it. Do pick your hanky up whenever it suits you, I hope you don't mind that it's a bit more pink than when you left it. I'll do it, but only because I know nothing will co they need to dry. Johnny isn't coming for me. G
Thread: When Nobody's Watching [Dane Stalling & dearestdarling]

September 22nd, 1967, clear, 59 Yes, your words, but more than that. Your thoughts, your questions, the way you stop in mid-step in the stacks when a book catches your eye, the toe of your right foot just touching the ground. Coiled like a spring is right. There's a moment when all that tension spills out at once. You'll love it when it happens. It will scare you how much you'll love it. The French don't call it the little death for nothing. The first time it happened to me I thought I might die, and I didn't care. You say recluse like it's a disease. I have acquaintances, people who know my name. It's better, I think, than pretending to have friends, surface smiles with currents of jealousy. I'm no good at small talk or the vicious politeness of society politics. It wasn't me. I'm not in the library every single hour of the day, and I wasn't watching you write earlier. While Life's a fine magazine, you'd have more luck watching who reads Popular Mechanics. I do see you look around sometimes, you stop suddenly, crook a finger into your book and look over your shoulder and I know you're looking for me. I like being searched for. I wondered how you bought those panties. I imagined you made up an imaginary wedding shower for an imaginary girlfriend but you didn't. You went in and bought them for yourself. Why is that such a fascinating detail? What store was it? Townsend Wall? Heer's? You've tainted all that white, and mine too. I'll admit I never thought a pink hanky would be my favorite one. But if it carries a little of that red- the red that made your face pink when you bought it, that made you think about what was under your skirt all day, how would I not treasure it, at least a little? I'll steal it back from your line later and try not to disturb you and Johnny. I'm joking, but though you say he won't come for you, you aren't certain. Maybe he's not the only boy Joyce sneaks out for? You think you know, but it's hard to tell the whisper of a Caddy from the mumble of a Chevy in the wee hours. Maybe Joyce likes a quieter suspension. I feel a sneeze coming on. I'm going to need that hanky. R
Thread: When Nobody's Watching [Dane Stalling & dearestdarling]

September 25th, 1967, clear, 53 You're a tease when you think you're holding all the cards, but I guess I can't blame you. I'll play along. I'll bluff about the Doors and dishes and pretend there wasn't just one thing you wanted to say. I guess it's pretty obvious Joyce would like Morrison. She's a sucker for bad boys. I wonder if your dad ever actually listened to the Doors or if some elder at church was whispering about how the whole country is going to hell because of the evils of rock and roll. He probably doesn't know half of the hymns he sings in church are bar songs with the lyrics changed. Hell, I'd go to church if they sang those with the original lyrics. Fire is such a mesmerizing thing, even when it's contained and tamed in a fireplace. There's something fascinating about it in the woods though, when it has the potential, however small, to burn the whole county. That cult of pleasure is just the human race. The cult is the thing that tries to make pleasure into sin. You've escaped a cult, not been initiated into one. Playing that record low, like embers. No wonder something happened, real and true. I want to know. I'll admit you have me insanely curious. Maybe you are holding all the card I would do anything to have you tell what happened after the tapping. So you win. Just this tim Okay. Just don't make me I guess I'm in no position to negotiate. A real conversation. I'm afraid I'll disappoint I don't have a question, I want to know all of it. How long did you stand there covered only in darkness? I want to know what you heard, tasted, smelled, saw, felt. You seem uncoiled and re-coiled again. Am I right? You seem different. I'm not ashamed to say you have me a little flustered. R P.S. Thank you for pinking my handkerchief. I could only see it this morning though. All cats are grey in the dark, as they say.
Thread: When Nobody's Watching [Dane Stalling & dearestdarling]

September 27th, 1967, clear, 45 You were in Joyce's bed? Of course. The record player is hers, isn't it? Your Johnny sounds straight for a hippie on a Friday night, and gentle. You have me fascinated, Beautiful G. Your honesty is such a fresh, wonderful thing. I cannot deny that you've gotten me turned on. And not for the first time. I envy your awakening to pleasure, and I feel I owe you more than just a conversation, your memory is a treasure. I will give you two things a memory of my own, and something you choose. Anything. I was in a girl's room once, silent and dark. She and I were comfortable and uncomfortable at the same nervous, all at once. I'm saying this badly. I was shaking that night and she was too. I am shaking now, remembering it. I could feel her finger tremble as she traced my ear. We were close, our faces close and breathing each other's breath. Hers was sweet, she'd been eating cold apple slices, but when I kissed her, she tasted like nothing, like everything I ever enjoyed. Like soft wet iron, the steaming heart of a bread roll. I kissed her first, her lips, her throat, her shoulder, but she was the one that drew my hands over her body. I don't remember how she came to be naked, if I slipped her nightgown off, or if she did, or if she was like you, already bare and shiver burning under the sheets. I do remember how her breasts filled my hands. I gave them all my attention. I felt every wrinkling texture of her nipples. They swelled tight for me and I tasted each one. I left them shiny in the weak moonlight. I felt like I could light up the room with my desire for her, because of her desire, because there were no limits in her little room. I tickled her belly with the tips of my fingers, dragged them over her until my pinkie dropped into her navel. I left it there, a little intruder as I brushed her breasts with my lips. I may have spoken to them, whispers. We were not alone in the house. Buttery, delightful, sensual. Yes, that's right. We traded butter, she and I. For my part I felt her lips on my neck, but the heat spread into my scalp, across my chest, made me harden, though I had been standing tall from the moment I was just breathing with her, our noses brushing. Did he say a name, your lover? I'd have said her name if I could have trusted my voice to stay low, but I whispered all the heat and fire of that moment to her skin. A photograph of your face as you wrote would have made the mysteries of the Mona Lisa seem plain and obvious. You seemed intent, quick, and another observer might have thought nothing of it- a journalist hot on her case. I knew what you wrote though, and it made me burn to see what it was, though I had to wait torturous hours. We are not even, you and I, not yet, but when are two people ever even? There's an idea to explore on another day. If we're writing the most lewd book in the library though, I'll want to contribute my share. R