The Bell Tolls for No One

  “Good morning,” she said.

  “Good morning. I’m sick”

  “I don’t feel too well either.”

  “I’ve got to get back to L.A.”

  I went to the bathroom to clean up. When I came out, she handed me a slip of paper. It was her phone number. I kissed her with a very light kiss.

  Outside it was hot. The flies whirled around the garbage cans that were up against the apartment-house walls. I got in my car and drove off, deciding not to see her again.

  The phone rang on a Thursday night at my place. I answered. It was Mercedes. “I see that your number is listed . . . .”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, listen, I work right in your neighborhood. I thought I might come by to see you.”

  “All right.”

  Twenty minutes later she was there. She had on another miniskirt, but this time she looked a little better. She had on high-heeled shoes, a low-cut blouse, and small blue earrings.

  “You got any grass?”

  “Sure.” I brought out the grass and the papers, and she started rolling some joints. I broke out the beer, and we sat on the couch and smoked and drank. With beer you had a chance. I sat there and drank and kissed her and played with her legs. We didn’t talk much. But we drank and smoked quite a long time.

  We undressed and went to bed, first Mercedes, then me. We began kissing, and I rubbed her cunt, then her clit. She grabbed my cock. Finally, I mounted. Mercedes guided it in. It entered and forced forward, my mouth on hers as it did. She had a good grip, she wasn’t loose, and I began.

  After a few strokes I teased her awhile, pulling it out almost all the way out and just moving the head back and forth at the very opening of the cunt. Then I slid it in a few strokes, slowly, in lazy fashion. Then suddenly I rammed her 4 or 5 times, brutally. Her head rocked: “Arrrgggg. . . .” She made a sound. Then I relented and stroked, then I rotated, side to side, swinging it, then straightened and rammed.

  It was a very hot night, and we both sweated. Mercedes had gotten quite high on the beer and joints. I decided to finish her off. I blasted it in and out, in and out; I ripped her with kisses; and her head rocked under the thrusts. I pumped on and on, 10 minutes, 15 minutes more. I was hard, I couldn’t climax. The fucking beer, too much fucking beer.

  “Make it,” she said, “oh, make it, baby!”

  I rolled off. Christ, it was a hot night. I took the sheet and wiped the sweat off. I could hear my heart as I lay there. My cock went down. Mercedes turned her head to me. I kissed her. My cock began to rise again.

  I rolled on top of her, kissing her as if it were my last time on earth to do so. My cock slid in. I began again, but this time I knew I was going to make it. I could feel the mounting miracle of it moving toward the final point. I was going to come inside of her cunt, the bitch. I was going to pour the juices into her, and there was nothing she could do, the cunt. She was mine. I was the conquering army, I was the rapist, I was dominance, I was death.

  She was helpless under me, her head rolling, rocking, as she made sounds: “Arrrggghh! . . . uggg! . . . oh . . . oh . . . oofff! . . . ooooh!” My cock sensed it all, fed on it. I made a strange sound, then I spurted. I spurted right into her center, and she took it, all of it. I rolled off.

  I wiped off on the sheet. In 5 minutes she was snoring. I too was soon asleep.

  In the morning we both showered and dressed. “I’ll take you to breakfast.”

  “All right,” Mercedes said. “By the way, did we fuck last night?”

  “My God, don’t you remember? We must have fucked for 45 minutes!”

  “I do feel like I’ve been fucked.”

  We went out to a place around the corner. I ordered eggs over easy with bacon and coffee, what toast. Mercedes ordered hotcakes and ham, coffee. We sat by the window and watched the traffic and drank our coffee. The waitress brought our orders. I took a bite of egg. Mercedes poured syrup over her hotcakes.

  “My God,” she said, “you must have really fucked me! I can feel the semen running down my leg.”

  I decided not to see her again.

  She phoned me 2 or 3 weeks later. “I got married,” she said, “to Little Jack. You met him at the party. He has a short, fat dick. I like his short, fat dick. And he’s a nice guy and he’s got money. We’re moving to the Valley.”

  “All right, Mercedes. Luck with all.”

  A couple of weeks later it was Mercedes on the phone again: “I miss those nights of drinking and talking with you; suppose I come over tonight?”

  “All right.”

  She was there in 15 minutes, rolling joints and drinking beer. “Little Jack is a nice guy. We’re happy together.”

  I sucked at my beer.

  “I don’t want to fuck,” she went on. “I’m tired of abortions. I’m really tired of abortions.”

  “We’ll figure something out.”

  “I just want to smoke and talk and drink.”

  “That’s not enough for me.”

  “All you guys want to do is fuck.”

  “I like it.”

  “Well, I can’t fuck. I don’t want to fuck.”

  “Relax.”

  We sat on the couch. We didn’t kiss. Mercedes was not a good conversationalist, and her laugh was still coarse and high and not true. But she had her legs and her ass and her hair. I had found some interesting women, God knows, but Mercedes just wasn’t one. I had intended to write a dirty story for one of the magazines that night, and here she was fucking up my night, or not fucking it up.

  The beer kept coming and the joints went around. She still had the same job. She was having trouble with her car. Little Jack was going to buy her a new one, or maybe she’d get a Yamaha. Little Jack had a short, fat dick. She was reading Grapefruit by Yoko Ono. She was still tired of abortions. The Valley was nice, but she missed Venice, the group. And she used to ride her bicycle along the walk.

  I don’t know how long we talked or she talked, but much beer went down, and she said she was too drunk to drive home.

  “Take your clothes off and go to bed,” I told her.

  “But no fucking,” she said.

  “I won’t use your cunt.”

  She undressed and went to bed. I undressed and went into the bathroom. She saw me come walking out with a jar of Vaseline.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Just take it easy, baby, take it easy.”

  I took the Vaseline out and rubbed it over my cock. Then I turned out the light and got into bed.

  “Turn your back to me,” I said.

  I reached one arm under her and played with her bottom breast, and with my top hand I played with the top breast. It felt good with my face in her hair. I hardened and slipped it into her ass. I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her ass in toward me, sliding it in.

  “Oooooh . . . ,” she moaned.

  I began working. I dug it in deeper and slammed and slammed. The cheeks of her ass were very big and soft; they felt like pillows full of air. I ripped and ripped and began to sweat. Then I rolled her onto her stomach and sunk it deeper. It was getting tighter. I got into the end of her colon, and she screamed.

  “Shut up, goddamn you. You want the cops?”

  It was tight in the colon. I slipped it in farther. The grip was enormous. I felt as if I were fucking the inside of a rubber hose; the friction was immense. I rammed it in and in, got a hitch in my side, a burning pain, but continued. I was slicing her in half, right up the backbone. I roared it in like a madman, and then I began to climax. I pumped the juices into her intestine; they kept coming. Then I lay there. She was crying.

  “Goddammit,” I told her, “I didn’t use your cunt. I told you I wouldn’t use your cunt.” I rolled off.

  In the morning Mercedes said very little, got dressed, and left for work. This, I thought, is it.

  It was a good 6 to 8 weeks when I answered the phone and it was Mercedes: “Hank, I’d like to come by. But just for talk and
beer and a few joints. Nothing else.”

  “Come by if you wish.”

  Mercedes was there in 15 minutes. She looked very good. I’d never seen a miniskirt that short, and her legs looked fine. I kissed her a long one right off. She broke off.

  “I couldn’t walk for two days after that last one. Don’t rip my butt open again.”

  “All right, honest Injun, I won’t.”

  It was about the same. We sat on the couch with the radio on, talked, drank beer, smoked. I kissed her again and again. I couldn’t stop. She looked steaming that night, yet she insisted that she couldn’t. Little Jack loved her; love meant a lot in this world.

  “It sure does,” I said.

  “You don’t love me.”

  “You’re a married woman.”

  “I don’t love Little Jack, but I care for him very much, and he loves me.”

  “It sounds fine to me.”

  “Have you ever been in love?”

  “Yes, a couple of times.”

  “Where are they tonight?”

  “I don’t know. Probably with other men. I don’t care.”

  We talked a long time that night and drank a long time and smoked any number of joints. Around 2 a.m. Mercedes said, “I’m too high to drive home. I’ll total the car.”

  “Take your clothes off and go to bed.”

  “All right, but I’ve got an idea.”

  “Like what?”

  “I want to watch you beat that thing off. I want to watch it squirt juice!”

  “All right, that’s fair enough. It’s a deal.”

  Mercedes undressed and went to bed. I undressed and stood at the side of the bed. “Sit up so you can see better.”

  Mercedes sat up on the edge of the bed. I spit on my palm and began to rub my cock.”

  “Oh, look, it’s growing!”

  “Uh, huh . . . ”

  “It’s getting big!”

  “Uh, huh . . . .”

  “Oh, it’s all purple with big veins! It’s throbbing! It’s ugly!”

  “Yeah.”

  I kept beating my cock, and I moved it near her face. She watched it. Just as I was about to climax, I stopped.

  “Oh,” she said.

  “Look, I’ve got a better idea.”

  “What?”

  “You beat it off.”

  “All right.”

  She started in. “Am I doing it right?”

  “A little harder. And get most of it, rub most of it, not just up near the head.”

  “All right . . . Oh, God, look at it . . . I want to see it squirt juice!”

  “Keep going! Oh, my God!”

  I was just about to come, and I ripped it out of her hand.

  “Oh, damn you!” Mercedes cried.

  Then she swiftly reached out and put it in her mouth. She began sucking and bobbing, running her tongue along the back of my cock while it was in her mouth.

  “Oh, you bitch!”

  Then she pulled her mouth off my throbbing shaft.

  “Go ahead! Go ahead! Finish me off!”

  “No!”

  “Well, Goddammit then!”

  I pushed her over backwards on the bed and leaped upon her. I kissed her viciously and drove my cock on in. I worked violently, pumping and pumping; I reached near to it quickly; I moaned and then it began spurting; I pumped it full into her, feeling it enter, feeling it steam into her center.

  I rolled off.

  When I awoke in the morning, Mercedes was gone. There was no note; she was simply gone. I got up and too a shower and an Alka Seltzer, two Alka Seltzers. I pissed. I brushed my teeth. Then I went back to bed and slept until noon.

  It has been 4 months now, and she has not phoned. She will not phone. I will never see Mercedes again, and neither of us will miss the other. What it meant, I have no idea.

  There is a new one down from Berkeley. She has buck teeth and a little baby’s voice. She fucks me while sitting on my lap and facing me. She’s 22 and doesn’t have any breasts. I have no idea what she wants. Her name is Diane. She gets up early in the morning and starts drinking whiskey.

  I sometimes drive past the building that Mercedes works in. That’s as close as I’ll ever get to seeing her again. It’s that way for many people all over America. We do things without knowing why, and later we don’t care why we did them. But I wish Diane had tits; breasts, I mean.

  Break-In

  It was one of the outer rooms of the first floor. I stumbled on something—I think it was a footstool—and I almost went down. I banged into a table to hold myself up.

  “That’s right,” said Harry, “wake up the whole fucking household.”

  “Look,” I said, “what are we going to get here?”

  “Keep your fucking voice down!”

  “Harry, do you have to keep saying fucking?”

  “What are you, a fucking linguist? We’re here for cash and jewels.”

  I didn’t like it. It seemed like total insanity. Harry was crazy; he’d been in and out of madhouses. Between that and doing time he’d spent three-quarters of his adult life in lockup. He’d talked me into the thing. I didn’t have much resistance.

  “This damn country,” he said. “There are too many rich pricks having it too easy.” Then Harry banged into something. “Shit!” he said.

  “Hello? What is it?” We heard a man’s voice coming from upstairs.

  “We’re in trouble,” I said. I could feel the sweat dripping down from my armpits.

  “No,” said Harry, “he’s in trouble.”

  “Hello,” said the man upstairs. “Who’s down there?”

  “Come on,” Harry told me.

  He began walking up the stairway. I followed him. There was a hallway, and there was a light coming from one of the rooms. Harry moved quickly and silently. Then he ran into the room. I was behind him. It was a bedroom. A man and a woman were in separate beds.

  Harry pointed his .38 Magnum at the man. “All right, buddy, if you don’t want your balls blown off, you’ll keep it quiet. I don’t play.”

  The man was about 45, with a strong and imperial face. You could see he had had it his own way for a long time. His wife was about 25, blond, long hair, truly beautiful. She looked like an ad for something or other.

  “Get the hell out of my house!” the man said.

  “Hey,” Harry said to me, “you know who this is?”

  “No.”

  “It’s Tom Maxson, the famous news broadcaster, Channel 7. Hello, Tom—”

  “Get out of here! NOW!” Maxson barked.

  He reached out and picked up the phone. “Operator—”

  Harry ran up and slammed him across the temple with the butt of his .38. Maxson fell across the bed. Harry put the phone back on the hook.

  “You bastards, you hurt him!” cried the blond. “You cheap, cowardly bastards!”

  She was dressed in a light-green negligee. Harry walked around and broke one of the shoulder straps. He grabbed one of the woman’s breasts and pulled it out. “Nice, ain’t it?” he said to me. Then he slapped her across the face, hard.

  “You address me with respect, whore!” Harry said. Then he walked around and sat Tom Maxson back up.

  “And you: I told you I don’t play.”

  Maxson revived. “You’ve got the gun; that’s all you’ve got.”

  “You fool. That’s all I need. Now I’m gonna get some cooperation from you and your whore or it’s going to get worse.”

  “You cheap punk!” Maxson said.

  “Just keep it up, keep it up. You’ll see,” said Harry.

  “You think I’m afraid of a couple of cheap hoods?”

  “If you’re not, you ought to be.”

  “Who’s your friend? What does he do?”

  “He does what I tell him.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like, Eddie, go kiss that blond!”

  “Listen, you leave my wife out of this!”

  “And if she screams, I pu
t a bullet in your gut. I don’t play. Go on, Eddie, kiss the blond—”

  “The blond was trying to hold up the broken shoulder strap with one hand. “No,” she said, “please—”

  “I’m sorry, lady, I gotta do what Harry tells me.”

  I grabbed her by the hair and got my lips on hers. She pushed against me, but she wasn’t very strong. I’d never kissed a woman that beautiful before.

  “All right, Eddie, that’s enough.”

  I pulled away. I walked around and stood next to Harry. “Why, Eddie,” he said, “what’s that big thing sticking out in front of you?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Look, Maxson,” said Harry, “your wife gave my man a hard-on! How the hell are we supposed to get any work done around here? We came for cash and jewelry.”

  “You wise-ass punks make me sick. You’re no better than maggots.”

  “And what have you got? The six o’clock news. What’s so big about that? Political pull and an asshole public. Anybody can read the news. I make the news.”

  “You make the news? Like what? What can you do?”

  “Any amount of numbers. Ah, let me think. How about, TV newscaster drinks burglar’s piss? How’s that sound to you?”

  “I’d die first.”

  “You won’t. Eddie, go get me a glass. There’s one there on the nightstand. Bring me that.”

  “Look,” said the blond, “please take our money. Take our jewels. Just go away. What’s the need for all this?”

  “It’s your loudmouthed, spoiled husband, lady. He’s getting on my fucking nerves.”

  I brought Harry the glass, and he unzipped his pants and began to piss into it. It was a tall glass, but he filled it to the brim. Then he zipped up and moved toward Maxson.

  “Now you’re gonna drink my piss, Mr. Maxson.”

  “No way, bastard, I’d die first.”

  “You won’t die. You’ll drink my piss—all of it!”

  “Never, punk!”

  “Eddie,” Harry nodded to me, “see that cigar on the dresser mantle?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Get it. Light it. There’s a lighter there.”

  I got the lighter and lit the cigar. It was a good one. I puffed on it. My best cigar. Never had anything like it.

  “You like the cigar, Eddie?” Harry asked me.