January, 1999 There was nothing that could have prevented the President from being impeached, according to the media. The Republicans thought they would get Clinton with the Whitewater scandal, then with Foster and Wiley’s suspicious deaths, but they finally caught him in a cover-up liaison. Unfortunately, what was expected to be a sensational victory for them fell flat. A sexual affair was too thin of an offense to be taken seriously by the people, the polls revealed. The fact that Clinton wanted to keep private his sexual affair when Hillary was busy serving her causes was understandable to most of the population. Of course, Bill Clinton couldn't show his hand. He would have lost everything. Same with O.J. Simpson. They had to continue to waltz around the truth to survive. Waving like kings, the show must go on. And this Pete couldn't swallow.

To release pent up emotions, I started to frequent chat rooms online. My partner is frustrated, seeing Bill Clinton having fun at the White House while he is still trying to make it big at the California edge. At forty-eight, he has yet to realize his American Dream. Cut off from his orgasmic body, he focuses on others sins, anxious to punish. There is nothing I can do to get his attention. His blood calls for respect. Surfing the net between dumps and comments, I was searching for models of harmony based on nature: circles of interwoven energies that bring balance and abundance to a group rather than dictation and intimidation. I imagined a Senate adopting the Native American Medicine Wheel as a model for conflict resolution, as opposed to rings of pitbulls, biting at each other's, to better destroy their opposites.

I returned to my Tantra-Yoga and Zen practices, everything he hated and would "never, never have anything to do with”, he said many times. "But we are here together. We have to learn to live with tolerance!" "It’s impossible," he said. "That would mean to betray and forget all that I have learned. I am afraid civil war is unavoidable". I was not sure I was hearing righ, trying to make excuses for him, like that it was probably his inner "G.I. Joe" talking. "We don't have to kill each other anymore" I said. "We are in the 20th Century; we can communicate." I was getting nervous and upset, despite working on quieting my mind to remain objective. "You don't understand," he said. "We cannot have a free world as long as the power is in the hands of a manipulative person. It is to save democracy that we impeach him, and I am not asking you to understand." The president’s devious character was a serious matter for many. All he could think or talk about was Clinton. Pete stopped enjoying food, sex, and me for that matter. According to him, everything was wrong and unworthy as long as a coward was in the oval office. Clamped jaws and braced chest, my usually clear-minded soldier got entangled in a cat-and-mouse game with a larger-than-life alter ego. So he left our nest, and moved all his files, newsletters and magazines to his old bedroom at his mother's house.

All that saddened me. How could my lover be anything less than bitterly thirst for revenge, when he had been shaped by domineering parents, teachers and colonels who had trained him to lower the eyes, shut his mouth, and obey without questions? "We won't put our attention on anything else till Clinton is out of office, and we will win!" he shouted in my face, defiant. I was concerned. Was he right or crazy and I, wrong and ignorant? "We don't have to have "a" winner", I said. "Like the boomers, America is wising up, and moving at the center.” "What angers me most," said Pete outraged, "is when a liberal adopts a Republican discourse, disguising himself as a chameleon. You know the nature of the chameleons? You never know where they stand. They change colors, and blend with the environment. With their slippery qualities, you can never put your finger on where they start, and where they finish. "Like the tricksters," I said. "There must be only one winner in the end," he said, "and it has to be us!" I was devastated. I could see there was nothing I could do to change the course of a chaotic future. Pete had started to hate Clinton more than loving me. Night and day on the net, he was pushing me out of his life for "irreconcilable differences". The same differences we can't do without, I was trying to explain, like the left and the right hands; men and women, the opposites and all in between. “We all live together for the common wealth,” I said. He winced with disgust.

His judgments hurt. Pete didn't want pleasure, he said. He was a fighter. "There are more important things in life than love!" Pete reminded me of the serious man in The Little Prince by St-Exupery, who only had time for serious calculations on his very serious planet, and no time to grow a rose. "You don't understand and there is no time to explain," Pete was saying. "We have a job to do, and we’ll finish it!" "Who is "we"?" "Republicans and American groups unknown to you, but are very angry, -- very, very angry," he wouldd insist. He was gathering his information from the Republican Circle, the Christian Coalition and the NRA via e and snail-mails. Plus, The National Review and The American Spectator magazines were piling up on the coffee table. Once in a while, I would browse through them to see what they were saying. The spite, hatred, biases, demeaning jokes and caricatures found in their pages appalled me. "Why are you feeding your spirit with such literature," I’d protest. "This is propaganda. This is trash! And you claim to be Christian?" The columnists sounded just like the angry priests of my childhood, who had threatened me with excommunication for reading the Existentialist philosophers.

I left the room, ignoring the question. He joined me in the bathroom. "It seems that socialist communists need large organizations to handle masses of helpless people who never learn to take care of themselves," Pete said. "They seem to want to depend on large organizations of loafers to secure their life, pension and future. At the other end, the Republicans say you are free to start any enterprise and succeed; you are in control. You are an entrepreneur, a creator. Socialism and communism depend on masses of weak people to stay in power." "Yet, I don't see you as a free man, either." "But I am free!" he said. "I have choice of career and religion. I can earn as much money as I want to, and can study anything I want.” While he was brushing his teeth, I told him that to me, freedom means to be free from beliefs, religions, dogmas, rules, authorities, bosses, even money. "You liberal!" he said, choking, "you are just rebelling." "I am freeing myself from men-made religious threats of burning in hell for eternity, as an example,” I said. "I can't help but be totally disgusted by Clinton's behavior," Pete continued, ignoring my comment, spitting into the sink. "Why do you hate him so much?" I asked. "First, he escaped military service. How can I let a coward be my Commander-in-Chief, and have power over me? Second, he lied about inhaling marijuana. Third, there is a trail of unexplained murders in his footsteps from Arkansas to Washington: awkward accidents, suicides, explosions, sudden deaths, cover ups, mysteries and conspiracies that all point in the direction of plots to acquire power.” Pete was spiteful and cynical. I only saw furtive sparks of light coming from his aura, when he melted in my arms, enjoying my body; but the embraces were short lived. They were always followed by guilt and anxiety. I had started to befriend him in compassion for his arrogant attitude. We were both loners. After having been his neighbor for nine years, I had started to love him enough to converse, and share some nutritional tips, and Tantric sensual massages. Though he remained suspicious of anything Eastern, he always came back for more. For these reasons, and the fact that I sometimes referred to myself as Goddess, when we entered sacred grounds, made him perceive me as a She-Devil Temptress.

Clinton, Pete and I - s1.1 (cont'd)

"Communism started to infiltrate the government, schools and universities in the fifties to impose values such as 'don't worry, we'll take care of everything for you,'" Pete continued, “a perfect set-up for corruption, where everyone tries to secure a place for him or her self in a hierarchical bureaucracy." I didn’t react, and went to make the bed. "This led to the students' revolution in the Sixties. A cancer that started to sabotage individual freedom," he rambled, following me. "I studied Mao Tse Tung", I said, arranging the pillows. "I read Trotsky and admired Che Guevara for talking in terms of 'comradeship and equality for all', because that sounded more democratic than those who condemned my sexual explorations or artistic freedom of expression. In my mind, fascists were fierce oppressors, while communists and socialists were opening avenues of hope of shared abundance, if we worked together." "Whose 'abundance'?" Pete asked.