Chapter 36: A Bad Influence

December 1981, Chicago, Illinois

I really should have guessed that what Jennifer was saying was prompted by a girlfriend who saw me as a competitor, but I had to know if it was just Jocelyn, or if it was from Jennifer’s therapist as well.

“And not your therapist?” I asked.

“No. The reason Doctor Clauson didn’t want me to come is because she knows how I feel about you and that you’re in a serious relationship with Kara. She’s afraid that I’ll have a serious setback, or do something stupid to try to win you back. I told her that I could trust you completely. You proved me right when you put my bag in Elyse’s room, which I’m sure you realize.”

“I can understand Doctor Clauson’s perspective,” I replied. “I received similar advice from Doctor Mercer about my relationships when I was struggling. She gave Bethany similar advice. Is it safe to assume that Doctor Clauson was more worried about what you might do than what I might do?”

“Yes. She knew from everything that I told her that you would make yourself available to me however I needed, including sex. But she also was fairly sure that not only would you not initiate it, but that you would be more concerned about how I felt than about getting laid. What really worried her was that I would try to use sex to get you back. I know for a fact that’s not going to work!”

Her smile at the end of her reply made me feel better. The crushed look before seemed to have been caused by the vehemence of my response. I needed to apologize to her for that.

“Jennifer, I’m sorry I was so harsh, but I was really upset. Please forgive me.”

“I do, but honestly, I needed that. I guess I really let Jocelyn convince me that I’d been abused by you when I really hadn’t.”

“What’s her problem?”

“Andrea Dworkin. When Jocelyn was sixteen, she went to hear Dworkin speak in Berkeley, and she also went on some march in the red-light district with Dworkin.”

“Who the hell is Andrea Dworkin?” I asked.

“A feminist author. According to Jocelyn, she’s really outspoken about how men have power over women and enforce it by law. That men terrorize women and use their physical strength to intimidate women and use money and power to get sex. Apparently, she thinks that sex is always about male power and nothing more.”

I nodded, “We both know that Josh Benton used it that way and he’s in jail awaiting trial on three rape counts. So I’d go ask Bethany which of us terrorized her — me or Josh! And ask her what I used my strength, such that it is, and my money, to do. I do believe there’s a serious difference between Josh Benton and me in Bethany’s mind. Don’t you?”

“Yes!” Jennifer said adamantly. “Of course there is!”

“It doesn’t sound like the Dworkin lady does. And Jocelyn believes that?”

“She does. She also reads and listens to Gloria Steinem and Shere Hite and others.”

“I have no idea who these women you’re referring to are or what they’ve done or written. I’m assuming they are all feminists of some sort?”

“Yes. Jocelyn got involved with them about three years ago in some kind of anti-pornography crusade. And she started going to lectures and stuff in Berkeley. She’s totally behind the whole radical feminist movement and pretty much thinks men are evil.”

“And do you agree with that assessment, Jennifer?”

She took a deep breath, let it out, then took another and let it out as well.

“No, I don’t,” she said firmly, as if she’d just made a decision.

“What just changed, Jen? I sense something.”

“I realized that I let Jocelyn draw me into something that I don’t believe. Yes, there are evil men like Josh Benton out there, and guys who treat women like dirt, but you aren’t one of those. Neither are Larry, nor Pete, nor Josh Richards, nor Ralph, nor Brent. I suppose if I was Kathy, I might have a different experience, because it seems she did have a bunch of guys who think like Jocelyn says all men do.”

“Every stereotype has to have some truth somewhere at its foundation or it wouldn’t be a stereotype. It doesn’t even have to be much truth, but just enough to make it believable. Think about the ‘dumb jock’ stereotype. Who was the best athlete in our school?”

“Napoleon McCallum! And he’s at the Naval Academy and was a near straight-A student.”

“Exactly. And he wasn’t the only one. But there were enough poor students on the football team for the stereotype to hold. Just as there are enough men who behave badly to make what Jocelyn says seem like it’s true. I do have to take exception with something you just said. I did, on occasion, treat you badly, even apart from not putting you first in my heart.”

“You did, and I treated you just as badly at other times. But, and this is important, that wasn’t how we normally acted. We acted badly due to stress, both external and internal, to our relationship. This is something that Doctor Clauson is helping me understand. I guess it’s like what Melanie explained to us about her therapy after she tried to kill herself. We can’t control things that go on around us; we can only control our reactions to them.

“I lied to you for a long time, and that was my bad reaction to the stress of my own feelings and of our relationship. Doctor Clauson helped me see that I wanted to appear perfect to you, and because of that, I hid everything that I thought was imperfect and presented you a picture of a girl who I thought you wanted to see. She made me realize that if you loved me as much as you said you did, and I believe that you did, you didn’t need me to be perfect.”

I nodded, “She’s right, Jennifer. I needed you to be you. None of us are perfect. We all have flaws. Even my goody two-shoes girlfriend,” I chuckled. “When we love people, we accept them for who they are and try to help them grow. That’s why Kara and I are where we are now and why I’m a much better person for having been with her. She has never tried to control me. She just expects me to act like a mature, thoughtful, caring adult. And I don’t want to disappoint her.

“It’s amazing really, when you think about it. For all the browbeating that you, Bethany, Joyce, Melanie, and Stephanie did, and to a lesser extent Pete and Larry did, nothing worked so well as Kara simply expecting me to be on my best behavior. That was what she told me when I was getting ready to come to Chicago — she expected me to behave. She didn’t tell me what that meant, either. I had to figure it out. And you know what? It worked! It made me think about each and every thing I did and whether or not Kara would consider it behaving.

“She was clear that ‘behaving’ didn’t mean I had to be celibate, which for Kara was a huge concession. But it was also clear that I couldn’t continue like I had before I started dating her seriously last January. Yes, I’ve had sex with other girls, and even a couple of random deflowerings and dalliances, but nothing like before. And you see where I am right now. Other than Kara, there is nobody that I’m intimate with. To be sure, that may well change in January, but if it does, it would be well-thought out and considered.”

Jennifer nodded, “I agree. In fact, all the girls agree, Kara has been amazingly good for you and has transformed you into the man we all wanted you to be. We all tried to do that in different ways and we all failed. It’s shocking how we all missed the simple solution that Kara came up with. I’m curious, have you ever had a harsh conversation with her?”

“Once. It was back in June. And, this probably won’t surprise you, it was about you.”

Jennifer smiled, “Of course it was. I’d destroyed everything we’d worked for because I was so afraid. Then, we arranged my visit. I bet that’s what caused that conversation, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, exactly. She was worried about you winning me back. She’s still a bit concerned about that, even now.”

Jennifer paused for a moment, then softly asked, “Does she have cause to be?”

There was the ultimate question. Did she? I didn’t think so. But there had been plenty of times in the past where things I didn’t think were going to happen had happened. A definitive ‘no’ wasn’t possible. On the other hand, giving Jennifer false hope or misleading her was out of the question.

“No, I don’t think she does. Not really. You and I both know that whatever our future holds, it can’t happen before you work through your issues and are healthy again. You look good, for sure, and you sound better, but I think there are still underlying issues. Not to mention this radical feminist crap that you appear to have bought into.”

“I want to ask another way, if you don’t mind. Do you think it’s possible, even remotely, that there is a future where we are together?”

I groaned audibly, “That’s not a fair question, Jen. You know how I feel about the future. We can’t know it and we can’t predict it. If we could, who would I be with right this very second?”

“Birgit. Either she’d be going to school here or you’d be going to school in Sweden.”

“Exactly. So, given that, how can I answer your question without betraying what I believe on one hand or possibly giving you false hope on the other?”

Jennifer smiled, “I guess you can’t. The two of us sitting here on what should have been our couch in what should have been our apartment is another example. Of course, that one was self-inflicted. We did it to ourselves. For the other one, the gods rolled their dice, like your ABBA song says, and you lost Birgit.

“I believe you told me that all we can do now is deal with life as we find it. We each have to move on down the path that is set before us and when we come to intersections, decide which one to take by making a choice. It’s possible that the combination of choices will lead us to the same destination and our paths will join. But I know that most likely that’s not going to happen. The thing is, neither of us has a map. We don’t know what our individual path looks like, nor where the branches lead. It turns out that you’re right — all we can do is take one day at a time.”

“Actually, it was Elyse who told me to approach life one day at a time. And, with my goals in mind, decide each day what I could do, if anything, to further my goals. Most days, it would be little or nothing except to go to class or do my homework. Other days, there might be big decisions, but I should only worry about those when the time came to make them. It makes a hell of a lot of sense, and her life is very simple compared to mine. Since I’ve followed her principles, my life has become simpler as well. Of course, Kara had a lot to do with that, like you said.”

Jennifer stretched, “Would you mind if I took a nap before dinner?”

“No, go ahead. I have plenty of reading I can do and I think I’m going to update my journal.”

Jennifer got up and went to Elyse’s room, and my own traitorous mind started to betray me. Despite all the talking we’d done, all our issues, Jennifer was still Jennifer. A girl who I had loved intensely and still loved, though in a different way. It was easy to bring up images of our many couplings, most of which had resulted in mind-blowing orgasms, and it would have been easy to follow her into the room. I knew Jennifer well enough that she wouldn’t reject me if I came to her like that. I also knew that doing so would very likely undo all the gains I’d made over the past years, and I would be in danger of becoming exactly what her feminist acquaintances — I refused to call them her friends — said all men were. If Jennifer and I were to be intimate, it would have to be on her terms, at her request and with a full mutual understanding of what it meant, if that were even possible.

She shut the door, and I shook my head to clear it, then went to my Apple ][. I opened up the text editor and selected the file that contained my current month’s journal. I entered my password, and when the file opened, I began to type. I had a lot to write about and when Jennifer got up from her nap a little over an hour later, I was still writing. She came over to me and put her hands on my shoulders, bent down and kissed me on the cheek.

“Thanks, Steve,” she said softly. “Thanks for loving me enough to talk forthrightly to me.”

“Jennifer, I think your friend has gone off the deep end. I don’t deny there are men who treat women badly. Josh Benton is a prime example. I also don’t deny that there are men that treat women like servants; Kara’s dad does that to both her mom and to her. In his eyes, his daughter is a possession to be handed off to a husband of whom he approves and with her virginity intact. But that’s a whole different thing than being a serial rapist! Your friend Jocelyn puts me in the exact same bucket she puts Josh Benton! Do YOU believe that? Really?”

She sighed deeply, “No. I don’t. And I’m sorry I accused you of those things.”

“Thank you. But I want to make my point, if you don’t mind. Have I ever once treated any of my female friends like they were inferior in some way? Or ever said that cooking, cleaning, or laundry is women’s work? Or forced myself on anyone?”

“No. Never. I’ve always seen you do your share of everything, often more than your share.”

“And my position on one of the hot-button feminist issues — abortion?”

“You hate it with a red-hot passion and would never willingly be party to one, but you would never try to prevent someone from having one if they thought it was the right thing to do.”

“And my view on another one of their issues — men are studs and women are sluts?”

She smiled, “You’ve never held anyone to a different standard than yourself in that regard. Oh sure, you’ve commented on Pam being too free with what she does, but that’s more about the fact that she’s reckless. You’ve even said that you’re the one to be called a slut if anyone should.”

“So, your friend Jocelyn’s views?”

“Stereotypes. There are enough men who do act badly that there’s some truth to it. But like you said before, it doesn’t apply to you, Larry, Ralph, Brent, Josh, Ed, or Pete, though Pete is way more conservative than the rest of us.”