“Do you?” she whispered in his ear. His alien mind thought it over for a full second and answered—Of course you don’t, idiot. Sex; all of it. Glands and gratitude.
“I do, I do,” he muttered heatedly, kissing her earlobe.
“Oh god, Erick, I love you so!” she said suddenly and passionately, her fingers clutching his leg, rubbing her side against his.
Their mouths locked in the darkness and her tongue slid quickly into his mouth, warm and wet. She pulled away with a gasp.
“Leo,” he said.
“Oh, Erick. Darling.”
Issued the voice from his hidden brain, from the man sitting in his dripping cold catacomb and yawning—What is all this estimable horse shit? Voice like a cold trickle of water on the wall of a crypt. You’re gibbering boy, you’re gibbering, don’t blow a nut now.
“Is your mind working again?” she said, making him start.
“No,” he said.
She kissed him on the mouth and her hot breath clouded down his throat. Then she muttered in his ear.
“Good.”
He wondered why she didn’t say anything about marriage. He waited, afraid to bring it up himself. The he realized that he was hardly the archetype of the successful man. One story sold for $25 and that received with no recognition at all. All his efforts for success, futile.
It made him angry. It made him want to throw away his typewriter and try something else. Anything else. But he knew there was nothing. Not unless he robbed a bank, he thought with a wry twitch of his lips.
There was nothing. If he were working in one of his favorite banes—a den of nine to five—he would probably commit suicide the first month. He was sure of it. Suicide was something always there. He knew that. And it all gave him an empty, hollow feeling as if this talk were just stale wind, hopeless and worthless. He sat there limply while she caressed him and got more and more excited.
They sat there until three in the morning.
He kept saying “You should get some sleep,” and she kept answering, “I know but I can’t bear to leave you.”
So they sat and she ran her hands all over him and he touched her body and she shuddered and kept saying angrily, almost apologetically, he thought, “Damn this hotel for making it so hard to get anyone in my room!”
Not—to take you to my room—he noted. It made him feel more empty. As though he had given his love for nothing, plucked it out and booted it down a black bottomless hole.
Finally they went to the lobby and she pressed against him and looked up.
“Erick, I love you,” she said, “I always loved you. Even at school. I used to hate Sally.” Then she added as his face reflected unpleasant surprise, “Sometimes.”
“Thank you for calling,” he said, “It was …”
Her face clouded. “Don’t you love me?” she asked, plaintively.
“Yes,” he said, without looking into her eyes. Tell her anything, his mind said. Tell her anything, just get out of here.
Leo smiled. “Oh God, if I hadn’t called.” She looked up at him and her eyes were Sally’s. “Oh, please,” she said and it was Sally’s voice. And he embraced Sally and kissed Sally and told Sally he loved her.
He walked back to his room.
There, in the silence, he lay listening to the el and the trucks and the cars. And he heard someone walking down below, coming up the stairs as if they were climbing a mountain of prodigious height.
It was the drunk. Erick heard his rising phlegmy tenor in the hallway,
“Onward Chrishin So-oh-jers!” (Belch) “Marshing as to warr!”
Erick dreamed about nothing.
* * * *
Two weeks later Lynn spent a Saturday night out.
“I’ll let you have the key,” he said, after Erick asked him, “But I’ll be back early Sunday morning and I expect you to have that bitch in heat out of here.”
He felt like punching Lynn in the nose. But it was the only place they had. “All right,” he said, sullenly.
That night Leo and he made love on the couch. And, finally she put the chain on the front door and, coming back into the living room, she languidly pulled her tee shirt over her head, unhooked her brassiere, slid off her slacks and pants and stood naked in the bright lamplight. She held her arms over her head and writhed a little.
“Oh, I feel so wonderful!” she muttered and knelt by the couch where he lay, watched her. Her teeth were gritted. She started to unbutton his shirt.
“You love me, baby?” she muttered as she reached in and began to stroke his chest.
He swallowed. She looked up quickly into his face, her hand motionless on him.
“Yes.” He framed the word with his lips.
She opened her mouth almost in a frenzy then and drove it over his, pushing his head deep into the pillow, her hands running over him like wild, leprous spiders, her saliva running down his throat.
In bed she was wild again. She bit his shoulder until the skin broke and wanted him to bite her. “Harder,” she’d mutter, “Harder! Hurt me!”
And, after every time, she kept asking him, “Erick, do you love me?”
And he kept saying—yes—and kept getting sicker and sicker because he found no relief with her.
About three, they fell into an exhausted sleep.
When he went into the livingroom early in the morning, he found Lynn sitting there grimly, looking through a bulky Sunday Times.
He glanced up at Erick coldly, then looked back to his paper without a word.
Erick had to go back into the bedroom and wake her up. She was lying naked on the bed, stretched out, her legs spread wide apart.
At first she smiled sleepily and kissed him and asked him why he’d dressed. Then he told her Lynn was back and they had to go and her face grew hard, lips turned down.
While she dressed in jerky, impatient motions in front of him, her face was the face that turned him away, that frightened him.
Erick wanted to have some coffee and toast but she said no. Then she insisted on washing the dishes they’d used the night before. She stood at the sink washing them meticulously as if she didn’t want to give Lynn the slightest excuse for complaining about her. She was quiet.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
She said, “Nothing,” in a tone of voice that made it, “Everything.”
They left without Lynn saying a word all the time. As they walked silently and quickly, he kept looking at her hard, bitter face. Her eyes were dark and furious.
At last she spoke, with writhing venom, “I hate him,” she said, “God, how I hate him.”
When they got to the hotel she took him up to her room by the stairs.
It was a small room hardly more than a closet with an adjoining bath. Once inside, she sat on the bed a long time. He sat helplessly beside her.
Finally she got up and jerked off all her clothes. She got down on the bed again and lay there staring at the ceiling, her chest heaving with angry breaths.
“No one can come here,” she said bitterly, “Strip.”
He was sick for almost a week after. His muscles ached. He lost all appetite and was sick to his stomach for hours at a time. He kept feeling a rising fear of her. Especially since he’d kept asking her if he should have worn something. She kept saying it didn’t matter. But when he pursued the subject a little she always said, “Let’s see,” and started to calculate what the chances were of becoming pregnant.
And she’d shrug at last and say, “I don’t know.” And usually follow it with, “Don’t wish that on me.” as though a baby were something she knew could be in her but something that simply couldn’t happen. Almost the way he had felt about death in the army, knowing it was all around, a highly tangible possibility, yet being completely uncowed by it, positive that it would overlook him indefinitely.
And afraid thinking of the time he’d asked,
“How … many men have you … had intercourse with.”
It took her ten
minutes to remember. But she did remember. He lay on his back beside her, feeling revulsion and fear as she told him of them, especially the ones at college, some of them whom he’d known. With every name she spoke, his body and mind drew back into itself. And he never found relief with her once, although her hands and lips kept exciting and arousing him over and over.
In pain, sleepless, he kept whimpering to himself—Sally Sally …
Sally.
* * * *
He was in his room one night when there was a knock on the door. He was in bed, the lights were out. He turned them on and stumbled over the dusty rug on the door.
Leo stood there in her tan jacket, a skirt apparently thrown quickly on her body.
“What’s this!” he asked sleepily.
She came in. “I … just wanted to see your room,” she said, “I just wanted to see what it was like.”
She looked around. He watched her. She had no makeup on but lipstick. She wore stockings irregularly pulled on, a pair of white sandals. And when she opened her jacket he saw her dark nipples through the sheer silk of her white blouse. My god, what confusion, he thought and knew why she’d come. The thought, somehow, repelled him.
She sat on the bed gingerly and patted it.
“Do you like it here?” she said, maintaining her mental post carefully.
Oh, sure, his mind said, you can see what a lovely room it is, a sheer delight.
“It’s all right,” he said, sitting down.
She pressed against him gradually. Then she suddenly took off her jacket and opened up her blouse. She put his hands on her milky soft breasts. He felt the tugging in his body again.
“Erick,” she said.
He put his arms around her, feeling the sense of completion in the move, knowing that she would never go now. And he wanted her to go. For the first time, the thought of having her didn’t excite his mind. It repelled him. As Lynn said it would, he thought. Lynn is always right.
But she started to press hands against him and he had on only pajamas. Before he knew it, she had jumped up and pulled the light string with a jerk and plunged the room into darkness except for the bars of light on the walls and ceiling.
She almost tore off her clothes. She tossed them all over the floor, her breathing tortured in the night. In the light from the street he watched her roll down her stockings with flying fingers and toss them down. She pushed him on his back on the bed.
“I want you,” she muttered, “I want you and I’ll have you.” Her mouth on his was hot and demanding. She did everything and before he realized it, he felt the heat and the eating force flooding from his body.
It was over in a moment, it seemed. She lay panting beside him. He felt completely relaxed and drowsy.
When he reached out to touch her, she sat up.
“I wish …” she started.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she said. He saw her standing in Lynn’s kitchen again, washing dishes.
She slid over him and sat on the edge of the bed. She stared at the window. He saw her eyes glow from the street lights. She was motionless, sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Do you have a cigarette?” she asked.
“No.”
“Oh, you don’t smoke,” she said.
He was silent.
She reached down to the floor. After a moment, she said irritably, “Where’s my stocking?”
He didn’t answer. She breathed disgustedly. “I had the damn thing when I stripped.”
She had to kneel on the dusty rug and feel around slapping her palm on the floor.
“You might turn on the light,” he said, feeling himself tightening, the warmth draining out of him.
“I don’t want to look at this room,” she said.
She found the other stocking and sat on the edge of the bed to put it on.
“What’s wrong with the room?” he asked, more in jest than seriousness.
“It’s the ugliest, dirtiest room I ever saw in my life,” she said, “Haven’t you got any self respect?”
“It’s home sweet home to me,” he said, acidly now.
“I’ll bet,” she said, “I could just see us living here.”
“Can we afford it?” he asked, the heat of anger rising in his stomach.
“On your writing, I doubt it.”
His muscles contracted. “Look who talks about self respect,” he said.
She didn’t speak. He had to get a rise out of her. He had to get her angry.
“What a difference between you and Sally,” he said, knowing it would enrage her.
“Oh really?” He shuddered at the tight restrained hate in her voice, “Maybe you’d like me to tell you a few choice stories about the weekends Sally spent with a certain football player.”
It seemed as if his body had suddenly contracted to half its size. His fist clenched suddenly. His throat seemed congested.
“That’s how different your precious Sally was.” she snapped.
“That’s not … “
“She liked it plenty,” Leo said viciously, “Oh, she loved it plenty.”
“You’re lying,” he said, his voice rising, almost hysterically.
“Oh, am I!” she yelled, “Am I?”
She threw on her blouse. “Oh what the hell am I here for?” she said.
“Who asked you to come?” he said, still weak, feeling sucked out and empty.
“I’m sorry I did,” she said, jerking up her skirt.
Suddenly all his hatred burst out at once.
“It’s just a matter of keeping your pants on, you filthy bitch!” he slapped her with the words.
She sucked in her breath as though she’d been struck. She stood stock still, looking down at him and he could sense the unbounded hate pouring out of her like waves in the darkness.
She grabbed her jacket and ran to the door. The door struck. She clawed at the lock in an explosive fury until she managed to turn it. She flung open the door and left it open, a gaping rectangle of ugly yellow light that poured the dinginess of the hall across his bed.
He heard her rushing down the stairs and felt himself tighten and his eyes closed. He clenched his fists and cursed her under his breath, calling her everything he could think of, wishing he could stab her to death.
Later he went over to the door and slammed it shut and it bounced from the frame and he kicked it savagely and yelled out at the pain and wanted to kill the door.
* * * *
Three weeks later he got a note from her.
You’ve made me pregnant and I expect you to pay for everything I need.
The piece of paper slipped from nerveless fingers and floated down in lazy arcs to the floor.
He stared at it in horror, his body rocked by gigantic heart beats, feeling a stiffening chill cover him.
Then he sank down on the bed. And when he couldn’t hold it back any longer, he cried like an outraged baby and wanted to strike out and break something.
But mostly he wanted to be comforted by someone who loved him and hated Leo for what she’d done to him. And he thought that Sally would understand and help him. Then he thought that Leo had told the truth and Sally was destroyed, a myth, an ideal crushed beneath jealous feet. And he hated Leo all the more for making the world completely bleak and vicious.
Then he knew that if his mother were alive he could go to her and tell her and she would soothe him, brush back his tumbled hair and say—There, there, darling, mother will take care of everything.
20
An airplane droned across the black sky, running a red light and a green light through the darkness. A spotlight swept across the sky like an uneven white ribbon pulled between invisible hands.
He felt his stomach move. He heard it growling, like a menacing animal. He was empty. His stomach was an empty bin. There was nothing there but air and blackness and vapors. That’s what it felt like to him. He saw it as a hollow spot in his body, a great open space of darkness and drying tissues,
atrophying for need of food. Perhaps a few tiny undigested scraps of Oh Henry lying there, futile miniscules trying to fill the void that only tons of food could fill.
He wondered vaguely about fasting.
Did it key up the mind? Could he think of things that never would occur to him otherwise? Did it give one powers of the mind that were not existent or at least not encouraged during periods when the brain lodged on top of a well-fed body?
He was semi-conscious. The hunger was no longer a sharp biting ache. It was dull and suffused, like unpointed pain, a rough, gloved hand that stroked his intestines and stomach slowly without hurting them sharply.
Suppose there were ghosts, he thought.
Suppose those who died remained as incorporeal entities, as bodiless minds which could materialize themselves visibly. Could a fasting person reach out and touch them because he was more mind than body?
He frowned. He fought to retain some semblance of reason. He knew it would be a struggle. His brain was tired. He wanted to rest. It was too hard to ask questions. It was ridiculous, anyway, the thought of dead people remaining. For Christ’s sake, if dead souls hung around their old stamping grounds we’d be up to our balls in phantoms. They’d trip all over themselves. They’d get roaring mad passing in and out of each other, a weird endless Brownian movement of the dead.
He blew out a breath. He felt hot. He felt a need for something to happen. Anything. It was enraging to lie there with absolutely nothing happening.
He wanted to turn off his brain. Where was the knob?
When you lie down flat, you’re in another dimension, the thought occurred.
Because everything is different. Your body is arranged as though you were standing feet planted on the wall. And what was height before, now become length. And what was length was now height. And width only was still width and always would be unless you turned your body ninety degrees to either side.
But with up becoming across and across becoming up, the world was shifted.
And what was the wall in back of you, it became the ceiling and the window became a trap door, a skylight. But the sky wasn’t the sky, it was the building across the street and the sky became a side of the world instead of its roof. By lying down you tilted the world and everything. You no longer reached over your head to point to the heavens. You pointed straight ahead.