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  She rushed down the stairs and out into the sunshine of an innocuous day. The people on the street looked calm, not particularly alive. The pattern of their existence insulated them. Up at eight, work at nine, lunch at twelve ... how had she lost their world? She wanted it back. She wanted the serenity of habit.

  She looked aimlessly into shop windows. The plaid skirt, the Etruscan art, the modern jewelry made no impact on her blind eyes.

  She looked up and down the street for him. A man in a black jacket. A man with no face. She saw a black-jacketed man walking casually towards her. Her heart choked her and her knees drained of strength. The joints in her body lost their adhesion, and she would have fallen to the ground had she not seen in a moment that it wasn't him. The world seemed filled with men in black jackets. A hundred times her eyes found him hiding behind other faces and indifferent bodies.

  Possibly I'm completely insane and I never was raped. Maybe there never was a man with white eyes in a black jacket. And why am I indulging myself like this? It is an indulgence, yes. Why don't I say it's over? It happened once and now I'll forget it. I can cut him out of my mind. But can I cut him out of my cunt?

  And with that thought, she felt a deep throb that made her lean against a plate glass window for support. She tried desperately to catch her breath.

  I must sit down; I must get my fingers into me.

  Across the street, she saw that the Art Cinema was showing, "On the Waterfront," for the eight-hundredth time.

  I'll get into the theatre. There won't be many people at 2:30 in the afternoon.

  She brushed against automobiles, using them for support, and got to the ticket window. Her hands trembled as she paid her money and then handed the ticket to the unfriendly elderly attendant. She climbed high into the balcony and sat down in a far corner. Ahead of her were seven or eight heads, scattered in twos and threes. She leaned back and slid her fingers up her thigh to her wet cunt. But there was a sudden motion next to her and she jumped with fright. She had forgotten that she was not alone in the world.

  A man sat next to her, busily removing his coat, then reaching into his pocket for a cellophane-wrapped package of caramels. He held them out before her, and she shook her head. The man's face was indistinct in the darkened room. She could barely make out his profile. On the screen, a bunch of thugs were pounding Marlon Brando's face, and a skinny blond girl was looking agonized.

  Maybe he's a stevedore. I should go to the docks early in the morning, and look for him.

  The man next to her rapped her shoulder again and stuck a bag of popcorn in front of her nose. "No, thanks," she said. "I'm not hungry."

  But the man didn't take his hand from her shoulder. It rested lightly against her, and the contact intensified the yearning in her body. He moved his hand down her arms, deliberately brushing against her breasts. Her soft cashmere sweater welcomed the caress. His fingers circled one breast until they found and formed the hard outline of her nipple. His thumb and forefinger pinched it gently and her body buzzed from breast to cunt. Then he moved closer to her and reached his arm across the back of her chair. His other hand found the other breast, and four fingers worked with sure mastery. Her head fell back into the curve of his arm and she gasped incoherently as he luxuriated over a pointed stiff tit.

  The moisture, in drops, began to flow down her thighs, and the man seemed to sense that she could stand it no longer. His hand moved to her skirt and touched her bare knee. He moved up to wet thighs and kneaded them roughly. Then he slid beneath her panties and touched the burning fold of hidden flesh, his fingers darted eagerly, deeply into her. The orgasm began coming and he cruelly removed his hand. She screamed with horror at this denial and saw that Marlon Brando was now a bloody pulp. Someone in the audience laughed, thinking her cry was one of sympathy.

  The figure next to her undid his pants, and she said, "No, not here," with desperation.

  His voice was a harsh, guttural growl, as he commanded, "Just go down on me."

  "Don't leave me like this," she cried. "Please."

  "I'll finish you, baby," he whispered. "I just don't want to be left too far behind."

  His prick was the only spot of whiteness in the dark balcony. She bent her head to her task and mixed tears with the few drops of sperm that already lubricated the rigid pulsating flesh. His cockhead was hot and velvety as she began to bob her head up and down along the length of the shaft. Her tongue was frantic, and she heard his groan of pleasure. The flesh in her mouth beat uncontrollably and she felt it grow stiffer. Then, like an over-inflated balloon, it seemed to burst in her mouth. The thick liquid streamed in behind her teeth. She moved her head hastily to the side to spit it out, but some of the sperm had already trickled down her throat. It had a musty, exotic taste. Curiously, she swallowed a bit more, and then curved her tongue upward to keep the strange serum in her mouth. There was something disgusting and yet elusive about the flavor. She wanted to throw up and began to gag. But her lips pressed together tightly, and soon her mouth had emptied its load into her tense throat.

  She sat quietly clinging to the sensation. Her unknown lover was down on his knees before her. He lifted her skirt and buried his head against her thighs. His tongue leapt out and skillfully sucked her enraged mound of damp hair and the sensitive flesh it guarded. He made deep swallowing noises. For a moment, she felt delirious and separate from the animal at her feet. "Good as caramels?" she wanted to ask. But her tongue would not cooperate with her sardonic thoughts.

  He continued to press his head against her; his teeth, biting gently at her pussy lips, seemed to close her into a hidden world of inexhaustible sensuality. She moved her hips contentedly against him, and then a rush of energy along her limbs freed the orgasm. She panted with excitement, wanting him to go on forever. But he lifted his body and sat heavily in his vacant seat.

  "Let's get out of here," he implored. "Let's get something to drink."

  She did not turn to him, but watched Marlon Brando walking heroically toward a blurred building. Some fat idiot was waiting in the doorway.

  "No," she answered. "No drink. No nothing. Don't look at me. Just get up and leave the theatre. I'm going to watch the coming attractions. And I don't want to see you when I leave, or I swear I'll call the cops."

  "What's the matter, baby?" he asked. "Didn't you like it? I got a million tricks to show you."

  "I liked it fine," she said sarcastically, "but I don't believe in repeat performances. I haven't got time to go around the world twice."

  "But, lady, we haven't begun to go anywhere yet. Believe me, the next part of the trip is better."

  "Leave now," she repeated, "or I'll complain to the manager. I'll tell him I've had to change my seat twelve times. I'm serious. I don't know exactly what you look like, and I don't want to know. If you look for me, or wait for me, or follow me, I'll have you arrested."

  "What's the matter, kid? You got a jealous husband?"

  "Yes," she said wearily, "and he'd kill both of us."

  The man sat quietly for a few seconds. "You win, lady. I think you're nuts, but it was a good show." He slipped her a printed card. "If you ever get lonely, ring me. Just mention Brando's name."

  Fifteen minutes later, she dropped the card on the floor and walked back to her empty apartment.

  CHAPTER VII

  She spent a few days feeling completely insane. She walked the streets of Greenwich Village for hours looking for the man whose face she had completely forgotten. What was most frightening was the thought that he might never have existed, that she had created him out of an incredible lust and sickness inside herself. As long as he was not her creation, she could live, searching for him and trying to recreate, for the final time, the experience he had given her. If he did not exist, she was already dead, and it was a shadow that her lovers embraced.

  Gloria had changed in the two weeks of her debauch. Her face wore the exhausted and strained look of one who waits. Her hands strayed nervously across her neck
and face with spinsterish aimlessness. Sometimes, in the morning, she felt liberated. But a glance in the mirror revealed her agony and would send her down into the streets, peering into bars and passing automobiles for her appointed victim. She was completely dedicated to one idea ... to kill him. Some women, she knew, chose to live their subjugation. They discovered the chastised, tormented creature they were and lived to feed their own suffering. They searched for a master to punish them, to sate their craving for punishment. It became a sick dream – to be punished enough. Punished for what? For forgiveness, for a reprieve, for the sins of fathers and mothers and aunts and uncles and cousins. And finally for the sins of rage and appetite – the combined sins of all.

  There was no human pain to touch her. She was incapable of repentance; all she wished was vengeance.

  Yes, revenge is vanity. My vanity is so great that nothing can penetrate my wall of self-love. Or is it self-hate? How fantastic to adore oneself, feeding only on gratification. And how could I despise myself, if I did not worship myself? Somewhere, somehow, I promised myself glory that I could not achieve. I am my only god, my only creed, my only disappointment, my only devil. Did anyone ever live in such a closed world? Nothing outside of me, except what I siphon in with bitterness and revenge. I understand the confessions of witches. I am a witch, and it would be my triumph to be burned. What a moment of ecstasy, to have the flames cut into the flesh and know intensely that the possession was over, the warped prisoner was tortured out of the body. It is a small sin to sacrifice the body.

  Yes, the rapist invaded my cunt and womb and belly and mouth with a monstrous creature. Or he brought to life the creature that lay curled dormant within me. His death will draw the insanity back into him, the way paintings show the spirits of martyrs oozing up to Heaven. I make him my martyr. I exorcise myself in my personal universe. I call him God and Satan, and I devote myself to his martyrdom.

  In weariness one night, she went to the bar across the street from her apartment. Arno's was a dark, wood-paneled, quiet restaurant. The owner had squire ambitions. He hung pheasants and rabbits from the low ceilings. In a back room, a charcoal fire blazed under thick steaks and chops. Tired businessmen and their decorated women came there and pretended to be in English country houses. The men's ties and the women's beaded frocks blended perfectly with the artificial decor. If a man in a cap and tweeds had wandered into Arno's, its authenticity would have disintegrated like the ashes behind the fireplace fender. But the English aristocracy did not wander into Arno's, so the pretenders had their bit of Europe with baked potatoes on the side.

  Gloria sat at the mahogany bar and locked her heels in the bottom rung of the stool. She talked quietly to Mike, the bartender, who mixed the chilled martinis and seemed genuinely concerned about her.

  "Hello, Gloria," he said, as she sat tiredly in front of him. "Haven't seen you for a couple of weeks."

  "I've been away," she lied.

  "Back home?" he asked eagerly. He had been tending in the village for eleven years, but his mission was to send small-town girls out of the city.

  "No," she said, "just a vacation to Fire Island."

  "Fire Island," he echoed. "I used to go there years ago. Had a nice, quiet crowd then. But I hear it's changed."

  "It's pretty wild," she agreed. "But it still looks kind of rustic, and the beach is terrific."

  Talking to him, calmly and mundanely, she felt that she was grabbing frantically for a remnant of her sanity. That was the quality of a good bartender, to make the drunk feel sober and sensible. This is what happens to us, she thought, when we really go nuts. We become absolutely banal. I'd give him my life if he'd just stand here and talk to me about the weather.

  "Excuse me, Gloria," he said, and moved up the bar to take an order for two Manhattans. He stood talking to the man who ordered the drinks and then moved to the back of the bar to mix them. Gloria cupped the martini glass in her two hands and swallowed the clear liquid.

  Why am I doing this to myself?

  She knew that while she had been talking to Mike, she had been thinking of the rapist. She had just been making sounds with her mouth to dim the ever-playing record in her head. Why am I doing this? He isn't important; I know that. He could rape a thousand women, and except for the shock and horror, they'd delete the memory with a hot douche. It's all my comedy. He is nothing ... a fantasy. He's probably a salesman who got hot, or a moving man with a bored wife. He must be illiterate and gross and sick, enjoying only the women he takes violently. And she remembered the cool voice saying, "We're going to have a little party..." and her hand trembled with desire. It was his insolence that maddened her. No. Insolence was a word that you used for snide servants. She was his servant. His face had been white; not a face that turned to the sun or air. He was airless, magnificently useless. A man without enthusiasms, and he made the rest of the world seem petty in its ambitions.

  My God, I am creating a genius of disdain. He might be praying for a promotion in a department store shipping department. It's the not knowing him. I detest knowing the men who fuck me. They're so full of themselves, but they pretend to know I'm under them, soothing their pricks. Two bloated bodies meeting in space. He pressed me under the steps and I didn't exist. I was just his passion. No one can make me live, but he obliterated me.

  Without saying another word, Mike mixed her a double Martini. He poured it into her empty glass, which was careless, since Martini glasses should be chilled. But she couldn't last a second without the drink before her, just as she couldn't breathe without having something between her legs. A cock had become a pacifier to her, a teething ring.

  That's it. I'm just cutting my teeth, and what will I do with them when they're fully grown? Men are supposed to be afraid of the mouths into which they offer their malehood. But if I can't have one of my own, I certainly want them to hang on to theirs. A world without a prick is like a house without a hearth, or something like that.

  She was deep in the second drink when a man sat down next to her and said, "Let me buy you the next one."

  Mike looked up hastily across the bar. He didn't like to see his regulars annoyed. He moved toward them, but Gloria stopped him with a look.

  "Thanks," she said. "I'd love you to buy the next one."

  Mike looked amazed, then disappointed. He thought that all women must be rotten, and then remembered his wife and daughter and wanted to rush out and drive directly to Queens. They should be sitting down to dinner now.

  Seeing the man's raised hand, he mixed them both fresh martinis, and this time he gave Gloria a new glass. But the drink just reached the white chalk-line. No bonuses for tarts.

  Gloria fought her embarrassment and took a long, cool draught. It more than helped. It made scruples a forgotten Sunday School lesson. The man, with his bought privileges, moved his stool closer to Gloria's.

  "I've seen you in here quite often," he told her.

  "Yes, I live across the street. It's a good place to come for a quickie."

  He carefully misunderstood the word. "We all need 'quickies' once in a while," and he winked with adolescent lasciviousness.

  "Brilliant." She hated him for the weak pun, and for his enjoyment of it.

  The man looked back at her, first with confusion and then with distrust. "Lady," he said rudely, "I just want a piece of ass."

  She thought only ignorant soldiers used that expression, and for an instant her face contorted with distaste.

  "I know what you want," she said.

  He was going to let her despise him, so long as he could have a fifteen-minute fuck. "You're a smart little girl." He changed his tone.

  "Buy me another drink," she commanded.

  It was no longer a question of getting a prick into her. She knew that if he left her, she would have nothing but the memory of white eyes and her haunting inadequacy. It would be enough to know where he was, what he did, who his women were. That way she could sink herself into his invisible life. But it was knowing nothin
g, nothing but the feeling in her groin, that fed her desperation.

  She reached over and patted the man's hand. "Don't mind me," she apologized. "I'm just fighting a ghost."

  "Someone in your family die?" he asked with the mock suburban concern he always showed to whores.

  "Yes," she said. "Someone in my family died."

  "Why, that's a shame, little girl," he murmured. "But we all have to go sometime."

  She wondered if she should kill him instead of the rapist.

  "We all have to go," she echoed, and laughed.

  "It makes you think," he added. "It makes you think that you'd better enjoy life while you got it."

  "You're right," she said. "Everyone should enjoy life. To the fullest, to the brimming-over cup."

  He looked down at his brown and white shoes. "Now don't be sacrilegious."

  She almost fell off the stool.

  "What I mean," she said, pressing against his frightened, corpulent body, "is that everyone should fuck a lot."

  He didn't answer her for a few seconds. "Who died?" he asked, getting the conversation onto safer grounds.

  "I did," she answered. "If you don't object to necrophilia, I guarantee a good time."

  "What's that?" In his confusion, he lifted his hand for another round.

  "It's fucking a corpse," she told him in the tone she'd use to tell him the time or her name.

  He turned his head away. "You've got a funny sense of humor."

  "What?"

  "You got a helluva sense of humor," he said, with a slight toughening alteration of his voice.

  "I was even funnier," she explained, "when I was alive. When I was alive, I was an absolute scream."

  "And now?" he said, afraid to look stupid.

  "Now I'm only a moan."

  He looked at her slim arms and softly-powdered pale skin. It seemed a shame to give her up just because she was nuts.