The ax is falling. Last ruminations. Honeymoon Express and all aboard: Memphis, Chattanooga, Nashville, Chickamauga. Past snowy fields of cotton . . . alligators yawning in the mud . . . the last apricot is rotting on the lawn . . . the moon is full, the ditch is deep, the earth is black, black, black.
5
The next morning it was like after a storm—breakfast as usual, a touch for carfare, a dash for the subway, a promise to take her to the movies after dinner. For her it was probably just a bad dream which she would do her best to forget during the course of the day. For me it was a step towards deliverance. No mention of the subject was ever made again. But it was there all the time and it made things easier between us. What she thought I don’t know, but what I thought was very clear and definite. Every time I assented to one of her requests or demands I said to myself: “Fine, is that all you want of me? I’ll do anything you like except give you the illusion that I am going to live the rest of my life with you.”
She was inclined now to be more lenient with herself when it came to satisfying her bestial nature. I often wondered what she told herself in making excuses to herself for these extranuptial, pre- or postmorganatic bouts. Certainly she put her heart and soul into them. She was a better fucker now than in the early days when she used to put a pillow under her ass and try to kiss the ceiling. She was fucking with desperation, I guess. Fuck for fuck’s sake and the devil take the hindmost.
A week had passed and I hadn’t seen Mara. Maude had asked me to take her to a theater in New York, a theater just opposite the dance hall. I sat throughout the performance thinking of Mara so close and yet so far away. I thought of her so insistently and unremittingly that as we were leaving the theater I gave voice to an impulse which I was powerless to squelch. “How would you like to go up there,” I said, pointing to the dance hall, “and meet her?” It was a cruel thing to say and I felt sorry for her the moment it left my mouth. She looked at me, Maude, as if I had struck her with my fist. I apologized at once and, taking her by the arm, I led her quickly away in the opposite direction, saying as I did so—“It was just an idea. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I thought you might be curious, that’s all.” She made no answer. I made no further efforts to smooth the thing over. In the subway she slipped her arm in mine and let it rest there, as if to say—“I understand, you were just tactless and thoughtless, as usual.” On the way home we stopped off at her favorite ice-cream parlor and there, over a plate of French ice cream which she doted on, she unlimbered sufficiently to eke out a thin conversation about domestic trifles, a sign that she had dismissed the incident from her mind. The French ice cream, which she regarded as a luxury, combined with the opening of a fresh wound, had the effect of making her amorous. Instead of undressing upstairs in the bedroom, as she did ordinarily, she went to the bathroom, which adjoined the kitchen, and, leaving the door open, she took off her things one by one, leisurely, studiedly, almost like a stripteaser, calling me in finally as she was combing out her hair to show me a blue mark on her thigh. She was standing there naked except for her shoes and stockings, her hair flowing luxuriantly down her back.
I examined the mark carefully, as I knew she wanted me to, touching her lightly here and there to see if there were any other tender spots which she might have overlooked; at the same time I kept up a running fire of solicitous queries in a calm, matter-of-fact voice which enabled her to prime herself for a cold-blooded fuck without admitting to herself that that was what she was doing. If I were to say to her, as I did, in the calm, dull, professional voice of the M.D.—“I think you’d better lie on the table in the kitchen where I can examine you better”—she would have done so without the least coaxing, spreading her legs wide apart and letting me insert a finger without a qualm, because now by this time she remembered that since a fall which she had had some time ago there was a little bump inside her, at least so she thought; it worried her, this bump; perhaps if I would put my finger in ever so gently she could track it down, and so on and so forth. Nor did it appear to disturb her in the least when I suggested that she lie there a moment, on the table, while I removed my clothes because it was getting too warm for me in the kitchen, next to the red-hot stove, and so on and so forth. And so I removed my things, all but my socks and shoes, and with an erection fit to break a plate I stepped blandly forth and resumed operations. Or rather, I in turn had now become aware of things past, such as bumps, bruises, spots, warts, birthmarks, et cetera, and would she kindly give me the once-over while we were at it, and then we would go to bed because it was getting late and I didn’t want to tire her out.
Strangely enough she wasn’t tired at all, she confessed, getting down from the table and solicitously squeezing my cock and then my balls and then the root of my cock, all with such firm, discreet and delicate manipulations that I almost gave her a squirt in the eye. After that she was curious to see how much taller I was than she, so first we stood back to back and then front to front; even then, when it was jumping between her legs like a firecracker, she pretended to be thinking of feet and inches, saying that she ought to take her shoes off because her heels were high, and so on and so forth. And so I made her sit down on the kitchen chair and slowly I pulled off her shoes and stockings, and she, as I politely rendered her this service, thoughtfully stroked my cock, which was difficult to do being in the position she was, but I graciously abetted her strategy by moving in closer and hoisting her legs up in the air at a right angle; then, without any more ado I lifted her up by the hindquarters, shoved it in to the hilt and carried her into the next room where I tumbled her onto the couch, sank it in again and went at it with sound and fury, she doing the same and begging me in the most candid, nonprofessional, noncasual language to hold it, to make it last, to keep it in forever, and then as an afterthought to wait a minute while she slipped out and turned over, raising herself on her knees, her head sunk low, her ass wriggling frantically, her thick gurgling voice saying in the English language openly and admittedly to herself for her own ears to hear and to recognize: “Get it in all the way . . . please, please do . . . I’m horny.”
Yes, on occasion she could trot out a word like that, a vulgar word that would have made her curl up with horror and indignation if she were in her right senses, but now after the little pleasantries, after the vaginal exploration by finger, after the weight lifting and the measuring contests, after the comparison of bruises, marks, bumps and what not, after the delicately casual manipulation of prick and scrotum, after the delicious French ice cream and the thoughtless faux pas outside the theater, to say nothing of all that had transpired in her imagination since the cruel avowal a few nights ago, a word like “horny” was just the right and proper word to indicate the temperature of the Bessemer steel furnace which she had made of her inflamed cunt. It was the signal to give her the works and spare nothing. It meant something like this: “No matter what I was this afternoon or yesterday, no matter what I think I am or how I detest you, no matter what you do with that thing tomorrow or the day after, now I want it and I want everything that goes with it: I wish it were bigger and fatter and longer and juicier: I wish you would break it off and leave it in there: I don’t care how many women you’ve fucked, I want you to fuck me, fuck my cunt, fuck my ass off, fuck and fuck and fuck. I’m horny, do you hear? I’m so horny I could bite it off. Shove it in all the way, harder, harder, break your big prick off and leave it in there. I’m horny, I tell you. . . .”
Usually after these bouts I awoke depressed. Looking at her with her clothes on and that grim, tight, caustic, everyday expression about her mouth, studying her at the breakfast table, indifferently, not having anything else to look at, I wondered sometimes why I didn’t take her for a walk some evening and just push her off the end of a pier. I began to look forward like a drowning man to that solution which Stanley had promised and of which as yet there was not the least sign. To cap it all I had written a letter to Mara saying that we had to find a way out soon or I would commit suici
de. It must have been a maudlin letter because when she telephoned me she said it was imperative to see me immediately. This shortly after lunch on one of those hectic days when everything seemed to go wrong. The office was jammed with applicants and even if I had had five tongues and five pairs of arms and twenty-five telephones instead of three at my elbow, I could never have hired as many applicants as were needed to fill the sudden and inexplicable vacuum which had come about overnight. I tried to put Mara off until the evening but she would not be put off. I agreed to meet her for a few minutes at an address which she gave me, the apartment of a friend of hers, she said, where we would be undisturbed. It was in the Village.
I left a mob of applicants hanging at the rail, promising Hymie, who was frantically telephoning for “waybills,” that I’d be back in a few minutes. I jumped into a cab at the corner and got out in front of a doll’s house with a miniature garden in front. Mara came to the door in a light-mauve dress under which she was nude. She flung her arms around me and kissed me passionately.
“A wonderful little nest, this,” I said, holding her off to take a better look at the place.
“Yes, isn’t it?” she said. “It belongs to Carruthers. He lives down the street with his wife; this is just a little den which he uses now and then. I sleep here sometimes when it’s too late to go home.”
I said nothing. I turned to look at the books—the walls were solidly lined with them. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Mara snatch something from the wall—seemed like a sheet of wrapping paper.
“What’s that?” I said, not really curious but pretending to be.
“It’s nothing,” she answered. “Just a sketch of his which he asked me to destroy.”
“Let’s see it!”
“You don’t want to look at it—it’s worthless”—and she started to crumple it up.
“Let’s see it anyway,” I said, grasping her arm and snatching the paper from her hand. I opened it up and saw to my amazement that it was a caricature of myself with a dagger through the heart.
“I told you he was jealous,” she said. “It doesn’t mean anything—he was drunk when he did it. He’s been drinking a great deal lately. I have to watch him like a hawk. He’s just a big child, you know. You mustn’t think he hates you—he acts that way with everybody who shows the least sign of interest in me.”
“He’s married, you said. What’s the matter—doesn’t he get along with his wife?”
“She’s an invalid,” said Mara, almost solemnly.
“In a wheel chair?”
“No-o-o, not exactly,” she replied, a faint irrepressible smile suffusing her lips. “Oh, why talk about that now? What difference does it make? You know I’m not in love with him. I told you once that he had been very kind to me; now it’s my turn to look after him—he needs someone to steady him.”
“So you sleep here now and then—while he stays with his invalid wife, is that it?”
“He sleeps here too sometimes: there are two cots, if you notice. Oh, please,” she begged, “don’t let’s talk about him. There’s nothing for you to worry about, can’t you see, can’t you believe me?” She came close to me, put her arms around me. Without ado I lifted her up and carried her over to the couch. I pulled her dress up and, opening wide her legs, I slipped my tongue into her crack. In a moment she had me over her. When she had gotten my cock out she took her two hands and opened her cunt for me to slip it in. Almost at once she had an orgasm, then another, and another. She got up and washed herself quickly. As soon as she had finished I followed suit. When I came out of the bathroom she was lying on the couch with a cigarette to her lips. I sat there a few minutes with my hand between her legs, talking quietly to her.
“I’ve got to get back to the office,” I said, “and we haven’t had a chance to talk.”
“Don’t go yet,” she begged, sitting upright and putting her hand affectionately over my prick. I put my arm around her and kissed her long and passionately. She had her fingers in my fly again and was reaching for my prick when suddenly we heard someone fumbling at the doorknob.
“It’s him,” she said, jumping quickly to her feet and making for the door. “Stay where you are, it’s all right,” she threw out quickly as she glided forward to meet him. I hadn’t time to button my fly. I stood up and casually straightened it out as she flew into his arms with some silly joyous exclamation.
“I’ve got a visitor,” she said. “I asked him to come. He’s leaving in a few minutes.”
“Hello,” he said, coming forward to greet me with hand out and an amiable smile on his lips. He showed no unusual surprise. In fact, he seemed much more affable than he did the night I first met him at the dance hall.
“You don’t have to go this instant, do you?” said he, undoing a bundle which he had brought with him. “You might have a little drink first, won’t you? Which do you prefer—Scotch or rye?”
Before I could say yes or no Mara had slipped out to get some ice. I stood with my back partially turned to him as he busied himself with the bottles and, pretending to be interested in a book on the shelf before me, I stealthily buttoned my fly.
“I hope you don’t mind the looks of the place,” he said. “This is just a little retreat, a hide-out, where I can meet Mara and her little friends. She looks cute in that dress, don’t you think?”
“Yes,” I said, “it is rather attractive.”
“Nothing much there,” he said, nodding towards the bookshelves. “The good ones are all over at the house.”
“Seems like quite a fine collection,” I said, glad to be able to divert the conversation to this ground.
“You’re a writer, I understand—or so Mara tells me.”
“Not really,” I replied. “I’d like to be. You’re probably one yourself, aren’t you?”
He laughed. “Oh,” he said deprecatingly, as he measured out the drinks, “we all begin that way, I guess. I’ve scribbled a few things in my time—poems mostly. I don’t seem to be able to do anything any more, except drink.”
Mara returned with the ice. “Come here,” he said, putting the ice on the table and throwing an arm around her waist, “you haven’t kissed me yet.” She held her head up and coolly received the slobbery kiss which he planted on her lips.
“I couldn’t stand it at the office any longer,” he said, squirting the fizz water into the glasses. “I don’t know why I go to the damned place—there’s nothing for me to do except look important and sign my name to silly papers.” He took a long swallow. Then, motioning to me to take a seat, he flung himself into the big Morris chair. “Ah, that’s better,” he grunted, like a tired businessman, though obviously he hadn’t done a stroke of work. He beckoned to Mara. “Sit here a minute,” he said, patting the arm of the chair. “I want to talk to you. I’ve got good news for you.”
It was a highly interesting scene to witness after what had taken place just a few minutes ago. I wondered for a moment whether he was putting on an act for my benefit. He tried to pull her head down to give her another slobbery kiss but she resisted, saying—“Oh come, you’re acting silly. Put that drink down, please. You’ll be drunk in a moment and then there’ll be no talking to you.”
She put her arm over his shoulder and ran her fingers through his hair.
“You see what a tyrant she is,” he said, turning to me. “God help the poor sap who marries her! Here I rush home to give her a piece of good news and . . .”
“Well, what is it?” Mara interrupted. “Why don’t you come out with it?”
“Give me a chance and I’ll tell you,” said Carruthers, patting her rump affectionately. “By the way,” turning to me, “won’t you pour yourself another drink? Pour me one too—that is, if you can get her permission. I have nothing to say around here. I’m just a general nuisance.”
This sort of banter and cross fire promised to continue indefinitely. I had made up my mind that it was too late to go back to the office—the afternoon was shot. The second drink h
ad put me in the mood to stay and see it through. Mara wasn’t drinking, I noticed. I felt that she wanted me to leave. The good news got sidetracked, then forgotten. Or perhaps he had told her on the sly—he seemed to have dismissed the subject too abruptly. Perhaps while she was begging him to spill the news she had pinched his arm warningly. (Yes, what is the good news? And that pinch telling him not to dare blurt it out in front of me.) I was all at sea. I sat on the other couch and discreetly turned up the cover to see if there were any sheets on it. There weren’t. Later I would hear the truth about the matter. We had a long way to go yet.