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yes_2dayHOPE YOU ENJOY - there is some SLASH FICTION here.
Chapter 4E
‘Phew’ Paul breathed as he shut the book. His cheeks were red. Had he really agreed that John could expose them in this way? Even though he knew what was coming next, and that it could have been so much more intimate and revealing, Paul could not help wishing no one else in the world would ever read these words. John had argued that the integrity of his book depended on his unflinching honesty about their sex life, but Paul had resisted this at first. Intellectually, he agreed with John that to leave it out entirely would be dishonest and would damage the credibility of the book. And he also knew that John would not publish it at all if he couldn’t tell his story - the whole story - the way he wanted to tell it. Paul had no desire to censor John’s creative project, but emotionally, the idea of others’ reading about his sex life in this way made him cringe.
In the end they had agreed upon a compromise. It was a perfect compromise because neither man was happy with it. John had wanted to write in more detail, with more intimacy and passion. Paul hadn’t wanted it addressed except in the barest of mentions. In the end, John wrote about what happened that night and on that trip to Paris, but in an amusing, cursory way that satisfied neither of them, and doubtless would not satisfy the readers, either. Hopefully, the readers would at least find it amusing.
As Paul picked up the book again, willing himself to continue reading, part of him felt disappointed that he could not let himself go enough to allow John the space to exercise his full artistic vision. Still, now that the book was published, and the die had been cast, there was no point in angst-ing over it. Paul turned his eyes back to the page.
“As seductions go,” Paul read, “it wasn’t randy; it wasn’t even remotely romantic. It was painful, and we had to pick our way through it as if it were a minefield. Like every other choice we made in our relationship, first we had to imagine the bridge, then design the bridge, and then build the bridge before we could walk over it to the other side.”
<<<<<<<
On the other hand, the flip side to this modus operando of ours was the more positive aspect that once we had finished our bridge, and crossed over to the other side, we always put the angst behind us and left it in the rearview mirror with no hard feelings. So, decision made, we wandered out into the Paris streets, me encased in a bubble of joy, Paul no doubt surrounded by a cloud of disbelief.
“Are we still going to a club?” Paul asked hopefully.
“I’ve got a much better idea,” I said cheerfully.
“I’m not sure I can handle any more of your ‘ideas’ tonight, John,” Paul responded wryly, with some of the old Liverpool spirit back in his voice.
I had seen the shop when we had been sightseeing the day before, and had made a mental note. It was a few blocks from our pensione. I pointed out the correct direction to Paul, and, after I grabbed his arm and linked it through mine, we walked the few blocks to the shop. (This was something I would not have done in Liverpool, but in Paris all the men linked arms when they walked together, and it was considered totally normal. They even held hands!) The shop sold homosexual pornography, and porn shops in Paris were open until midnight in those days. The signs might have all been in French, but Paul got the gist as we came up on it. He stopped dead in his tracks, shocked out of his mind that there were pictures of near-naked men in the windows.
“Hell no, John, you’re not dragging me in there,” he announced.
“Come on Paul, where’s your spirit of adventure? Think of it as a research assignment. Neither one of us has a clue how to do this thing, so lets get some reference materials and find out!” I was very jolly and magnanimous, now that I had gotten what I wanted. Paul, on the other hand, was looking at me with frank suspicion as I literally dragged him into the shop by his arm. It was as if he barely recognized me, and was wondering who I was.
The man behind the counter was clearly gay, and when he looked up and saw Paul, it was lust at first sight. And who could blame him? It was as if I didn’t exist. Paul was looking anywhere except at the magazines, because he was afraid of what he might see. So he got a full load of the avid attention being bestowed lavishly upon him by the shopkeeper. The man burst out in flowery French, fluttering around Paul with grand arm gestures and speaking flirtatious eyes, touching him often and for no apparent reason. Paul and I both stood there staring at him in stolid British disapproval.
“What’s he on about?” Paul whispered to me.
“He has the hots for you, Paul. Watch out!” I whispered back. Paul grumbled something about getting the hell out of there. “Don’t worry,” I said, batting my eyelashes, “I’ll protect you.” The exasperated look Paul shot me was priceless, and I had to laugh. I turned to the shopkeeper and I growled,
“What the hell do you think you’re doing? He’s mine! Find your own! Buzz off!” In the corner of my eye I saw Paul’s head drop dramatically into his hands. The poor little man scuttled off in terror, but at least he went away and left us alone. “That’ll fix him,” I said to Paul, brushing my hands in the universal sign of good riddance. “Now, let’s check out the merchandise, shall we?”
Paul had figured out I wasn’t going anywhere until I had what I was looking for, so he turned reluctantly to one of the magazine stands and, with an expression on his face of mixed horror and fascination, cast his eyes upon the magazine covers. If he saw what I was seeing, there were magazines featuring every kind of sex act known to man-on-man. I quickly got drawn into them. I had a stash of gay porn at home, of course, which I lived in constant fear of someone finding, so the porn wasn’t as shocking to me as it was to Paul.
Slowly, as if drawn to it by a magnet, Paul’s hand reached out and picked a magazine off the shelf. He opened it up, and it fell open to a picture of two men in the act of sodomy. Paul’s eyes grew three times larger than normal and he swore, “Blimey! That looks like it hurts!” I looked at it, and didn’t quite see it that way. He quickly shut the magazine and put it back on the shelf as if it was burning hot.
“Beauty’s in the eye of the beholder,” I told him playfully.
“No, seriously John, you don’t really want me to do that to you, do you? Don’t you think it would hurt like hell?” He was whispering. “It’s one thing to do that with a prossie, she’s used to it, but…really!”
Now, too late, I realized my plan might have backfired. The graphic nature of the photographs had scared the poor 19 year-old half to death. This was quite the opposite effect from what I was going for. I grabbed a few of the magazines at random, went over to the shopkeeper, who kept his eyes on the counter the whole time as he rang them up, wrapped them up, and handed them to me. Paul and I exited the place very quickly, and when the cool air hit our faces Paul yelled “Free!” and started running like a madman down the street, followed closely by me. We were laughing and shouting errant nonsense. When we got to the riverbank, and leaned against a parapet, our shoulders together and our minds deep in thought, Paul finally spoke.
“You know I think this is a mistake,” he said one more time. I nodded but said nothing. Receiving no last minute reprieve, he said, “Well, if we’re really going to do this thing, we might as well go back to the room. But I need alcohol first.”
Inwardly, I sighed deeply in relief. He wasn’t going to bail on me. Impulsively, I leaned in and quickly kissed him on the mouth. The sensation was thrilling to me, but Paul jumped back as if hit with an electric jolt. It was awkward, so I made a joke: “There’s more where that came from, son!” I proclaimed in my best stuffy British pub owner voice.
“Oh goodie,” Paul laughed half-heartedly, “I can’t wait.”
>>>>>>>>>>>
In the PG-13 rated movies, this is usually where the screen fades to black. And I struggled with how I was going to address what happened between us that night in this book. Paul made it clear what he wanted me to do about it. From my transcript:
John: So, let’s talk about the night in Paris when we first did it.
Paul: Holy mother of God! You’re not going to write about that, are you? Did you wake up insane this morning?
John: I was thinking about writing about it, yeah.
Paul: For what conceivable reason…! [He was grasping for words; he was totally speechless.]
John: Hear me out…
Paul: [Muttering] This better be good.
John: We write songs about it, and what I would write in the book could hardly be more graphic than some of our song lyrics.
Paul: A song is a song. It may be inspired by real life, but in the end it is just a song. And there is a greater purpose to a song – it is a form of art. And it is more universal. It could apply to anyone, because it is not too specific.
John: Yeah, I know. We’ve had this argument before. I’m trying to get past it.
Paul: Tell me one good reason for doing this. One. And it can’t be: “I want to.” That’s a reason, but not a good enough one in my opinion.
John: See, the only reason for doing the book at all is to make the point that life is art. All life is art.
Paul: So you’re telling me that exploiting our privacy is really art, if I would only look at it that way? [He hasn’t been this mad at me in a long time.]
John: “Exploit” is a pretty strong word, Paul. I’m not doing this for the money. Part of me wants to respond to all the crap that’s been written about us, and part of me wants to put our lives in a bigger perspective. So, I have dual purposes. But neither one involves exploiting anyone.
Paul: [He has regained control of his temper again. It obviously was a herculean effort.] I guess I just don’t understand how exposing our privacy in this way serves your ‘bigger perspective’ goal. You need to explain that better to me, John, because I just don’t get it.
John: Ok, let me try. The book is about a lot of things. On one level it is a bunch of facts about our lives. It is about 4 boys from Liverpool blah blah blah, and who said what to whom, when, and why. But on the deeper level, it is about our creative partnership, our business partnership, and our personal partnership. I am delving into those areas in deep detail. To just skip over our sexual relationship – to give it short shrift - would make the whole thing dishonest. Especially since it was the end of our sexual relationship that ended our friendship and partnership in the ‘60s. It’s a key part of the story.
Paul: [Smiling wryly at me] How many times do I have to tell you that honesty is a highly over-rated virtue?
John: But, answer me. Don’t you see my point?
Paul: What you’re telling me is that you believe if you leave it out it would compromise the artistic integrity of your book, right? Is that what you’re saying?
John: That’s what I’m saying.
Paul: Well, then, you need to do what you need to do. I’m certainly not going to censor your work.
John: But you don’t want me to do it.
Paul: I, Paul, the person, don’t want you to write about it because I would personally find it too intrusive. But I, Paul, your creative partner, don’t want to censor your work. So, ultimately, the decision is yours, not mine. Either way, I’m certainly not going to hold it against you. You’ve done much worse things to me over the years that I’ve forgiven. [He laughs.]
John: [Laughing, too] Ok then, I’ll give that a lot of thought. That’s helpful. But can we talk about it on the record so – in the event I choose to write about it - I can have your side of it?
Paul: First, there are no ‘sides’ to this. I’m sure we both agree on what happened that night. But if you want to talk with me about it, turn off the tape recorder and promise never to quote me. I’ll talk about any subject you like with you, for as long as you want to; you know that. But I really don’t want to have my most private thoughts and memories on this subject published for the whole bloody world to see, so I’m not going to participate in a formal interview on the topic. Fair enough?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
He’s no fun.
So, I guess I’ll go with the abbreviated version. Sorry, folks.
That night we got drunk and had sex twice. We woke up the next morning. We had more sex. We got hungry. We went to eat. After eating, we decided we wanted more sex, so went back to the room and literally dove into the bed, clothes flying in every direction. Some hours later (who knows how long?), Jurgen Vollmer came by unannounced, and found us naked in bed. He didn’t even look surprised, and kept talking to us as if it were normal. Paul and I stared at each other and then at him in disbelief.
“So, Jurgen, is this what it’s like in the bohemian art world? You just walk into rooms and there’s two men in the same bed naked, and you don’t react to it?” I asked. Paul leaned forward in anticipation of the answer.
“Of course it is not strange. It’s not as if you were having sex, is it? You just sleep in the nude, right?” Jurgen appeared to be utterly sincere. Paul and I looked at each other in pleasant surprise: reprieve!
“Yeah, that’s right,” Paul chirped.
“No way did we have sex,” I added.
“We just sleep in the raw,” Paul added.
“In the middle of the afternoon.” I added.
Paul said: “Ah, Jurgen, can you step out of the room while we get dressed?”
Jurgen looked surprised. “I have seen naked men before. I will not blush,” he said in his endearing way.
“Yeah, but we might,” Paul suggested.
Jurgen shrugged as if to say, “These crazy Englishmen” and got up to leave the room. As soon as the door closed, Paul and I fell about the room laughing, but trying to do it quietly so Jurgen couldn’t hear.
Paul suggested we agree to meet Jurgen at a specific time and place and send him on his way for an hour or so.
“I desperately need a bath, John,” he pointed out.
Oh yeah. Good idea that. I suddenly desperately needed one too.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Years later, after it became common knowledge amongst our closest friends and associates that we were lovers, we met up with Jurgen and his partner in Berlin for dinner. Jurgen said,
“You could have knocked me over with a feather when I found out about you two. I never had the slightest clue!” Paul and I both erupted in sounds of disbelief.
I cried out: “Jurgen, you walked in on us while we were in bed together nude – in Paris – don’t you remember? We thought for sure you’d sussed us out then!”
Jurgen looked absolutely mystified. “But you two always slept in the same bed, this was not at all unusual,” he said, as if that was a reasonable explanation.
We were both looking at him with expressions that said, “yes, we did, and did this not make you wonder?” But we could see it was pointless – Jurgen really was clueless - so we just laughed and shook our heads.
“So Jurgen,” Paul asked after a moment, “what exactly would John and I have had to do in front of you before you would ‘get a clue’?” Jurgen blushed and we all laughed, and then Paul and I decided to let him off the hook. But really!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
After our bath, we met Jurgen for lunch, and then we continued our sightseeing. While we were of course glad to see him, we couldn’t wait to get rid of him. (No offense, Jurgen, if you’re reading this.) We wanted more sex. We didn’t get it right away, though. Instead, Jurgen took us to the Montmartre Market, where we saw young people wearing crazy wide-legged pantaloons and billowy shirts. They were all the rage in Paris. We decided to each buy a pair of these exotic pants (the shirts were too over-the-top, even for us), and then Jurgen took us back to his flat. He made dinner, and we told him how much we admired his hair. He offered to cut our hair to look like his. He wore it long, with the bangs falling down over his forehead and the sides falling over the ears, with shorter sideburns. We stayed up late while he cut (butchered) our hair. This was the first time Paul and I sported a version of what would later become known as “the Beatle haircut”. Of course, the European men had been wearing their hair like that for some time before we ever did. We may have been among the very first Britons to do our hair that way, though.
We said goodnight to Jurgen, and then walked back to our pensione through a very light drizzle – nothing we weren’t totally used to, coming from northern England. I wanted to act like a couple, but was too shy to make any such moves. Somehow I understood that the gymnastics of sex was one thing, but a lovey-dovey display of affection was another thing altogether. I strongly doubted that Paul would want to participate in any of the latter, so I didn’t dare push for it.
The next day we wore the pantaloons out to a café for lunch. We both felt utterly ridiculous. Paul said: “I could feel the cloth flapping at my ankles - I couldn’t stand it!” We both cut a run back to our room. We took the pants and cut them down into drainies, and put them back on and ventured back into the world.
We walked to the Eiffel Tower, and climbed to the top. Once there, we just stared at the sights for about 45 minutes shoulder to shoulder, and then we raced each other back down. (I won, but I cheated.) Tired, we went under the Tower, and lay down on a grassy verge under it, staring up through the iron frets and struts to a gloomy Paris sky.
“What’s going to happen to us, Paul, do you reckon?” I asked, staring upwards.
After a thoughtful silence, Paul said, “Whatever it is, it will be unusual.” Believing that to be the best possible answer to that particular question, I smiled happily.
For those 12 days and nights in Paris, we probably spent about 65% of our time in the room. We did manage to have a few more interesting forays into the “real world”. We went to the Folies Bergere one night, and took a boat ride on the Seine. We huddled over the railing in the dark, and just listened to the music and the sounds of people partying. It was a very peaceful experience. It is a cliché, but there is no place like Paris when you are madly in love. The whole city is dripping with romance at all times of the day and night, and in all weathers.
I didn’t have a clue about what Paul was thinking of the whole scenario at the time. He later told me that he was at turns exhilarated and confused. As the countdown for return started, the confusion started to outweigh the exhilaration for him. He told me this: “I didn’t know if I was up or down, coming or going. It was disorienting. It was hard to know what would happen next, and I’m a bit of a control freak [No!] and this was not a good feeling for me.”
On October 9th, my birthday, Paul woke me up early and asked me what I wanted to do to celebrate my 21st. I told him about the club I had seen a flyer for at the porn shop we had visited. I had grabbed the flyer on my way out. It was for what I assumed to be the Parisian equivalent of the Barcelona “boy bars”. It was a “men only” club with “divine music” and a “romantic atmosphere.” I think I would have preferred something more bohemian, but I had no way of knowing if there were any such clubs in Paris. I told Paul I wanted to go to this club. Paul scanned the flyer and said, “John, this is a Poofter Bar.” I acknowledged that this was true, but pointed out it was our only chance of ever going to one, because we certainly weren’t going to go to one in Liverpool where everyone knew us!
Since it was my birthday, Paul agreed to go, although I could see he had serious reservations. We got there about 11:00 p.m. that night after dining in an inexpensive bistro. The doorman took one look at us, and opened the door. No questions at all. Paul looked at me and said, “I don’t know if I like that we’re so welcome here.” We both laughed.
Because we were performers, we were experts at hiding our shyness in front of strangers, no matter the situation. So we both sauntered in there as if we owned the joint, looking around with fraudulent expressions of jaded disinterest. We went to the bar to get drinks. Before Paul could even put his foot on the bar rail, he was propositioned by an elegant looking man in his fifties. He said to Paul, after figuring out Paul spoke English, not French, “I will buy your friend a drink too, but I have eyes only for you.” Paul turned to me with a look of sheer panic on his face. There was nothing to do but come to his rescue, like with the little man at the porn shop. The interloper responded grumpily and very reluctantly to my possessive glare, gave a shrug, and departed. But not without giving Paul’s bum a pinch first, though.
“Blimey John! This place gives me the creeps.”
Almost as soon as the words left his mouth, two more men approached him from different directions. The two of them were obviously peeved that they had competition, and seemed to be telling each other (in French) “I was here first,” “No, I was!”
“I’ll make it easy for you both!” I declared loudly and they both stopped whispering angrily at each other and looked at me. “He’s not available. He’s with me. Get lost.”
I don’t know if they understood what I said, but they got the gist, and turned away. After they disappeared, I suggested to Paul that we find a table, where he would not look so much like he was on display. We grabbed our drinks and found a table in as inconspicuous a place as possible. From this safe haven, we scouted the place out. I noticed there were several wealthy looking men eyeing us from around the room. Most of them were eyeing Paul, actually, but a number of the more feminine ones seemed to be trying to meet my eye. We enjoyed our drinks and watched the crowd. Piano music was being played, and male couples were dancing – well, more groping than dancing, actually. It was weird to watch two blokes grinding away on the dance floor. I know that sounds really stupid coming from someone who just told you he had been having days and nights of mind-blowing sex with his best friend, but I still saw myself as a bloke, and Paul as a bloke. And neither one of us could actually look at two blokes going at it in comfort. I guess you can take the boy out of Liverpool, but... I finally decided I wanted to experience the club 100% so I could know I did. I asked Paul to dance with me.
He was clearly reluctant, but since it was my birthday gift, he could hardly say no. I found it much easier to dance with Paul, then to watch strange blokes dancing. Why is that I wonder? With Paul, for me, it just felt right. Of course, I could tell Paul was mortified by the whole experience until the pianist played “Red Sails in the Sunset”. This was one of the many songs Paul sang in our greatly increased repertoire (we liked the Platters’ 1960 version), and he laughed at the recognition. After a few bars, however, he started to sing the words to me in my ear. It sounds corny, but that became one of “our songs”. It isn’t even one of our favorite songs! But boy does it bring back memories.
Our last night in Paris was bittersweet for me. I suspect it was an altogether more emotionally confusing experience for Paul. He had made what he thought was a huge compromise for me, and had found out it wasn’t difficult at all. That had to mess with his mind. I really didn’t want to dwell on unpleasant fears of the future, and wanted instead to have a deep emotional connection that night. While Paul was up for the more gymnastic version of sex, I think he found anything more intimate to be scary. For instance, he didn’t want to kiss, so I had to forego that pleasure. I understood that I would have to be satisfied with what he was willing to give me, although it wouldn’t be long before I would be pushing for more. (That would be my pattern throughout the sixties. Push, and get a little further. Push again, and get a little further still. Push, push, push. By 1968 I had pushed him into a fucking corner. No wonder he made a run for it!) Anyway, I did feel very emotionally close to him that night, and – although Paul claims not to remember after all this time – I’m pretty sure he at least felt something approaching intimacy for me as well. With Paul, in those days, you really couldn’t tell. He was in so many ways still a firmly closed book. I think he himself was closed off from those feelings, too, and did not experience them directly. I think they were shoved into one of his compartments, and then locked up tight.
I had just enough money left to buy airline tickets so we could fly home to Liverpool, rather than hitch hike. As Paul said at the time, “We’re the world’s laziest hitch hikers.” We sat next to each other in the tiny seats in the small aircraft and experienced flight for the first time - another ‘first’ experience we shared together. I surreptitiously grasped his hand. I’m sure I had a silly grin on my face.
“It wasn’t so bad, was it now?” I asked him softly as we winged our way home.
Paul, whose head was thrown back against the seat cushion, and whose eyes were closed, lifted one eye open. He didn’t say anything. He just gave me a naughty wink as he squeezed my hand.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
John: So I finished the part about Paris.
Paul: I see. Will I need to purchase a disguise to wear in public from now on?
John: Maybe a fake mustache and a trilby, but no more than that.
Paul: I am so relieved to hear that. You have no idea.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Real Life
Arriving back in Liverpool, I felt the same as poor Cinderella did when her coach turned back into a pumpkin. I had a nervous stomach, and a new fear began to eat at me. Paris is one thing. We were away from everyone and everything we knew, and all of our responsibilities and obligations had been suspended in mid-air. But now we were back in the real world again. Paul had his father and brother to deal with, not to mention his huge ganglion of extended family. Jim was always pushing him to bring money in, and that, in turn, would piss me off because it meant Paul wasn’t available whenever I wanted him. I had Aunt Mimi on my case, too, not so subtly implying that a job would not be a bad thing for me to consider. (I even worked for a short period at the airport to earn money to buy a new guitar, but quit when (1) I had enough money to buy the guitar, and (2) I could no longer get up at 6-o’fucking clock in the morning every day.)
And then – most worrying from my perspective - we both had a large number of friends who would certainly find it strange indeed if they found us in bed naked together in the middle of the afternoon, and they were none too subtle with their questions about why we never made it to Spain. Especially since, as Paul said, “It’s bad enough we ran off to Paris together; but to top it off we came back with girls’ haircuts!” Would this family and peer pressure cause Paul to pull away from any further sexual contact with me?
Finally, there was the band, and the temporary problem of having no drummer. George Harrison, though liking and quickly adopting the hairstyle, was pissed off at us for leaving him behind, so we had some fences to mend there, too. It made a bloke want to grab his lover, turn around, and go straight back to Paris. If only he had more money.
>>>>>>>>>
I suddenly knew what it felt like to be a girl who leaves her phone number with a bloke she likes, and then goes through hell worrying that he won’t call her. Would Liverpool and all its prejudices swallow Paul up again? Will it all have been for naught? Only time would tell, but I found it very difficult to do that time.
A few days after we returned from Paris, the band convened in Jim McCartney’s front room on Forthlin Road. George and Paul and I confronted Pete about his here-again, gone-again behavior, and he pleaded with us to understand that his family needed him to help out because they were going through a bad spot financially. Paul brokered an agreement whereby we agreed to try to work around him for a few more months, until his family’s finances were back on track. In turn, Pete agreed to find at least four free nights a week to play with us at the Cavern, where we were starting up our house run again.
Meanwhile, George was very snarky with us for a good week or two after our return. It was like he was pouting. I wanted to give him a good whack in the back of the head, but Paul counseled patience. “If we just ignore it, he’ll grow tired of it, and he’ll stop.” That, indeed, is what happened. When George noticed we weren’t reacting to his nonsense, he stopped pouting. It did give me pause for thought: had Paul been employing this tactic during my “freeze outs” of him?
Figuring out where Paul and I stood was harder. I felt as though he was avoiding situations where we could be intimate or speak on subjects other than the band. Maybe I was paranoid; because Paul later assured me that he wasn’t trying to avoid me. He was just extremely busy, making up for 2 weeks of not doing his share at home, and trying to get the band back on its feet. His father was furious about his giving up on his A levels and then going off on holiday with the likes of me, and as a result, things were not going well at home for him at all. In addition, at that time, Paul was doing most of our bookings. He had gone ‘round to the missed gigs and eaten a lot of shit, and promised to make it up with a free gig each (which we did). I hadn’t gone with him to repair these damaged but important relationships because I found doing stuff like that to be demeaning and embarrassing. Looking back at my younger self I am amazed at how presumptuous I was to behave that way. At the time, though, I saw it as Paul’s job to do all the embarrassing schmoozing and sales work.
Upon our return from Paris, Paul and I also had a lot of explaining to do to our girlfriends. Cynthia was upset that I hadn’t taken her to Paris, and Dot was upset that Paul went off for two weeks without telling her where he was going. I know that I told Cynthia a whole truck full of whoppers just to make her feel better and get her off my back; when I asked Paul what he told Dot, he said, “I told her I was off on holiday with my mate, sorry I forgot to say goodbye, and that’s all I had to say about it.”
Notwithstanding Paul’s assurances to the contrary, I believe that he needed a decompression time to think things over after our whirlwind sexcapade, whereas I didn’t. I still wanted to press forward, full steam ahead, and I had no second thoughts. After about 10 days back in Liverpool, I was freaking out over it. But it felt stupid to go charging over there like a bird, screaming, “why haven’t you called me?” I was sitting in my room at Mimi’s house early one afternoon (having given up the flat when I lost a paying roommate), strumming my guitar, and obsessing over Paul, when the doorbell rang. Soon, I heard the familiar sound of Paul coming up the steps. He rapped on the door in his distinctive way, and opened it without waiting, as was his habit.
“Hey, mate. What are you doing in here in the middle of the day? Let’s get out and do something.” He was in a disgustingly cheerful mood, and I was in no mood to be trifled with. But I grudgingly got up. He had his acoustic guitar over his shoulder (as usual), and so I took mine, and we headed out the door.
“Where are we going, then?” I asked him testily.
He looked at me with a very suggestive smile and said, “I thought Strawberry Fields would be nice for a start.” Who was I to disagree?
>>>>>>>>>>>>
After that afternoon spent together in Strawberry Fields, the empty pit feeling in the bottom of my stomach went away. Not only did Paul feel the same about me as he had in Paris, but in some ways he seemed far more confident about our relationship.
Although he still had girls lining up ‘round the block to go out with him, and although I knew he had sex with all of them, he was sensitive enough to make sure I had no firsthand knowledge of it. Other than our double dates with Cynthia and his girlfriend Dot, he protected me from seeing the women, or meeting them, or knowing what he was doing in that regard. I appreciated it, but it didn’t stop me from being intensely jealous in private. This jealousy did lead me to cut quite a swath through the women who hung about the clubs late at night. I was chalking up numbers to rival Paul’s.
Still, as for me, after Paris everything changed. I wasn’t really overly interested in women sexually anymore. I did feel as though I had to make a showing (and I did make a showing), but it wasn’t nearly as fun as it used to be, and I pursued women now in a kind of half-hearted, easy-come, easy-go style. Paul was careful not to have sex with girls in my presence anymore, so I was on my own with these one-night-stands now. I started to believe that the only reason I would get so excited while fucking girls before was that Paul was there fucking too, and so maybe I was doing a little projecting, there. (Maybe?) Once I didn’t have that motivating factor any longer, the whole occupation seemed to be far less enjoyable, if not completely pointless.
Paul did have a point. I still had a girlfriend –Cynthia. And, ostensibly, he had one too – Dot. We were never sexually faithful to them, or to anyone else for that matter, so why should we expect this of each other? It made sense, I guess, but the difference for me was I cared about Cynthia, I enjoyed sex with Cynthia, but I wasn’t deeply in love with Cynthia. I was deeply in love with Paul. Paul still did not get this about me. I am sure he thought that my yearnings were only physical. Bizarre and inexplicable as they might have seemed to him, I am sure he believed I was driven by hormones in this regard, and not by deep emotional attachment. His sexuality was so extreme and fine-tuned that he could get excited about fucking anything, I think, and I believe he ascribed the same quality to me. And, honestly, I doubt if I understood it too well myself. So I took what I could get, and endeavored to be satisfied with it.
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So it was back to the Cavern for the Beatles in October 1961. We had more or less patched ourselves back together. Suddenly there was a groundswell of fan action, however. We weren’t quite sure why this suddenly happened, but George suggested it was because when Paul and I supposedly went off to Spain to become folk singers, the fans thought they’d lost the Beatles for good, so our reappearance was greeted with enthusiasm far greater than we had experienced before we left. This was just one of the many times when the Beatles defied show business traditions and rules.
In show business, absence is not supposed to make the fans’ hearts grow fonder.
And it wasn’t just the Cavern that desperately wanted us. Allan Williams at the Jacaranda was insisting we play his club too, so we played the Jacaranda the days we weren’t playing the Cavern, and still more and more fans kept coming! We had no idea where they all were coming from, but apparently the word was out in the colleges and grammar schools, and even in other nearby towns, such as Blackpool and even Manchester. In fact, we became so popular we often had to perform without our trademark leathers, because we had occasionally to get them dry-cleaned.
Between October 17 and the end of December 1961, the Beatles were booked at least 6 days a week every week. We had never been so much in demand, and we were beginning to be overwhelmed with the crowds and the fans. Paul had four or five girls sleeping outside his garden gate, which upset his father very much. Paul was sent outside to try to talk them into leaving, but they only grabbed a hold of him and tried to tear his clothes off. Jim and Mike rushed out to save him from an indecent exposure charge. They would leave love notes in his mailbox. Then George reported he was getting the love notes too. Just when I was getting a complex, I started to get them. And Pete. It was insane. We had no idea what was going on, or how to handle it. Although Brian gets the credit for lighting the fire which propelled us like a cannon ball out of Liverpool and into the stratosphere, I’d just like to point out here that the cannon was already loaded and ready to fire before he even walked in the door.
It was in this manner that 1961 drew to a close. It had been a momentous year for me. We had gone to Hamburg and had become the “It” band there, accumulating a lot of fans and good buzz. Then Stu Sutcliffe had thrown me for a loop, leaving the band and our friendship to follow his two true loves – Astrid and art. I had almost lost Paul. While I had felt gutted when that happened, I had regrouped, and the result of Stu’s departure was my determination to finally drag Paul even further into the murky depths of my emotional life. (Even if he was kicking and screaming the whole way.) This had culminated in a much- delayed consummation in a series of heady, mind-blowing sex-fests in a Paris garret.
What Paul felt or worried about as a result of this set of circumstances was an open question for me. Suddenly, he seemed to close up and become even more unreadable than he had been before. I would later understand that this is what Paul does when he is emotionally overwhelmed and confused. I was immature in 1961, though, and was filled with anxiety about the changes I saw in how he interacted with me – as though he was protecting himself from me. While our sexual relationship had seemed to survive the return home, Paul, of course, had already neatly compartmentalized it, adding it with seeming aplomb to the other sundry relationships and obligations he perpetually juggled. How he felt about it was not open to discussion.
So now it was down to me to learn to live with that reality if I could.
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