Arthur Raymond listened to this impatiently. Finally he cut in, swinging round on his stool, and playing with two hands as he spoke. He had a fresh cigarette in his mouth and as he ran his fingers up and down the piano the smoke curled up into his eyes. He was trying to work off his embarrassment. At the same time I felt that he was waiting to hear me open up. When Ed Gavarni informed him that I was also a musician Arthur Raymond jumped up and begged me to play something. “Go on, go on . . .” he said, almost savagely. “I’d like to hear you. God, I get sick of hearing myself play.”
I sat down, much against my will, and played some little thing. I realized more than ever before how poor my playing was. I felt rather ashamed of myself and apologized profusely for the lame performance.
“Not at all, not at all!” he said, with a low, pleasant chuckle. “You ought to continue . . . you have talent.”
“The truth is I hardly ever touch the piano any more,” I confessed.
“How come? Why not? What do you do then?”
Ed Gavarni offered the customary explanations. “He’s really a writer,” he concluded.
Arthur Raymond’s eyes sparkled. “A writer! Well, well . . .” And with that he resumed his seat at the piano and began to play. A serious expression I not only liked but which I was to remember all my life. His playing enthralled me. It was clean, vigorous, passionate, intelligent. He attacked the instrument with his whole being. He ravished it. It was a Brahms sonata, if I remember rightly, and I had never been very fond of Brahms. After a few minutes he stopped suddenly, and then before we could open our mouths he was playing something from Debussy, and from that he went on to Ravel and to Chopin. During the Chopin prelude Ed Gavarni winked at me. When it was over he urged Arthur Raymond to play the “Revolutionary Etude.” “Oh, that thing! Drat that! God, how you like that stuff!” He played a few bars, dropped it, came back to the middle part, stopped, removed the cigarette from his lips, and launched into a Mozartian piece.
Meanwhile I had been going through internal revolutions. Listening to Arthur Raymond’s playing I realized that if I were ever to be a pianist I should have to begin all over again. I felt that I had never really played the piano—I had played at it. Something similar had happened to me when I first read Dostoevski. It had wiped out all other literature. (“Now I am really listening to human beings talk!” I had said to myself.) It was like that with Arthur Raymond’s playing—for the first time I seemed to understand what the composers were saying. When he broke off to repeat a phrase over and over it was as though I heard them speaking, speaking this language of sound with which everybody is familiar but which is really Greek to most of us. I remembered suddenly how the Latin teacher, after listening to our woeful translations, would suddenly snatch the book out of our hands and begin to read aloud to us—in Latin. He read it as though it meant something to him, whereas to us, no matter how good our translations, it was always Latin and Latin was a dead language and the men who wrote in Latin were even more dead to us than the language which they wrote in. Yes, listening to Arthur Raymond’s interpretation, whether of Bach, Brahms or Chopin, there were no longer any empty spaces between passages. Everything assumed form, dimension, meaning. There were no dull parts, no lags, no preliminaries.
There was another thing about that visit which flashed through my mind—Irma. Irma was then his wife, and a very cute, pretty, doll-like creature she was. More like a Dresden china piece than a wife. Instantly we were introduced I knew that there was something wrong between them. His voice was too harsh, his gestures too rough: she shrank from him as if fearing to be dashed to pieces by an inadvertent move. I noticed, as we shook hands, that her palms were moist—moist and hot. She was conscious of the fact too, and blushingly made some remark about her glands being out of order. But one felt, as she said this, that the real reason for her imbalance was Arthur Raymond, that it was his “genius” which had unsettled her. O’Mara was right about her—she was thoroughly feline, she loved to be stroked and petted. And one knew that Arthur Raymond wasted no time in such dalliance. One knew immediately that he was the sort who went straight to the goal. He was raping her, that’s what I felt. And I was right. Later she confessed it to me.
And then there was Ed Gavarni. One could tell by the way Arthur Raymond addressed him that he was used to this sort of adulation. All his friends were sycophants. He was disgusted with them, no doubt, and yet he needed it. His mother had given him a bad start—she had almost destroyed him. Each performance he had given had weakened his confidence in himself. They were posthypnotic performances, successes because his mother had willed it to be so. He hated her. He needed a woman who would believe in him—as a man, as a human being—not as a trained seal.
Irma hated his mother too. That had a disastrous effect upon Arthur Raymond. He felt it necessary to defend his mother against his wife’s attacks. Poor Irma! She was between the devil and the deep sea. And at bottom she wasn’t deeply interested in music. At bottom she wasn’t deeply interested in anything. She was soft, pliant, gracious, willowy: her only response was a purr. I don’t think she cared about fucking very much either. It was all right now and then, when she was in heat, but on the whole it was too forthright, too brutal, too humiliating. If one could come together like tiger lilies, yes, then it might be different. Just brushing together, a soft, gentle, caressing sort of intertwining—that’s what she liked. There was something slightly nauseating about a stiff prick, especially dripping sperm. And the positions one had to assume! Really, sometimes she felt positively degraded by the act. Arthur Raymond had a short, stubborn prick—he was the Ram. He went at it bang-bang, as if he were chopping away at a meat block. It was over before she had a chance to feel anything. Short, quick stabs, sometimes on the floor, anywhere, whenever, wherever it happened to seize him. He didn’t even give her time to take off her clothes. He just lifted her skirt and shoved it in. No, it was really “horrid.” That was one of her pet words—“horrid.”
O’Mara on the other hand was like a practiced snake. He had a long curved penis which slid in like greased lightning and unlatched the door of the womb. He knew how to control it. But she didn’t like his way of going about it either. He used his penis as if it were a detachable apparatus. To stand over her while she was lying abed with her legs open, panting for it, to force her to admire it, take it in her mouth or shove it in her armpit, was his delight. He made her feel that she was at his mercy—or rather at the mercy of that long slimy thing he carried between his legs. He could get an erection any time—at will, so to speak. He wasn’t carried away by passion—his passion was concentrated in his prick. He could be very tender too, for all his practiced approach, but somehow it wasn’t a tenderness that touched her—it was studied, part of his technique. He wasn’t “romantic”—that’s how she put it. He was too damned proud of his sexual prowess. Just the same, because it was an unusual prick, because it was long and bent, because it could hold out indefinitely, because it could make her lose herself, she was unable to resist. He had only to take it out and put it in her hand and she was done for. It was disgusting too that sometimes when he took it out it was only semierect. Even then it was bigger, silkier, snakier than Arthur Raymond’s prick, even when he was at white heat. O’Mara had a sullen sort of prick. He was Scorpio. He was like some primeval creature that waited in ambush, some huge, patient, crawling reptile which hid in the swamps. He was cold and fecund; he lived only to fuck, but he could bide his time, could wait years between fucks if necessary. Then, when he had you, when he closed his jaws on you, he devoured you piecemeal. That was O’Mara . . .
I looked up to see Mona standing at the threshold with tear-stained face. Arthur Raymond was behind her, holding the big awkward bundle in his two hands. A broad grin had spread over his face. He was pleased with himself, terribly pleased.
It wasn’t like me to get up and make a demonstration, especially in Arthur Raymond’s presence.
“Well,” said Mona, “haven’t
you anything to say? Aren’t you sorry?”
“Sure he is,” said Arthur Raymond, fearful that she would bolt again.
“I’m not asking you,” she snapped, “I’m asking him”
I rose from the bed and went towards her. Arthur Raymond looked on sheepishly. He would have given anything to be in my position—I knew that. As we embraced, Mona turned her head and over her shoulder she murmured: “Why don’t you leave?” His face grew red as a beet. He tried to stammer out some apology but the words stuck in his throat. As he turned away Mona slammed the door shut. “The fool!” she said. “I’m sick of this place!”
As she pressed her body to mine I felt a hunger and desperation in her of a new kind. The separation, brief as it was, had been real to her. And it had frightened her too. Nobody had ever permitted her to walk away like that. She had not only been humiliated, she had become curious.
It’s interesting to observe how repetitive is woman’s behavior in such situations. Almost invariably there comes the question— “Why did you do such a thing?” Or—“How could you treat me like that?” If it’s the man speaking he says:
“Let’s not talk about it . . . let’s forget it!” But the woman reacts as if she had been shocked in her vital centers, as if perhaps she might never recover from the mortal stab. With her everything is based on the purely personal. She talks egotistically, but it is not the ego which prompts her reproaches—it’s WOMAN. That the man she loves, the man to whom she has attached herself, the man whom she is creating in her own image, should suddenly become depossessed is something unthinkable. If it were a question of another woman, if there were a rival, yes, then she might understand. But to unshackle oneself for no reason, to relinquish so easily—just because of a little feminine trick!—that mystifies her. Then everything must be built on sand . . . then there is no firm grip anywhere.
“You knew I wouldn’t stay away, didn’t you?” she was saying, half-smiling, half-weeping.
To answer yes or no was equally compromising. Either way I would only be entraining a long argument. So I said: “He thought you would come back. I didn’t know. I thought maybe I had lost you.”
The last phrase impressed her favorably. “To lose her”—that meant she was precious. It also implied that by coming back of her own will she was making a gift of herself, the most precious gift she could offer me.
“How could I do that?” she said softly, giving me a melting look. “I only want to know that you care for me. I do silly things sometimes . . . I feel as though I need proofs of your love . . . it’s so silly.” She gripped me tight, blotting herself against me. In a moment she was passionate, her hand fumbling with my fly. “You did want me to come back?” she murmured, extricating my cock and placing it against her warm cunt. “Say it! I want to hear you say it!”
I said it. I said it with all the conviction I could muster.
“Now fuck me!” she whispered, and her mouth twisted savagely. She lay crosswise on the bed, her skirt around her neck. “Pull it off!” she begged, too feverish to find the snaps. “I want you to fuck me as though you never had me before.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, pulling out. “I’m going to take these damned things off first.”
“Quick, quick!” she pleaded. “Put it in all the way. Jesus, Val, I could never do without you . . . Yes, good, good . . . that’s it.” She was squirming like an eel. “Oh Val, you must never let me go. Tight, hold me tight! Oh God, I’m coming . . . hold me, hold me.” I waited for the spasm to die down. “You didn’t come, did you?” she said. “Don’t come yet. Leave it in. Don’t move.” I did as she wished; it was jammed in tight and I could feel the silk pennants inside her fluttering like hungry birds. “Wait a minute, dear . . . wait.” She was gathering her forces for another explosion. Her eyes had become large and moist, relaxed, one might say. As the orgasm approached they grew concentrated, darting wildly from one corner to the other, as though frantically seeking for something to fasten on. “Do it, do it now,” she begged hoarsely. “Go on, give it to me!” Again her mouth had that savage twist, that obscene leer, which more than the most violent movements of the body unleashes the male orgasm. As I shot the hot sperm into her she went into convulsions. She was like a trapeze artist coming off near the roof. And, as happened to her frequently, the orgasms succeeded one another in rapid sequence. I was almost on the verge of slapping her face, to snap her out of it.
The next thing was a cigarette, of course. She lay back under the sheet and inhaled deep puffs, as though she were using a pulmotor.
“Sometimes I think my heart will give out . . . I’ll die in the midst of it.” She relaxed with the ease of a panther, her legs wide apart, as if to let the sperm run out. “God,” she said, placing a hand between her legs, “it’s still running out. . . . Give me a towel, will you?”
As I was bending over her with the towel, I put my fingers up her cunt. I liked to feel it just after a fuck. So thrilly-dilly.
“Don’t do that,” she begged weakly, “or I’ll start all over again.” As she spoke she moved her pelvis lasciviously. “Not too rough, Val. . . . I’m tender. That’s it.” She put her hand on my wrist and held it there, directing my movements with deft and delicate pressure of the fingers. Finally I managed to withdraw my hand and quickly glued my mouth to her crack. “That’s wonderful,” she sighed. She had closed her eyes. She was falling back into the dark hollow of her being.
We were lying sidewise, her legs slung around my neck. Presently I felt her lips touching my prick. I was spreading her cheeks apart with my two hands, my one eye riveted on the little brown button above her cunt. “That’s her asshole,” said I to myself. It was good to look at. So small, so shrunken, as though only little black sheep droppings could come from it.
After we had a bellyful and were lying between the sheets softly snoozing there came a peremptory knock on the door. It was Rebecca. She wanted to know if we had finished—she was going to make tea and she wanted us to join them.
I told her we were taking a nap, couldn’t say when we’d get up.
“May I come in a minute?” With that she pushed the door slightly ajar.
“Sure, come in!” I said, squinting at her with one eye.
“God, you two certainly are a couple of lovebirds,” she said, giving a low, pleasant, earthy sort of chuckle. “Don’t you ever get tired of it? I could hear you way down the other end of the hall. You make me jealous.”
She was standing beside the bed looking down at us. Mona had her hand over my prick, an instinctive gesture of self-protection. Rebecca’s eyes seemed to be concentrated on this spot.
“For God’s sake, stop playing with it when I talk to you, won’t you?” she said.
“Why don’t you leave us alone?” said Mona. “We don’t walk into your bedroom, do we? Can’t we have any privacy here?”
Rebecca gave a hearty, guttural laugh. “Our room isn’t as attractive as yours, that’s why. You’re like a couple of newly-weds: you make the whole house feverish.”
“We’re clearing out of here soon,” said Mona. “I want a place of my own. This is too goddamned incestuous for me. Jesus, you can’t even menstruate here without everyone knowing it.”
I felt impelled to say something mollifying. If Rebecca were aroused she could twist Mona into a knot.
“We’re getting married next week,” I put in. “We’ll probably move to Brooklyn, to some quiet, peaceful spot. This is a bit out of the world.”
“I see,” said Rebecca. “Of course you’ve been getting married ever since you came here. I’m sure we didn’t prevent you—or did we?” She spoke as if she were hurt.
After a few more words she left. We fell asleep again and woke up late. We were hungry as wolves. When we got to the street we took a taxi and went to the French-Italian grocery store. It was about ten o’clock and the place was still crowded. On one side of us was a police lieutenant and on the other a detective. We were seated at the long table. Opposite me, h
anging from a nail on the wall, was a holster with a pistol in it. To the left was the open kitchen where the big fat brother of the proprietor held sway. He was a marvelous, inarticulate bear dripping with grease and perspiration. Always half-cocked, it seemed. Later, after we had eaten well, he would invite us to have a liqueur with him. His brother, who served the food and collected the cash, was a totally different type. He was handsome, suave, courteous and spoke English fairly well. When the place thinned out he would often sit down and chat with us. He talked about Europe most of the time, how different it was there, how “civilized,” how enjoyable the life was. Sometimes he would get to talking about the blond women of North Italy where he came from. He would describe them minutely—the color of their hair and eyes, the texture of their skin, the luscious, sensual mouths they had, the slippery movement of the haunches when they walked, and so on. He had never seen any women like them in America, he said. He spoke of American women with a contemptuous, almost disgusting, curl of the lips. “I don’t know why you stay here, Mr. Miller,” he would say. “Your wife is so beautiful. . . why you don’t go to Italy? Just a few months. I tell you, you never come back.” And then he would order another drink for us and tell us to to stay a little longer . . . maybe a friend of his would come . . . a singer from the Metropolitan Opera House.
Soon we became engaged in conversation with a man and woman directly opposite us. They were in a gay mood and had already passed on to the coffee and liqueurs. I gathered from their remarks that they were theater people.
It was rather difficult to carry on a continued conversation owing to the presence of the hooligans on either side of us. They felt that they were being snubbed, simply because we were talking of things beyond their ken. Every now and then the lieutenant made some dumb remark about “the stage.” The other one, the detective, was already in his cups and getting nasty. I loathed the both of them and showed it openly by ignoring their remarks completely. Finally, not knowing what else to do, they began to badger us.