4

the creation of the world

At night, after all our customers have gone home, Peters, Rhys, Garrett, and I lie in the brothel livingroom. We try to forget our weary bodies by telling each other bedtime stories. Stores that’ll make us dream and sleep.

Peter’s rubbing his sore red cock. “I’m going to tell,” he says, “the first story tonight”:

THE CREATION OF THE WORLD

A cat who has one green whisker and one white whisker keeps getting drunk. She’s in love with a big hairy baboon who won’t notice her.

When she gets drunk, she lies next to anyone: an elephant, a rat, a stick, even a human. She rubs and rolls and pounces and roars and shuffles and whimpers and prowls. She then smells all the smells in the world.

“Mr. Baboon,” she says, “what can I do to make you love me? I’ll do anything for you I want you to know that.”

The baboon, barely noticing her, says, “You can’t make me love you. But it’s a depression this year: the rain won’t come down because it’s in a bad mood; there’re almost no plants; I can’t get enough to eat. You can bring me some food to show me how much you love me.”

The little cat licks her white whisker then she licks her green whisker she runs rushes pounces leaps saunters everywhere, and she brings the baboon all the food that exists in the world.

The baboon looks at all the food that exists in the world. He smiles. He opens his red mouth so wide he blots out the sun. Into this vast wasteland he throws all the bananas all the plums all the mangoes all the kiwis all the apricots all the eggplants all the sugar cane all the honey all the basil all the edible plants and liquids that exist. He swallows. Now there’s no more food left in the world.

The little cat looks up at the big hairy baboon. “Do you love me, baboon, now that you’re fat and happy?”

“You can’t make me love you,” growls the baboon. “But the snakes are giving me trouble this year. They want me to pay taxes on the trees I use as my home. I want to have power over the snakes.”

The little cat sighs. She’ll do anything so the big hairy baboon’ll love her. She catches all the mice and rats in the world, plays with them until they’re dead. Then she ties them to her tail, one after the other. A long string of mice and rats. All the snakes that exist start following this one little cat.

The cat gives her mice-and-rat tail to the baboon. Now the baboon controls all the snakes in the world.

“Do you love me, darling?” murmurs the shy little cat.

“You can’t make me love you, stupid!” the baboon growls.

“All I care about is power. I want to control everyone in the world.”

The little cat shivers. She doesn’t want to help the big hairy gross baboon control everyone. She runs into an old fallingapart house, and hides.

There’re no more plants and liquids in the world, so all the animals are forced to eat each other. This is known as scarcity and depression. The lizards alligators crocodiles eat the fish. The hippos snap up the crocodiles. The red ants nibble at the hippos. The anteaters yump up the ants. The wild black hairy boars swallow the anteaters. The hungry black leopards attack the boars. The wild antelopes’ horns pierce through the hungry black leopards. The elephants gobble up the wild antelopes. Huge hungry bones-sticking-out tigers drive their jaws into the elephants. The big fish who are left, cause all the little fish are in their bellies, the big sharks snap up the huge hungry bones-sticking-out tigers.

And what about the humans? They were all eaten up long ago. They never did know how to survive.

The big hairy baboon, whose stomach is as big as his head, eats every animal he can get his hands on.

All the fish go into his stomach. All the insects go into his stomach. All the birds, the pretty little parakeets who fall in love with whatever animal they’re around and who think they are that animal, the doves who’re constantly committing suicide because they’re so stupid, go into his stomach. All the plant-eating grass-eating animals, the giraffes, and the horses, and the zebras, the water buffalo who loves to fuck go into his stomach. Now the gross baboon’s stomach is bigger than his head.

The baboon’s so big, the huge hungry bones-sticking-out tigers and the lean sleek black leopards, the crocodiles alligators and piranhas of the big-teeth jaws can’t figure out how to sink their teeth into him. The baboon’s stomach is too full. So the baboon eats all the animals with huge teeth. Now the gross baboon’s stomach’s as big as a tent.

The huge elephant tries to kick the baboon. He starts running at this monstrosity of a baboon. There are no plants no rivers to cut down the elephant’s speed. Thump, thump, thump! The huge elephant feet. Tramp, Tramp, Tramp. Huge holes left in the surface of the world. Closer . . . Closer . . . The elephant’s almost next to the hairy baboon. The elephant’s almost on top of the hairy baboon. The baboon can no longer see the elephant: the elephant’s running so fast. He sees a grey mist cover the flat barren surface of the earth.

WHOOMP! The baboon’s stomach is so huge and hard, it’s harder than the hardest rock in the world because there’re so many animals plants and liquids in this stomach, this stomach is so dense and immense; the elephant falls right over it. PLUMP! The elephant falls flat on his long sensitive nose. Before he can tell what’s happened to him, the horrible evil gross baboon has eaten him up.

Now the horrible baboon’s stomach is so huge, it rubs against the white moon. This stomach is so dense, it weighs as much as the earth. So there exist three balls: earth, baboon, and moon.

The little cat’s been watching everything.

She’s been watching everything from her hide-out in the old dilapidated house.

She’s starving. She has to find food so badly she comes crawling out of her hiding-place.

The only being who exists besides her is the gross hairy baboon.

The baboon sees this skinny, crawling, purring creature. He wants her so badly that, finally, after all this time, he’s in love with her. He wants her more than anything else in the world!

He sings the following song to make her come purring to him:

Finally I’ve found you love

I realize I have to open up

The shy little cat doesn’t move. She’s much too weak.

The baboon sings another song:

I’m scared you ‘II hurt me

I’ve never let myself love anyone

I don’t want you to hurt me and I

don’t want to stop being this open

The cat doesn’t move. She’s too hungry to love anyone.

The baboon sings another heart-rending song:

I don’t understand love

it’s not rational

The little cat doesn’t move. She just doesn’t care.

All existence’s silent.

The little cat’s dreaming: She’s dreaming of a forest where white leopards lie down among the free-floating giraffes black rivers run silently by tiny bears graze in the low bushes the wind smells of shit and grass and crushed leaves and cinnamon bark huge hippos yawn and catch flies in their mouths a human staring at his long red prick he doesn’t know what to do with it a wasp lands on it and stings while the black rain liquid drips on the shiny plants down in the black soil and up through the thick green shining plant black liquids coursing through the forest grounds coming out of the animals the crocodiles who wait to snap at the stupid deer the wolves who talk to each other the little car plays with everyone by rubbing against the hot skin then running just slightly faster than the other animal, teasing coming small white bears rise up bat their paws against each other’s face. The little cat’s not dreaming anymore. This is how the world came to be.

And now that the world exists . . .

“ ‘STOP IT, TED,’ I SCREAMED WHEN HE FINALLY RELEASED ME. BUT HE DIDN’T HEAR. HE WAS LIKE A MADMAN: OVERCOME WITH LUST. I WAS TOTALLY IN HIS POWER, COMPLETELY HELPLESS.”

Fear, like an electric shock, ran through my body as Bill turned the car onto the deserted country road. I knew what was coming, the grand finish toward which the events of the evening had been leading. I hadn’t tried to stop it. Deep down inside I knew that it was what I really wanted, and as the car bumped down the old dirt road I prayed inwardly that this time everything would work out, that I would be able to go through with it. Bravely I tried to fight down the familiar feeling of terror, but the attempt was useless. Slowly, surely, it began to take control of me, increasing as we rocked closer and closer to the end of the road.

I watched Bill as he drove, wondering if he had any idea of the way I felt. No. Of course not. He thought I was just another girl, maybe prettier than most, but basically like everybody else. He had no idea of the struggle going on inside my head or the dark secret that lay in my past. But I knew that all too soon he would find out what I was really like. Then he would be gone also, just like all the others.

We were near the end of the road and Bill slowed the car to a stop along the side. He switched off the lights. Then, stretching his arms above his head, he gave a long, contented sigh.

“Wow,” he said, “it’s a terrific night! Listen to the birds.”

“I am,” I said, trying to sound calm even though my heart was beating so violently I could hardly even speak.

Bill turned his face to me and smiled. It was dark and I could barely make out his features. His light brown hair looked black. The moonlight glittering in his eyes hid their blue and turned his freckled face ash-white. Although I knew he was good-looking, the darkness made him seem more a monster than a man. Without wanting to, I started to shake. Bill reached out and put his hand lightly on my leg.

“What’s the matter? Are you cold?”

“Yes, a little,” I answered quietly, even though my inner voice was screaming, “No, I’m not cold, you fool: I’m scared half to death.”

“Come here, baby. I’ll warm you up.”

I wanted to go to him and I didn’t want to go to him. I wanted him to love me like I wanted to eat. I didn’t want him to turn me away. Then I’d be out in the cold again. Like I always was.

I was scared. I was more scared than I’d been before. I had done this. I had gotten myself in this situation. I could have been stronger. “Baby,” his hot breath was rasping my flesh. I could feel his hand play with the tips of my breasts under my bra. I jumped back.

“What’s the matter, baby. Scared of daddy? Come to daddy, baby, o baby . . .” He started moaning again and put his arms around me to draw me into him. His huge lips descended on my lips and I felt his tongue, his tongue in the middle of my mouth.

Something in me clicked. I wrenched myself out of his arms.

“What’s the matter with you?” Bill looked at me queerly. “You sick or something.”

“I, I can’t, Bill. I wanted to, I wanted to do everything with you, but I can’t.”

“You’ve been coming on hot and heavy all night. You couldn’t keep your hands off me until we got out here. What d’you think I am? I’m not going to let you tease me and control me.” His eyes looked mean and heavy. I had never seen him like this before. Now he made me really frightened. He put one hand on the opening of my shirt. “You’re going to give, girl, you’re going to give me what you’ve been promising. I don’t take teasing from no one.”

“Bill,” I gasped, “I just can’t. Please don’t be angry with me. I can’t stand it when people are angry with me. I can’t explain. Just drive me home . . .”

He almost hit me, and then he stopped. I could feel him make the decision. He put his foot on the gas pedal and the car started up. All the way home I felt miserable. I couldn’t say anything to him. I couldn’t give him what he wanted. When he said good-night in a cold mechanical voice, all I could do was murmur good-night and get out of the car.

I stood looking at the moon for a few moments before unlocking the front door and going inside. The evening had started out so beautifully, so romantically. But I had managed to ruin it. Like so many times before, I had become terrified at the thought of physical intimacy with a man. It seemed like I would never be able to keep a fellow of my own. The once lovely night had become a melancholy symbol of everything my life had ever been . . .

As I lay down on my bed, my future lay bleakly before me, that of a lonely old maid, yearly growing more sour and miserable. I had hoped Bill would save me from such a life.

Somehow I made it through work the next day. I was nervous and irritable. I’m always like that when I get upset because I’m angry at myself and don’t know how to handle my anger.

Finally, when I got home, I fell into a soft armchair. I collapsed. Since the livingroom lights were out, I knew my parents weren’t home. Finally, I could let myself go and I sobbed and sobbed.

I don’t know how long I lay sobbing in the dark. The doorbell rang, but it was in the distance, and I didn’t want to answer it. “Go away,” I said as loudly as I could.

“Claire, it’s me, Bill. Please let me in.”

I didn’t want to. I dried my eyes and let him in. He looked sheepish, and a bit scared. I could tell that even though I was trembling so hard I could barely stand up.

“What do you want, Bill?”

“I want to apologize for my actions last night. I didn’t mean, to treat you like that. I wanted to be good to you and I loused everything up.”

I understood that he wanted to save his sexual pride and still adjust to what I wanted. How could I tell him that I didn’t want anything? That I would never let a man touch me because of my hideous past?

“Bill,” I said, “I thought that with you it’d be different. I really liked,” I couldn’t say ‘love,’ “you and I wanted you. All night I was trying to get you to make love to me and when you did, I just couldn’t. . . uh . . . You’re in the right, Bill, not me.”

“It doesn’t matter who’s right and who’s wrong, Claire,” he said gently. “We’re not playing power games. I love you. I want to know why you wouldn’t let me make love to you.”

He was so gentle to me and so loving. I couldn’t keep myself closed, and dark and hideous, even though I knew my dreadful secret would drive him away from me forever. “Bill. Bill.

“It was a Sunday morning, Bill. Mother and Dad had gone to church but I stayed home so I could cook a huge Sunday brunch for the whole family.

“As I was mixing the eggs and milk in a bowl my brother Ted came into the kitchen. Ted had just gotten back from Nam and he hadn’t quite adjusted yet to our peaceful home. He seemed unable to talk and he seemed real scared, like everything was just about to attack him. I knew he didn’t sleep well at nights cause I heard him screaming at night through the wall that separated our two bedrooms.

“ ‘Hi Ted,’ I said. I wanted to show him that home was okay. Friendly. I wasn’t going to attack him.

“He didn’t answer me. After a while he said, ‘Come upstairs. I’ve got something to show you.’ He had a strange glassy look in his eyes.

“I wanted to talk with him so I went upstairs eagerly.

“ ‘Look, Claire,’ he said, pulling a pair of red silk pajamas out of his suitcase. ‘This is what the Vietnamese girls wear.’

“ ‘Gee, Ted, they’re beautiful.’

“ ‘Why don’t you try them on? You can pretend you’re a little Vietnamese girl.’

“I grabbed them and ran into my room. When I returned, Ted was sitting on his bed. ‘What d’you think, Ted? Am I O.K.?’

“ ‘Come here,’ he said.

“At first I didn’t know what he was saying.

“ ‘Come here you little bitch yellow girl. Come here pussy. Come here gook twat. Come here, come to Teddy-boy.’

“I couldn’t come. I was shocked and frightened. As I started to run out of the room, his hand caught my arm and yanked me back to him and under him so that his heavy body was crushing mine.

“ ‘That’s right, baby. I’m no enemy. I’m going to give you what you want, what all of you yellow bitches want, I’ve got the thing that’s going to conquer your country.’ His huge lips bore down on my lips and his hands began to crush my shoulders.

“I shoved his face away. ‘Ted, I’m your sister. I’m your sister! Let me go!’

“He grabbed my head with his hands and his right hand covered my mouth. As he shoved my head back against the bed, his other hand tore off the red silk pajamas. His eyes were glazed and drool was coming out of his mouth. He looked cruel and he was hurting me badly.

“I kept struggling as much as I could, hoping, hoping for anything.

“ ‘Baby, that’s the way I like you. The more you move, the hotter you make me. You’re so little and delicate, I just want to feel you. I want to feel you all over me.’ Then he started to pant. His breath was hot and fetid. I was about to faint. His demanding mouth bit down on my tongue and then on my unformed breasts. He was hurting me.

“His right hand unzipped his pants and he lowered himself into me. Lowered his hardened manhood into me so that I thought he was tearing my skin, thrusting an iron-hot cleaver into the most secret part of my body. He kept forcing himself into me until he began to shudder, and shudder harder. Finally he bore into me so hard, some part of me, burning, gave way. I felt no relief.

“He rolled off of me. Suddenly he began to see me. A look of horror replaced the dazed grin on his face.

“ ‘O my god,’ he gasped. ‘What have I done?’

“I grabbed my clothes and ran. I locked myself in my bathroom and turned on the bathtub. Frantically, I kept trying to clean myself.

“Later that night I learned that Ted had rushed out, taken the car, and driven off a cliff.”

When I finished talking, I realized that Bill was still in the room. He was shivering.

“What have I done to you, Claire? I should have known. Look,” his hand gently took my hand, “do you think you’ll ever be able to trust me?”

“Yes,” I said. “But I’ll have to go slowly. I’m still very scared of men.”

“It’ll take a long time,” Bill said. “But one day you’ll want me to touch you and hold you and do all those other things. As for now, I love you, I love the real you because I know everything about you.

“Everything else will happen.”

Now I think I must be one of the luckiest girls alive. Every night I thank God for sending me my Bill. If it hadn’t been for him, I would have gone through life a lonely and bitter old maid. Instead, with the help of the man I love, I have become at last a real woman. The past few months have been a dream, and I know that there are even greater things in store. Next week, Bill and I are getting married, and with all that we have going for us we can’t help but be happy.

“If you’re nice to me and send me presents, especially money so I can get this trash printed,” I exclaim, rolling drunkenly over my matchstick legs, “I’ll tell you another story”:

the true story of a rich woman:

I WANT TO BE RAPED EVERY NIGHT!

I was walking along the street. I wasn’t doing anything. I was looking for some action.

It was night, late at night, Times Square. The blue yellow green red white and violet neon lights were still blinking. They wouldn’t stop blinking for another two hours. And it would still be dark. It’s always dark on Times Square: only rats live there, rats and some of those creepy insects that only come out at night.

My name is Jacqueline Onassis.

I kept walking down the slightly wet shining street. The neon lights were blinking at me, winking, inviting hot desires I had never known existed. In one dark alleyway, seven naked women are waiting to slowly peel off my clothes. One has her tongue under my left arm. One has her hand buried in the soft flesh of my thigh. Hot. There’s a woman waiting for me who’s madly in love with me. In fact she can’t live without me. Every waking minute of the day she sees my face, my face twice its normal size hovering in front of her eyes, my hands tangled in, pressing, messing her wet cunt hairs. She dreams that I’m wet: my thighs are pillars. Joined at the top. Water streaks down their insides. I’m so wet and anxious that sweat’s pouring out of me. “Come get me,” I whisper to her. “Come get me and handle me.”

The street was still wet and shiny. I felt a hand lightly touch my shoulder.

I quickly turned around.

“Look,” a young dark-haired man said to me, releasing his erect cock from his pants. “See what you do to me? Every moment I see you. Three nights I’ve been following you. Three times I had to relieve myself.”

I laughed. “Didn’t anyone tell you that was bad for you? You could stunt your growth doing it so much.”

He didn’t laugh. “When are you going to spend a whole night with me? Just one time that we could make love . . .”

I laughed again. “You’re too greedy. I’m a married woman with responsibilities. I must be home every night so that I see my children when I wake up in the morning.”

“What would be so terrible if you did not?” He pouted.

“Then I’d be remiss in the one duty that my husband demands of me,” I said. “And that I would not do.”

“Your husband does not care. Otherwise he would have come to see you and the children at least once these past three months,” he said.

My voice went cold. “How do you know that? What my husband does or does not do is none of your business.”

He sensed instantly he had said too much. “But I love you. I am going crazy for wanting you.”

I nodded slowly. Relaxing. “Then keep things in their proper perspective,” I said. “And if you’re going to keep playing with your cock, you’d better get to the nearest bar before a cop arrests you.”

“If I do, will you suck me?”

I was high. The private section of the Metropole was packed. The strobe lights were like a stop-motion camera on my eyes. The heavy pounding of the rock group tortured my ears. I took another sip of wine and looked down at the crowd.

I was annoyed with the black-haired man. He seemed to take too much for granted. In some ways he was like a woman, only in his case he seemed to think that the world revolved around his cock. I was beginning to be bored with him but I didn’t see any other possibilities. It was the boredom that led me to smoke a joint. Usually I never smoke in public. But when the Englishwoman offered me a toke in the ladies’ room, I stayed.

After that I didn’t mind the evening at all. It seemed that I had never laughed so much in my life. Everyone was excruciatingly bright and witty. Now I wanted to dance, but everyone was too busy talking.

I got out of my chair and went to the dance floor alone. Pushing my way into the crowd, I began to dance. I gave myself to the music, happy that I was in the middle of New York City where no one thought it strange that a woman or man wanted to dance alone. I closed my eyes.

When I opened them, the tall good-looking black man was dancing in front of me. He caught my eye but we didn’t speak. He moved fantastically well, his body fluid under the shirt, which was open to his waist and tied in a tight knot just over the seemingly glued-on black jeans.

I began to move with him.

After a moment, I spoke. “You’re from the South, aren’t you?”

“How did you know?”

“You don’t dance like the men up here. They jerk up and down.”

He laughed. “I never thought of that.”

“Where are you from?”

“Cracker country,” he said. “Georgia.”

“I’ve never been there.”

“You’re not missing anything.” He looked at me. “I like it better here. We could never do this down there.”

“Still?” I asked.

“Still,” he said. “They never change.”

“My folks sent me up here to a private school when I was eight. I went back when my father was killed—I was sixteen then but I couldn’t take it. I headed right back to New York the minute I got enough bread together.”

I knew what New York City private schools cost and they weren’t cheap. His family had to have money. “What did your father do?”

His voice was even. “He was a pimp. He had a finger in every pie. But he was black and the honkies didn’t like that, so they cut him up in an alley an’ blamed it on a passing nigger. Then they hung the nigger an’ everything was cool.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “My father said that was the way they would do it someday.”

The music crashed to a stop and the group came. The record player began a slow number. “Nice talking with you,” I said, starting back to the table.

His hand on my arm stopped me. “You don’t have to go back there.”

I didn’t speak.

“You look like a fast-track lady and there’s nothin’ but mudders back there,” he said.

“What’ve you got in mind?” I asked.

“Action. That’s something I got from my father. I’m a fast-track man. Why don’t you meet me outside?”

Again I didn’t speak.

“I saw the way you looked,” he said. “You gotta be turned off that black-haired man over there.” He smiled suddenly. “You ever make it with a black man before?”

“No,” I answered. I never had.

“I’m better than they say we are,” he said.

“Okay.” I said. “But we’ll have only about an hour. I have to leave then.”

“An hour’s enough,” he laughed. “In one hour I’ll have you to the moon and back.”

When I came out he was on the street opposite the discotheque, watching the last of the stores close up for the night. He turned when he heard the sound of my high-stacked shoes on the sidewalk. “Any trouble gettin’ out?” he asked.

“No,” I answered, “I told him I was going to the ladies’.”

He grinned. “Mind walking? My place is just up the street past the Paradise.”

“It’s the only way to get to the moon,” I said, falling in step beside him.

Despite the hour there were still hookers walking back and forth. They were engaged in their principal form of amusement, looking at each other and trying to dodge the cops who cruised by. For many it was the only thing they had to do for they were fourteen years old or older and too old for the streetwalker trade. When most of the people in a city have no money and no source of money, they live without mercy.

We turned up the street past the Paradise with its smell of dried cunt juice and piss stains and began to see the cold, now deserted, sidewalk. Halfway up the block he stopped in front of the dirtiest apartment building. He opened the door with a huge key. “We’re six flights up.”

I nodded and followed him up the old wooden staircase. His apartment was at the head of of the seventh flight. There were no lights in the hall.

I stepped inside the apartment. The room was dark. I heard a click. The room was filled with a soft red light which came from two lamps, one on either side of the bed against the far wall. I looked at the room curiously.

There was no other furniture besides an armless metal chair. A bathtub covered by a wooden board served as a table. I didn’t see a toilet, only a sink.

He went over to the bed and reached under a pillow. He took out a joint. Lit it. The sweet acrid smell reached my nostrils as he held it toward me. “I don’t have anything to drink.”

“That’s O.K.,” I said, taking a toke from the reefer. “This is good grass.”

He smiled. “A friend of mine just in from Istanbul dropped it off. He also laid some righteous coke on me. Ever use it?”

“Sometimes,” I said, passing the joint back to him. I put down my bag and moved toward him. I felt the buzzing in my head and the wetness between my legs. It was really good grass if one toke could do that. I pulled at the knot of his shirt. “I have an hour.”

Deliberately, he placed the joint in an ashtray and then pushed the see-through blouse down from my shoulders, exposing my naked breasts. He cupped one in each hand, squeezing the nipples between a thumb and forefinger until the pain suddenly flashed through me. “White bitch,” he said, smiling.

My smile was as taunting as his own. “Nigger!”

His hands pressed me to my knees in front of him. “You better learn to beg a little if you want some black cock in your hot little pussy.”

I had the shirt untied. I pulled at the zipper on his jeans. He wore nothing underneath and his phallus leapt free as I pulled the pants down around his knees. I put a hand on his shaft and pulled it toward my mouth.

His hand held my face away from him. “Beg!” he said sharply.

I looked up at him. “Please,” I whispered.

He smiled and relaxed his hands, letting me take him in my mouth while he reached to the bed and lifted up a small vial filled with coke. The tiny gold spoon was attached to the cap with a small bead chain. Expertly he took a spoonful and snorted it up each nostril. Then he looked down at me. “Your turn,” he said.

“I’m happy.” I was kissing him and licking at his testicles. “I don’t need any.”

“White bitch!” He pulled at my hair, snapping my head back. He lifted me to my feet, filled a spoon, and held it under a nostril. “You do as I say. Snort!”

I sniffed and the powder lifted from the spoon into my nose. Almost at the same second he had the filled spoon under the other nostril. This time I snorted without his saying a word. I felt the faint numbness in my nose almost immediately. Then the powder exploded in my brain and I felt the strength pouring right into my genitals. “God!” I exclaimed. “That’s wild. I came just sniffing it.”

He laughed. “You ain’t seen nothing yet, baby. I’m goin’ to show you some tricks my pappy taught me with that stuff.”

A moment later we were naked on the bed and I was laughing. I had never felt so good. He took another spoonful and rubbed it on his gums, making me do the same. Then he licked my nipples until they were wet from his tongue and sprinkled a little of the white powder on them and began to work them over with his mouth and fingers.

I had never felt them grow so long and hard. After a few moments I thought they were going to burst with agonizing pleasure. I began to moan and writhe. “Fuck me,” I said. “Fuck me!”

“Not yet,” he laughed. “We only beginning.”

The next moment the lights were extinguished, and this wild cannibal sprang into bed with me. I sang out, I could not help it now; and giving a grunt of astonishment he began feeling me.

After a moment I was screaming as I had never screamed before. Each orgasm seemed to take me higher than I had ever been. I reached down for his phallus and finding it, pulled myself around so that I was able to take him into my mouth. Greedily I sucked at him. I wanted to swallow him alive, to choke myself to death on that giant beautiful tool.

“O, cut the shit,” Norvins says, dragging her huge body into the room. “The boys are snorting away, Toulouse, and you’re still talking.”

“Norvins,” I’ve got tears in my eyes. “Do you think Peter committed the murders?”

“Peter? Peter the whore?”

I nod yes.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Peter’s a lamb.”

“Peter had this really weird childhood: His father did propaganda work for the American government. His mother was a member of the Young Socialist Party and a headshrinker. His younger brother raised rats. He grew up in the U.S.A. and in Germany. No stability. Plus he was fat. Unattractive. He was always unsure of himself. Since he was a musical genius, he trusted himself implicitly. That sort of thing often leads to murder.”

“Why would he have murdered the twerp?”

Suddenly I realize I don’t know what I’m saying. I’m too tired to think. All these stories are whirling around in my head, my head’s whirling like a moon gone crazy, I’m going to stop thinking. Marcia . . .

A ten-year-old kid who’s beautiful, innocent, and unworldly.

Suddenly a door closes behind me.

I’m left alone. The men I know have been mistreating me. They all think, because I like to fuck, they can do what they want with me. Step on me. Beat me. Never give me presents. They only fuck me when they have no one else to fuck cause they know I’m always ready to fuck. If I fall in love with a ten-year-old brat, maybe I’ll find the road to happiness.

Marcia . . .

What would it be like if Marcia one day doesn’t resist—if, as my fingers caress the creamy inner surface of one thigh, slightly above the knee, she relaxes, allowing her thighs to open like a book with smooth pages. What then? There comes a softness at the tips of my fingers, a wet, breaking softness under a mat of fragile hair. What does she have deep there, at her pit, between her legs, like a furry animal? Does it have a life of its own? Is it a strange beast lying in wait, with its heaped softness simply bait for the unwary? I’d give anything to know.

I fall asleep, a curtain of softness descending over my senses. My last image is of Marcia, her head tilted back, her chest erect, and, like a vast portal at which I’m longing to prostrate myself, the soft yet muscled forward thrust of her dusky white thighs.

In another part of Montmartre, in an old crumbling deserted house on the corner of the Rue de Clignancourt and Rue Picard, a section of Paris that’s still country due to the slight patches of grass, lives a couple a man and a wife who’ve been together, god willing, for the past thirty years.

These two old people are the only survivors of the once powerful Alexander family. They are not even Alexanders, to tell the truth, for the last Alexander, the rich old beautiful bitch Mrs. Alexander, has died, but they have been servants to the Alexanders for so long that they have inherited, or kept alive, the mysterious Alexander attributes. These two people influence peoples’ dreams. Rhys, Peter, Norvins, Poirot, haughtily as they bear themselves in the noonday streets of Montmartre, are no better than slaves to these servant Alexanders, on entering the topsy-turvy commonwealth of sleep.

Two other people live in this rusty wooden house. A young architect who built the house and surrounding garden and who now cares for this living tangle of trees bush and water, and Marcia, the young daughter of Vincent Van Gogh and a clap-ridden sleaze-hag prostitute Vincent fell in love with in The Hague around 1881. Marcia’s one of the most innocent of all creatures. She’s very pretty; as graceful as a bird, and graceful much in the same way: floppy; as pleasant about the house as a gleam of sunshine falling on the floor through a shadow of twinkling leaves, or as a ray of firelight that dances on the wall while evening is drawing nigh. She gilds all with an atmosphere of love and joy.

The architect is quite another sort of person. He considers himself a thinker, and is certainly of a thoughtful turn, but, with his own path to discover, has perhaps hardly yet reached the point where an educated man begins to think. The true value of his character lies in that deep consciousness of inward strength, which makes all his past vicissitudes seem merely like a change of garments; in that enthusiasm, so quiet that he scarcely knows of its existence, but which gives a warmth to everything that he lays his hand on; in that personal ambition, hidden—from his own as well as others’ eyes—among his more generous impulses, but in which lurks a certain efficacy, that might solidify him from a theorist into a champion of some practicable cause. Altogether, in his culture and want of culture—in his crude, wild, and misty philosophy, and the practical experience that counteracts some of its tendencies; in his magnanimous zeal for man’s welfare, and his recklessness of whatever the ages had established in man’s behalf; in his faith, and in his infidelity; in what he has, and in what he lacks—the artist might fitly enough stand forth as the representative of many compeers in his native land.

The sun’s beating down on the tangled branches, the long-waving grass, the weeds, the rock piles, the strange mazes of the garden. Marcia’s standing in front of a stream, her back to the house, clad in a halter and pair of underpants. The sun beats down on her. She reaches behind her and unfastens the halter, then, half turning, steps out of the underpants. She steps into the stream, bathes herself, then she puts on her underpants. Slowly she pulls the halter around her chest and ties the neck strap.

The young artist feels faint beads of perspiration across his forehead. This is the first time he’s ever seen a ten-year-old girl completely naked. He never thought they could be so beautiful and exciting.

Walking quietly, he passes into a thicker part of the woods where he can no longer see her. He closes his eyes, and sinks, still trembling, to the soil. For a long moment he sits there, the pain of the heat surging inside him bending him almost double.

Slowly he reasons with himself. No. He mustn’t. Not again. If he gives into it now, he’ll always give into it. At last, he begins to feel better. He puts the French pictures Norvins gave him on the ground, so he can bury them.

All you need is a little self-control and determination. He places the pictures face-down on a tree-stump. He begins to feel proud of himself. He’s not going to look at those pictures ever again.

He lies down, on his back, on the earth. The sun beating down on him makes his mind wander. He forgets the pictures.

As he’s about to fall asleep, he hears footsteps. He doesn’t want to wake up. He remembers. He freezes. Dazed from the sun, he lurches toward the tree-stump.

She’s standing by the tree-stump, the pictures in her hand. She looks up at him in surprise. “Scott, where’d you get these pictures?” she asks, a curious excitement in her voice.

“Give them to me!” he demands, walking toward her.

“I will not!” she retorts, turning her back to him. Her left leg kicks up into the air. “I haven’t finished looking at them yet.”

Lithely she spins away from his outstretched hand, across the grass, to the far side of the stump. “Let me finish,” she says calmly. “Then you can have them back.”

She turns to avoid his heavy grasp but his hand catches her shoulder. The pictures fly from her hand as she falls against him. She reaches for the pictures. His hand catches at her halter strap to keep her from getting them, and the strap breaks in his hand. He freezes and stares at her white chest.

“You broke my strap,” she says quietly. She makes no move to cover herself. Her eyes watch his face.

He doesn’t answer her.

She smiles slowly and raises her hand to her breast, rubbing her palm gently across the nipple. “Im just as pretty as any of the girls in those pictures, aren’t I?”

He’s fascinated, unable to speak. His eyes follow the movement of her hand. “Aren’t I?” she asks again. “You can tell me. I won’t tell anyone Why do you think I let you watch while I was bathing?”

“You knew I was watching?” he asks in surprise.

She laughs. “Of course, stupid. I could see you in the water. I almost burst out laughing. I thought your eyes would pop out of your head.”

He can feel the tension begin to build up inside him. “I don’t think that’s funny.”

“Look at me,” she says. “I like you to look at me. I wish everyone could.” She swivels around so that her knees stick away from her thighs.

“That’s not right,” he says.

“Why not?” she demands. “What’s wrong with it? I like to look at you; why shouldn’t you look at me?”

“But you never did,” he quickly replies.

A smile comes to her lips. “Oh, yes I did.”

“You did? When?”

“The other afternoon when you came back from Norvins’. I know what you do there. There was no one home and I watched you through the bathroom keyhole. I saw everything you did.”

“Everything?” The word escapes his mouth like a caress.

“Everything,” she says smugly. “You were exercising your muscle.” Her eyes look into his. “I never knew it could get so long. I always thought it was little and kind of droopy like it was in the beginning.”

There’s a tightness in his throat. He can hardly speak. He begins to get up from the tree-stump. “I think you’d better get away from here,” he says hoarsely.

She looks up at him. Smiling. “Would you like to see all of me?”

He doesn’t answer.

Her hand reaches up and unties the neck strap of the halter. Half turning, she steps out of the underpants. He stares at her naked body, feeling his legs begin to tremble. He sees her eyes move down on him. His shirt hangs open. He looks at her again.

“Now take off your clothes and let me see all of you,” she says.

As if in a daze he lets his shirt, then his pants slip to the earth. He groans and sinks to his knees in the earth, holding himself.

Quickly she moves to him and looks down at him. A faint sound of triumph comes into her voice. “Now,” she says, “you can do it for me.”

His hand reaches up to touch her chest. She lets it rest there a moment, then suddenly moves away from him. “No!” she says sharply. “Don’t touch me!”

He stares at her dumbly, the agony pouring through him in waves.

Her heavy-lidded eyes watch him.

“Do it for me,” she says in a husky voice. “And I’ll do it for you. But don’t touch me!”