When I got my fingers into her crotch and parted the little lips she was as moist as a dish-rag. I massaged it gently, opening it up more and more, and still handing out a telepathic line about women sometimes being mistaken about themselves and how sometimes they think they’re very small when really they’re quite normal, and the longer I kept it up the juicier she got and the more she opened up. I had four fingers inside her and there was room inside for more if I had had more to put in. She had an enormous cunt and it had been well reamed out, I could feel. I looked at her to see if she was still keeping her eyes shut. Her mouth was open and she was gasping but her eyes were tight shut, as though she were pretending to herself that it was all a dream. I could move her about roughly now – no danger of the slightest protest. And maliciously perhaps, I jostled her about unnecessarily, just to see if she would come to. She was as limp as a feather pillow and even when her head struck the arm of the sofa she showed no sign of irritation. It was as though she had anaesthetized herself for a gratuitous fuck. I pulled all her clothes off and threw them on the floor, and after I had given her a bit of a work-out on the sofa I slipped it out and laid her on the floor, on her clothes; and then I slipped it in again and she held it tight with that suction valve she used so skilfully, despite the outward appearance of coma.
It seems strange to me that the music always passed off into sex. Nights, if I went out for a walk, I was sure to pick up some one – a nurse, a girl coming out of a dance hall; a sales girl, anything with a skirt on. If I went out with my friend MacGregor in his car – just a little spin to the beach, he would say -1 would find myself by midnight sitting in some strange parlour in some queer neighbourhood with a girl on my lap, usually one I didn’t give a damn about because MacGregor was even less selective than I. Often, stepping in his car I’d say to him – “listen, no cunts tonight, what?” And he’d say – “Jesus, no, I’m fed up … just a little drive somewhere . . . maybe to Sheepshead Bay, what do you say?” We wouldn’t have gone more than a mile when suddenly he’d pull the car up to the curb and nudge me. “Get a look at that,” he’d say, pointing to a girl strolling along the sidewalk. “Jesus, what a leg!” Or else – “Listen what do you say we ask her to come along? Maybe she can dig up a friend.”
And before I could say another word he’d be hailing her and handing out his usual patter, which was the same for every one. And nine times out often the girl came along. And before we’d gone very far, feeling her up with his free hand, he’d ask her if she didn’t have a friend she could dig up to keep us company. And if she put up a fuss, if she didn’t like being pawed over that way too quickly, he’d say – “All right, get the hell out then … we can’t waste any time on the likes of you!” And with that he’d slow up and shove her out. “We can’t be bothered with cunts like that, can we Henry?” he’d say, chuckling softly. “You wait, I promised you something good before the night’s over.” And if I reminded him that we were going to lay off for one night he’d answer; “Well, just as you like … I was only thinking it might make it more pleasant for you.” And then suddenly the brakes would pull us up and he’d be saying to some silky silhouette looming out of the dark: – “hello sister, what yer doing – taking a little stroll?” And maybe this time it would be something exciting, a dithery little bitch with nothing else to do but pull up her skirt and hand it to you. Maybe we wouldn’t even have to buy her a drink, just hail up somewhere on a side road and go at it, one after the other, in the car. And if she was an emptyheaded bimbo, as they usually were, he wouldn’t even bother to drive her home. “We’re not going that way,” he’d say, the bastard that he was. “You’d better jump out here,” and with that he’d open the door and out with her.
His next thought was, of course, was she dean? That would occupy his mind all the way back. “Jesus, we ought to be more careful,” he’d say. “You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into picking them up like that. Ever since that last one – you remember, the one we picked up on the Drive – I’ve been itchy as hell. Maybe it’s just nervousness … I think about it too much. Why can’t a guy stick to one cunt, tell me that. Henry. You take Trix, now, she’s a good kid, you know that. And I like her too, in a way, but… shit, what’s the use of talking about it? You know me – I’m a glutton. You know, I’m getting so bad that sometimes when I’m on my way to a date – mind you, with a girl I want to fuck, and everything fixed too – as I say, sometimes I’m rolling along and maybe out of the comer of my eye I catch a flash of a leg crossing the street and before I know it I’ve got her in the car and the hell with the other girl. I must be cunt-struck, I guess … what do you think? Don’t tell me,” he would add quickly. “I know you, you bugger . . . you’ll be sure to tell me the worst.” And then, after a pause – “you’re a funny guy, do you know that? I never notice you refusing anything, but somehow you don’t seem to be worrying about it all the time.
Sometimes you strike me as though you didn’t give a damn one way or the other. And you’re a steady bastard too – almost a monogamist, I’d say. How you can keep it up so long with one woman beats me. Don’t you get bored with them? Jesus, I know so well what they’re going to say. Sometimes I feel like saying . . . you know, just breeze in on ’em and say; ‘listen, kid, don’t say a word .. . just fish it out and open your legs wide.’ ” He laughed heartily. “Can you imagine the expression on Trix’s face if I pulled a line like that on her? I’ll tell you, once I came pretty near doing it. I kept my hat and coat on. Was she sore! She didn’t mind my keeping the coat on so much, but the hat! I told her I was afraid of a draught… of course there wasn’t any draught. The truth is, I was so damned impatient to get away that I thought if I kept my hat on I’d be off quicker. Instead I was there all night with her. She put up such a row that I couldn’t get her quiet. . .
But listen, that’s nothing. Once I had a drunken Irish bitch and this one had some queer ideas. In the first place, she never wanted it in bed . . . always on the table. You know, that’s all right once in a while, but if you do it often it wears you out. So one night – I was a little tight, I guess – I says to her, no, nothing doing, you drunken bastard . . . you’re gonna go to bed with me to-night. I want a real fuck – in bed. You know, I had to argue with that son of a bitch for an hour almost before I could persuade her to go to bed with me, and then only on the agreement that I was to keep my hat on. Listen, can you picture me getting over that stupid bitch with my hat on? And stark naked to boot! I asked her … ‘Why do you want me to keep my hat on?’ You know what she said? She said it seemed more genteel. Can you imagine what a mind that cunt had? I used to hate myself for going with that bitch. I
