Sexus (The Rosy Crucifixion, book 1)

her nookie, aren't you, dear?» He stroked her under the chin. «I was thinking,» he continued, «that maybe we ought to go to the burlesk tonight. That would be a novel way to celebrate the occasion, don't you think? You know, it gives you ideas.»

Marcelle looked at Mona. It was obvious they didn't think it was such a hot idea.

«Let's eat first,» I suggested. «Bring that coat in, or a pillow... I might want something on the side. Talking about ass,» I said, «did you ever take a good bite... you know, a real bite? Take Marcelle, for instance... that's what I call a tempting piece of ass.»

Marcelle began to titter. She put her hands behind her instinctively.

«Don't worry, I'm not biting into you yet. There's chicken first and other things. But honest, sometimes one does feel like tearing a chunk out, what! A pair of teats, that's different. I never could bite into a woman's teats—a real bite, I mean. Always afraid the milk will squirt into my face. And all those veins... Jesus, it's so bloody. But a beautiful ass... somehow you don't think of blood in a woman's ass. It's just pure white meat. There's another delicacy just below the crotch, on the inside. That's even tenderer than a piece of pure ass. I don't know, maybe I'm exaggerating. Anyway, I'm hungry... Wait till I drain some of this piss out of me. It's given me a hard-on, and I can't eat with a hard-on. Save some of the brown meat for me, with the skin. I love skin. Make a nice cunt sandwich, and slap a little cold gravy over it. Jesus, my mouth's water-ing...»

«Feel better now?» said Ned, when I had returned from the bathroom.

«I'm famished. What's that lovely puke over there —in the big bowl?»

«That's turtle shit with rotten eggs and a bit of menstrual sauce,» said Ned. «Does that whet your appetite?»

«I wish you'd change the subject,» said Marcelle. «I'm not overly delicate but puke is one thing I don't like to think about when I'm eating. If you have to talk dirt I'd rather you talked sex.»

«What do you mean,» said Ned, «is sex dirt? How about that, Henry, is sex dirt?»

«Sex is one of the nine reasons for reincarnation,» I answered. «The other eight are unimportant. If we were all angels we wouldn't have any sex—we'd have wings. An aeroplane has no sex; neither has God. Sex provides for reproduction and reproduction leads to failure. The sexiest people in the world, so they say, are the insane. They live in Paradise, but they've lost their innocence.»

«For an intelligent person you do talk a lot of nonsense,» said Marcelle. «Why don't you talk about things we all understand? Why do you give us all this shit about angels and God and the booby-hatch? If you were drunk it would be different, but you're not drunk... you're not even pretending to be drunk ...you're insolent and arrogant. You're showing off.»

«Good, Marcelle, very good! Do you want to hear the truth? I'm bored. I'm fed up. I came here to get a meal and borrow some money. Yeah, let's talk about simple, ordinary things. How was your last operation? Do you like white meat or dark? Let's talk about anything that will prevent us from thinking or feeling. Sure, it was damned nice of you to give us twenty dollars right off the bat like that. Mighty white of you. But I get itchy when I listen to you talk.. I want to hear somebody say something... something original. I know you've got a good heart, that you never do any one harm. And I suppose you mind your own business too. But that doesn't interest me. I'm sick of good, kind, generous people. I want a show of character and temperament. Jesus, I can't even get drunk—in this atmosphere. I feel like the Wandering Jew. I'd like to set the house on fire, or something. Maybe if you'd pull your drawers off and dip them in the coffee that would help. Or take a frankfurter and diddle yourself... Let's be simple, you say. Good. Can you let a loud fart? Listen, once I had ordinary brains, ordinary dreams, ordinary desires. I nearly went nuts. I loathe the ordinary. Makes me constipated. Death is ordinary—it's what happens to everybody. I refuse to die. I've made up my mind that I'm going to live forever. Death is easy: it's like the booby-hatch, only you can't masturbate any more. You like your nookie, Ned says. Sure, so does every one. And what then? In ten years your ass will be crinkled and your boobs will be hanging down like empty douche bags. Ten years... twenty years... what difference? You had a few good fucks and then you dried up. So what? The moment you stop having a good time you grow melancholy. You don't regulate your life—you let your cunt do it for you. You're at the mercy of a stiff prick...»

I paused a moment to get my breath, rather surprised that I hadn't received a clout. Ned had a gleam in his eye which might have been interpreted as friendly and encouraging—or murderous. I was hoping somebody would start something, throw a bottle, smash things, scream, yell, anything hut sit there and take it like stunned owls. I didn't know why I had picked on Marcelle, she hadn't done anything to me. I was just using her as a stooge. Mona should have interrupted me... I sort of counted on her doing that. But no, she was strangely quiet, strangely impartial.

«Now that I've gotten that off my chest,» I resumed, «let me apologize. Marcelle, I don't know what to say to you. You certainly didn't deserve that.» «That's all right,» said she blithely, «I know something's eating you up. It couldn't be me because... well, nobody who knows me would ever talk that way to me. Why don't you switch to gin? You see what water does. Here, take a good stiff one...» I drank a half glass straight and saw horse shoes pounding out sparks. «You see... makes you feel human, doesn't it? Have some more chicken—and some potato salad. The trouble with you is you're hypersensitive. My old man was that way. He wanted to be a minister and instead he became a book-keeper. When he got all screwed up inside my mother would get him drunk. Then he beat the piss out of us—out of her too. But he felt better afterwards. We all felt better. It's much better to beat people up than to think rotten things about them. He wouldn't have been any better if he had become a minister: he was born with a grudge against the world. He wasn't happy unless he was criticizing things. That's why I can't hate people... I saw what it did to him. Sure I like my nookie. Who don't? as you say. I like things to be soft and easy. I like to make people happy, if I can. Maybe it's stupid but it gives you a good feeling. You see, my old man had the idea that everything had to be destroyed before we could begin to have a good life. My philosophy, if you can call it a philosophy, is just the opposite. I don't see the need to destroy anything. I cultivate the good and let the bad take care of itself. That's a feminine way of looking at life. I'm a conservative. I think that women have to act dumb in order not to make men feel like fools...»

«Well I'll be damned!» Ned exclaimed. «/ never heard you talk this way before.»

«Of course you didn't, darling. You never credited me with having an ounce of brains, did you? You get your little nookie and then you go to sleep. I've been asking you to marry me for a year now but you're not ready for that yet. You've got other problems. Well, some day you'll discover that there's only one problem on your hands— yourself.»

«Good! Good for you, Marcelle!» It was Mona who suddenly burst out with this.

«What the hell!» said Ned. «What Is this—a conspiracy?»

«You know,» said Marcelle, as though she were speaking to herself, «sometimes I think I really am a cluck. Here I am waiting for this guy to marry me. Suppose he does marry me— what then? He won't know me any better after marriage than before. He's, not in love. If a guy's in love with you he doesn't worry about the future. Love is a gamble, not an insurance racket. I guess I'm just getting wise to myself.... Ned, I'm going to stop worrying about you. I'm going to leave you to worry about yourself. You're the worrying kind—and there's no cure for that. You had me worried for a while— worrying about you, I mean. I'm through worrying. I want love—not protection.»

«Jesus, aren't we getting rather serious?» said Ned, baffled by the unexpected turn the conversation had taken.

«Serious?» said Marcelle mockingly. «I'm walking out on you. You can stay single for the rest of your life— and thrash out all those weighty problems that bother you. I feel as though a big load had been taken off my shoulders.» She turned to me and stuck out her mitt. «Thanks, Henry, for giving me a jolt. I guess you weren't talking such nonsense after all....»

22

Cleo was still the rage at the Houston Street Burlesk. She had become an institution, like Mistinguett. It's easy to understand why she fascinated that audience which the enterprising Minsky Brothers gathered every night under their closed roof garden. One had only to stand outside the box office of a matinee, any day of the week, and watch them dribble in. In the evening it was a more sophisticated crowd, gathered from all parts of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, Staten Island and New Jersey. Even Park Avenue contributed its clientele, in the