PFK1

PLAYING FOR KEEPS

M. J. RENNIE

Revised With a New Introduction

ISBN 9781615087594

All rights reserved

Copyright 2012 M. J. Rennie

This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.

For information:

http://SizzlerEditions.com/Intoxication

Sizzler/Intoxication Erotic Romance

A Renaissance E Books publication

(Previously published as SEX AND SEXIBILITY)

"For what do we live, but to make sport of our neighbors and laugh

at them in our turn?"

–Jane Austen

"The course of true love never did run smooth."

–William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

2

AUTHOR’S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. The persons, places, and situations

described in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination

or are used fictionally.

Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, both living

and dead, is entirely coincidental.

3

Nobody knows the boys better than I do, being one myself. The

ironic fact is that I wasn’t supposed to be a boy, as my esteemed

parents told me later that they would have preferred a girl. As it

turned out, I was kind of like a girl in a lot of ways, although a

tomboy and future lesbian sort of girl, meanwhile blessed with the gift

of a boy’s body and a male presence.

But gifts, however, can also be trouble, as you shall see in the

following narrative. It’s made for an unusual and somewhat solitary

take on life – this appreciation for the characteristics of both genders.

The fact is that boys and girls would probably be a lot better off if

they knew more about what the other was thinking. Girls especially

are in the dark about who boys are and what they think. Girls think

they know but they don’t. They never really seem to grasp how

genuinely submissive the best boys are, how willing and eager to be

led.

In return, boys need to have their sexuality managed, guided, and

directed. Bright men particularly require frequent orgasms, and the

more inventively achieved, the better. John F. Kennedy comes to

mind as the classic example.

The wise woman will therefore supply her man with what the writer

Elise Sutton calls Loving Female Authority, which is an apt term for

the phenomenon of a wife-led marriage. In her columns, Sutton

outlines techniques for soaring male climaxes as well as strict,

appropriate male discipline.

Which circles us back to the basic problem.

From the diary of Bridget Jones to the columns of Candace

Bushnell to the internal monologues of Anastasia Steele, we have

lately learned much about how contemporary women view sex,

romance, themselves, and the opposite gender.

It may be in some instances that we know altogether too much, for

feminine authors are not shy about expressing their opinions at length

about males in books, blogs, newspapers, magazines, movies,

4

television, the internet, or just over the back fence. Their obsession

with romance is also well known.

What we very rarely hear expressed is how men feel about women,

for men as a gender are rather reticent when it comes to matters of

emotion. They don’t talk much about their romantic feelings, either to

each other or, perish forbid, to women. Why this occurs appears to lie

in the fact that men are on the whole astonishingly inarticulate about

their own feelings.

If they do try to say something about how they feel, it often comes

out wrong, or misses that level of nuance that distinguishes sincere

emotion from pretense.

One way or another, they can’t get it right.

The narrator of this novel is an exception.

A novice writer, Patrick Compton boldly takes the plunge,

describing, in colloquial terms, his feelings for the women of his time

– their looks, habits, attitudes, behaviors, sexuality, and personal

capabilities.

The statements Pat crafts prove that one man was willing to provide

an honest opinion during the time period covered, from 1977-1979, if

only to himself. The years were, as the Chinese curse goes,

"interesting" to say the least.

The broad outlines of a society that was to emerge are here

examined in ways that I’ve seen nowhere else described.

And the most remarkable thing is that I was the person doing it. I

won’t deny that the source of the ensuing novel is based on my own

journals, with some small embellishments. I’m seeing my own warts

here for the most part, and it’s unnerving.

Still, could there be any subject in literature more compelling than

the relationships between women and men? I think not. In our

narrator’s circle, the young women are fishers of men.

By the time he starts writing, Patrick has been around enough to

know that sex is a lure with a barbed hook at the center. Like most

young men, he is willing to snatch the bait without taking the hook, if

he can. Not very often can he, and when he tries, there are usually

unpleasant consequences.

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But he is also mature enough to know that a life lived alone is an

inferior experience and he is therefore not totally averse to getting

hooked, as long as it is by the right tackle and with the right angler at

the other end of the line. Can he do it? That is the question, which

hangs in the balance.

The memory is faulty and tends to play tricks. Words written as an

event occurs or in its immediate aftermath are considered factual

enough to be admissible in court.

For the sake of privacy and for purposes of art, I’ve altered many of

the real names, places, characters, circumstances, and individual

situations in this book. Otherwise, it stands as a true chronicle of the

period. What else can I say?

The essence of the novel is the contrast between how young women

appear to young men in reality, particularly one young man, as

opposed to the romantic fantasies women entertain about themselves.

The obvious question: Could I have ever actually been this guy?

The answer, fortunately and unfortunately, is yes.

On the other hand, our Mr. Compton’s views, from raunchy to

exalted, are not that unique nor are they out of the bounds of common

experience. As the story unfolds, we are treated to an unvarnished

look at the young people of a certain generation, now much older, and

soon to be gone forever.

Nothing fundamental ever really changes between the sexes,

because at a certain level, we are what nature dictates. Males seek to

maximize their sexual opportunities, meanwhile taking steps to ensure

that the progeny they parent are their own.

Females in turn seek security for their offspring as an absolute

value. All the rest is window dressing – style, fads, art, politics,

religion, fashion, music, mores, and gadgets.

Throughout the 1970s until his retirement in 1980, the famed

journalist Walter Cronkite would end his newscasts with the following

words:

"And that’s the way it is."

6

Well, this is the way it was, sort of. This is how it played out in a

particular time and place, one young man’s view meant to serve as an

emblem for the universal.

Should your millennial or global grandchild ever wonder what it

was like to be young and in love back in the good old days, here’s an

answer, a romance from a male standpoint, and its intended audience

is a single specific young woman, and by extension, every other

young woman who has had her troubles with ... a young man.

–M. J. Rennie

7

November 10, 1977

Beginning a new volume.

One year ago this month, I moved back to Cyanide City, also

known as Portland, Oregon. Since August, I have been living with

Chesley Harlan in this 1920s period house in the Southeast part of

town, not quite a mile from the neighborhood where I once lived. The

address is 3024 SE 25th. One block away is the Clinton Street

Theater. Every Friday and Saturday at midnight they run The Rocky

Horror Picture Show. I’ve never seen the movie, but I really dig the

costumes on the chicks who line up outside to see it.

Okay. Enough said for the glorious homecoming of Patrick J.

Compton, age 26. I still hate this town and my dissatisfaction with

life in general remains undiminished. The only therapy I have for this

condition is my habit of compulsive writing.

Unlike my previous efforts at journal composition, from now on I

plan to break from my straight summary occasionally to enhance this

narrative with nonfiction "novelizations" of some of the more

interesting events as they occur.

These novelizations will occasionally involve vivid sexual

description, so be aware of that if you are reading this without my

permission!

Once again I have decided to take a stab at my
The Dark City

manuscript. I’ve been working on it in fits and starts since last month

but now I am truly serious.

What a pile of shit it is.

Got a letter from Polly Ellsworth last week and I am not quite sure

what to make of it. In a discussion I had with Charles R., he said

Polly might split from her boyfriend after all. So I wrote her and

offered to go down there or see her up here.

Whichever.

But her response was frankly puzzling. Maybe she just wants to

flick me shit again. Here it goes:

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Dear Patrick:

Your most recent letter does deserve a response. I still live with the

man you mentioned. I plan to move at least every 2-3 weeks.

Sometimes I move to my own place daily – if only for an hour or so.

My cat Meow is never there, but the freshly painted white walls,

the overstuffed furniture of a neutral color, and Venetian blinds make

up for the loss of my furry one. Suffice it to say that I have felt the

need to move into a place of my own ever since the first month of

living with Mr. G., and, although the need has survived and possibly

grown, I have not made the appropriate actions to satisfy it. I voiced

my dissatisfactions to Lori in May or June and quite possibly she

assumed that I would/could move, hence the information you

apparently received second hand from Monsieur Charles.

In all actuality, and what else is there? – (nothing like whimsicality

to pick up an otherwise stultified correspondence) I have never even

looked, even casually, for a place of my own.

You brother Mick is in Africa, eh? The Peace Corps? I do envy

him, although it is probably mentally and emotionally taxing, or

maybe not. Good old Mick. I suppose you do miss him. And you’ve

moved into a house with the turnkey.

When I think of you living in the environs you mentioned, with all

those people around, I say to myself "sounds like fun." But I’d never

put that in this letter. I wonder if you are keeping your political

talents in use? Hmmm?

What’s the word from Leanne? I am gradually losing touch with

Blane. I see him (in the literal sense) about once every three months.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I felt myself slipping away. Not much

to do about that, is there? Just slipping away. Like that, in so many

(or perhaps fewer) words.

My family is fine. I like my job as a nurse. It is physically and

emotionally draining, and is fucking hard work. I have been morose,

(unduly morose, perhaps) after having helped a cherished patient kick

the old bucket, as they say. Other than that (what?) There is nothing