Venezuela even lived with a man for almost a month, twenty four days to be precise - but nothing's new.'
`Then you're failing,' I said.
`What d'you mean?'
'I mean if you're really trying to disintegrate you're not succeeding. You're not changing. You're staying the same.'
She wrinkled her clear, still youthful brow and took a big gulp from her fresh drink.
`It was just a word. Disintegration doesn't mean anything. I'm just living my life.'
`Would you like a new kick, one you've never had before and really disintegrate the old self?'
She laughed abruptly. `I've had enough of your brand of kicks.'
`I've developed new brands.'
`Sex bores me. I've made love with every possible number and configuration of men, women and children, had penises
and other appropriately shaped objects up every orifice in every possible combination and sex is a bore.'
`I'm not necessarily talking about sex.'
`Then maybe I'm interested.'
`It will mean a partnership with me for a while.'
`What kind of partnership?'
`It will mean giving up your freedom entirely into my hands for - well - a month, let's say.'
She looked at me intently, thinking.
`I become your slave for one month?' she asked.
`Yes.'
A middle-aged woman with dyed black hair, sharp dark eyes and no makeup knifed out of the moiling sea behind us,
glided up beside Linda and whispered in her ear. Linda, watching me, listened.
`No, Tony,' she said. `No. I've changed my plans. I may not be able to make it.'
Another whisper.
`No. Definitely no. Goodbye.'
The raven-haired shark fell back into the sea.
`I do whatever you want for one month?'
`Yes and no. You follow a special way of life which I've developed. It gives you a new kind of freedom, but if you're
going to get the kicks, you must follow the system unconditionally.'
She smiled a little bitterly: `I'm not sure I really need any more kicks.'
`You'll learn more about yourself and life in one month than you have in all your previous twenty-five years.'
`Twenty-eight,' she said indifferently. She placed her half-empty drink on the bar and started to move away restlessly
but returned. She stared at the ring of sweat her glass had made on the counter and .then looked up at me coldly.
`Where does old coitus-interruptus suddenly get all the time?' she asked. `The famous half-lay method not getting
good results?'
`I've retired,' I said.
`You've retired!'
`I've left my wife, my job and my friends and I am on vacation for life.'
She eyed me with new respect: as one citizen of hell to another.
`Jesus, you don't do things in fractions;' she said. But then a cold sneer returned: `But I become your slave for a
month? Huh. I know a lot of people who would pay plenty for that privilege. What do I get in return?'
`In return?'
I said, momentarily impressed with the logic of recompense. `I will do whatever you want for one month following
your service to me.'
`After I've been your slave, big deal. What guarantee do I have?'
`None. Except that when you experience your new life with me and my madness, you'll realize that my form of slavery
is desirable.'
`Why don't you be my slave first?'
`Because you wouldn't be an intelligent and imaginative master. I've been practicing this game on myself for years. I'll
teach you first and then submit' `Maybe,' Linda said to me. `But first I bat. For the next twenty-four hours you be my
slave. You obey all I say except what might physically harm you or unnecessarily destroy your professional image.
The same will be true when I obey you. How's that?'
'All right,' I said.
We looked at each other speculatively.
`How do we seal this agreement?' she asked.
`Total slavery is a new path and we both want to travel new paths - that's what disintegration is all about. I'm satisfied
you have the desire and will live up to the agreement.'
`Okay. Have we begun?'
I glanced at my watch. `We have begun. I obey you until tomorrow evening at nine forty-five. For the sake of
anonymity my name is Charlie, Herbie (Flames).'
`Your name is what I choose.'
`Yes, all right.'
`Follow me.'
Leaving the bar, we hailed a taxi and she took me to an apartment - hers I supposed - on the West Side in the twenties.
There, after she had had me fix her a drink, she pulled her knees up under her on the couch and stared up at me with a
look of cold analysis.
`Stand on your head.'
With an effort I awkwardly tried to balance myself on my head. Despite my recent efforts at yoga and yoga meditation
I collapsed, tried and collapsed. About the fifth time down she said: `All right, stand up.' She lit a cigarette, her hand
trembling - perhaps from all she had drunk.
`Take off your clothes,' she said.
I took them off.
`Masturbate,' she said quietly.
`It seems like a waste,' I said.
When I want you to say something I'll say so.'
The command was easier said than done. Like most other red-blooded healthy American youth I had masturbated my
way through high school and part of college and after graduating to more frequent social and sexual intercourse with women, had more or less abandoned the habit. I had been pleased to learn when I studied psychology that my mind was not deteriorating after all, but a residual layer of guilt somewhere remained. After
