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  El Remo was ablaze with lights. The jukebox was trembling with Ella Fitzgerald's pained voice; its bright fluorescent lights bubbled in changing colors. Three boys leaned against the jukebox, worshipping the distant voice coming out of it.

  Gloria pushed hard toward the bar. Everyone was balancing bottles of beer in one hand and a half-filled glass in the other. A beer could last all night. An uptown couple, the boy in Madison Avenue gray and the girl in an English tweed suit, were drinking martinis. A wandering artist offered to draw the girl's portrait. For a beer, for the pleasure of studying that cool face. The boy said, "No thanks." No one was going to take him in. The girl, out of habit, out of confusion about who she was, flirted with the shabby demented artist. Girls like that had to see the same look in every man's eyes. She was lovely and safe and arrogant and stupid and empty. A refrigerated cunt ... an automatic ice cube machine. The cooler they are, the harder they fall. Maybe ice cubes feel good against a prick. Soothing, like alcohol against a fevered brow. Lovely. All we have to do is freeze and we can live forever.

  The girl looked at her, and her eyes gleamed with competition. She's capable of a less aloof expression. But a man never sees it. They have no idea who she is. I know in a glance. We're sisters. We're both losing the game. But she doesn't know that there's no way to win. All you can do is not play. I guess she thinks she's smart. But her score is blank. Mine was blank yesterday morning. I wish I could wipe it clean again. I'll kill him. That's how I'll keep score; I'll cheat.

  Before she reached the bar, she saw Jules sitting half drunk in a booth. He had a dish of cold spaghetti in front of him. No one had ever seen him eat, and the bones in his face gave him a stark dramatic look. He caught her eyes.

  "Gloria, out at this hour ... come have a beer." That meant sit with him, but pay for your own.

  "Have you seen Maurice or Conrad?"

  "They're trying to round up some pot," he slurred. "We're going to have a party if they score."

  "Any chance of scoring?"

  "Yeah. There's this guy who just arrived from Mexico. If he doesn't have marijuana, he's sure to have something."

  "Christ, Jules, you should never have left the church. You even look like a Jesuit."

  "I never left the church. The church left me."

  "Jules, do you know a man with white eyes?"

  "I don't know anyone."

  "Jules, please, I'm serious. I must find him."

  "Why? Did he admire one of your paintings? You should never let an enthusiastic critic go."

  "He never saw my paintings."

  "Lucky chap."

  "Don't be a bastard, Jules."

  "No, Gloria. You're good in the best decadent tradition."

  "Mercy."

  "The bourgeoisie gets more paint on canvas than ever before in history. It follows."

  "You don't know anyone with white eyes?" she persisted. "He has a kind of a husky voice and a wide thin mouth, and he's slim, wearing a black jacket, I think."

  "He sounds like Hamlet."

  "Help me," she said, and her eyes filling with tears.

  Jules looked crestfallen. "Baby, what's the matter? You know I'm not good when someone is depressed. I consider depression a personal assault on my male ego. If a woman is with me, she must be happy."

  "Could you make me happy, Jules?"

  "Well, I've always wanted to try."

  "I think you're going to get your chance."

  "Hmm. Have you finished with that loser who drives a car as big as the Trump Tower?"

  "Yes. I'm finished with him."

  "I suddenly see something in your paintings that I never dreamed was there. Real feeling. Good old Bourgeoisie romantic feeling. Also, you look less like Joan of Arc every minute."

  Conrad and Maurice pushed their way to the booth.

  "Man, we scored. We scored. We blew some of this shit with this cat and it is too much. I am now in a heaven shared only by my erstwhile degenerate associate, Maurice le Clair. Come romp with me, you two earthbound people."

  Jules' face lit up. His cheekbones glistened through his pale face. "Let's go to my place."

  "Gloria, are you coming?" asked Maurice

  "Maurice, do you know a guy with white eyes?"

  Jules shook his head with mock dismay. "The girl is a monomaniac. Maurice, do you know anyone who looks like Hamlet and has white eyes?"

  "You are speaking," said Maurice, from his elevated high, "of my alter ego."

  "Not to speak," added Conrad, "of the collected unconscious."

  "You are both so educated, it pains me," said Jules, "right in my ass."

  Gloria felt herself growing dizzy with the vacuum hidden in her. "Let's go smoke some pot. I know I could use something."

  Conrad smiled suggestively at her. "Between us, we have everything that you can possibly want."

  "Ahh..." said Jules, "but have you got white eyes?"

  "I'll close my eyes and you can picture anything you want."

  "But," said Jules, with his Jesuit precision, "there is a special attitude ... a kind of white hot prick that goes with white eyes."

  "I'll match my prick against any man's."

  "Well, Gloria, you couldn't have a more noble offer than that."

  "Let's go, Jules," she said. "They don't allow fucking on the tables."

  "Is this the dedicated artist of yesterday I see before me?" murmured Maurice.

  "Look, do you want to smoke, or do you want to sit here and philosophize?"

  "Psychologize, my dear."

  "We are going," said Jules, seeing the frustrated fury in Gloria's eyes, "to my apartment. From there, we are going to a land unknown to common man, or woman."

  "It is fortunate that we are exceptional people."

  They paid the bad-mannered waiter for Gloria's beer and Jules' congealed spaghetti.

  "The spaghetti was superb as always."

  "The chef will faint with joy when I tell him," said the waiter with unreserved contempt.

  "Shall we walk or taxi to heaven?" said Maurice.

  "Let's walk," said Jules. "The night air will cool our ardor."

  "It won't touch mine," said Gloria, with hopeless resignation.

  "Your ardor isn't supposed to cool. It's supposed to mount as we wind our way to Horatio Street."

  They turned up McDougal Alley and Gloria searched the bars as they passed. She walked between Conrad and Jules as they strolled past Sixth Avenue, then along store-lined Greenwich Avenue.

  "Should we roll one now? This is an endless walk," groaned Maurice.

  "No, let's wait until we get to the house. The cops have learned how to smell tea."

  They walked silently to the door of 92 Horatio Street. Jules stuck his key into the front door and they climbed the three flights of steps to his two room flat. He snapped on a lamp that cast a faint yellow glow over his couch. The room was otherwise dark, and the faint reds of a Modigliani nude glistened at them.

  "Man, this is a cool place."

  "My wife had excellent taste."

  "Where is she now?"

  "She ran off with a swimming instructor."

  "Great taste."

  "He swam like a bird."

  "Let's smoke like a fish."

  Maurice took a discreet tin of aspirins out of his pocket. He flipped the lid open and a mound of greenish, brownish, yellowish tobacco curled in the box.

  "Oh, what a beautiful sight. If only I could paint those spiritual weeds."

  "Who's got the paper?"

  "Here, lad. Now roll."

  Maurice separated a thin leaf of cigarette paper. He held it lovingly between his thumb and forefinger, as if it were the cunt of a fragile girl. He spilled the pot into the paper, and with his finger, leveled the tobacco. Then, with one more move, he twisted the paper into a perfect cylinder and passed his tongue over the edge.

  "We are ready to fly."

  Jules turned the phonograph on and the wailing of some nameless jazz singer put the room into d
eeper darkness. Conrad held a match to Maurice's joint and Maurice gasped the fumes in. He took another drag and handed the cigarette to Gloria.

  "Ladies second."

  Her eyes opened wide as she took the offering. She prayed it would cool her cunt. Her heart and vagina thumped she pulled a deep drag into her lungs, holding the smoke till her chest ached. She made a sucking sound of gasped ecstasy. Lovely as a fuck. Her head grew heavy, and at the second puff, she looked up at the three men, who suddenly seemed far and strange.

  "Oh man, I love to see lipstick on a roach," said Jules.

  "Gives it class," added Maurice.

  Conrad silently rolled another joint and Gloria let her shoes fall to the foot of the couch. She stretched out, put her head on Jules' thigh. The muscle in his trousers jumped and he ran his fingers through her hair. Someone passed Gloria another bone and she inhaled with sensuous pleasure, not noticing the heat in her chest ... only the slow warm flow, deep in her cunt.

  "Unbutton me, Jules," she murmured, "my pants are tight." He felt around her waist until he came to the button. He pulled it roughly and opened her snug pants. He started to take his hand away until she said, "No, don't."

  He pressed his palm against her smooth belly. "Gloria, what happened to you that obviously should have happened to you a long time ago?"

  "None of your Jesuit questioning. Just be glad that I got my calling."

  I've got to have him. I've got to have him. He's known me so long, he may feel strange about fucking me. Like fucking a sister. But I've never known any of them really. I won't know them till I've seen the face on their pricks and suck them dry. Oh God, what am I thinking? I want them to all fuck me. I wish they could all get in my cunt at once. I want them to push and come in me till they wipe out the imprint of his prick. I hope they fit tight and hard the way his did, so my flesh enfolds them like a flower. A man-eating flower.

  Jules' hand suddenly twisted into her cunt hairs. He opened his fingers and cupped the raised, covered mound. One finger felt her pouting wetness. "Oh, baby, you got a mysterious cunt." His finger rubbed up and down against her stiffened clitoris. He moved his thumb in and pinched the naked mound. His fingers then moved faster and faster against and into her taut lips. She felt the muscles of her body expand, and her legs stretched apart. A cigarette was placed in her mouth and she pulled the smoke jealously into her.

  "Shall Maurice and I cut?"

  She heard Jules answer as if from a great distance. "I guess so. It looks like my night."

  "No!" her voice sounded hollow. "No, stay. I want you all to get in me."

  Jules' voice was angry. "When I finish with a girl, she doesn't feel like screwing anyone else."

  "Well, let's wait and see, darling. If I don't feel like fucking anymore, I'll stop. I'll even give you a medal."

  "Jesus, baby. Are you a nympho? I hate screwing a nympho. It's like getting your cock caught in a sieve."

  She put her hand down his pants and wrapped it around his stiffened prick. It was thick and dry and hot in her palm. She clutched at it and moved her fisted hand up and down against his pole. She squeezed harder as he grew more massive under her grasp.

  "Worry about what my cunt is doing to you later. Just get in me, you idiot, or I'll rip this gorgeous prick right out." She threw herself across him and tore his pants open. His fat prick stood upright, and she lowered her mouth to encircle it. It tasted rich and musty in her mouth. Already his juices oozed from the tip in anticipation of the eruption to come. He pulled his hand away from her throbbing cunt and she gasped at the empty feeling that shot into her.

  "Suck me, baby. Suck me."

  She licked around his cock from top to bottom, lingering at the head. Each time she dove forward to take him into her throat she drew breath, creating a suction that drove him wild. While his shaft was buried deep, she tongued his balls, getting some enjoyment from the way they jerked when she worried them with her teeth. His tool was glistening with her saliva when she finally pulled away.

  "Fuck me before I die," Gloria moaned.

  Jules pulled her under him and directed his pole to her slit. One tremendous thrust and he opened her wide. He gasped explosively against her.

  "Push. Push," she urged, feeling whole for the first time of the evening. "Split me open."

  "Baby, baby, I can't hold it. I'm coming."

  "You bastard," she screamed, her legs trembling with the passion still stored in her. "Let a man get in me. Maurice, quick, before I suffocate from need."

  Maurice pulled Jules away from her and nervously pulled at the zipper of his pants.

  "Hurry," she wept. She didn't see the prick that rammed into her, and she sucked deep at it with her cunt. He shoved up and down upon her, the buttons of his shirt digging into her. Her hands clung frantically to his head, then shoulders, then his bobbing ass.

  "Deeper. Deeper. Kill me with your hot cock. Fuck me! Fuck me!"

  "Just hold on, baby. Hold on," he urged between gasps.

  He arched above her, and with maniacal precision, rubbed the tip of her clitoris against his inserted prick.

  "Come now. Come, you cunt," he croaked.

  "Not yet, but soon ... soon. Don't stop. Just that way. Don't stop." Her body twisted and turned in anguish, her hips bucking against his. Then the heat in her sparked into flame, and they ground orgasms into each other. As she throbbed uncontrollably against him, a laugh echoed in her head, growing louder as she drew breath. The rapist laughed wildly at her passion and the laugh said, "It didn't work, doll, did it? Every time you fuck, you get hotter and hotter for me. They just prepare you for me. Like plucking a chicken before you cook it." She cried out in terror, "I'll never get him out of me. Conrad, help me. Please help me."

  Conrad removed his trembling hand from the prick it was pumping with frenzy.

  "I thought you were played out. Let me have some of that pussy." His lithe body pulled hers onto him. She tugged his pants off, revealing the lightly muscled legs and the hair-covered belly from which sprang his long, thin cock. He grabbed her by the hips and lowered her onto his jackhammer. Suddenly he was in her, fucking fast and deep.

  "Come," he commanded, and she pumped up and down rapidly and desperately against his ordering prick. She pressed her thighs and mound hungrily into him, his up-and-down rod releasing fluttering orgasms as he crushed her breasts with his hands. She felt, hysterically, that she would come, senselessly and eternally. His thighs were steel under her as his sperm pumped out of him, blending with the juices of her passion. He breathed exhaustively into her neck as she bent over him and her orgasms calmed into quietness.

  Gloria sighed. She could have come and come for the evening, her cunt opening like a mouth, and still be left incomplete. She thrust her fingers into it, not moving them, just pressing nervously into herself. The three men sprawled languorously in the armchairs and couch.

  "Man!" said Jules. "This pot is the greatest. I could swear I just fucked Gloria."

  "Pot does strange things," said Conrad.

  "Am I going to have to fuck forever and never find the final release?" asked Gloria wearily.

  "Lady, you sure do get into it," said Conrad.

  "It was good while it lasted," she responded to no one in particular. "Now I'm left high and wet."

  "Give us time to gather our forces, Gloria."

  "No! I never want to fuck any of you more than once. I'm looking for a particular prick ... the others just hang me up. Oh, God," she started to cry. "Roll me a cigarette."

  Conrad stuck his between her lips and she drew on it peckingly. She tried to draw the obliterating smoke down into her cunt, to smother the longing. She gasped and rolled her hips into the empty air. "Just put your finger in me. Please, Conrad," she pleaded.

  He looked at her warningly. "That sounds therapeutic, not romantic at all."

  "Just don't let me faint here."

  "I think you'd better go home. Come on, I'll get you there."

  "No," she whimper
ed, but she let him help her dress.

  "Go home and get some sleep," said Jules. "You'll feel better."

  "Better? What do you mean better? I'll just have to fuck till I die ... till I can come and look into a pair of dead white eyes."

  "You're getting pretty morbid."

  "What the hell. What time is it?"

  "I have ten-thirty," answered Maurice.

  "Yes, take me home," she mumbled. "I have an eleven o'clock appointment. That will keep me going."

  She walked to the door with Conrad. "Thanks for the pot; thanks for the couch; thanks for the lay." Conrad opened the door for her and she moved her hips around him and into the hall.

  CHAPTER V

  She sat on the couch and opened a fresh pack of cigarettes. It was five to eleven, and she was waiting. All her life, she thought, she had spent waiting. Listening to footsteps in the hall. To keys turning in other locks. The people next door always led a fuller life ... of groaning bedsprings and sated morning looks.

  And what am I waiting for now, that won't vanish and won't separate like mercury in my hands, if I try to hold it? But if you stop trying to hold to things, you relinquish your hold on life. Maybe that's how you win the game. To find the world, you must first lose it.

  Big deal. Here she was waiting to be fucked by two faggots, and that was the only reality. That was the total. Twenty-four years of girlish fantasies and self-importance and faith in her specialness, and now two twentieth century crusaders were going to try to be men for her, or girls for each other, or father and son, or mother and son, or daughters and mothers, or daughters and fathers, or sisters or brothers. Because everyone had just forgotten how to be men and women. And did the men forget first, or didn't the women – the eternal teachers – teach them a damn thing? Were they all doing it for "kicks?" No, this bug in her was more than a kick. It was voracious enough to swallow her, to suck her in upside down, replacing her head with a great, yawning cunt. Maybe that's why she was drawing bleeding gashes on her canvas.